Day of Prayer for the
Legal Protection of Unborn Children



“For Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself, that he might now appear before God on our behalf.” (Hebrews 9:24.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on these verses from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

If the ancient custom of sacrifices is clear to you, let us see what these things also contain according to the mystical understanding. You heard that there were two sanctuaries: one, as it were, visible and open to the priests; the other, as it were, invisible and inaccessible. With the exception of the high priest alone, the others were outside. I think this first sanctuary can be understood as this church in which we are now placed in the flesh, in which the priests minister “at the altar of the whole burnt offerings” with that fire kindled about which Jesus said, “I came to cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled.” And I do not want you to marvel that this sanctuary is open only to the priests. For all who have been anointed with the chrism of the sacred anointing have become priests, just as Peter says to all the church, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” Therefore you are a priestly race, and because of this you approach the sanctuary... Therefore the priesthood is exercised in this way in the first sanctuary and the offerings are offered. And from this sanctuary the high priest, dressed in the sanctified garments, proceeds and enters into the interior of the veil just as we already pointed out above in citing the words of Paul, “Christ has entered not into a sanctuary made with hands but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” Therefore, the place of heaven and the throne itself of God are designated by the figure and the image of the interior sanctuary.” (Homilies on Leviticus, 9.)



“He points out immediately that that entry is not simply a personal glorification of Christ; it is destined to be a great benefit for us. This glorification, indeed, is not simply an individual one; it is priestly, because it is the result of a sacrifice that was an act of complete solidarity with sinful humans and in their favor. It is as high priest "established for men" ( 5: 1) that Christ is received into the glory of God. In the preceding section, the author declared already that Christ is "for ever living to intercede" for "those who approach God through him" (7:25). He says it again here in other words: Christ has entered "into heaven itself, to appear now in the presence of God in our favor" (9:24 )." (Hebrews 7:3).” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 156.)



Collect
God our Creator, we give thanks to You,
Who alone have the power
to impart the breath of life as
You form each of us in our mother’s womb;
grant, we pray, that we,
whom You have made stewards of creation,
may remain faithful to this sacred trust and
constant in safeguarding
the dignity of every human life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen







The Kingdom of God — living intervening love



εὐαγγελίζω (euaggelizo)
“to announce the Good News of victory in battle”

“From that time on,
Jesus began to preach and say,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.””


θεωρέω (theoreo)
(“to perceive, discover, ponder a deeper meaning”)

What is the “Kingdom of Heaven (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, hē basileia tou Theou)?” Where is the “Kingdom of God?” Is the “Kingdom of God” just another word or synonym in the Gospels for Heaven? “The Kingdom of God” sparks many questions and rightly so. When searching the Gospels for “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of Heaven (which appears more often in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew),” one is amazed by the numerous references. Throughout the centuries, believers have pondered the meaning and implications of “the Kingdom of God” and scholars certainly have grappled with the phrase and filled library shelves with volumes of thought-provoking commentaries.


What can and must we do with the reality of “the Kingdom” in our day? In 1975, Pope Saint Paul VI penned the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi (On Evangelizing in our Day). Early in the Exhortation, the saintly Bishop of Rome states: “As an evangelizer, Christ first of all proclaims a kingdom, the kingdom of God; and this is so important that, by comparison, everything else becomes “the rest,” which is “given in addition.” Only the kingdom therefore is absolute and it makes everything else relative. The Lord will delight in describing in many ways the happiness of belonging to this kingdom (a paradoxical happiness which is made up of things that the world rejects), the demands of the kingdom and its Magna Charta, the heralds of the kingdom, its mysteries, its children, the vigilance and fidelity demanded of whoever awaits its definitive coming (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 8).” Clearly, Pope Paul VI sees “the Kingdom of God” has the central experience of Jesus’ Public Ministry; so central that everything in His ministry is grounded in “the Kingdom.” Similarly, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraphs 541 through 556) examines the manifold depth of “the Kingdom” in Jesus’ Public Ministry. Based on these texts as well as other Catechetical Documents, the Roman Missal and the Sacred Scriptures, what follows is a working description (note: not a definition) of “the Kingdom of God” that has been helpful to undergraduates, deacon candidates, seminarians and believers.

1. ‘The “Kingdom of God” is God our Father intervening definitively in the created order through the Incarnation of His Son, Jesus.’ The Kingdom is not necessarily or strictly a specific place, although ‘place’ will be a dimension of the Kingdom as a way of living. The Kingdom is a way of living, an ongoing activity initiated by God the Father in loving concern for human beings created in His image and likeness because we have become addicted to sin in such a way that we cannot break free from its grip by our own power. We have come to enjoy sin too much. Sin’s tentacles have woven deeply into our lives that often we cannot see or think clearly. We may from time-to-time have great desires to rid ourselves of sin, desires that are marvelous but desires that do not contain within themselves the power to effect what is desired. More often than not, however, sin has dulled our senses to Divine Love. Sin has numbed us into complacency and entitlement to the point that we even approach the things of God and Church from a selfish point of view with no regard to the life of faith as engagement with the Divine Persons who call me as an individual and as a community to ongoing conversion manifesting charity and service to the Body of Christ. So powerless over sin, so addicted to the false self we have become that an intervention is needed: the “Kingdom of God.”

2. ‘This intervention is a work of power, a power that transforms and surpasses the power of Creation.’ God the Father’s work is quintessentially a work of restoration, not annihilation. Ask anyone in construction and he or she will tell you that it is often easier to raze a building and start over than to renovate or restore. Renovating an existing structure that does not have a level, plumb or square line in it makes restoration tedious and time consuming, not to mention the ‘surprises’ lurking behind old plaster and lathe. Yet ask any restorer when the project is complete and most likely she or he will tell you that in spite of its challenges and frustrations, it was and continues to be a labor of love. Such is the Kingdom. Neither Creation nor humanity is destroyed. The Creator does not raze the created order and begin anew. Even though humanity makes continuous choices reinforcing the addiction to sin, the Father – with eyes of loves – gazes upon each human person in such a way that each of us are declared “precious.” So precious are we in the sight of God the Father, that none of us are disposable, expendable or useless. Each of us has a particular vocation in the Father’s plan of salvation and our very being is so precious to the Father that the loving, transforming power of His Kingdom calls us from the addiction to our false selves to our true selves as icons of the Father’s love.

3. ‘This transforming power becomes a way of living grounded in the Person Jesus and thus not a specific ‘place’ that one can absolutely pinpoint. You cannot use Google Maps or a GPS device to find the Kingdom. The Kingdom is God the Father’s way of living. It is a way of living that is the Son, Jesus. He lives each moment of His life attentive to His Father’s word and will. Spending nights in communion with His Father, Jesus teaches with His life that Kingdom living is living joined, connected, related – whatever words you wish to use – to God the Father. As a way of living, the Kingdom is a radical embrace of the First Commandment: no one nor no thing nor anything we deem important comes before the Father or interferes with our relationship with Him. Kingdom living is life that provides the essentials to a sister or brother in need (Matthew 25:31-45) and celebrates, praise and thanks the Father for all that He is doing in life (see “Mary’s Canticle,” Luke 1:46-56). It is in this sense that one can speak of the Kingdom as ‘a place.’ Wherever one is when living as the Father commands, there is the Kingdom.

4. ‘The Kingdom, as a way of living, has been prepared by the prophets of Old.’ Many of the prophets called Israel to authentic worship, a message that is still quite valid despite present, misguided and weak arguments that attempt – erroneously – at a division between religion and spirituality. For the prophets, the spiritual relationship formed by the covenant necessarily bound one (religion) freely to observe and practice a continuous, ongoing change-of-heart. The prophets knew that the ‘energy’ required to live justly as a covenant person did not come from within a person by himself or herself. Such living depended upon the mercy of God celebrated and experienced in authentic worship. Such worship then propelled one to be an instrument of charitable service in the world acting, not on one’s own initiative and power, in the name of God.

5. ‘The Kingdom, as a way of living, is now definitely revealed and embodied in Jesus’. Here, all ambiguity concerning the Kingdom is erased. The Kingdom is essentially a Person, the Person Jesus: “only He can lead us to the love of the Father in the Spirit and make us share in the life of the Holy Trinity (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 426).” The Incarnation makes the Kingdom a reality in the created order to effect the Father’s loving transformation of everything, most especially the human heart. Responding and living the love revealed to us in Christ Jesus is the essential work and live of the “Kingdom of God.”

Is there more to be said about the Kingdom? Certainly – but more importantly the Kingdom is not intended for study but for living — and a specific way of living that is grounded in a Person, the Person Jesus. While some of these reflections may give us some insight, such insight is always directed to worshipping God the Father and serving one another in the name of Jesus Christ with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit.






Third Sunday in Ordinary Time



“From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“John’s preaching of repentance was not precisely the same as the preaching of Jesus, yet the Savior preaches in ways commensurable with John, for there is one God who sent them both. John first says “repent” in order to make ready a “people prepared” for God. Jesus, when he has received a people who have been made ready and who have already repented, does not merely say to them, “Repent.” For he does not preach in competition with the law and the prophets. When John had fulfilled the old covenant, Jesus “began to preach” the new, being himself the beginning of it. For this reason the words “he began” are not written of John, for he was an end. Moreover, the one preaches in the wilderness, the other in the midst of the people.” (Fragment 74)



Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
direct our actions
according to Your good pleasure,
that in the Name of Your beloved Son
we may abound in good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Reflections on the «Kingdom of Heaven»


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen












Christ is present to his Church



Second Vatican Council

An excerpt from Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7-8.

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Christ is always present to his Church, especially in the actions of the liturgy. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, in the person of the minister (it is the same Christ who formerly offered himself on the cross that now offers by the ministry of priests) and most of all under the eucharistic species. He is present in the sacraments by his power, in such a way that when someone baptizes, Christ himself baptizes. He is present in his word, for it is he himself who speaks when the holy Scriptures are read in the Church. Finally, he is present when the Church prays and sings, for he himself promised: Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.

Indeed, in this great work which gives perfect glory to God and brings holiness to men, Christ is always joining in partnership with himself his beloved Bride, the Church, which calls upon its Lord and through him gives worship to the eternal Father.

It is therefore right to see the liturgy as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ, in which through signs addressed to the senses man’s sanctification is signified and, in a way proper to each of these signs, made effective, and in which public worship is celebrated in its fullness by the mystical body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the head and by his members.

Accordingly, every liturgical celebration, as an activity of Christ the priest and of his body, which is the Church, is a sacred action of a pre-eminent kind. No other action of the Church equals its title to power or its degree of effectiveness.

In the liturgy on earth we are given a foretaste and share in the liturgy of heaven, celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem, the goal of our pilgrimage, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, as minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle. With the whole company of heaven we sing a hymn of praise to the Lord; as we reverence the memory of the saints, we hope to have some part with them, and to share in their fellowship; we wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, until he, who is our life, appears, and we appear with him in glory.

By an apostolic tradition taking its origin from the very day of Christ’s resurrection, the Church celebrates the paschal mystery every eighth day, the day that is rightly called the Lord’s day. On Sunday the Christian faithful ought to gather together, so that by listening to the word of God and sharing in the Eucharist they may recall the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and give thanks to God who has given them a new birth with a lively hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The Lord’s day is therefore the first and greatest festival, one to be set before the loving devotion of the faithful and impressed upon it, so that it may be also a day of joy and of freedom from work. Other celebrations must not take precedence over it, unless they are truly of the greatest importance, since it is the foundation and the kernel of the whole liturgical year.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

 





Memorial of Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr



“For a tabernacle was constructed, the outer one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of offering; this is called the Holy Place...” (Hebrew 9:2.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on these verses from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“Each one of us can build a tabernacle for God in himself. For if, as some before us have said, this tabernacle represents a figure of the whole world, and if each individual can have an image of the world in oneself, why should not each individual be able to fulfill the form of the tabernacle in oneself? . . . For that part within you which is most valuable [NT Vol. X, p. 133] of all can act the part of priest—the part which some call the first principle of the heart, others the rational sense or the substance of the mind or whatever other name one wishes to give to that part of us which makes us capable of receiving God.” (Homilies on Exodus, 9.)


“In the introductory sentence (9:1), the holy place of the first covenant receives a pejorative description: it was "of this world," in Greek: kosmikon(here only and in Titus 2:12 in the Bible); so it was not really God's dwelling. To describe it the author relies on the Law of Moses, which does not speak of a building but only of a tent, divided in two, "the Holy and the Holy of Holies" (Exod 26:33). The author is therefore not speaking of Herod's temple, like the Gospels, or of Solomon's temple, but only of the tent in the desert, to which he has already alluded in Heb 8:5. He insists on its division into two parts, which he calls "the first tent" (9:6) and "the second" (9:7). He does not use the expressions "the Holy" nor "the Holy of Holies," but he simply uses, without any articles, the corresponding adjectives: the first tent "is called holy" (9:2), the second is "called holy of holies," that is to say "very holy." Many manuscripts have some variant readings here that seek to bring the text back to the wording, quoted above, in Exod 26:33: "the Holy and the Holy of Holies." That is mistaken. Without the article, holy of holiesqualifies many things in the Old Testament.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 137.)



Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
Who choose what is weak in the world
to confound the strong,
mercifully grant, that we,
who celebrate the heavenly birthday of Your
Martyr Saint Agnes,
may follow her constancy in the faith.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen









Too young to be punished,
yet old enough for a martyr’s crown



Saint Ambrose of Milan
Bishop and Great Latin Father of the Church

An excerpt from On Virgins, Book 1

Memorial of Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

Today is the birthday of a virgin; let us imitate her purity. It is the birthday of a martyr; let us offer ourselves in sacrifice. It is the birthday of Saint Agnes, who is said to have suffered martyrdom at the age of twelve. The cruelty that did not spare her youth shows all the more clearly the power of faith in finding one so young to bear it witness.

There was little or no room in that small body for a wound. Though she could scarcely receive the blow, she could rise superior to it. Girls of her age cannot bear even their parents’ frowns and, pricked by a needle, weep as for a serious wound. Yet she shows no fear of the blood-stained hands of her executioners. She stands undaunted by heavy, clanking chains. She offers her whole body to be put to the sword by fierce soldiers. She is too young to know of death, yet is ready to face it. Dragged against her will to the altars, she stretches out her hands to the Lord in the midst of the flames, making the triumphant sign of Christ the victor on the altars of sacrilege. She puts her neck and hands in iron chains, but no chain can hold fast her tiny limbs.

A new kind of martyrdom! Too young to be punished, yet old enough for a martyr’s crown; unfitted for the contest, yet effortless in victory, she shows herself a master in valour despite the handicap of youth. As a bride she would not be hastening to join her husband with the same joy she shows as a virgin on her way to punishment, crowned not with flowers but with holiness of life, adorned not with braided hair but with Christ himself.

In the midst of tears, she sheds no tears herself. The crowds marvel at her recklessness in throwing away her life untasted, as if she had already lived life to the full. All are amazed that one not yet of legal age can give her testimony to God. So she succeeds in convincing others of her testimony about God, though her testimony in human affairs could not yet be accepted. What is beyond the power of nature, they argue, must come from its creator.

What menaces there were from the executioner, to frighten her; what promises made, to win her over; what influential people desired her in marriage! She answered: “To hope that any other will please me does wrong to my Spouse. I will be his who first chose me for himself. Executioner, why do you delay? If eyes that I do not want can desire this body, then let it perish.” She stood still, she prayed, she offered her neck.

You could see fear in the eyes of the executioner, as if he were the one condemned; his right hand trembled, his face grew pale as he saw the girl’s peril, while she had no fear for herself. One victim, but a twin martyrdom, to modesty and to religion; Agnes preserved her virginity, and gained a martyr’s crown.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 




Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time



“For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second one...” (Hebrews 8:7.)

Pope Saint Leo the Great offers the following insight on this verse from today’s Reading:

“[The Lord] ascended into the retirement of a neighboring mountain and called his apostles to him there. From the height of that mystical seat he could instruct them in the loftier doctrines, signifying from the very nature of the place and act that it was he who had once honored Moses by speaking to him. He spoke with Moses then, indeed, with a more terrifying justice, but now with a holier mercy in order that what had been promised might be fulfilled when the prophet Jeremiah says, “Behold, the days are coming when I will complete a new covenant for the house of Israel and for the house of Judah. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their minds, and in their heart will I write them.” He therefore who had spoken to Moses, spoke also to the apostles, and the swift hand of the Word wrote and deposited the secrets of the new covenant in the disciples’ hearts. There were no thick clouds surrounding him as of old, nor were the people frightened off from approaching the mountain by frightful sounds and lightning. Rather, quietly and freely his discourse reached the ears of those who stood by. In this way the harshness of the law might give way before the gentleness of grace, and “the spirit of adoption” might dispel the terrors of bondage.” (Sermon 95)


“The covenant on Sinai is called “this first,” in spite of the existence in the Old Testament of other covenants that preceded it: the covenant of God with Noah (Gen 6:18); then with Noah, his descendants, and all living beings (Gen 9:9-17); and the covenant of God with Abraham (Gen 15:18; 17:2-15). But the covenant on Sinai is the first to have been concluded between the people of Israel and God (Exod 24:3-8), and that is the one that the oracle in Jeremiah mentions in his announcement of another covenant.

In Heb 8:7, the author reasons as he did in 7:11 concerning the priesthood. He constructs a hypothetical conditional sentence that leads his hearers to conclude that the announcement made by God about a second covenant implies that the first one was not “irreproachable”; it did not give satisfaction.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 133.)



Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
Who govern all things,
both in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the pleading of Your people
and bestow Your peace on our times.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen








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All our love must be for God



Saint Diadochus of Photice
Bishop

An excerpt from On Spiritual Perfection

Friday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

No one who is in love with himself is capable of loving God. The man who loves God is the one who mortifies his self-love for the sake of the immeasurable blessings of divine love. Such a man never seeks his own glory but only the glory of God. If a person loves himself he seeks his own glory, but the man who loves God loves the glory of his Creator. Anyone alive to the love of God can be recognized from the way he constantly strives to glorify him by fulfilling all his commandments and by delighting in his own abasement. Because of his great majesty it is fitting that God should receive glory, but if he hopes to win God’s favor it becomes man to be humble. If we possess this love for God, we too will rejoice in his glory as Saint John the Baptist did, and we shall never stop repeating: His fame must increase, but mine must diminish.

I know a man who, though lamenting his failure to love God as much as he desires, yet loves him so much that his soul burns with ceaseless longing for God to be glorified, and for his own complete effacement. This man has no feeling of self importance even when he receives praise. So deep is his desire to humble himself that he never even thinks of his own dignity. He fulfills his priestly duty by celebrating the Liturgy, but his intense love for God is an abyss that swallows up all consciousness of his high office. His humility makes him oblivious of any honor it might bring him, so that in his own estimation he is never anything but a useless servant. Because of his desire for self abasement, he regards himself as though degraded from his office. His example is one that we ourselves should follow by fleeing from all honor and glory for the sake of the immeasurable blessings of God’s love, for he has loved us so much!

Anyone who loves God in the depths of his heart has already been loved by God. In fact, the measure of a man’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware he is of God’s love for him. When this awareness is keen it makes whoever possesses it long to be enlightened by the divine light, and this longing is so intense that it seems to penetrate his very bones. He loses all consciousness of himself and is entirely transformed by the love of God.

Such a man lives in this life and at the same time does not live in it, for although he still inhabits his body, he is constantly leaving it in spirit because of the love that draws him toward God. Once the love of God has released him from self-love, the flame of divine love never ceases to burn in his heart and he remains united to God by an irresistible longing. As the Apostle says: If we are taken out of ourselves it is for the love of God; if we are brought back to our senses it is for your sake.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 




Thursday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time



“Therefore, he is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them…” (Hebrew 7:25.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on these verses from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“Jesus now stands “before the face of God interceding for us.” He stands before the altar to offer a propitiation to God for us. As he was about to approach that altar, moreover, he was saying, “I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until I drink it anew with you.” Therefore, he expects us to be converted, to imitate his example, to follow his footsteps, that he may rejoice with us and “drink wine with us in his Father’s kingdom.” For now, because “the Lord is merciful and gracious,” he “weeps with those who weep and desires to rejoice with those who rejoice” with greater feeling than this apostle. And how much more “this one mourns over many of those who sinned before and have not repented.” For we must not think that Paul is mourning for sinners and weeping for those who transgress, but Jesus my Lord abstains from weeping when he approaches the Father, when he stands at the altar and offers a propitiatory sacrifice for us. This is not to drink the wine of joy “when he ascends to the altar” because he is still bearing the bitterness of our sins. He, therefore, does not want to be the only one to drink wine “in the kingdom” of God. He waits for us, just as he said, “Until I shall drink it with you.” Thus we are those who, neglecting our life, delay his joy.” (Homilies on Leviticus, 7.)


“Christ, for his part, has become a high priest "for ever"; his sacrifice of priestly consecration has introduced his human nature into the eternity of God, because that sacrifice was a victory over death, obtained through death itself (see 2:14). He therefore has a priesthood that does not pass from one high priest to another. He does not leave his work unfinished: "He is able to save completely those who through him approach God" because he is "still living." His priestly activity does not consist in offering sacrifices endlessly but in "interceding" (7:25), thanks to the power that his unique sacrifice gave him.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 125.)



Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
Who govern all things,
both in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the pleading of Your people
and bestow Your peace on our times.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 






Wednesday of the Second Week
in Ordinary Time



“This “Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High,” “met Abraham as he returned from his defeat of the kings” and “blessed him...”” (Hebrews 7:1.)

In commenting on these verses from today’s First Reading, Eusebius of Caesarea writes:

“An ancient priest of the Mosaic order could only be selected from the tribe of Levi. It was obligatory without exception that he should be of the family descending from Aaron and do service to God in outward worship with the sacrifices and blood of irrational animals. But he that is named Melchizedek, which in Greek is translated “king of righteousness,” who was king of Salem, which would mean “king of peace,” without father, without mother, without line of descent, not having, according to the account, “beginning of years or end of life,” had no characteristics shared by the Aaronic priesthood. For he was not chosen by humans, he was not anointed with prepared oil, he was not of the tribe of those who had not yet been born; and, strangest of all, he was not even circumcised in his flesh, and yet he blesses Abraham, as if he were far better than he. He did not act as priest to the Most High God with sacrifices and libations, nor did he minister at the temple in Jerusalem. How could he? It did not yet exist. And he was such, of course, because there was going to be no similarity between our Savior Christ and Aaron, for he was neither to be designated priest after a period when he was not priest, nor was he to become priest, but be it. For we should notice carefully in the words, “You are a priest forever,” he does not say, “You shall be what you were not before,” any more than, “You were that before which you are not now” — but by him who said, “I am who I am,”1 it is said, “You are, and remain, a priest forever.”

And the fulfillment of the oracle is truly won drous to one who recognizes how our Savior Jesus, the Christ of God, now performs through his ministers even today sacrifices after the manner of Melchizedek’s. For just as he, who was priest of the Gentiles, is not represented as offering outward sacrifices but as blessing Abraham only with wine and bread, so in exactly the same way our Lord and Savior himself first, and then all his priests among all nations, perform the spiritual sacrifice according to the customs of the church and with wine and bread darkly express the mysteries of his body and saving blood. This by the Holy Spirit Melchizedek foresaw and used the figures of what was to come, as the Scripture of Moses witnesses, when it says, “And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abraham.” And thus it followed that to him only was the addition of an oath, “The Lord God has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.’”

The psalm too, continuing, even shows in veiled phrase the passion of [Christ], saying, “He will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head.” And another psalm shows “the brook” to mean the time of temptations: “Our soul has passed through the brook; yes, our soul has passed through the deep waters.” He drinks, then, in the brook, that cup of which he darkly spoke at the time of his passion, when he said, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” And also, “If this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

It was, then, by drinking this cup that he lifted up his head, as the apostle says, for when he was “obedient unto death, even death on a cross, therefore,” he says, “God has highly exalted him,” raising him from the dead and setting him at his right hand, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name which is named, not only in this world but in that which is to come. And he has put all things in subjection under his feet, according to the promise made to him, which he expresses through the psalmist, saying, “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool. Rule in the midst of your foes.” It is plain to all that today the power of our Savior and the word of his teaching rule over all them that have believed in him, in the midst of his enemies and foes.” (Proof of the Gospels, 5.)


“The remarks that follow are surprising because they do not quote the text in Genesis; on the contrary, they are based on what that text does not say. It does not name the father of Melchizedek, nor his mother; it says nothing about his ancestry; it does not speak of his birth or of his death. It can therefore be said that, in this text, Melchizedek is "without father, without mother, without ancestry, having neither a beginning of days nor an end of life" (Hebrews 7:3).” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 117.)



Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
Who govern all things,
both in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the pleading of Your people
and bestow Your peace on our times.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.




Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 


See, I will save my people



Second Vatican Council

An excerpt from Lumen Gentium, 2 and 16.

Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

In his wisdom and goodness the eternal Father created the whole world according to his supremely free and mysterious purpose and decreed that men should be raised up to share in the divine life. When they fell in Adam, he did not abandon them but always kept providing them with aids to salvation, in consideration of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. Before the ages the Father already knew all the elect and predestined them to be made into the likeness of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brothers.

God resolved to gather into holy Church all who believe in Christ. The Church, foreshadowed even from the beginning of the world, so marvelously prepared in the history of the people of Israel, established in these last times and revealed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, will be made perfect in glory at the end of time. Then, as we read in the Fathers of the Church, all the righteous from Adam onward—from Abel, the righteous, to the last of the elect—will be gathered in the universal Church in the presence of the Father.

Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are in their different ways related to God’s people.

In the first place, there is that people which was given the covenants and the promises and from which Christ was born by human descent: the people which is by God’s choice most dear on account of the patriarchs. God never repents of his gifts or his call.

God’s plan of salvation embraces those also who acknowledge the Creator. Among these are especially the Mohammedans; they profess their faith as the faith of Abraham, and with us they worship the one, merciful God who will judge men on the last day.

God himself is not far from those others who seek the unknown God in darkness and shadows, for it is he who gives to all men life and inspiration and all things, and who as Savior desires all men to be saved.

Eternal salvation is open to those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church but seek God with a sincere heart, and under the inspiration of grace try in their lives to do his will, made known to them by the dictates of their conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the aids necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet reached an explicit belief in God, but strive to lead a good life, under the influence of God’s grace.

Whatever goodness and truth is found among them is seen by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel, and as given by him who shines on all men, so that they may at last have life.

These charisms, the simpler and more widespread as well as the most outstanding, should be accepted with a sense of gratitude and consolation, since in a very special way they answer and serve the needs of the Church.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 

 





Memorial of Saint Anthony, Abbot



“... so that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge might be strongly encouraged to hold fast to the hope that lies before us.” (Hebrews 6:18)

Saint Ephrem the Syrian offers the following insight on these verses from today’s First Reading:

““Through two unchangeable things” ... the former is that he swore by himself. The latter is that David said, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, that you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” It is by this means that we who have been made coheirs of his promise “might have strong encouragement.” We “have fled for refuge” in order to protect ourselves, not for God’s justice, in order that God may draw and drive us away from the evils of this world, and may open for us the way “into the inner shrine behind the curtain.” We do not go in first. We do not go into the shrine of the tabernacle, where Moses went, but into the inner shrine in heaven, “where Jesus has gone as a forerunner, having become a high priest forever,” not in order to offer the victims of sacrifices, like Aaron, but to offer the word for all nations, like Melchizedek.” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews.)


“In 6: 17-18, the author passes from the third-person plural, “the heirs of the promise,” to the first-person plural: “So that ... we may have a powerful consolation.” That confirms that the expression “the heirs of the promise” really does designate the Christians. The author continues by saying, “We who have sought refuge by seizing the hope” (6:18); he thus comes back to the theme of hope, which he introduced with insistence in 6:11. He describes hope by saying that we have it “as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm.” This nautical comparison is not found elsewhere in the Bible, but is found in some Greek authors in antiquity. The author loses contact with it when he adds, “and which enters within the curtain.” An anchor does not enter within a curtain; it is cast to the bottom of the waters.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 114-115.)



Collect
O God,
Who brought the Abbot Saint Anthony
to serve You
by a wondrous way of life in the desert,
grant, through his intercession,
that, denying ourselves,
we may always love You above all things.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 


Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time



“Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” (Hebrews 5:1.)

Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite comments on this verse from the Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

The rites of consecration and those being consecrated denote the mystery that the performer of consecration in love of God is the exponent of the choice of the divinity. It is not by virtue of any personal worth that the hierarch summons those about to be consecrated, but rather it is God who inspires him in every hierarchic sanctification. Thus Moses, the consecrator in the hierarchy of the law, did not confer a clerical consecration on Aaron, who was his brother, whom he knew to be a friend of God and worthy of the priesthood, until God himself commanded him to do so, thereby permitting him to bestow, in the name of God who is the source of all consecration, the fullness of a clerical consecration. And yet our own first and divine consecrator—for Jesus in his endless love for us took on this task—“did not exalt himself,” as Scripture declares. Rather, the consecrator was the one “who said to him ... ‘You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.’” (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 5.)


“The Old Testament was very attentive to the special relation of the high priest with God, and to achieve that better, it separated the high priest from other members of the people. Our author, on the contrary, insists on the links uniting the high priest with humankind; the link of origin: the high priest is “taken from among men;” the link of mission: “he is established for humankind.” It is only after these two references to humankind that God is named: the mission of the high priest concerns “the relations with God.” The perspective is clearly a perspective of mediation.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 99-100.)



Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
Who govern all things,
both in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the pleading of Your people
and bestow Your peace on our times.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen








Second Sunday in Ordinary Time



“The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

“There are five animals that are offered on the altar, three being land animals and two winged. It seems worthwhile to me to ask why the Savior is said to be a “lamb” by John and none of the rest. But also, in the case of the land animals, since three types of animal are offered according to each species, why did he name the lamb from the species of sheep? Now these are the five animals: a young bull, a sheep, a goat, a turtledove, a pigeon.

And the three types of sheep are a ram, the ewe and the lamb. It is the lamb, however, that we find offered in the perpetual sacrifices. What other perpetual sacrifice can be spiritual to a spiritual being than the Word in his prime, the Word symbolically called “lamb”? But if we examine the declaration about Jesus, who is pointed out by John in the words “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” from the standpoint of the plan of salvation when the Son of God bodily lived among the human race, we will assume that the lamb is none other than his humanity. For he “was led as a sheep to the slaughter and was dumb as a lamb before its shearer,” saying, “I was an innocent lamb being led to be sacrificed.”

This is why in the Apocalypse, too, a little lamb is seen “standing as though slain.” This lamb, indeed, which was slain according to certain secret reasons, has become the expiation of the whole world. According to the Father’s love for humanity, he also submitted to slaughter on behalf of the world, purchasing us with his own blood from him who bought us when we had sold ourselves into sin. He, however, who led this lamb to the sacrifice was God in man, the great high priest, who reveals this through the saying, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 6.)



Collect
Almighty ever-living God,
Who govern all things,
both in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the pleading of Your people
and bestow Your peace on our times.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen









Saturday of the First Week in Ordinary Time



“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15.)

Pope Saint Leo the Great comments on this verse from the Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“By the saving cooperation of the indivisible divinity, whatever the Father, whatever the Son, whatever the Holy Spirit accomplishes in a particular way is the plan of our redemption. It is the order of our salvation. For if human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, had remained in the honor of their own nature and, undeceived by the devil’s lies, had not deviated from the law placed over them for their lusts, the Creator of the world would not have become a creature. The eternal would not have undergone temporality, and God the Son, equal to God the Father, would not have assumed the “form of a servant” and the “likeness of sinful flesh.” Since, however, “through the devil’s envy death entered the world” and because captive humanity could only be freed in one way, namely, if that one would undertake our cause who, without the loss of his majesty, would become true man, and who alone had no contagion of sin, the mercy of the Trinity divided for itself the work of our restoration so that the Father was appeased, the Son was the appeaser, and the Holy Spirit enkindled the process. It was right that those to be saved should do something for themselves, and, when their hearts were turned to the Redeemer, that they should cut themselves off from the domination of the enemy. In regard to this, the apostle says, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.”” (Sermon 77)



“It should also be noted that the attitude of compassion toward other sinners did not form part of the outlook of the priesthood of the Old Testament. Between Christ the mediator and the former priesthood, a double contrast is therefore, paradoxically, noticeable: the former priests are sinful men, but they are not taught compassion for sinners, whereas Christ, who is sinless, is full of mercy for his blameworthy brothers and sisters (cf. Rom. 5:8).” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 97.)



Collect
Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care, O Lord,
we pray, that they may see
what must be done and
gain strength to do
what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen








Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time



“Therefore, let us be on our guard while the promise of entering into his rest remains, that none of you seem to have failed...” (Hebrews 4:1.)

Saint Ephrem the Syrian offers the following insight on this verse from today’s First Reading:

“In fact, if Joshua, the son of Nun, who allowed them to inherit the land, had settled them and given them rest, they still would not speak at all about the “other day of rest.” Indeed, Joshua made them rest, because he gave them the land as an inheritance, but they did not rest in it perfectly, as God perfectly rested from God’s works, for they lived in toils and wars. If that rest was not a true rest, since Joshua himself, the giver of their rest, was urged by the wars, if this is their condition, I say, there still remains the sabbath of God, who gives rest to those who enter there, as God rested from God’s works, that is, from all the works which God made.” (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 4.)


God's rest cannot simply mean the land of Canaan. God's rest is not a place but a state of which the account of creation speaks. The promise to enter into God's rest is a promise to have a share with God in that blessed state, that peace, that joy. Thanks to their faith, believer have a foretaste of it.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, pages 92-93.)



Collect
Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care, O Lord,
we pray, that they may see
what must be done and
gain strength to do
what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen








Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time



“Encourage yourselves daily while it is still “today,” so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13)

In commenting upon this verse from today’s First Reading, Saint John Chrysostom writes:

“From hardness comes unbelief. As in bodies the parts that have become callous and hard do not yield to the hands of the physicians, so also souls that are hardened yield not to the Word of God. For it is probable that some even disbelieved those things which had already been done; hence he says, “Take heed.” Because the argument from the future is not so persuasive as from the past, he reminds them of the history in which they had lacked faith. For if your fathers, he says, because they did not hope as they ought to have hoped, suffered these things, much more will you. To them also is this word addressed, for “today,” he says, is “ever,” so long as the world lasts. Therefore, “exhort one another daily, as long as it is called ‘today.’” That is, edify one another, raise yourselves up, lest the same things should befall you. “Lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Do you see that sin produces unbelief? For as unbelief brings forth an evil life, so also a soul, “when it is come into a depth of evils, becomes contemptuous”1 and, having become contemptuous, it endures not even to believe, in order thereby to free itself from fear.” (On the Epistle to the Hebrews, 6)


“Commenting on the psalm, the preacher provides his hearers with a truly community-centered exhortation. He calls upon them to make a mutual inquiry into any “lack of faith”; he exhorts them to “exhort each other,” lest any one of them “be hardened,” as the psalm says, and the preacher adds, “through deceit of sin.” In 3:14, the author goes from “you” to “we,” that is to say that he includes himself and all the Christians in the group being exhorted. He reminds them of their high dignity: “We have become sharers of Christ” thanks to faith, baptism, and the Eucharist (cf. 10:19-22).” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 89.)



Collect
Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care,
O Lord, we pray,
that they may see what must be done
and gain strength to do what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.







Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time



“Now since the children share in blood and flesh, he likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil...” (Hebrews 2:14.)

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem comments on this verse from the First Reading proclaimed at Mass today:

“Jesus sanctified baptism when he himself was baptized. If the Son of God was baptized, can anyone who scorns baptism pretend to piety? Not that he was baptized to receive the remission of sins—for he was without sin—but, being sinless, he was nevertheless baptized that he might impart grace and dignity to those who receive the sacrament. For, “since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature,” that we, sharing his incarnate life, might also share his divine grace. Thus Jesus was baptized that we, in turn, so made partakers with him, might receive not only salvation but also the dignity. The dragon, according to Job, was in the water, he who received the Jordan in his maw. When, therefore, it was necessary to crush the heads of the dragon, descending into the water, he bound the strong one, that we might receive the “power to tread upon serpents and scorpions.” It was no ordinary beast, but a horrible monster. No fishing ship could last under a single scale of his tail; before him stalked destruction, ravaging all in her path. But life came running up, that that maw of death might be stopped and all we who were saved might say, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?” Baptism draws death’s sting.” (Catechetical Lectures, 3.)


“But, paradoxically, death, the instrument of the power of the devil, has been transformed by Christ into an instrument of victory over the devil. The purpose of the Incarnation is the latter: the transformation of death into an instrument of victory, that - it must be said - to the force of love. Christ's victory over "the one who held the power of death" ensures the liberation of believers (2:15). Instead of being held in slavery by the feat of death, which is seen as an inevitable negative outcome, believers know they are associated with Christ's victory.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 79.)





Collect
Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care, O Lord,
we pray, that they may see
what must be done and
gain strength to do
what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.


Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 


br />

Knowledge of the Father
consists in the Self-Revelation of the Son



Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr

An excerpt from his Against Heresies, Book 4

Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time

No one can know the Father apart from God’s Word, that is, unless the Son reveals him, and no one can know the Son unless the Father so wills. Now the Son fulfils the Father’s good pleasure: the Father sends, the Son is sent, and he comes. The Father is beyond our sight and comprehension; but he is known by his Word, who tells us of him who surpasses all telling. In turn, the Father alone has knowledge of his Word. And the Lord has revealed both truths. Therefore, the Son reveals the knowledge of the Father by his revelation of himself. Knowledge of the Father consists in the self-revelation of the Son, for all is revealed through the Word.

The Father’s purpose in revealing the Son was to make himself known to us all and so to welcome into eternal rest those who believe in him, establishing them in justice, preserving them from death. To believe in him means to do his will.

Through creation itself the Word reveals God the Creator. Through the world he reveals the Lord who made the world. Through all that is fashioned he reveals the craftsman who fashioned it all. Through the Son the Word reveals the Father who begot him as Son. All speak of these things in the same language, but they do not believe them in the same way. Through the law and the prophets the Word revealed himself and his Father in the same way, and though all the people equally heard the message not all equally believed it. Through the Word, made visible and palpable, the Father was revealed, though not all equally believed in him. But all saw the Father in the Son, for the Father of the Son cannot be seen, but the Son of the Father can be seen.

The Son performs everything as a ministry to the Father, from beginning to end, and without the Son no one can know God. The way to know the Father is the Son. Knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and is revealed through the Son. For this reason the Lord said: No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son has revealed him. The word “revealed” refers not only to the future—as though the Word began to reveal the Father only when he was born of Mary; it refers equally to all time. From the beginning the Son is present to creation, reveals the Father to all, to those the Father chooses, when the Father chooses, and as the Father chooses. So, there is in all and through all one God the Father, one Word and Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation for all who believe in him.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 






Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time



“For it was not to angels that he subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. Instead, someone has testified somewhere...” (Hebrews 2:5-6.)

Saint Gregory of Nyssa (part 2 of the background of Saint Gregory of Nyssa is found here) offers the following insight on these verses from today’s First Reading:

“When, according to the prophetic word, people were alienated from the life-giving womb through sin and went astray from the womb in which they were fashioned, they spoke falsehood instead of truth. Because of this, the Mediator, assuming the first fruit of our common nature, made it holy through his soul and body, unmixed and unreceptive of all evil, preserving it in himself. He did this in order that, having taken it up to the Father of incorruptibility through his own incorruptibility, the entire group might be drawn along with it because of their related nature, in order that the Father might admit the disinherited to “adoption” as children and the enemies of God to a share in the Godhead. And just as the first fruit of the dough was assimilated through purity and innocence to the true Father and God, so we also as dough in similar ways will cleave to the Father of incorruptibility by imitating, as far as we can, the innocence and stability of the Mediator.

Thus, we shall be a crown of precious stones for the only begotten God, having become an honor and a glory through our life. For Paul says, “Having made himself a little lower than the angels because of his having suffered death, he made those whose nature had previously become thorny through sin into a crown for himself, transforming the thorn through suffering into honor and glory.” And yet, once he has “taken away the sins of the world” and taken upon his head a crown of thorns in order to weave a crown of “honor and glory,” there is no small danger that someone may be discovered to be a burr and a thorn because of his evil life, and then be placed in the middle of the Master’s crown because of sharing in his body. The just voice speaks directly to this one: “How did you get in here without a wedding garment? How were you, a thorn, woven in with those fitted into my crown through honor and glory?” (On Perfection)





If Jesus was “crowned with glory and honor” and became, in his very humanity, “superior to the angels” (1:4), it is “because of the death He suffered” (2:9). At first sight it may seem strange that a death, something negative, should be a cause of glorification. In reality, what produced the glorification of Jesus is not his death itself but the way he faced his death. He made it the occasion of a perfect offering, of filial obedience to God and fraternal solidarity with humankind.” (Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, The Letter to the Hebrews: A New Commentary. Paulist Press 978-0809149285, page 74.)


Collect
Attend to the pleas of Your people
with heavenly care, O Lord,
we pray, that they may see
what must be done and
gain strength to do
what they have seen.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.



Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen

 


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