23rd April 2019

Testimony and exhortation – the two tasks of any disciple and apostle. In the first reading, Peter, now transformed and empowered by the power of the Resurrection, boldly shares his testimony of the Lord and exhorts the people to accept Christ as their Saviour. Having witnessed the power of the Resurrection in his own life, Peter was able to share this with others. No longer would he deny Jesus; he would, in fact, be fearless in the face of opposition. He truly was a witness to the Resurrection. No wonder so many of the people were baptized that day.

In the Gospel, Mary Magdalene becomes a witness to the Resurrection when Jesus appears to her. In her pain and sorrow, Christ comes to comfort her and make her His apostle. He calls her by name and entrusts her with a mission of being a witness to His Resurrection. Having encountered the Risen Lord, she is sent forth. Like Peter, she can boldly proclaim – “I have seen the Lord”.

From an Easter homily by Saint Melito of Sardis, bishop
(Cap 2-7, 100-103: SC 123, 60-64. 120-122)

The Easter praise of Christ

We should understand, beloved, that the paschal mystery is at once old and new, transitory and eternal, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal. In terms of the Law it is old, in terms of the Word it is new. In its figure it is passing, in its grace it is eternal. It is corruptible in the sacrifice of the lamb, incorruptible in the eternal life of the Lord. It is mortal in his burial in the earth, immortal in his resurrection from the dead.

The Law indeed is old, but the Word is new. The type is transitory, but grace is eternal. The lamb was corruptible, but the Lord is incorruptible. He was slain as a lamb; he rose again as God. He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, yet he was not a sheep. He was silent as a lamb, yet he was not a lamb. The type has passed away; the reality has come. The lamb gives place to God, the sheep gives place to a man, and the man is Christ, who fills the whole of creation. The sacrifice of the lamb, the celebration of the Passover, and the prescriptions of the Law have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Under the old Law, and still more under the new dispensation, everything pointed toward him.

Both the Law and the Word came forth from Zion and Jerusalem, but now the Law has given place to the Word, the old to the new. The commandment has become grace, the type a reality. The lamb has become a Son, the sheep a man, and man, God.

The Lord, though he was God, became man. He suffered for the sake of those who suffer, he was bound for those in bonds, condemned for the guilty, buried for those who lie in the grave; but he rose from the dead, and cried aloud: Who will contend with me? Let him confront me. I have freed the condemned, brought the dead back to life, raised men from their graves. Who has anything to say against me? I, he said, am the Christ; I have destroyed death, triumphed over the enemy, trampled hell underfoot, bound the strong one, and taken men up to the heights of heaven: I am the Christ.

Come, then, all you nations of men, receive forgiveness for the sins that defile you. I am your forgiveness. I am the Passover that brings salvation. I am the lamb who was immolated for you. I am your ransom, your life, your resurrection, your light, I am your salvation and your king. I will bring you to the heights of heaven. With my own right hand I will raise you up, and I will show you the eternal Father.

LET US THINK a bit more about angels. On the one hand, they sometimes come to us in a very human way. They may come in the form of a loved one with whom we can talk about those stones that harden our hearts, as a good friend who keeps encouraging us to reach out for new life, or as a stranger who enters our life unexpectedly with wisdom and insight that shed light on our darkness. These people act for us as messengers from God who bring resurrection hope into our deadness.

On the other hand, angels from the Lord may come in a more spiritual way. They may appear in a significant dream that lights up an obstacle that prevents us from living fully, in a wide-awake vision that strengthens us to do what we need to do, or in a surprise thought that pops into our minds, suggesting possibilities that we had not thought of before. Sometimes the angel may come to us in the words of a Gospel reading like the Eastertide verses we are thinking about now.

WHEN PEOPLE ran into Jesus they often had good reason to remember the encounter. Sometimes he infuriated them; sometimes he made perfect sense; and sometimes he did both. Regardless, those who encountered Jesus often left challenged, knowing the possibility of the kind of peace that the world had never offered before.

Jesus’ style of peace entails not simply resting in the presence of God so much as moving forward in the presence of God. Peace requires God-saturated behavior. Peace refers to a state of being more than a state of mind. Peace is an action word. That’s why Jesus said, “I do not give to you as the world gives.” Jesus settles the troubled heart, sometimes by troubling the settled life.

This is our Passover Feast. 

“God raised up Jesus, freeing him from the pains of death” (Acts 2:24).

PAIN’S HIGHEST GAIN.

He was born to die

He took our sinful nature

But He is without sin

He died to earn us life

He de-robed Himself of His divinity to help us reclaim our divine mandate

The mandate was life in God

We lost it through adamic frailty

And regained it in the New Adam

His death is not an annihilation

But in it death was annihilated

Life gains and heaven rejoices

Creation regained as death dies

Hope of the hopeless and life for the lifeless

Crown of glory pain’s highest gain

Man of Calvary the heaven’s delight

Born for us and died for our life

Lives forever our beginning and end.

May His death and resurrection bring us closer to His blessings and to enduring union with Him.

HAPPY EASTER!

From an ancient homily on Holy Saturday

(PG 43, 439, 451, 462-463)

The Lord descends into hell

Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

Saint Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church

Sermons on Saint John’s Gospel, no. 2

“When the centurion who stood facing him saw how he breathed his last, he said: ‘Truly, this man is the Son of God!’ ” (Mk 15:39)

“In the beginning was the Word, the Utterance of God” (cf. Jn 1:1). He is one and the same with him; what he is, he is always; he is without change, he is being. This is the name he made known to his servant Moses: “I am who I am” and “You will say: I AM sent me to you” (Ex 3:14)… Who could understand this? Who could reach him – supposing he were to direct all the powers of his soul as best he may to reaching him who is? I will compare him to an exile who sees his homeland from afar: the sea is separating him from it; he knows where he has to go but has no means of getting there. In the same way we want to reach that final haven which will be our own, where is the One who Is, for he alone is always the same. But the ocean of this world blocks the way… He who calls us came here below to give us the means of getting there. He chose the wood that would enable us to cross the sea: indeed, no one can cross the ocean of this world who is not borne by the cross of Christ. Even the blind can cling to this cross. If you can’t see where you are going very well, don’t let go of it: it will guide you by itself. So then, brethren, this is what I should like to impress on your hearts: if you want to live in a spirit of devotion, a christian spirit, cling to Christ just as he became for us so as to rejoin him as he is now and as he has always been. This is why he came down to us, for he became man that he might take up the weak, enabling them to cross the sea and disembark into the homeland where a ship is no longer needed because there is no more ocean to cross. In all events, it would be better for one’s soul not to see him who is and to embrace Christ’s cross than to see him spiritually but despise the cross. So, for our own happiness, may we both see where we are going and cling to the ship that is taking us there…! Some have succeeded and have seen what he is. It was because he had seen him that John said: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” They saw him and, to attain what they saw from afar, they clung to the cross of Christ. They did not despise the humility of Christ.

From the Catecheses by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop
(Cat. 3, 13-19: SC 50, 174-177)

The power of Christ’s blood

If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. Sacrifice a lamb without blemish, commanded Moses,and sprinkle its blood on your doors. If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.

If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.

There flowed from his side water and blood. Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized baptism and the holy eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit, and from the holy eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh! As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.

Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.

19th April 2019

GOOD FRIDAY

The Good Friday service is a sombre and quiet one, echoing the sentiments one has when attending a funeral. The re-enactment of the passion and death of Christ presents a sad contrast between the raw compassion of God and the stubbornness and violence of human beings.

The mission of Jesus was to reveal the intimate and caring face of God, so that we may experience the fullness of life as persons and as a human community. In this process, He upset a lot of the normal perspectives and practices of especially those who had leading and powerful community roles.

The will of God is to stay loving at all times. If to stay loving meant death, then Jesus was willing to pay the price for this. He stood by His values in a consistent and determined manner. This comes across powerfully in the passion narrative of St. John.

If we wish to share in the redemptive suffering of Jesus, we too will need to labour and pay the price for the wellbeing of those from whom we may receive nothing in return.

In the Cross is salvation; in the Cross is life; in the Cross is protection against our enemies; in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness; in the Cross is strength of mind; in the Cross is joy of spirit; in the Cross is excellence of virtue; in the Cross is perfection of holiness. CARRY YOUR CROSSES WITH A SMILE AND SERVE THE LORD WITH GLADNESS