A few preliminary words

When I started this blog, I intended it for theological reflections. As it turned out, I have very few of those, and the few I do have are largely incomprehensible, even to me. So I began writing about the church, its problems, my experiences in church, and even politics. Fortunately, perhaps, I was very sporadic in my postings then, too. My final gambit was following the church calendar and posting pictures, long quotations, and perhaps a word or two (never very many) of my own.

When I had just about stopped posting here, I began another blog. At the beginning I meant it to be therapeutic, rather like a journal, and private. Then vanity got the better of me, and I let people know about it. There are a few posts there that I'm not too ashamed to have written. My posting there was in short bursts, followed by prolonged silence. Which is funny, seeing what my description of it was.
I went back to it last fall and posted a particularly strong (some would say intemperate and mean-spirited) post about the pope and the direction in which the church was going. This got me in hot water with my beloved wife; actually, it only ramped up the temperature of the hot water I was already in. So I posted an apology and let the matter go.

Well, to demonstrate just how foolish I can be, I'm going to start another blog here. Unfortunately, I didn't notice that Word Press had given me such a revealing URL. I'll see what I can do about that. Anyway, over the last couple of years I've become increasingly distressed about the state of the Catholic Church. I have no one I can safely talk to about it, and besides, in discussions like that I have a tendency to become overbearing if my interlocutor lets me or overwrought if he or she does not. I'm sure it will not be to everyone's taste. Perhaps it will only be to mine. So consider yourselves warned. Don't click that link if you're not interested in stronger beer than your used to from me. Remember, I'm warning you.

If I can make it work, I'll use this blog for the more devotional/theological things I might be able to come up with. The second blog I'll use for general observations and more personal things. The third I'll use for polemics ecclesiastical, and maybe political too. I'd be happy if I could keep all three blogs going, but considering how awful I am at keeping one going, I'm not sanguine. But, hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I know I'm being a bit arch here, but I really can't help it. I'm going to try and keep my archery off this blog. But I can't say the same for the others.

This may not sound like much of a penitential exercise, but believe me, it is. I'd be grateful for your prayers.

"Let us begin again, for until now we have done nothing."

The words above were among the last spoken by St. Francis. There is a rebuke there, but also a certain comfort: We can begin again, and perhaps this time we'll be able to do something.

I'm pretty good at beginnings; at perseverance, not so much, as anyone who has read (why, I can't imagine) this blog certainly knows. Maybe this time it will be different. At any rate, I'm disposed to try, if only as a Lenten penance. So let us begin again.

Saturday of the Second Week of Easter

Synaxis of the Seventy

From the constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council

In his desire that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, God spoke in former times to our forefathers through the prophets, on many occasions and in different ways. Then, in the fullness of time he sent his Son, the Word made man, anointed by the Holy Spirit, to bring good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted as the physician of body and spirit and the mediator between God and men. In the unity of the person of the Word, his human nature was the instrument of our salvation. Thus in Christ there has come to be the perfect atonement that  econciles us with God, and we have been given the power to offer the fullness of divine worship.

This work of man’s redemption and God’s perfect glory was foreshadowed by God’s mighty deeds among the people of the Old Covenant. It was brought to fulfillment by Christ the Lord, especially through the paschal mystery of his blessed passion, resurrection from the dead and ascension in glory: by dying he destroyed our death, and by rising again he restored our life. From his side, as he lay asleep on the cross, was born that wonderful sacrament which is the Church in its entirety.

As Christ was sent by the Father, so in his turn he sent the apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit. They were sent to preach the Gospel to every creature, proclaiming that we had been set free from the power of Satan and from death by the death and resurrection of God’s Son, and brought into the kingdom of the Father. They were sent also to bring into effect this saving work that they proclaimed, by means of the sacrifice and sacraments that are the pivot of the whole life of the liturgy.

So, by baptism men are brought within the paschal mystery. Dead with Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ, they receive the Spirit that makes them God’s adopted children, crying out: Abba, Father; and so they become the true adorers that the Father seeks.

In the same way, whenever they eat the supper of the Lord they proclaim his death until he comes. So, on the very day of Pentecost, on which the Church was manifested to the world, those who received the word of Peter were baptized. They remained steadfast in the teaching of the apostles and in the communion of the breaking of bread, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

From that time onward the Church has never failed to come together to celebrate the paschal mystery, by reading what was written about him in every part of Scripture, by celebrating the Eucharist in which the victory and triumph of his death are shown forth, and also by giving thanks to God for the inexpressible gift he has given in Christ Jesus, to the praise of God’s glory.

Second Reading from the Office of Readings for the Saturday of the Second Week of Easter

Friday of the Second Week of Easter

From a sermon by Saint Theodore the Studite

How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree. What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world! The supreme wisdom that flowered on the cross has shown the folly of worldly wisdom’s pride. The knowledge of all good, which is the fruit of the cross, has cut away the shoots of wickedness.

The wonders accomplished through this tree were foreshadowed clearly even by the mere types and figures that existed in the past. Meditate on these, if you are eager to learn. Was it not the wood of a tree that enabled Noah, at God’s command, to escape the destruction of the flood together with his sons, his wife, his sons’ wives and every kind of animal? And surely the rod of Moses prefigured the cross when it changed water into blood, swallowed up the false serpents of Pharaoh’s magicians, divided the sea at one stroke and then restored the waters to their normal course, drowning the enemy and saving God’s own people? Aaron’s rod, which blossomed in one day in proof of his true priesthood, was another figure of the cross, and did not Abraham foreshadow the cross when he bound his son Isaac and placed him on the pile of wood?

By the cross death was slain and Adam was restored to life. The cross is the glory of all the apostles, the crown of the martyrs, the sanctification of the saints. By the cross we put on Christ and cast aside our former self. By the cross we, the sheep of Christ, have been gathered into one flock, destined for the sheepfolds of heaven. 

Second Reading from the Office of Readings for the Friday of the Second Week of Easter

St. Stanislaus, bishop and martyr

From a letter of St. Cyprian to the people of Carthage

As we do battle and fight in the contest of faith, God, his angels and Christ himself watch us. How exalted is the glory, how great the joy of engaging in a contest with God presiding, of receiving a crown with Christ as judge.

Dear brethren, let us arm ourselves with all our might, let us prepare ourselves for the struggle with uncorrupted minds, with a whole faith, and with devoted courage.

The blessed Apostle teaches us how to arm and prepare ourselves: Put round you the belt of truth; put on the breastplate of righteousness; for shoes wear zeal for the Gospel of peace; take up the shield of faith to extinguish all the burning arrows of the evil one; take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God

Let us take this armour and defend ourselves with these spiritual defences from heaven, so that when the evil day comes we may be able to resist the threats of the devil, and fight back against him.

Let us put on the breastplate of righteousness so that our breasts may be protected and kept safe from the arrows of the enemy. Let our feet be shod in the teaching of the Gospel, and armoured so that when we begin to trample on the serpent and crush it, it will not be able to bite us or trip us up.

Let us with fortitude bear the shield of faith to protect us by extinguishing all the burning arrows that the enemy may launch against us.

Let us wear on our head the helmet of the spirit, to defend our ears against the proclamations of death, to defend our eyes against the sight of accursed idols, to defend our foreheads so that God’s sign may be kept intact, and to defend our mouths so that our tongues may proclaim victoriously the name of Christ their Lord.

And let us arm our right hand with the sword of the spirit so that it may courageously refuse the daily sacrifices, and, remembering the Eucharist, let the hand that took hold of the body of the Lord embrace the Lord himself, and so gain from the Lord the future prize of a heavenly crown.

Dear brethren, have all this firmly fixed in your hearts. If the day of persecution finds us thinking on these things and meditating upon them, the soldier of Christ, trained by Christ’s commands and instructions, will not tremble at the thought of battle, but will be ready to receive the crown of victory. 

Second reading for the memorial of St. Stanislaus from the Office of Readings

Collect from the Roman Missal 

O God, for whose honor the Bishop Saint Stanislaus fell beneath the swords of his persecutors, grant we pray, that we may persevere strong in faith even until death. 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 Second Week of Easter

Masaccio, Baptism of the Neophytes

From a sermon by St. Leo the Great, pope

My dear brethren, there is no doubt that the Son of God took our human nature into so close a union with himself that one and the same Christ is present, not only in the firstborn of all creation, but in all his saints as well. The head cannot be separated from the members, nor the members from the head. Not in this life, it is true, but only in eternity will God be all in all, yet even now he dwells, whole and undivided, in his temple the Church. Such was his promise to us when he said: See, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.

And so all that the Son of God did and taught for the world’s reconciliation is not for us simply a matter of past history. Here and now we experience his power at work among us. Born of a virgin mother by the action of the Holy Spirit, Christ keeps his Church spotless and makes her fruitful by the inspiration of the same Spirit. In baptismal regeneration she brings forth children for God beyond all numbering. These are the sons of whom it is written: They are born not of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

In Christ Abraham’s posterity is blessed, because in him the whole world receives the adoption of sons, and in him the patriarch becomes the father of all nations through the birth, not from human stock but by faith, of the descendants that were promised to him. From every nation on earth, without exception, Christ forms a single flock of those he has sanctified, daily fulfilling the promise he once made: I have other sheep, not of this fold, whom it is also ordained that I shall lead; and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

Although it was primarily to Peter that he said: Feed my sheep, yet the one Lord guides all the pastors in the discharge of their office and leads to rich and fertile pastures all those who come to the rock. There is no counting the sheep who are nourished with his abundant love, and who are prepared to lay down their lives for the sake of the good shepherd who died for them.

But it is not only the martyrs who share in his passion by their glorious courage; the same is true, by faith, of all who are reborn through baptism. That is why we are to celebrate the Lord’s paschal sacrifice with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The leaven of our former malice is thrown out, and a new creature is filled and inebriated with the Lord himself. For the effect of our sharing in the body and blood of Christ is to change us into what we receive. As we have died with him, and have been buried and raised to life with him, so we bear him within us, both in body and in spirit, in everything we do.

The Second Reading for the Office of Readings for Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter

Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter

From a book addressed to Monimus by Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe, bishop

The spiritual building up of the body of Christ is achieved through love. As Saint Peter says: Like living stones you are built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And there can be no more effective way to pray for this spiritual growth than for the Church, itself Christ’s body, to make the offering of his body and blood in the sacramental form of bread and wine. For the cup we drink is a participation in the blood of Christ, and the bread we break is a participation in the body of Christ. Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, since we all share the same bread. And so we pray that, by the same grace which made the Church Christ’s body, all its members may remain firm in the unity of that body through the enduring bond of love.

We are right to pray that this may be brought about in us through the gift of the one Spirit of the Father and the Son. The holy Trinity, the one true God, is of its nature unity, equality and love, and by one divine activity sanctifies its adopted sons. That is why Scripture says that God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit he has given us. The Holy Spirit, who is the one Spirit of the Father and the Son, produces in those to whom he gives the grace of divine adoption the same effect as he produced among those whom the Acts of the Apostles describes as having received the Holy Spirit. We are told that the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, because the one Spirit of the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is one God, had created a single heart and soul in all those who believed.

This is why Saint Paul in his exhortation to the Ephesians says that this spiritual unity in the bond of peace must be carefully preserved. I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, he writes, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, with all humility and meekness and with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit.

God makes the Church itself a sacrifice pleasing in his sight by preserving within it the love which his Holy Spirit has poured out. Thus the grace of that spiritual love is always available to us, enabling us continually to offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to him for ever.   

Second Reading for Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter from the Office of Readings in the Liturgy of the Hours

The Solemnity of the Annunciation

The Merode Altarpiece

A poem for the Annunciation by Christina Rossetti

Herself a rose, who bore the Rose,
She bore the Rose and felt its thorn.
All Loveliness new-born
Took on her bosom its repose,
And slept and woke there night and morn.

Lily herself, she bore the one
Fair Lily; sweeter, whiter, far
Than she or others are:
The Sun of Righteousness her Son,
She was His morning star.

She gracious, He essential Grace,
He was the Fountain, she the rill:
Her goodness to fulfil
And gladness, with proportioned pace
He led her steps thro' good and ill.

Christ's mirror she of grace and love,
Of beauty and of life and death:
By hope and love and faith
Transfigured to His Likeness,
'Dove,Spouse, Sister, Mother,' Jesus saith.

Low Sunday

Also called Quasimodo Sunday, Thomas Sunday, and Divine Mercy Sunday

From the Second Oration on Easter by Gregory of Nazianzus

Duccio, Doubting Thomas

If you be a Mary, or another Mary, or a Salome, or a Joanna, weep in the early morning. Be first to see the stone taken away, and perhaps you will see the Angels and Jesus Himself. Say something; hear His Voice. If He say to you, Touch Me not, stand afar off; reverence the Word, but grieve not; for He knows those to whom He appears first. Keep the feast of the Resurrection; come to the aid of Eve who was first to fall, of Her who first embraced the Christ, and made Him known to the disciples. Be a Peter or a John; hasten to the Sepulchre, running together, running against one another, vying in the noble race. And even if you be beaten in speed, win the victory of zeal; not Looking into the tomb, but Going in. And if, like a Thomas, you were left out when the disciples were assembled to whom Christ shows Himself, when you do see Him be not faithless; and if you do not believe, then believe those who tell you; and if you cannot believe them either, then have confidence in the print of the nails.

 

From the Encyclical Dives in Misericordia of Blessed John Paul II, Pope

The cross on Calvary, the cross upon which Christ conducts His final dialogue with the Father, emerges from the very heart of the love that man, created in the image and likeness of God, has been given as a gift, according to God's eternal plan. God, as Christ has revealed Him, does not merely remain closely linked with the world as the Creator and the ultimate source of existence. He is also Father: He is linked to man, whom He called to existence in the visible world, by a bond still more intimate than that of creation. It is love which not only creates the good but also grants participation in the very life of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For he who loves desires to give himself. . . .

What else, then, does the cross of Christ say to us, the cross that in a sense is the final word of His messianic message and mission? And yet this is not yet the word of the God of the covenant: that will be pronounced at the dawn when first the women and then the Apostles come to the tomb of the crucified Christ, see the tomb empty and for the first time hear the message: "He is risen." They will repeat this message to the others and will be witnesses to the risen Christ. Yet, even in this glorification of the Son of God, the cross remains, that cross which-through all the messianic testimony of the Man the Son, who suffered death upon it - speaks and never ceases to speak of God the Father, who is absolutely faithful to His eternal love for man, since He "so loved the world" - therefore man in the world-that "he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." Believing in the crucified Son means "seeing the Father," means believing that love is present in the world and that this love is more powerful than any kind of evil in which individuals, humanity, or the world are involved. Believing in this love means believing in mercy. For mercy is an indispensable dimension of love; it is as it were love's second name and, at the same time, the specific manner in which love is revealed and effected vis-a-vis the reality of the evil that is in the world, affecting and besieging man, insinuating itself even into his heart and capable of causing him to "perish in Gehenna."

Easter Saturday

From the Jerusalem Catecheses

Fra Angelico, The Communion of the Apostles

On the night he was betrayed our Lord Jesus Christ took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said: “Take, eat: this is my body.” He took the cup, gave thanks and said: “Take, drink: this is my blood.” Since Christ himself has declared the bread to be his body, who can have any further doubt? Since he himself has said quite categorically, This is my blood, who would dare to question it and say that it is not his blood?

Therefore, it is with complete assurance that we receive the bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. His body is given to us under the symbol of bread, and his blood is given to us under the symbol of wine, in order to make us by receiving them one body and blood with him. Having his body and blood in our members, we become bearers of Christ and sharers, as Saint Peter says, in the divine nature.

Once, when speaking to the Jews, Christ said: Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you shall have no life in you. This horrified them and they left him. Not understanding his words in a spiritual way, they thought the Savior wished them to practice cannibalism. Under the old covenant there was showbread, but it came to an end with the old dispensation to which it belonged. Under the new covenant there is bread from heaven and the cup of salvation. These sanctify both soul and body, the bread being adapted to the sanctification of the body, the Word, to the sanctification of the soul.

Do not, then, regard the eucharistic elements as ordinary bread and wine: they are in fact the body and blood of the Lord, as he himself has declared. Whatever your senses may tell you, be strong in faith.

You have been taught and you are firmly convinced that what looks and tastes like bread and wine is not bread and wine but the body and the blood of Christ. You know also how David referred to this long ago when he sang:Bread gives strength to man’s heart and makes his face shine with the oil of gladness. Strengthen your heart, then, by receiving this bread as spiritual bread, and bring joy to the face of your soul.

May purity of conscience remove the veil from the face of your soul so that by contemplating the glory of the Lord, as in a mirror, you may be transformed from glory to glory in Christ Jesus our Lord. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

Second reading from the Liturgy of the Hours for Saturday in Easter Week

Easter Contest at the Catholic Bibles blog

Enter here.

Easter Friday

Stanhope, The Vision of Ezekiel

The hand of the LORD was upon me,

and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD,

and set me down in the midst of the valley
which was full of bones,

And caused me to pass by them round about:
and, behold, there were very many in the open valley;
and, lo, they were very dry.
And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live?

And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest.
Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones,
and say unto them,
O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.
Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones;
Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you,
and ye shall live:
And I will lay sinews upon you,
and will bring up flesh upon you,
and cover you with skin,
and put breath in you,
and ye shall live;
and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
So I prophesied as I was commanded:
and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking,
and the bones came together, bone to his bone.
And when I beheld, lo,
the sinews and the flesh came up upon them,
and the skin covered them above:
but there was no breath in them.
Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind,
prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind,
Thus saith the Lord GOD;
Come from the four winds, O breath,
and breathe upon these slain,
that they may live.
So I prophesied as he commanded me,
and the breath came into them,
and they lived,
and stood up upon their feet,
an exceeding great army.

Then he said unto me,
Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel:
behold, they say,
Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost:

we are cut off for our parts.
Therefore prophesy and say unto them,
Thus saith the Lord GOD;
Behold, O my people, I will open your graves,
and cause you to come up out of your graves,
and bring you into the land of Israel.
And ye shall know that I am the LORD,
when I have opened your graves, O my people,
and brought you up out of your graves,
And shall put my spirit in you,
and ye shall live,
and I shall place you in your own land:
then shall ye know that I the LORD
have spoken it, and performed it,
saith the LORD.

Ezekiel  37 1:14, Authorized Version

Easter Thursday

From the Jerusalem Catecheses

Gozzoli, The Baptism of St. Augustine

You were led down to the font of holy baptism just as Christ was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb which is before your eyes. Each of you was asked, “Do you believe in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?” You made the profession of faith that brings salvation, you were plunged into the water, and three times you rose again. This symbolized the three days Christ spent in the tomb.

As our Savior spent three days and three nights in the depths of the earth, so your first rising from the water represented the first day and your first immersion represented the first night. At night a man cannot see, but in the day he walks in the light. So when you were immersed in the water it was like night for you and you could not see, but when you rose again it was like coming into broad daylight. In the same instant you died and were born again; the saving water was both your tomb and your mother.

Solomon’s phrase in another context is very apposite here. He spoke of a time to give birth, and a time to die. For you, however, it was the reverse: a time to die, and a time to be born, although in fact both events took place at the same time and your birth was simultaneous with your death.

This is something amazing and unheard of! It was not we who actually died, were buried and rose again. We only did these things symbolically, but we have been saved in actual fact. It is Christ who was crucified, who was buried and who rose again, and all this has been attributed to us. We share in his sufferings symbolically and gain salvation in reality. What boundless love for men! Christ’s undefiled hands were pierced by the nails; he suffered the pain. I experience no pain, no anguish, yet by the share that I have in his sufferings he freely grants me salvation.

Let no one imagine that baptism consists only in the forgiveness of sins and in the grace of adoption. Our baptism is not like the baptism of John, which conferred only the forgiveness of sins. We know perfectly well that baptism, besides washing away our sins and bringing us the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a symbol of the sufferings of Christ. This is why Paul exclaims: Do you not know that when we were baptized into Christ Jesus we were, by that very action, sharing in his death? By baptism we went with him into the tomb.
                                                                        Second reading from the Liturgy of the Hours for Thursday in Easter Week

Easter Wednesday

"Easter" by George Herbert (1633)

William Dyce, George Herbert at Bemerton

RISE heart ;  thy Lord is risen.  Sing his praise                                         Without delayes,     Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise                                         With him mayst rise :     That, as his death calcined thee to dust,     His life may make thee gold, and much more just.     Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part                                         With all thy art.     The crosse taught all wood to resound his name                                         Who bore the same.     His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key     Is best to celebrate this most high day.     Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song                                         Pleasant and long :     Or since all music is but three parts vied,                                         And multiplied ;     O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,     And make up our defects with his sweet art.             I got me flowers to straw thy way ;             I got me boughs off many a tree :             But thou wast up by break of day,             And brought’st thy sweets along with thee.             The Sunne arising in the East,             Though he give light, and th’ East perfume ;             If they should offer to contest             With thy arising, they presume.             Can there be any day but this,             Though many sunnes to shine endeavour ?             We count three hundred, but we misse :             There is but one, and that one ever. From Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Easter Tuesday

From the First Oration on Easter by St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop and Doctor

 Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him; yesterday I died with Him; today I am quickened with Him; yesterday I was buried with Him; today I rise with Him. But let us offer to Him Who suffered and rose again for us— you will think perhaps that I am going to say gold, or silver, or woven work or transparent and costly stones, the mere passing material of earth, that remains here below, and is for the most part always possessed by bad men, slaves of the world and of the Prince of the world. Let us offer ourselves, the possession most precious to God, and most fitting; let us give back to the Image what is made after the Image. Let us recognize our Dignity; let us honor our Archetype; let us know the power of the Mystery, and for what Christ died.

Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us become God's for His sake, since He for ours became Man. He assumed the worse that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich; He took upon Him the form of a servant that we might receive back our liberty; He came down that we might be exalted; He was tempted that we might conquer; He was dishonored that He might glorify us; He died that He might save us; He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who were lying low in the Fall of sin. Let us give all, offer all, to Him Who gave Himself a Ransom and a Reconciliation for us. But one can give nothing like oneself, understanding the Mystery, and becoming for His sake all that He became for ours.

Easter Monday

From Sermon I of the Resurrection, 1606, by Lancelot Andrewes

Rembrandt, The Supper at Emmaus

All the way did He preach to them, even till they came to Emmaus, and their hearts were hot within them, which was a good sign: but their eyes were not opened but ‘at the breaking of bread,’ and then they were. That is the best and surest sense we know, and therefore most to be accounted of. There we taste, and there we see; ‘taste and see how gracious the Lord is.’ There we are made to ‘drink of the Spirit,’ there our ‘hearts are strengthened and stablished with grace.’ There is the Blood which shall ‘purge our consciences from dead works,’ whereby we may ‘die to sin.’ There the Bread of God, which shall endue our souls with much strength; yea, multiply strength in them to live unto God; yea, multiply strength in them to live unto God; yea, to live to Him continually; for he that ‘eateth His flesh and drinketh His blood, dwelleth in Christ, and Christ in him;" not inneth, or sojourneth for a time, but dwelleth continually. And, never can we more truly, or properly say in Christo Jesu Domino nostro, as when we come new from that holy action, for then He is in us, and we in Him indeed.

Easter Day

The Easter Sermon of St. John Chrysostom

Are there any who are devout lovers of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
as well as to him that toiled from the first.

To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.
He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.
The deed He honors and the intention He commends.
Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!

First and last alike receive your reward;
rich and poor, rejoice together!
Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!
You that have kept the fast, and you that have not,
rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!

Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.
Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.
Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again;
for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed it by enduring it.
He destroyed Hell when He descended into it.
He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he said,
"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."
Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.
It was in an uproar because it is mocked.
It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.
It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.
It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.

Hell took a body, and discovered God.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;
for Christ having risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Holy Saturday

The Hiatus

Arnold Böcklin, The Deposition

If without the Son no one can see the Father (John 1:18), nor anyone come to the Father (John 14:6), and if, without him, the Father is revealed to nobody (Matthew 11:27), then when the Son, the Word of the Father is dead, then no one can see God, hear of him or attain him. And this day exists, when the Son is dead, and the Father, accordingly, inaccessible. Indeed, it is for the sake of this day that the Son became man—as Tradition has shown us. One can, no doubt, say: he came to bear our sins on the Cross, to take up the account-sheet of our debt, and to triumph thereby over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:14f): but this "triumph" is realized in the cry of God-forsakenness in the darkness (Mark 15:33–37), in "drinking the cup" and "being baptized with the baptism" (Mark 10:38) which lead down to death and hell. Then the silence closed around, as the sealed tomb will close likewise. At the end of the Passion, when the Word of God is dead, the Church has no words left to say. While the grain of corn is dying, there is nothing to harvest. This state of being dead is not, for the Word made man, one situation among others in the life of Jesus—as if the life thus briefly interrupted were simply to resume on Easter Day (though certain sayings of Jesus aimed at consoling his disciples about the "little while" may sound like that). Between the death of a human being, which is by definition the end from which he cannot return, and what we term "resurrection" there is no common measure. In the first place, we must take with full gravity this affirmation: in the same way that a man who undergoes death and burial is mute, no longer communicating or transmitting anything, so is with this man Jesus, who was the Speech, the Communication and the Mediation of God. He dies, and what it was about his life that made it revelation breaks off. Nor is this rupture simply the quasi-natural one of the dying man of the Old Testament who descends into the grave, returning to the dust from which he was made. This is the plunging down of the "Accursed One" (Galatians 3:13) far from God, of the One who is "sin" (II Corinthians 5:21) personified, who, falling where he is "thrown" (Apocalypse 20:14) "consumes" his own substance (Apocalypse 19:3); "Thou hast made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin" Isaiah 25:2):

Terror, and the pit, and the snare

are upon you, O inhabitant of the earth!

He who flees at the sound of the terror

shall fall into the pit:

and he who climbs out of the pit

shall be caught in the snare.

(Isaiah 24:17f; =Isaiah 48:43f)

This is the essence of the second death: that which is cursed by God in his definitive judgment (John 12:31) sinks down to the place where it belongs. In this final state, there is no time.

The danger is very real that we, as spectators of a drama beyond our powers of comprehension, will simply wait until the scene changes. For in this non-time there appears to be no possibility of following him who has become non-Word. In Hymn 35 Romanos ho Melodos sang of Mary at the foot of the Cross, and, in the dialogue between Mother and Son, he has the Son explain to his Mother how, like a doctor, he must strip off his clothes, so as to reach that place where the mortally ill are lying, and there heal them. The Mother pleads to be taken with him. He warns her: the whole creation will be shaken, earth and sea will flee away; the mountains will tremble, the tombs will be emptied . . . Then the dialogue is broken off, and the poet directs his prayer to the Son as "the owner of agony." We are not told whether all that remains is the anguished following gaze of Mary as her Son disappears into the inaccessible darkness where no one can reach him. The apostles wait in the emptiness. Or at least in the non-comprehension that there is a Resurrection and what it can be (John 20:r; Luke 24:21). The Magdalen can only seek the One she loves—naturally, as a dead man—at the hollow tomb, weeping from vacant eyes, groping after him with empty hands (John 20:11, 15). Filmed over with an infinite weariness unto death, no stirring of a living, hoping faith is to be found.

The poet makes Christ say:

I descended as low as being casts its shadows its shadows. I looked into the abyss, and cried, "Father, where are you?" But I only heard the everlasting ungovernable storm . . . And when I looked from the unmeasurable world to the eye of God, it was an empty socket, without foundation, that stared back at men. And eternity rested on the chaos, gnawing at it ruminating.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale,
 translated by Aidan Nichols, O.P.

Good Friday

Grunewald, Crucifixion

 He is despised and rejected of men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:

and we hid as it were our faces from him;

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:

yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

 But he was wounded for our transgressions,

he was bruised for our iniquities:

the chastisement of our peace was upon him;

and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned every one to his own way;

and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth:

he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter,

and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

He was taken from prison and from judgment:

and who shall declare his generation?

for he was cut off out of the land of the living:

for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death;

because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Isaiah 53:39 (Authorzed Version)