Category Archives: Christ
Christ the Source of Resurrection and Life
H/T Divineoffice.org
Christ the source of resurrection and life
Saint Paul rejoices in the knowledge that spiritual health has been restored to the human race. Death entered the world through Adam, he explains, but life has been given back to the world through Christ. Again he says: The first man, being from the earth, is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven and is heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthly man, the image of human nature grown old in sin, so let us bear the image of the heavenly man: human nature raised up, redeemed, restored and purified in Christ. We must hold fast to the salvation we have received. Christ was the first fruits, says the Apostle; he is the source of resurrection and life. Those who belong to Christ will follow him. Modeling their lives on his purity, they will be secure in the hope of his resurrection and of enjoying with him the glory promised in heaven. Our Lord himself said so in the gospel: Whoever follows me will not perish, but will pass from death to life.
Thus the passion of our Savior is the salvation of mankind. The reason why he desired to die for us was that he wanted us who believe in him to live for ever. In the fullness of time it was his will to become what we are, so that we might inherit the eternity he promised and live with him for ever.
Here, then, is the grace conferred by these heavenly mysteries, the gift which Easter brings, the most longed for feast of the year; here are the beginnings of creatures newly formed: children born from the life-giving font of holy Church, born anew with the simplicity of little ones, and crying out with the evidence of a clean conscience. Chaste fathers and inviolate mothers accompany this new family, countless in number, born to new life through faith. As they emerge from the grace-giving womb of the font, a blaze of candles burns brightly beneath the tree of faith. The Easter festival brings the grace of holiness from heaven to men. Through the repeated celebration of the sacred mysteries they receive the spiritual nourishment of the sacraments. Fostered at the very heart of holy Church, the fellowship of one community worships the one God, adoring the triple name of his essential holiness, and together with the prophet sings the psalm which belongs to this yearly festival: This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad. And what is this day? It is the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the author of light, who brings the sunrise and the beginning of life, saying of himself: I am the light of day; whoever walks in daylight does not stumble. That is to say, whoever follows Christ in all things will come by this path to the throne of eternal light.
Such was the prayer Christ made to the Father while he was still on earth: Father, I desire that where I am they also may be, those who have come to believe in me; and that as you are in me and I in you, so they may abide in us.
Good Friday of the Passion of Our Lord / DivineOffice.org
Office of Readings for Friday of Holy Week
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Good Friday of the Passion of Our Lord
“It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!’” (Lk 23:44-46).As Jesus died on the cross, all laws failed. Roman laws had accused an innocent man, natural laws had ceased to exist, and the moral law inherent in man’s own heart had crucified our Savior. As the centurion stated in Luke 23:47, “Certainly this man was innocent!”
As we continue in our reflection through Holy Week, today we must come to accept that justice may not exist in our cause. Things may not seem fair. It’s as if we must hold our breath… progress suspended.
Today’s paradox is we know a Godly commitment leads to good. We recognize that God is present with us as we strive to do His will. We have hope that new life will come; but today, unfortunately, can feel like a place without justice. Today, only the law of love remains.
Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ
The following meditations will probably rank high among many similar works which the
contemplative love of Jesus has produced; but it is our duty here plainly to affirm that they
have no pretensions whatever to be regarded as history.
They are but intended to take one of
the lowest places among those numerous representations of the Passion which have been
given us by pious writers and artists, and to be considered at the very utmost as the Lenten
meditations of a devout nun, related in all simplicity, and written down in the plainest and
most literal language, from her own dictation. To these meditations, she herself never
attached more than a mere human value, and never related them except through obedience,
and upon the repeated commands of the directors of her conscience.
The writer of the following pages was introduced to this holy religious by Count Leopold
de Stolberg. (The Count de Stolberg is one of the most eminent converts whom the Catholic
Church has made from Protestantism. He died in 1819.)
Wednesday of Holy Week / DivineOffice.org
“And I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheek to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced (Isaiah 50:5-7).”
Today we continue our focus on Holy Week and our meditations on the four Servant songs in Isaiah. Monday we heard Yahweh announce a chosen Servant, to bring sight and justice to the nations. Tuesday we read about the Savior’s mission to bring salvation to the very ends of the earth. Today’s Servant song shows the agony present in the task. Foreshadowing the Passion, we see a Servant who is suffering and insulted. Despite adversaries and darkness, the Servant remains steadfast. These three texts prepare us for death and the Cross. In the midst of these foreboding premonitions, we are reminded, though, that the Servant is not disgraced and God is ever-present, one with the mission.
In a recent homily Pope Francis echoed this divine mystery: “Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with hisWednesday of Holy Week
“And I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheek to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced (Isaiah 50:5-7).”
Today we continue our focus on Holy Week and our meditations on the four Servant songs in Isaiah. Monday we heard Yahweh announce a chosen Servant, to bring sight and justice to the nations. Tuesday we read about the Savior’s mission to bring salvation to the very ends of the earth. Today’s Servant song shows the agony present in the task. Foreshadowing the Passion, we see a Servant who is suffering and insulted. Despite adversaries and darkness, the Servant remains steadfast. These three texts prepare us for death and the Cross. In the midst of these foreboding premonitions, we are reminded, though, that the Servant is not disgraced and God is ever-present, one with the mission.
In a recent homily Pope Francis echoed this divine mystery: “Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the Cross. Christ’s Cross embraced with love never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved…”
By one death and resurrection the world was saved
From the book On the Holy Spirit by Saint Basil, bishop
By one death and resurrection the world was saved
When mankind was estranged from him by disobedience, God our Savior made a plan for raising us from our fall and restoring us to friendship with himself. According to this plan Christ came in the flesh, he showed us the gospel way of life, he suffered, died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead. He did this so that we could be saved by imitation of him, and recover our original status as sons of God by adoption.
To attain holiness, then, we must not only pattern our lives on Christ’s by being gentle, humble and patient, we must also imitate him in his death. Taking Christ for his model, Paul said that he wanted to become like him in his death in the hope that he too would be raised from death to life.
We imitate Christ’s death by being buried with him in baptism. If we ask what this kind of burial means and what benefit we may hope to derive from it, it means first of all making a complete break with our former way of life, and our Lord himself said that this cannot be done unless a man is born again. In other words, we have to begin a new life, and we cannot do so until our previous life has been brought to an end. When runners reach the turning point on a racecourse, they have to pause briefly before they can go back in the opposite direction. So also when we wish to reverse the direction of our lives there must be a pause, or a death, to mark the end of one life and the beginning of another.
Our descent into hell takes place when we imitate the burial of Christ by our baptism. The bodies of the baptized are in a sense buried in the water as a symbol of their renunciation of the sins of their unregenerate nature. As the Apostle says: The circumcision you have undergone is not an operation performed by human hands, but the complete stripping away of your unregenerate nature. This is the circumcision that Christ gave us, and it is accomplished by our burial with him in baptism. Baptism cleanses the soul from the pollution of worldly thoughts and inclinations: You will wash me, says the psalmist, and I shall be whiter than snow. We receive this saving baptism only once because there was only one death and one resurrection for the salvation of the world, and baptism is its symbol.
Be Holy! 