3rd SUNDAY OF LENT C: SIN IS DEADLY

3^RD SUNDAY OF LENT C

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

MARCH 24, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

Tragedies, whether they be natural or man-made, are usually deemed as punishments from God. I remember when “Yolanda” struck Samar, an insensitive post came out in the social media. It said that tragedy befell them because the people living there were all sinners. I suppose that the Lord was referring to this same mentality when he referred to the Galileans executed by Pontius Pilate and those 18 persons who perished at the collapse of the tower of Siloam. He asked: “Were they more guilty than anyone else in Jerusalem?” Were the victims of calamities more sinful than all of us? And the answer of the Lord was: “By no means!” And indeed, he is right. They cannot be regarded as greater sinners because all of us are sinners. All of us are guilty. That is why “if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

In the 2^nd reading, St. Paul gives us a clear explanation. He spoke of the Israelites who perished in the desert. He said: “These things happened as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil things as they did…These things happened to them as an example, and they have been written down as a warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.”

The Lord teaches us of the deadly effects of sin. Many of us take sin lightly because they are ignorant of what it can do to us. Sin is deadly. When sin entered the world, together with it came death. What happened to the executed Galileans and to the victims of the fallen tower of Siloam were the natural consequences of sin. If we were spared of such catastrophe, it was simply because our time has not yet come and we should not wait for it to happen. We must repent as soon as possible.

Sin is deadly and all of us are enslaved by it. Our afflictions are caused by sin. They do not come from God. They are the effects of sin. When we sin, we turn away from the Lord who is Life, Love, and Good. That is why we are afflicted by death, violence, and evil. Evil cannot come from God because He is holy. From the burning bush, God told Moses to come no nearer and to take off his sandals because the place where he stood was holy ground. “I have witnessed the affliction of my people and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well that they are suffering. Therefore, I have come down to rescue them…and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

The venerable Senyor of Pakil, Laguna

As we saw last time, God does not delight in our affliction. He does not delight in the death of the sinner. He is kind and merciful. That is why he came to save us. “He pardons all (our) iniquities, heals all (our) ills. He redeems (our) life from destruction, crowns (us) with kindness and compassion. He desires nothing but our salvation. Thus, he descended from heaven and took flesh from the Virgin’s womb. He took upon himself our affliction. Like the Galileans executed by Pilate as they offered sacrifice, he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. And in dying, Christ offered God the most perfect sacrifice. His Blood did not mingle with his sacrifice. His Blood was The Sacrifice itself. Like all men who were afflicted by death’s serious blow, he descended into hell. The sinless One shared the lot (kapalaran) of sinners. And he did this to take us out of hell. He resurrected from the dead and “when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive. And he bestowed gifts to men.” (Ephesians 4:8) Now, we eat the same spiritual food and drink from the spiritual rock who is Christ himself.

Therefore, let us repent while we can. Let us not wait for disaster to fall on us. He gives us a chance to bear fruits. He cultivates the ground around us and fertilizes us with the Eucharist, our spiritual food and drink. Let us turn from our evil ways and turn to Him who is kind and merciful. “For if (we) do not repent, (we) will all perish as they did!”

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

He humbled himself

HOLY THURSDAY 2018

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PERSONS

MARCH 29, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

This year’s celebration of Holy Thursday takes a special significance for me not only because it is the Year of the Clergy and Consecrated Persons but also because I am journeying this year towards my silver jubilee as a priest on November 30, 2018. I think added to this is the wonderful news announced at Chrism Mass this morning that I am retained to my assignment here as Parish priest for the next 3 years.

In the Holy Gospel today, we were told that “Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end…(He) was fully aware that the Father had given everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God.” The Lord Jesus knew who he really is…He is God the Son, the Lord and Master: “You call me Lord and Master and rightly so for indeed I am.” He makes no pretenses about this. He does not deny his greatness in an attitude of false humility. He knew who he was: he is the one to whose power the Father had given everything. And this knowledge of his own greatness makes what he did even so remarkable: “He rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist.” To me, St. Paul gives the appropriate interpretation of what Jesus did: “Though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not deem equality with God, something that was within his grasp. But rather he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” Do you remember the Transfiguration of Jesus? Jesus’ face shone like the sun and his garments because excessively brilliant. This brilliance, this external glory was what Jesus took off at his incarnation. The outer garments which he took off stood for the external glory of his Divinity which Jesus took off when he became man. This is what we call the Kenosis of Jesus. Jesus emptied himself and took the form of a slave, which is our human likeness. That towel which he tied around his waist was the human nature he assumed for himself. He was clad in the garments of a slave. He who is so great, so much like God his Father, humbled himself and became a slave. But the Incarnation was not the end of his humiliation. He humbled himself even further by obediently accepting death on a Cross. He poured water into a basin and washed the feet of his disciples. Feet washing is an act of courtesy shown by Jews to visitors considering the fact that the roads in Israel are either dusty or muddy. However, feet washing is a very menial task. It is an act so low…so demeaning a task that it is never assigned to a Jewish slave on account of his dignity as part of the chosen people of God. And so there he is…God the Son to whom everything has been given by the Father…he now washes the feet of his disciples. He performs the low and menial task of washing our feet. He washes us through the blood and water that will gush out of his wounded side. He gives us the bath of spiritual birth called Baptism and washes our feet with the absolution obtained from the Sacrament of Reconciliation. This is how he shows us his love. He loves us by going down so low as to wash our feet. I remember Florante of the work of Francisco Balagtas. He said: “O pag-ibig kapag ika’y pumasok sa puso nino man, hahamakin ang lahat, masunod ka lamang.” Jesus loved us and in that love, hinamak niya ang lahat, pati ang kanyang sarili.

And so he tells us: “If I, your Lord and Master, washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an model to follow so that as I have done for you, you should also do.” With this, we begin to ask ourselves: “Ano ang kaya kong gawin upang maipakita ko ang pag-ibig ko kay Hesus? Hinamak niya ang lahat, maging ang kanyang sarili, upang ipakita niya ang pagmamahal niya sa akin. Ano ang kaya kong hamakin para sa kanya?” What am I willing to do? How low am I willing to go, in order to prove my love for him? The bishop this morning reminded us priests: “that there is no assignment too poor, no task too menial, no service too low for us. We must be willing to bend so low if we are to be who we should be: ministers of Christ. Remember that no servant is greater than his master, no student is greater than his teacher. We are all servants. We go to wherever we are sent. We leave when we are dismissed.”

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

He falls alone

PALM SUNDAY B

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PERSONS

March 25, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

“You will all fall away!” so Jesus told his disciples during the last supper. To this, Peter and the other disciples objected: “Even if all will fall away, I will not…Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” And so it came to pass: at the garden, Peter, James and John could not stay awake and watch with Jesus even for an hour; Judas betrayed the Lord with a kiss; everybody deserted him and fled; Peter denied him. Even that mysterious young man who followed the Lord fled naked, leaving his garments behind. From the time of his arrest, Jesus was surrounded by his enemies: false witnesses testified against him, the Sanhedrin condemned him as worthy of death, the crowds demanded that he be crucified, soldiers mocked him, passersby insulted him, and even those who were crucified with him heaped insults on him. But the worst of all was that when Jesus cried out from the Cross: “Eloi, Eloi lema sabachthani?” no answer was heard from the Father…even the Father seemed to have abandoned him. In other words, Jesus died alone.

But it was when he died that the centurion who saw how Jesus died exclaimed: Truly this man was the Son of God. The women who followed him from Galilee and also from Jerusalem were seen watching from a distance. Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Sanhedrin came forward to bury Jesus. Indeed, the single grain of wheat fell to the ground and died. But when it died, it bore much fruit.

This single grain that fell to the ground is truly the King of Israel. This truth was professed by his enemies themselves. Pilate asked, “Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?” The soldiers who mocked him saluted him by saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” The chief priests and the scribes mocked him, “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down cross that we may see and believe.” The inscription of the charge above his head read: “The king of the Jews.” Indeed, the Holy Spirit has put this truth on the lips of Christ’s enemies in order make it more credible. If a person’s greatness is acknowledge by his rivals and enemies, that greatness becomes more believable than when it is said by one’s own friends and relatives.

And so, this single grain that fell and died is truly the King of Israel. Single handedly, he defeated the enemy. Alone, he took up the battle and he was victorious. God greatly exalted him and gave him a name which is above all other names. This is why today, we acclaim him: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!” Today, the Scriptures tell us: “Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your king comes, seated upon an ass’ colt.”  Let us welcome him with all the sincerity of our hearts. Let us “inwardly fulfill what we enact outwardly.” (Pre-1955 blessing) Christ bows down to us so that we should come back to the Father. Therefore, let us honor Christ by our sincere conversion. By submitting to his commands and teachings, let us truly profess: Truly, this man was the Son of God, the King of Israel.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

The Hour of Christ

5^th Sunday of Lent B

Year of the Clergy and Consecrated Persons

March 18, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

We have a saying” Pag oras mo na, oras mo na.” Oras here means death. It means that when your time is up, no matter how much money you have or how good your doctors are, if it is your time to die, nothing will keep you for dying. There seems to be some sense of fatalism here but what it says is true: there will be a time to die and when it comes, there is no escaping it.

The Lord Jesus today speaks of his “Hour.” In the Gospel according to John, the Hour of Jesus is a very important theme. It appears as early as the first miracle of Christ during the wedding at Cana. When Our Lady brought to his attention the problem of the newly wedded couple, Our Lord said to her: “My hour has not yet come.” Even when the Jews attempted to kill him or even arrest him, the Lord would escape unharmed because his Hour has not yet come. However, in today’s Gospel, that Hour has at last arrived: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

What is this hour all about? This refers to the hour of his death: the time when the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies in order to bear much fruit. When the wheat dies in the ground, mysteriously life is released from its shell (balat) and it produces thousands of other grains containing its same nature. Similarly, Christ’s death brings about the birth of many sons and daughters unto God, inheriting eternal life and participating in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

Although he is troubled, the Lord Jesus resolutely faces this hour because it was for this purpose that he came. He wants to glorify the Father by giving up his life for the sake of sinners. From the Cross, Jesus “offered loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Son though he was, Jesus learned obedience by his sufferings.” His obedience glorified God. In doing so, he casts out the “ruler of this world” and draws all men to himself. He is the Son of Man who ascends to the throne of God through the heavenly ladder, which is the Cross. By the Cross, he is lifted up to God. By the same Cross, we ascend to him. Jesus was glorified because he was obedient until death on the Cross. We ascend to God also using the same ladder. We ascend through obedience also until death. “When Jesus was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him.”

By his death, the Lord Jesus is ratifying a new covenant for us with God. This covenant is ratified, not by the blood of animals but by his own blood which was shed upon the Cross. This is the new covenant referred to by the Prophet Jeremiah: “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God and they shall be my people…All shall know me, says the Lord, for I will forgive their evil doing and remember their sin no more.” He writes his law upon our hearts by pouring upon us his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit reveals the Father and the Son to us. He gives an interior witness to Jesus in us. He Holy Spirit poured in our hearts brings about the forgiveness of our sins. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to obey God and to be faithful to this covenant. Therefore, as Christ faces his Hour, let us make the petition of the Greeks as our very own: “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” We would like to see him so that we may follow him. We will follow him to Jerusalem. We will follow him to the Cross. We would like to see his glory. We would like to be glorified with him by dying with him, by crucifying our disobedient hearts so that we may acquire hearts like his own: meek and humble, always obedient to the Father’s will.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

We do not know Christ until we know his sufferings

2^ND SUNDAY OF LENT B

YEAR OF THE CLERGY AND CONSECRATED PERSONS

FEBRUARY 25, 2018

Jesus, I trust in you!

Every 2^nd Sunday of Lent, we read the story of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Before the scandal of the Cross takes place, the Lord Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him to the mountain so that they may encounter the Blessed Trinity. On that mountain, the divine glory of Jesus as God’s only Son was revealed to them. His face shone like the sun and his clothing became dazzlingly white. The Holy Spirit appeared as that shining cloud that covered Jesus and the Father made his voice heard. He said: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him.” Both the Father and the Holy Spirit made Jesus known to Peter, James, and John. Jesus was revealed as God’s beloved Son.

But the very disciples to whom Jesus’ divinity was revealed seemed to have forgotten the revelation so easily. When Jesus was arrested in the garden, James was one of those who fled and abandoned the Lord. Peter dared to follow Jesus until the house of the high priest. There, he saw Jesus beaten up by the guards and so, when he was being identified by the servants as one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter denied the Lord 3 times: I do not know him. John followed Jesus and accompanied Mary his mother all the way to the foot of the Cross. It was there where he saw Jesus suffer and die. It was there where he saw Jesus’ side pierced with a lance. It was there where he saw the blood and water flowing from his Christ’s wounded side. But it was not until he saw the empty tomb that John believed: He saw and he believed. Thus, we understand now why Jesus admonished them not to relate the incident of the Transfiguration to others until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.

Apparently, Christ’s glory was revealed to the disciples in order to prepare them for the scandal of the Cross. And the Cross was truly a scandal. It was an incomprehensible act of Divine love. Seeing how Jesus was being beaten up, Peter was saying the truth when he said that he did not know Jesus. For no one will truly know Jesus unless he sees him Crucified and Risen from the dead. When we see Jesus on the Cross, we are confronted by the same scandal. The Cross reveals to us the incomprehensible depth of Divine Love. Abraham was prevented by an angel from consummating his sacrifice to God. An angel prevented him from killing Isaac: “Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy!” But no one prevented the Father from consummating the offering of Jesus his Son. “He did not spare his Son but handed him over for us all.” The consummation of Jesus’ sacrifice manifests to us the incomprehensible depth of God’s love. To what extent was God willing to do in order to save us? This baffles even the mind of St. Paul who asks: “Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us, who will condemn? Christ Jesus it is who died for us.” Seeing how Christ suffered for us, we will say: I thought I have already seen everything…but I did not realize that it will be like this. (Hindi ko akalain na hahantong ang lahat sa ganito.) God will not spare even his only Son so that he might acquit us of our sins.

Indeed, the glory of Christ Crucified is the glory of God. The depth of Christ’s humiliation is the depth of God’s love. Thus, we have not known Christ until we know his suffering. The Cross truly scandalizes us but it opens up for us the true revelation of who Jesus is. Thus St. Paul would say, “I consider everything as rubbish except the knowledge of Jesus and him Crucified.”

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

The Cross Exalts

PRAISED BE JESUS, MARY, AND JOSEPH!

The Cross was devised by the Romans to bring about a slow, painful, and humiliating death. Death by crucifixion was so painful and humiliating that the Romans never executed their own kind in this way. Even to this very day, Christians in Syria are hung on crosses by their Muslim persecutors. They would not do this to their own kind. Thus, the cross is an instrument of torture, humiliation, and death.

However, today, we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. What was once an instrument of torture and death is now exalted as an instrument of salvation and life. What was once a symbol of humiliation is now a symbol of glory. What was once a sign of defeat is now an emblem of victory. All these because Jesus, the Son of the living God, mounted upon the wood of the Cross and there, he conquered sin and death. Indeed, the Cross is in itself an irony. In the Cross, we see how greatness is achieved by humiliation, life is gained by death, and victory is attained by seeming defeat. Our Lord Jesus emptied himself, descended from his heavenly throne and took upon himself the form of a human slave, and humbling himself even further, obediently accepted even death on a Cross. But by descending into the depths of humiliation, Jesus was exalted and glorified…given by the Father a Name which is above all other names. “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.”

The Cross is exalted. At the same time, the Cross exalts! The Cross lifted up the Son of Man not only by hanging him between heaven and earth but also by glorifying Christ who died on its arms. If our Lord entered into his glory through the humiliation of the Cross, so too we have to follow him along the same path of the Cross in order to enter into the kingdom of Heaven. St. Louis de Montfort said: “To desire God’s glory is excellent, but to desire and pray for it without resolving to suffer all things is both foolish and extravagant. ‘You do not know what you are asking…’ ‘We must experience many hardships before we enter the kingdom of heaven.’ To enter this kingdom you must suffer many crosses and tribulations.” (Loius de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross, 24.)

Today, we pray for the persecuted Christians in Iraq and Syria. We are horrified by what we hear about them: how their homes and properties are confiscated, how their men are executed, how their children are systematically beheaded, how their women are abused and sold as slaves – yes, we are horrified by the suffering that they endure. But through their sufferings and humiliation, we see the Cross being exalted and we see the Cross exalting them. We stand in awe before the strength and perseverance of their faith. We bow in great respect for the sacrifice of the martyrs. Before these witnesses of Christ, we are shamed to find ourselves incapable of bearing such heavy crosses and tribulations. We are also obliged to bear witness to Jesus in the same way. Let us remember that the sacrament of Confirmation “gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross.” (CCC, 1303.)

As the threat of ISIS becomes more and more disturbing by the day, we realize that the time draws near when we will need to enter even more deeply into the mystery of the Cross of Jesus. Let us not fear the Cross but rather, let us welcome it and embrace it. “Rejoice and be glad when God favors you with one of his choicest crosses; for without realizing it, you are blessed with the greatest gift of heaven, the greatest gift of God…The world calls this madness, degradation, stupidity, a lack of judgment and of common sense. They are blind: let them say what they like. This blindness, which makes them view the cross in a human and distorted way, is a source of glory for us. Every time they cause us to suffer by their ridicule and insults, they are presenting us with jewels, setting us on thrones, and crowning us with laurels…The glory of one who know how to suffer is so great that heaven, angels, and men, and even God himself, gaze on him with joy as a most glorious sight…But if this glory is so great even on earth, what will it be in heaven? Who could understand fully that eternal weight of glory which a single moment spent in cheerfully carrying a cross obtains for us? Who could understand the glory gained in heaven…by a whole lifetime of crosses and sufferings?” (Montfort, 35-39.) The triumph of the Cross is the triumph of the Resurrection. “Formerly, the Cross led to the Resurrection; now it is the Resurrection that introduces us to the Cross. Resurrection and the Cross are trophies of our salvation!” (Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem)

Let us not run away from the Cross. Rather, let us embrace it for the sake of the glory that awaits us. As true witnesses of Jesus, let us spread and defend the faith. Let us confess the name of Christ boldly. Let us never be ashamed of the Cross.

Jesus, I trust in you. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

The Cross: The Requisite for Discipleship

Christ, the Strength of the Martyrs!

PRAISED Be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

Last week, Simon received the name Peter. Today, he is called Satan. Last week, he was praised for receiving revelation from the heavenly Father. Today, he is rebuked for thinking not as God does but as human beings do. Simon Peter was rebuked for opposing the plan of the Lord to go to Jerusalem in order to suffer and die in order to be raised up. Many of us might object: Was it wrong for St. Peter to desire for the Lord’s safety and well-being? Apparently, we find nothing wrong with what Peter said. But this is because we also are thinking as humans do. We are not thinking as God does.

The Lord called Peter “Satan” because Peter was opposing the mission of Jesus to suffer and die on the Cross. He was acting as an “enemy of the cross”. In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul spoke about the enemies of the Cross: “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.”  (Phil. 3:18-19) To detest the Cross is to be its enemy.

To the Lord, the Cross plays an integral part of his mission. To him, it is the only means to enter into his glory. Thus, he makes it a requirement for discipleship. Anyone who wishes to be his disciple must embrace the Cross: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” The doctrine of the Cross opposes the way of the world which is the way of self-preservation: “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” The way of the world is self-preservation through accumulation. The world regards suffering as evil which should be avoided. We are taught that we must accumulate as much as we can in order to shield ourselves from suffering. But the Lord himself tells us that the rejection of the Cross is the path to destruction: “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?”

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross wrote: “The entirely comfortable being-at-home in the world, the satiety of pleasures that it offers, the demands for their pleasures and the matter-of-course consent to these demands – all of this is darkness in God’s eyes and incompatible with the divine light. It has to be totally uprooted if room for God is to be made in the soul. Meeting this demand means engaging in battle with one’s own nature all along the line, taking up one’s cross and delivering oneself up to be crucified.” (Edith Stein, The Science of the Cross, 47.)

The path to life is the path of self-denial. The way of the Cross is the way of discipleship. But what does it mean to deny oneself and to take up the Cross? St. John of the Cross explains this through maxims. He said: “Take care that your inclination is ever directed: not toward the easier, but toward the more difficult; not toward the pleasant, but toward the unpleasant; not toward the restful, but toward the troublesome; not toward the more, but toward the less, not toward what brings you more joy, but what brings displeasure; not towards what prepares consolation for you, but toward what makes you disconsolate; not toward the higher and more valuable, but toward the lowly and insignificant; not toward what wants to be something, but toward what wants to be nothing. Seek not what is the better in things, but what is worse. Demand for the sake of Christ to enter into total denudation and freedom and poverty from all there is in the world.” (CWJC, A.1.13.6-8.)

Jesus, I trust in you. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee! 

Like the Column of Fire, He Goes before us.

Christ is baptized to make the water holy

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

John the Baptist hesitated to baptize Jesus when the Lord came to him at the river Jordan. He said: “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me.” However, the Lord insisted because “it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Why would the Holy One desire baptism? Wasn’t John’s Baptism a baptism of repentance? How could the Lord Jesus desire to be baptized when in fact, he had no sin to repent for? St. Maximus of Turin gives this answer: “Christ is baptized, not to be made holy by the water, but to make the water holy, and by his cleansing to purify the waters which he touched. For the consecration of Christ involves a more significant consecration of the water. For when the Savior is washed, all water for our baptism is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages. Christ is the first to be baptized, then, so that Christians will follow after him with confidence.” St. Maximus looked back at the story of the crossing of the Israelites on the Red Sea. The people of Israel followed a column of fire that went before them through the Red Sea. The column first went through the waters to prepare a path for those who followed.

“… in the column of fire [Christ] he went through the sea before the sons of Israel; so now, in the column of his body, he goes through baptism before the Christian people. At the time of the Exodus the column provided light for the people who followed; now it gives light to the hearts of believers. Then it made a firm pathway through the waters; now it strengthens the footsteps of faith in the bath of baptism.” But Christ went before us not only through the ceremonial waters of the River Jordan. The Lord kept referring to a Baptism that he had to receive and this Baptism would be the baptism of his death. The waters of baptism do not simply refer to the cleansing of sin. It primarily refers to death and resurrection. His immersion in the waters of the Jordan was symbolic of what he would later on do: he would cross the waters of death in order to pass from this world to his Father. By doing so, he will obtain for us forgiveness of sins and also our adoption as children of God by sending the Holy Spirit to us through our own baptism. The mystery of the Cross continues to loom over Christ. This time the shadow of the Cross hovers over the waters of the Jordan. The Cross makes sacred the waters. The Cross gives to us the Spirit-filled waters of baptism. Had Jesus not died on the Cross, the Baptismal water would remain to be ordinary, natural water…without power to save. It would be nothing more than a mere symbol of repentance and nothing more. It is the death of Jesus on the Cross that sends the Holy Spirit upon the Baptismal water. Thus, the Spirit-filled waters of Baptism are able to wash away original sin and bring about our adoption as sons and daughters of God. Jesus Christ was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and power. He is the one who sends the Holy Spirit to us. He heals all of us who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him.

Jesus, I trust in you. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. 

The Humility of Christ and the Cross (25th Sunday in Ordinary Time B)

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

Today, if it were not a Sunday, is the Feast of St. Padre Pio, a Franciscan friar who lived in our lifetime and who was known as the priest who bore the sacred wounds of our Lord in his own flesh for 50 years. There are many devotees to this saint today because they consider him as a great miracle worker. But very few realize that this man taught us to love the Cross of Christ and embrace it in our own bodies.

As in last Sunday’s gospel, the Lord teaches us, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and 3 days after his death, the Son of Man will rise.” At the very heart of the mystery of Christ is the mystery of the Cross. It is Christ who is the Just One referred to in the Book of Wisdom – the One whom the wicked find obnoxious because “he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for our transgressions, and challenges us with violations of our training.” Jesus is the Just One who is put to the test “with revilement and torture…so that we may have proof of his gentleness and patience.”  And indeed, he was put to test. On the Cross, in the face of much cruelty and revilement, the Lord was the perfection of gentleness and patience. He is truly the Wisdom from above, as the Apostle St. James said: “pure, peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.” On the Cross, Jesus truly manifested himself as the Son of God. His gentle compliance to the will of the Father was the fulfillment of the 1^st reading: “If the just One be the Son of God, God will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes.” On the Cross, Jesus truly became the last of all and the servant of all. He manifested this when on the night he was betrayed, he washed the feet of his disciples. He, who is the first born of all creation, lowered himself to wash his disciples’ feet.

It is the simplicity of the Son of God on the Cross that Padre Pio emulated. Even though he was famous on account of the stigmata on his body, Padre Pio continued to be a very simple man: “I am only a friar who wants to pray.” Padre Pio says: “Jesus likes to give Himself to simple souls; we must make an effort to acquire this beautiful virtue of simplicity and to hold it in great esteem. Jesus said: Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. But before He taught us this by His words he had already put it into practice. He became a child and gave us the example of that simplicity he was to teach us later also by his words. Let us empty our hearts and keep far from us all human prudence. We must try to keep our thoughts pure, our ideas upright and honest and our intentions holy." (From a letter to Padre Agostino from Pietrelcina, July 10, 1915. Diflumeri, Father Gerardo, ed. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, Letters, Vol. 1, Correspondence with His Spiritual Directors (1910-1922). 2nd ed. Vol. 1. San Giovanni: Our Lady of Grace Capuchin Friary, 1984. 677-678.)

As on the Cross, Jesus lowered himself to become last of all, so should we go with him into the depth of his self-abasement. "In order to succeed in reaching our ultimate end we must follow the divine Head, who does not wish to lead the chosen soul on any way other than the one he followed; by that, I say, of abnegation and the Cross." (August 14, 1914, Epistolario II, p. 155.) 

Jesus, I trust in you. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

The Difference between the thoughts of God and the thoughts of men

Jesus, I trust in you!

St. Mark addressed his Gospel to the Christians who were being persecuted for their faith. Thus, the image of Jesus which he presents to them is that of the Suffering Servant of God, one who teaches that “the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise again after three days.” He rebukes Peter for resisting our Lord’s destiny as the Suffering Servant. He calls Peter “Satan” because he was “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

The Lord shows the difference of the thoughts of God from the thoughts of man. Man naturally thinks in terms of convenience, comfort, and ease. This is the reason why the RH bill is very attractive to many people. It promises couples of a life of ease and comfort because, admittedly, the less children they have, the less responsibilities they still need to fulfill. Less responsibility mean a lifestyle of comfort and ease. That is why, as I have said a few weeks ago, many people would rather listen to the human teachings that guarantee comfortable lives than the commandments of God that challenge us to transcend the narrow limitations of the human point of view.

But human beings do not think as God does. Men think in terms of convenience but God thinks in terms of righteousness and truth. Men think in terms of accumulation but God thinks in terms of self-emptying. Men think in terms of honors and applause but God thinks in terms of humiliations and self-denial. The ways of God, the way of suffering, self-denial, and daily cross, can only be explained by who God is: God is Love. Padre Pio used to say: “He who begins to love must be willing to suffer.” This willingness to suffer is due to the fact that love and sacrifice go together. Love and sacrifice is what the Cross is about.

We constantly search for what will make us happy. Wrongly do we think that happiness is brought by convenience and material satisfaction. True happiness is found in God. True happiness is found in heaven. And the only way to heaven is through the Cross. Christ entered his glory only through the Cross. “The foot of the Cross is the gateway to heaven.” “Life is a Calvary and we must climb it cheerfully…From Calvary, we go to Tabor.” The way of suffering is the way of glory. “Glory will be ours on the condition that we endure suffering.”

By the Cross, the Lord proved his love for us. By the Cross, let us prove our love for Him. “In suffering, we give to God something which we cannot do in paradise…The angels are jealous of us because they cannot suffer.” “Suffering is a sure sign that God loves us…Accepting sufferings will perfect us and sanctify us.” Let us deny ourselves, carry our Cross, and follow Jesus.

Jesus, I trust in you. O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Calvary and the Mass by Fulton Sheen

On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, we celebrate the promulgation of Summorum Pontificum four years ago. I started celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite everyday when the Motu Propio was promulgated. The Prologue of Archbishop Fulton Sheen to his work "Calvary and the Mass" is worth our consideration on this blessed day:

THERE are certain things in life which are too beautiful to be forgotten, such as the love of a mother. Hence we treasure her picture. The love of soldiers who sacrificed themselves for their
country is likewise too beautiful to be forgotten, hence we revere their memory on Memorial Day. But the greatest blessing which ever came to this earth was the visitation of the Son of God in the form and habit of man. His life, above all lives, is too beautiful to be forgotten, hence we treasure the divinity of His words in Sacred Scripture, and the charity of His deeds in our daily
actions. Unfortunately this is all some souls remember, namely His Words and His Deeds; important as these are, they are not the greatest characteristic of the Divine Saviour.

The most sublime act in the history of Christ was His Death. Death is always important for it seals a destiny. Any dying man is a scene. Any dying scene is a sacred place. That is why the great literature of the past which has touched on the emotions surrounding death has never passed out of date. But of all deaths in the record of man, none was more important than the Death of Christ. Everyone else who was ever born into the world, came into it to live; our Lord came into it to die. Death was a stumbling block to the life of Socrates, but it was the crown to
the life of Christ. He Himself told us that He came "to give his life as redemption for many"; that no one could take away His Life; but He would lay it down of Himself.

If then Death was the supreme moment for which Christ lived, it was therefore the one thing He wished to have remembered. He did not ask that men should write down His Words into a Scripture; He did not ask that His kindness to the poor should be recorded in history; but He did ask that men remember His Death. And in order that its memory might not be any haphazard narrative on the part of men, He Himself instituted the precise way it should be
recalled.

The memorial was instituted the night before He died, at what has since been called "The Last Supper." Taking bread into His Hands, He said: "This is my body, which shall be delivered for you," i.e., delivered unto death. Then over the chalice of wine, He said, "This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins." Thus in an unbloody symbol of the parting of the Blood from the Body, by the separate consecration of Bread and Wine, did Christ pledge Himself to death in the sight of God and men, and represent His death which was to come the next afternoon at three. He was offering Himself as a Victim to be immolated, and that men might never forget that "greater love than this no man has, that a man lay down his life for his friends," He gave the divine command to the Church: "Do
this for a commemoration of me."

The following day that which He had prefigured and foreshadowed, He realized in its completeness, as He was crucified between two thieves and His Blood drained from His Body for the redemption of the world.

The Church which Christ founded has not only preserved the Word He spoke, and the wonders He wrought; it has also taken Him seriously when He said: "Do this for a commemoration of me." And that action whereby we re-enact His Death on the Cross is the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which we do as a memorial what He did at the Last Supper as the prefiguration of His Passion.

Hence the Mass is to us the crowning act of Christian worship. A pulpit in which the words of our Lord are repeated does not unite us to Him; a choir in which sweet sentiments are sung brings us no closer to His Cross than to His garments. A temple without an altar of sacrifice is non-existent among primitive peoples, and is meaningless among Christians. And so in the Catholic Church the altar, and not the pulpit or the choir or the organ, is the
center of worship, for there is re-enacted the memorial of His Passion. Its value does not depend on him who says it, or on him who hears it; it depends on Him who is the One High Priest and Victim, Jesus Christ our Lord. With Him we are united, in spite of our nothingness; in a certain sense, we lose our individuality for the time being; we unite our intellect and our will, our heart and our soul, our body and our blood, so intimately with Christ, that the Heavenly Father sees not so much us with our imperfection, but rather sees us , the Beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. The Mass is for that reason the greatest event in the history of mankind; the only Holy Act which keeps the wrath of God
from a sinful world, because it holds the Cross between heaven and earth, thus renewing that decisive moment when our sad and tragic humanity journeyed suddenly forth to the fullness of supernatural life.

What is important at this point is that we take the proper mental attitude toward the Mass, and remember this important fact, that the Sacrifice of the Cross is not something which happened
nineteen hundred years ago. It is still happening. It is not something past like the signing of the Declaration of Independence; it is an abiding drama on which the curtain has not yet rung down. Let it not be believed that it happened a long time ago, and therefore no more concerns us than anything else in the past. That is why, when our Blessed Lord ascended the heights of Calvary, He was fittingly stripped of His garments: He would save the world without the trappings of a passing world. His garments belonged to time, for they localized Him, and fixed Him as a dweller in Galilee. Now that He was shorn of them and utterly dispossessed of earthly things, He belonged not to Galilee, not to a Roman province, but to the world. He became the universal poor man of the world, belonging to no one people, but to all men.

To express further the universality of the Redemption, the cross was erected at the crossroads of civilization, at a central point between the three great cultures of Jerusalem, Rome, and Athens, in whose names He was crucified. The cross was thus placarded before the eyes of men, to arrest the careless, to appeal to the
thoughtless, to arouse the worldly. It was the one inescapable fact that the cultures and civilizations of His day could not resist. It is also the one inescapable fact of our day which we cannot resist.

The figures at the Cross were symbols of all who crucify. We were there in our representatives. What we are doing now to the Mystical Christ, they were doing in our names to the historical Christ. If we are envious of the good, we were there in the Scribes and Pharisees. If we are fearful of losing some temporal advantage by embracing Divine Truth and Love, we were there in Pilate. If we trust in material forces and seek to conquer through the world instead of through the spirit, we were there in Herod. And so the story goes on for the typical sins of the world. They all blind us to the fact that He is God. There was therefore a kind of inevitability about the Crucifixion. Men who were free to sin were also free to crucify.

As long as there is sin in the world the Crucifixion is a reality. As the poet has put it:

"I saw the son of man go by,
Crowned with a crown of thorns.
'Was it not finished Lord,' said I,
'And all the anguish borne?'

"He turned on me His awful eyes;
'Hast Thou not understood?
So every soul is a Calvary
And every sin a rood.'"

We were there then during that Crucifixion. The drama was already completed as far as the vision of Christ was concerned, but it had not yet been unfolded to all men and all places and all times. If a motion picture reel, for example, were conscious of itself, it would know the drama from beginning to end, but the spectators in the theater would not know it until they had seen it unrolled upon the screen. In like manner, our Lord on the Cross saw in His eternal mind, the
whole drama of history, the story of each individual soul, and how later on it would react to His Crucifixion; but though He saw all, we could not know how we would react to the Cross until we were unrolled upon the screen of time. We were not conscious of being present there on Calvary that day, but He was conscious of our presence. Today we know the role we played in the theater of Calvary, by the way we live and act now in the theater of the twentieth century.

That is why Calvary is actual; why the Cross is the crisis; why in a certain sense the scars are still open; why Pain still stands deified, and why blood like falling stars is still dropping upon
our souls. There is no escaping the Cross not even by denying it as the Pharisees did; not even by selling Christ as Judas did; not even by crucifying Him as the executioners did. We all see it, either to embrace it in salvation, or to fly from it into misery.

But how is it made visible? Where shall we find Calvary perpetuated? We shall find Calvary renewed, re-enacted, re-presented, as we have seen, in the Mass. Calvary is one with the Mass, and the Mass is one with Calvary, for in both there is the same Priest and Victim. The Seven Last Words are like the seven parts of the Mass. And just as there are seven notes in music admitting an infinite variety of harmonies and combinations, so
too on the Cross there are seven divine notes, which the dying Christ rang down the centuries, all of which combine to form the beautiful harmony of the world's redemption.

Each word is a part of the Mass. The First Word, "Forgive," is the Confiteor; the Second Word, "This Day in Paradise," is the Offertory; the Third Word, "Behold Thy Mother," is the Sanctus;
the Fourth Word, "Why hast Thou abandoned Me," is the Consecration; the Fifth Word, "I thirst," is the Communion; the Sixth Word, "It is finished," is the Ite, Missa Est; the Seventh
Word, "Father, into Thy Hands," is the Last Gospel.

Picture then the High Priest Christ leaving the sacristy of heaven for the altar of Calvary. He has already put on the vestment of our human nature, the maniple of our suffering, the stole of priesthood, the chasuble of the Cross. Calvary is his cathedral; the rock of Calvary is the altar stone; the sun turning to red is the sanctuary lamp; Mary and John are the living side altars; the Host is His Body; the wine is His Blood. He is upright as Priest, yet He is prostrate as Victim. His Mass is about to begin.

Christianity as Counter Culture

Last Sunday, the Lord Jesus declared the blessedness of Simon and even called him Peter upon whom he builds his Church. Today, he does the opposite: the Lord rebuked Peter and called him Satan. You might immediately conclude that the Lord is fickle-minded: he says one thing today and then its exact opposite the next day. It is easy to accuse the Lord of such because we forget that the apparent contradiction of the names he used on Simon were his response to Simon’s declarations. Jesus called Simon blessed because he listened to the Father. His declaration that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, was something which can be revealed only “by my Father in heaven.” On the other hand, today, Jesus called Simon “Satan” because “you are thinking not as God does but as human beings do.” Simon found the idea of Jesus having to suffer and die as repulsive to his dignity as Son of the Living God. There seems to be nothing wrong about what Simon Peter said. After all, none of us would ever entertain the idea of a loved one having to suffer and die. We humanly find suffering and death as repulsive and as an evil to avoid. But, as Jesus said, this is how human beings think…not God. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. We prefer the path of self-indulgence. But His way is one of self-denial. We pursue a burden-free life. He tells us to carry our cross. We want to do things our own way. He tells us to follow him. We measure profits by gains and accumulations. He measures it by losses: “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?”

The contradiction is so very obvious and we, Christians, find ourselves constantly pressured to compromise with the world in order to make life easier for ourselves. The world has resorted to name-calling to discredit the Church’s fidelity to the teaching of Christ. It has called us “antiquated”, “medieval”, and “irrelevant.” And oftentimes, the world issues us the threat that unless we swim with the tide and move with the times, the Church will simply disappear in anonymity. But to do this is to abandon the uniqueness of the Christian Gospel. To think as human beings do and to oppose the mind of God is to put a hindrance to the spread of the Kingdom of God on earth. The Church must not adjust to the culture of modern times. Rather, she must present to men a counter-culture. St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, admonishes us: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” The Christian way is the way of the Cross. The Cross is the sign of contradiction. Christ is the sign of contradiction. And to follow Jesus along this way of the Cross is to swim against the current. To walk along the path of self-denial is to walk against the flow. When we adjust our doctrines and way of life to the standards of the world, we do the world a disservice because we deprive humanity of that opportunity to know Jesus Christ and his Truth that sets us free. What the world needs now is not a Church that dances to its tune, but one who dares to raise the Cross as the only sign of hope and of salvation. GK Chesterton said: in this day and age we need “not a Church that is right when the world is right, but a Church that is right when the world is wrong.” “Whoever loses his life for my sake,” says the Lord, will find it.” Therefore, “offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”

Late Posting of Good Friday Meditations

When the High Priest questioned him about his doctrines, the Lord Jesus responded: “I have spoken publicly in the world. I have always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing.” In his Sacred Humanity, he was true to himself as the Word of the Father. The Holy Father wrote in his Apostolic Exhortation, Verbum Domini: “Reading the Gospel accounts, we see how Jesus’ own humanity appears in all its uniqueness precisely with regard to the word of God. In his perfect humanity he does the will of the Father at all times; Jesus hears his voice and obeys it with his entire being; he knows the Father and he keeps his word (cf. Jn 8:55); he speaks to us of what the Father has told him (cf. Jn 12:50); I have given them the words which you gave me” (Jn 17:8). Jesus thus shows that he is the divine Logos which is given to us, but at the same time the new Adam, the true man, who unfailingly does not his own will but that of the Father. He “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man” (Lk 2:52). In a perfect way, he hears, embodies and communicates to us the word of God (cf. Lk 5:1).”

We have just meditated on the 7 last words of Jesus. I am really amazed at the fact that even as he hung upon the Cross, Jesus continued to preach to the world. The Cross was his pulpit and the 7 last words were probably his greatest sermon. Towards the end, he declared: It is finished! “And bowing his head, he gave up his Spirit.” The Word says no more! “…here we find ourselves before the “word of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18). The word is muted; it becomes mortal silence, for it has “spoken” exhaustively, holding back nothing of what it had to tell us. The Fathers of the Church, in pondering this mystery, attributed to the Mother of God this touching phrase: “Wordless is the Word of the Father, who made every creature which speaks, lifeless are the eyes of the one at whose word and whose nod all living things move”. Here that “greater” love, the love which gives its life for its friends (cf. Jn 15:13), is truly shared with us.”

“The Word is muted, it becomes mortal silence…” We stand before this mortal silence…before this powerful “word of the Cross.” We are used to say: Dead men tell no tales. Such cannot be said about the Lord because if he had taught us so much while he preached along the Sea of Galilee, he taught us more as he hung lifeless on the Cross. So many have found strength and solace simply by looking at that silent and lifeless God on the Cross. “They shall look upon him whom they have pierced” Looking at him, what do we see? In him, we see our iniquities and the sufferings we deserve on account of them. In him we see the gravity of our offences and the consequences of our sins: “For it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offences, crushed by our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way, but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all.”

But not only the ugliness of sin do we see as we look at him. Ironically, in his hideous appearance, we behold the countenance of his love. The love that we see in him is one that exhausts itself, one that bears sufferings for the sins of others, one that forgives, one that triumphs over evil. Yes, it is a love that triumphs over evil. Suffering does not have the last say in him. And neither does death. “The Cross represents the humiliations of Christ; but since the day when Jesus was nailed to it, it occupies a place of honor in our churches. Instrument of our salvation, the cross becomes for Christ the price of his glory: ’Did not the Christ have to suffer these things before entering into His glory?’ (Lk. 24:26)” (Bl. Columba Marmion, Christ In His Mysteries, 306.) Christ’s passion is the measure of his glory. “The glory of Jesus is infinite because He, being God, has in His Passion gone to the utmost degree of suffering and humiliation. And it is because He has so deeply abased Himself that God has given Him such glory: ‘Therefore God the Father has exalted Him’ (Phil. 2:9).” (Marmion, 304.)

Powerful in life, Jesus is even more powerful in death – for in dying, Jesus restores to us what the devil has destroyed: the likeness of God in the human soul. “So marred was his look beyond human semblance” and he allowed it to be so in order to restore to us the beautiful likeness of God. The baptised soul, the saint in heaven, is the wonderful masterpiece of Him who hangs lifeless upon the Cross.

“Because of his afflictions, he shall see the light in fullness of days, through his sufferings, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear. Therefore, I shall give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; and he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses.”

On Confessing the Lordship of Christ

To the unbeliever’s eye, the passion of our Lord seems to be a story of a shameful defeat. The man who was acclaimed as a prophet and a wonderworker, much admired by many, walks to his death, bearing the instrument of his execution. Abandoned by his disciples, surrounded by his enemies and by a jeering crowd, Jesus was truly forlorn. He cries out from the cross: Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But that is what the unbeliever sees. The Gospel writer, St. Matthew, helps us look at these sad events from the point of view of faith. First, St. Matthew shows us clearly that everything that happened in that day happened in order to fulfill the scriptures. When one of his disciples cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, Jesus said to him: “Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than 12 legions of angels? But then, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled which say that it must come to pass this way?...But all this has come to pass that the writings of the prophets may be fulfilled.” The concern was to show that all this is the fulfillment of Sacred Scriptures. These events were not an unfortunate succession of coincidences but rather, these were premeditated events – carefully planned by the Blessed Trinity with a specific outcome in mind. The objective is clearly our salvation. This took place for us men and for our salvation (qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem…) In fact, it did not take long for the objectives to be achieved. Immediately after the Lord expired, “the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” Last Sunday, we saw how Lazarus, the friend of Christ, was raised from the dead. Today, we see not one, not two, but many saints coming forth from their tombs. By this, Christ’s glory is revealed: “From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Because of this, to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God is no longer deemed as blasphemy as the chief priest supposed. To acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is to profess the truth. To confess this truth is to glorify the Father: “at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

This is what we are preparing to do throughout the season of Lent. We pray, we fast, we confess our guilt and rectify our ways during this holy season so that Easter may find us worthy of professing the faith that saves: “For if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10) As Lent draws to a close, let us intensify our prayer and fasting. Let us turn with all our hearts to the Lord and confess our sins so that when the Easter Triduum comes we may be worthy to make the centurion’s confession our own: “Truly, this was the Son of God!”

On Contemplating the Passion of the Lord

True reverence for the Lord's passion means fixing the eyes of our heart on Jesus crucified and recognizing in him our true humanity,

The earth - our earthly nature - should tremble at the suffering of the Redeemer. The rocks - the hearts of unbelievers - should burst asunder. The dead, imprisoned in the tombs of their mortality, should come forth, the massive stones now ripped apart. Foreshadowings of the future resurrection should appear in the holy city, the Church of God: what is to happen to our bodies should now take place in our hearts.

No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ. His prayer brought benefit to the multitude that raged against him. How much more does it bring to those who turn to him in repentance.

Ignorance has been destroyed, obstinacy has been overcome. The sacred blood of Christ has quenched the flaming sword that barred access to the tree of life. The age-old night of sin has given place to the true light.

St. Leo the Great, pope

Sermo 15, De passione Domini, 3-4: PL 54, 366-367

Office of Readings, Thursday Lent IV

On the Cross

...the world needs the Cross. The Cross is not just a private symbol of devotion, it is not just a badge of membership of a certain group within society, and in its deepest meaning it has nothing to do with the imposition of a creed or a philosophy by force. It speaks of hope, it speaks of love, it speaks of victory of non violence over oppression. It speaks of God raising up the lowly, empowering the weak, conquering division, and overcoming hatred with love. A world without the Cross would be a world without hope, a world in which torture and brutality would go unchecked, the weak would be exploited and greed would have the final word. Man's inhumanity to man would be manifested in ever more horrific ways, and there would be no end to the vicious cycle of violence. Only the Cross puts an end to it. While no earthly power can save us from the consequences of our sins, and no earthly power can defeat injustice at its source, nevertheless the saving intervention of our loving God has transformed the reality of sin and death into its opposite. That is what we celebrate when we glory in the Cross of our Redeemer. Rightly does St. Andrew of Crete describe the Cross as "more noble, more precious than anything on earth [...] for in it and through it and for it all the riches of our salvation were stored away and restored to us" (Oratio X; PG 97, 1018-1019).

Dear brother priests, dear religious, dear catechists, the message of the Cross has been entrusted to us, so that we can offer hope to the world. When we proclaim Christ crucified, we are proclaiming not overselves, but him. We are not offering our own wisdom to the world, nor are we claiming any merit of our own, but we are acting as channels for his wisdom, his love, his saving merits. We know that we are merely earthenware vessels, and yet, astonishingly, we have been chosen to be heralds of the saving truth that the world needs to hear. Let us never cease to marvel at the extraordinary grace that has been given to us, let us never cease to acknowledge our unworthiness, but at the same time let us always strive to become less unworthy of our noble calling, lest through our faults and failings we weaken the credibility of our witness.

Benedict XV, Homily at the Church of the Holy Cross in Nicosia,

5 June 2010

Msgr. Bux on the Cross in the Liturgy

This interview with Msgr. Nicola Bux was published in an English Translation by Mr. Carlos Palad in Rorate Caeli blog. I find his statement on the position of the Cross in the Liturgy very significant. Remember my post about that liturgist who insists that the Cross is not the center of the celebration but rather the celebration is the center of the celebration (huh?) ? Well, Fr. Liturgist, eat your heart out!

Follow the entire interview in Rorate Caeli.

"Yes, having the cross at the center of the altar is a way to bring to mind what the Mass is. I do not speak of a 'miniature' cross but of a cross such as can be seen. The dimensions of the cross should be proportional to the ecclesial space. It should be brought back to the center [of the altar], aligned with the altar, and everybody must be able to see it. It should be the focal point of the faithful and of the priest, as [the former Cardinal] Joseph Ratzinger says in his Introduction to the Spirit of the Liturgy. It should be in the center, independently of the celebration, even if it is Mass 'facing the people.' I insist on a cross that is clearly visible. Otherwise, what is the use of an image that cannot be sufficiently profited from? Images refer to the prototype... In an era in which vision has become the favored medium of our
contemporaries, it does not suffice to have a little cross that lies flat or an illegible “sketch” of a cross, but it is necessary that the cross, along with the figure of the Crucified, be clearly visible on the altar, regardless of the angle from which it is viewed."

The authentic way of discipleship

It was in the context of prayer in solitude that Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” It was Peter who replied: “The Christ of God.” “The word ‘Christ’ comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, which means ‘anointed.’ It became the name proper to Jesus only because he accomplished perfectly the divine mission that ‘Christ’ signifies.” (CCC, 436) Oftentimes, the idea of being the “anointed one” is associated with the idea of privilege and influence. Perhaps this became the reason why the disciples would later on quarrel among themselves for privileged positions in the kingdom of Christ – the honor of being seated at his right and at his left. They misunderstood Jesus’ anointing as something merely political. Our Lord was not about to take this misunderstanding lightly.

“Jesus accepted Peter’s profession of faith, which acknowledged him to be the Messiah, by announcing the imminent Passion of the Son of Man”: “The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.” Offhand, this is definitely not the way we imagine the anointed One to be. In the language of the world, the anointed one must be busy preparing for his inauguration, must be cloaked with trappings of power and dignity. But such is the anointed of the world, not the anointed of God. The Anointed of God is stripped and humiliated, made to suffer mockery and dishonored in the eyes of men. The Catechism of the Church says, “He unveiled the authentic content of his messianic Kingdom both in the transcendent identity of the Son of Man ‘who came down from heaven,’ and in redemptive mission as the Suffering Servant: ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’ Hence, the true meaning of his kingship is revealed only when he is raised high on the Cross. Only after his Resurrection will Peter be able to proclaim Jesus’ messianic kingship to the People of God: ‘Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made his both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.’” (CCC, 440)

It is only when we see Jesus in his suffering and death that we shall understand the fullest implication of his identity as “The Christ of God.” Any way of portraying Christ severed from his Cross is a deception. The real Christ of God is the one whom he sent to suffer and die so as to rise again. The true Christ cannot be separated from his Cross. The Cross is the mark of authentication of the real Jesus who is the Christ.

So is also the Cross the mark of the authentication of the disciple of the Christ: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Thomas a Kempis said, “The higher a person is advanced in spirit the heavier the crosses shall he often meet.” Also he adds, “Jesus has many lovers of his heavenly kingdom, but few that are willing to bear His cross. He has many that are desirous of comfort, but few of tribulation. He finds many companions of his table, but few of his abstinence. All desire to rejoice with Him, few are willing to suffer with Him…Many reverence His miracles but few follow the ignominy of His Cross.” (Imitation of Christ 11) That is why very few follow him along the authentic road of discipleship. However, we should keep in mind that just as the spirit of grace and petition can be poured upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem only because the anointed One has been pierced, so also it is only by following him along this way of the Cross that one can truly possess the eternal life that He promises. “In the Cross is the height of virtue; in the perfection of sanctity. There is no health of souls nor hope of eternal life but in the Cross,” (Imitation of Christ, 12) The Lord said, “For whosoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”