|
|
JOHN
CHRYSOSTOM
|
THE PASCHAL SERMON
|
(which is read
aloud in every Byzantine
Church on the morning of the Great and Holy
Pascha of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ)
|
|
If any man be devout and
loves God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast! If any man
be a wise servant, let him rejoice and enter into the joy of his Lord. If
any has laboured long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If
any has laboured from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward.
If any has come at the third hour, let him with thankfulness keep the
feast. If any has arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings;
because he shall in no way be deprived because of that. If any has delayed
until the ninth hour, let him draw near, fearing nothing. And if any has
tarried even until the eleventh hour, let him, also, be not alarmed at his
tardiness. For the Lord, who is jealous of his honour, will accept the last
even as the first. He gives rest to him who comes at the eleventh hour,
even as to him who has laboured from the first hour. He shows mercy upon
the last, and cares for the first; to one He gives, and upon the other He
bestows gifts. He both accepts the deeds and welcomes the intention. He
honours the acts and praises the offering. Wherefore, enter ye all into the
joy of your Lord; receive your reward, both first and likewise the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival! You sober and you heedless,
honour the day! Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have
disregarded the fast. The table is full-laden; feast ye all sumptuously.
The calf is fattened; let no one go hungry away. Enjoy ye all the feast of
faith: receive ye all the riches of loving-kindness. Let no one bewail his
poverty, for the universal Kingdom has been revealed. Let no one weep for
his iniquities, for pardon has shown out from the grave. Let no one fear
death, for the Saviour's death has set us free. He that was held prisoner
of death has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this,
did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered when it encountered Thee in the
lower regions. (All shout
Embittered!) It was embittered, for it was abolished. (All shout Embittered!) It was embittered, for it was mocked. (All shout Embittered!) It was
embittered, for it was slain. (All
shout Embittered) It was embittered, for it was overthrown. (All shout Embittered!) It was
embittered, for it was fettered in chains. (All shout Embittered!) It took a body, and met God face to
face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen,
and fell upon the unseen. Oh Death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is
your victory? (All shout He is
risen!) Christ is risen, and you are overthrown! (All shout He is risen!) Christ is risen, and the demons are
fallen! (All shout He is risen!)
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! (All shout He is risen!) Christ is risen, and life reigns! (All shout He is risen!) Christ is risen,
and not one dead remains in the grave. (All
shout He is risen!) For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become
the first-fruit of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and
dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.
|
|
|
|
EASTER SUNDAY
|
|
CRISTOS ANESTH - ALIQOS ANESTH
|
|
"If one is in Christ, he
is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come."
|
|
2 Corinthians 5, 17
|
|
DEATH AND LIFE:
JOURNEY INTO THE LIGHT
|
|
Have you ever flown overnight
from West to East, from San Francisco to New York, or from Boston
to Dublin?
The night is compressed into a few hours and soon after take-off the light
begins to spread over the horizon. At times, you have the sensation that
the plane is hovering over the dividing line between darkness and light.
Ahead, there is a display of colours that is unknown to those who walk on
the ground. Behind, there is night. But light overcomes darkness, and
eventually the wamth of the sun envelops all creation.
|
|
To have faith in the
resurrection is to believe that our life is a joumey into light. But, then,
why are we so sober? Why are our songs so subdued?
|
|
It is not easy for us to
experience the same joy that erupted in the hearts of the disciples of
Jesus at the news of his resurrection. We are accustomed to the Easter
mesuge, to the monotonous repetition of the Creed: "I believe in the
resurrection of the dead and life everlasting." We heard it all, took
it with no demur and then we returned to our occupations with no emotions.
The capacity of a human being to reduce a wondrous deed to banality is
remarkable.
|
|
The news of resurrection does
not rip our hearts and the promise of immortality does not make us shout
with joy, because our being has not been touched and shaken by the reality
of death. To sing the Easter alleluia
wholeheartedly, it is necessary to
cry out of the depths of the valley of death.
|
|
The peoples of ancient
civilizations around the Mediterranean.
before the time of Christ were deeply preoccupied by the fact of their own
mortality. They knew that man must die. Wars were frequent, so were
plagues, and there was no modern medicine to take care of the sick. All
were exposed to fatalities. And when death came there was nothing to
embellish it, there was no attempt to cover it up. They understood that no
matter how miserable this life could be, death remained the greatest
tragedy. They looked for a remedy, and found none.
|
|
When mankind is searching
something consciously or unconsciously, the discovery of it makes news.
Indeed, the cry that Jesus was risen from the dead made news. It made
resounding news! People listened. Some believed, some did not. But for all
it dealt with a burning issue. In no time the message rebounded from one
end of the known world to the other. Many of those who believed died for the
truth of it. Many of those who did not believe mounted a systematic
campaign against it. In one way or another they were interested.
|
|
Our world is different. We
have little knowledge of our mortality; consequently, not much desire for
immortality. The experience of the harsh reality of death, has been
eliminated from our consciousness, and in most cases has been left to
doctors, nuns and priests trained to deal with awkward situations. Polite
persons do not talk about death; if they must speak of it, they avoid the
term. Death takes place often enough away from the family in an antiseptic
and impersonal environment. The true face of the dead is hardly ever seen.
The traces of his final agony and the peace that his last surrender brings
are covered over by the subtle mask the undertaker puts on him. The wake is
rarely a reunion in sadness, prayer and hope. Often enough, it is a
perfunctory social function hiding the harsh reality with sophisticated
techniques.
|
|
We do not appreciate
immortality because we have no experience of mortality. Our faith in the
Resurrection is weak because we are not convinced that we must die. The
unbelief is hardly ever explicit; it is an attitude, a subtle attempt to
escape. It springs from thoughtlessness. After all, much in our life
conspires to make us avoid questions about any ultimate reality. The
pressure of business keeps us captive during the day, the screen of the
television holds our senses in suspense late into the night Another day
brings no redemption;just the same thoughtless routine.
|
|
There is no universal remedy
against such a state of things; no general liberation is in sight from such
inhumanity. Only those will be freed who have the courage to, seek out
personally the harsh reality of death, and through facing it, they discover
their own innate desire for immortality. They must go through the valley of
death, out of its depths they must cry before they can erupt in joy and
sing their alleluia at the news
of the resurrection.
|
|
Then they understand the
meaning of the journey Jesus made: there was a man who has passed through
the valley of death, but returned to life, showed himself to his friends,
and lives with a life that knows no end.
|
|
More than ever we Christians
need the experience of the joy that follows the promise of resurrection.
But what a hard way to reach it! We must joumey through darkness before we
can see the light: we must know the tragedy of death before our whole being
can expand at the news of the resurrection.
|
|
But once this journey is
accomplished, we can sing the alleluia
anew; the alleluia that rebounds
on Easter Day from one ead of the earth to the other.
|
|
Christ is risen, and we shall
rise with him.
|
|
I. Orsy S.J.
|
|
REFLECTIONS
|
|
ST BEDE
|
|
“Why do you seek the living One among the dead?” In fact a sepulchre
was not the place to look for the risen One. (St.
Bede)
|
|
ST MAXIMUS
|
|
“He has risen”: Let us therefore rejoice and exult because the Lord,
by His resurrection, has brought peace and desired salvation to all. Let us
rejoice, because we see how He, Who submitted Himself to death for all, has
arisen from the dead. Let us exult, because we may rejoice with Him, now
reigning; and rejoice because of the grace which He, in His mercy will not
only be fortified by the solace of faith, but will never be separated from
this faith. Let us therefore, always be to all an example of virtue. (St. Maximus)
|
|
FRUIT – Jesus said: I am the Resurrection and the
Life, and He substantiated this with facts. Let us increase our faith; the
Savior will raise us from the dead.
|
|
SUNDAY OF ST THOMAS
|
|
BLESSED ARE
THOSE WHO DO NOT SEE, AND YET BELIEVE
|
|
Christians are the ones who
caught a glimpse of a new universe. It is different from all that man has
known before. It is beyond space and time. Its immensity and its eternity
is revealed in the person of the Risen Christ who visited us by passing
tghrough our closed doors and who spoke to us about life that knows no end.
|
|
Christians are like those
pilgrims who in ancient times walked toward Rome but, before entering the city,
stopped on the hill outside it and contemplated the sacred place, the
churches and the towers, through a gentle haze. But pilgrims could move
into the city as they wanted. Christians cannot at their good pleasure move
into the world they see through the haze of faith. They must wait and
wonder what is beyond it all. To be a Christian means to live on the edge
of the unknown.
|
|
No one likes to stand for
long on any edge. Some want to belong solidly to the land from where they
come. Some want to be adventurous and explore the strange places beyond the
land. To live too close to the unknown that both attracts and frightens can
be upsetting.
|
|
To be a Christian means to be
content to wait on the edge of unknown spaces. To wait means to live with
questions for which there are no answers; not for the time being.
|
|
Blessed are those who do not
see and yet believe. Since they have questions without answers, their mind
is frustrated. Since they sense God’s presence, their heart is filled with
gladness. The paradox of the beatitudes is there.
|
|
Blessed are those who have no
answers and yet believe; because they have learned to live with God’s own
mysteries.
|
|
I. Orsy S.J.
|
|
|
|
ASCENSION DAY
|
THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST
|
|
It is the feast of Our Lord's
departure from earth which took place in the presence of His disciptes.
This event, forty days after His resurrection, is a fundamental article of
our faith and was predicted by Christ, John
6, 63; 14, 2.
|
|
His work on earth completed,
Our Lord took His disciples to Mount
Olivet, near Bethany, renewed His promise to send them
the Holy Spirit and while blessing them He ascended into heaven, Acts 1, 11; Mark 16,19; Luke 24, 50.
|
|
The feast, which St. Augustine asserts
is of apostolic origin, is celebrated on the fortieth day after Easter. In
the Eastern Church the feast is called “the Taking Up”, and “the
Salvation”, the latter title being a testimony to the Ascension as the
completion of Christ's work of redemption.
|
|
|
|
ASCENSION DAY
|
|
THE ADVANTAGES OF THE ASCENSION
were great both for the Apostles and for us. In fact, on the tenth day He
sent the Holy Spirit, Who filled all the faithful present, according to His
promise: It is better for you that I go; for if I do not go, the Consoler
will not come to you. He ascended into Heaven to appear before God to our
advantage and to act as our Advocate before the Father. Nor is there a more
certain fountain from which we can draw greater joy and happiness of
spirit, than to know that we have a Mediator of our cause, an Intercessor
of our salvation, Jesus Christ Himself, Who enjoys with the Father the
highest grace and authority. Finally, He has prepared a place for us in
Heaven, and by entering it first He has opened its gates and made the way
easy for us.
|
|
Roman Catechism
|
|
|
|
PENTECOST SUNDAY
|
THE SENDING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
|
|
Pentecost is a major Jewish
and Christian feast. Celebrated among the Jews on the fiftieth day after
the 16th of Nisan (the word is derived from the Greek for
fiftieth), it is usually called the “Feast of Weeks” or the “Feast of the
First-Fruits” in the Old Testament, Ex.
34, 22; Num. 28, 26). The Christian feast is celebrated on the seventh
Sunday after Easter and commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the
disciples of Jesus, Acts 2, 1 ff.,
an event that took place on the Jewish feast of Pentecost. On this day
Christ sent, as He had promised, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to teach,
strengthen and guard His Church. As soon as the apostles received the Holy
Spirit on the first Pentecost they lost the fear that had possessed them,
boldly emerged to preach the Gospel and baptized thousands. Thus the Holy
Spirit began His work of enlightenment and sanctification in the Church, a
work which He continues for all time as the soul of Christ's Mystical Body.
|
|
The Christian feast is also
called Whitsunday because converts, baptized the previous day, used to wear
their white baptismal robes on Pentecost Sunday. Since the revision of the
rubrics, only three feasts now have octaves - Easter, Pentecost and
Christmas. Only Easter and Pentecost have octaves of the first class; the
days within these two octaves are of the first class.
|
|
|
|
PENTECOST SUNDAY
|
|
WITHOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT,
|
|
God is far away,
|
|
Christ stays in the past,
|
|
the Gospel is a dead letter,
|
|
the Church is simply an
organisation,
|
|
authority is a matter of
domination,
|
|
mission a matter of
propaganda,
|
|
the liturgy no more than an
evocation,
|
|
Christian living a slave
morality …
|
|
|
|
BUT IN THE HOLY SPIRIT,
|
|
the Risen Christ is there,
|
|
the Gospel is the power of
life,
|
|
the Church shows forth the life
of the Trinity,
|
|
authority is a liberating
service,
|
|
mission is a Pentecost,
|
|
the liturgy is both memorial
and anticipation,
|
|
human action is deified.
|
|
Patriarch Athenagoras
|
|
|
|
MY CREED FOR
THE NEW YEAR
|
I BELIEVE
|
|
·
that the best of all NEW YEARS
would be a year pervaded by prayer: like the day, I am renewed every
morning.
|
|
·
in the ascensional value of
sacrifice, in the irresistible power of innocence, in the joyousness of
self-dedication, of compassion, and forgiveness, in the beauty of the
faithful heart which looks beyond self-interest.
|
|
·
that every longing for the
GOOD is a beat of wings towards the TRUTH.
|
|
·
that I shall be happy if I can
seek out the good in everything, the light and not the shade.
|
|
·
that life is not lost with
death, but is lost minute by minute, day by day, in thousands acts of
carelessness.
|
|
·
that death is only a little
stream entering into the great sea
of Eterny, where pure
is the light and full the happiness.
|
|
·
that without a pure heart,
good works count as nothing.
|
|
·
that the most important thing
in this life is to be loving: it is on this I shall
be judged in the last day.
|
|
·
that there is no answer to the
mystery of suffering but in the words of Christ, “Come to me, all you who
labour and are overburdened, and 1 will give you rest.” Mt. 11:28.
|
|
·
the Christian self-denial and
simplicity is not a renunciation of the joy of life: does not the pruning
improve the vigour and fruitfulness of the tree?
|
|
· that I, who am as nothing, am central to
divine Love.
|
|
· that interior silence is the refuge in which my soul
meets God.
|
|
· that if, in the evening, I can say, from a full
heart: OUR FATHER, I shall sleep quietly.
|
|
·
that Christ is my peace: He restores my soul, pays my debts, heals my sins: and my
cup overflows. I beg Him to grant you, my friend, all fullness of joy, of
peace, and of prosperity in this Holy Christmas, in this New Year, and
always.
|
|
|
THIRD SUNDAY OF
LENT
|
THE ROYAL WAY OF
THE HOLY CROSS
|
There
is no health of soul nor hope of eternal life but in the cross
|
|
To many this seems a hard saying:
“Deny yourself, takes up your crossi and follow Jesus.” Mt 16, 24.
|
|
But it will be much harder to
hear that last word: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire.” Mt 25, 41.
|
|
For they who now willingly
hear and follow the word of the cross shall not then be afraid of eternal
condemnation.
|
|
This sign of the cross will
be in heaven when the Lord shall come to judge.
|
|
Then all the servants of the
cross, who in their lifetime have conformed themselves to the Crucified,
shall come to Christ their judge with great confidence.
|
|
Why then are you afraid to
take up your cross, which leads to a kingdom?
|
|
In the cross is salvation; in
the cross is life; in the cross is protection from your enemies.
|
|
In the cross is infusion of
heavenly sweetness; in the cross is strength of mind; in the cross is joy
of spirit.
|
|
In the cross is the height of
virtue; in the cross is the perfection of sanctity.
|
|
There is no health of soul
nor hope of eternal life but in the cross.
|
|
|
FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
|
JESUS FORETELLS HIS
DEATH
|
|
Nothing does so much establish the mind amidst the
rollings and turbulency of present things, as both a look above them, and a
look beyond them; above them to the good and steady Hand by which they are
ruled, and beyond them to the sweet and beautiful end to which, by that
Hand, they shall be brought. Study pure and holy walking, if you would have
your confidence firm, and have boldness and joy in God. You will find that
a little sin will shake your trust and disturb your peace more than the
greatest sufferings: indeed, in those sufferings, your assurance and joy in
God will grow and abound most if sin be kept out. So much sin as gets in,
so much peace will go out.
|
|
R. Leighton
|
|
|
ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL
|
|
IF THE PRAYER OF A MULTITUDE DELIVERED PAUL
FROM DANGERS (2 Cor. 1, 2), is it not our duty to expect that we
also shall derive great benefit from this advocacy? For although weak when
praying by ourselves, when we are assembled we become stronger, and prevail
with God by our numbers and our unanimity.
So great is the power of the supplication of a multitude. Thou canst
indeed pray at home, but thy prayer has not such great force as when it is
made in company with thine own fellow-members, as when the body of the
Church in its entirety sends up its prayer with one voice, while the
priests are present, aud are offering up the prayers of the universal
multitude. Would you learn how great
is the power of prayer made in the Church?
Peter was once bound in the prison, and fettered with many a chain;
but “prayer was being made with earnestness by the Church for him,” and
straightway it released him from the prison. What then can be more powerful than
prayer, which assisted the pillars and towers of the Church? For Paul and Peter were pillars and
towers of the Church; and prayer loosened the bonds of one, and opened the
mouth of the other Eph. 6, 19.
|
|
St. John Chrysostom
|
|
Christian Readings
- Home
|