Holy Week Two - CONDEMNATION - 2020

Satan has come to realize that he is not going to be able to deceive Jesus. So he now adopts a new strategy. Rather than trying to destroy Jesus directly, he now turns his focus on the people who are listening to Jesus and are trying to embrace a life of holiness so that they may be worthy to join the Father in His glory. Satan already has GAHENNA teaming with victims accumulated since the fall of Adam. Just keep deceiving and corrupting people and the mission of Jesus (as Satan understands it) will be completely made fruitless and he will have to return to his Father empty-handed. But now - what is this! "Neither do I condemn you. Go, your sins are forgiven."  From the very bowels of Gehenna a cry thunders forth with all the vehemence of a volcano. "NO, NO, NO!" Satan screams out with fire flowing from his mouth. "This is preposterous, sin is sin, quilt is guilt. All the rules of justice demand it. Justice demands the condemnation of the guilty. That is how I was treated, and so should she, should all of them. How dare He!" Satan has got it right. The guilty must pay for their crimes. Simply letting them go will only motivate them be smarter the next times and not to get caught. They have but one hope - Mercy. No one can can save themselves, they must be saved by another. Consider this illustration taken from the pandemic we are currently experiencing. A person is warned of the danger of this death-dealing virus. But they ignore the warnings, do not change their ways and eventuality contract the virus. At first they stay isolated as instructed but with frequent lapses. Their condition worsens and they have no choice they are moved to the hospital where their condition becomes more grave. They are put on a ventilator, a machine to live for them, but this too fails and they die. Unless someone comes along who can raise the dead back to life dead they will remain. This is similar to how sin works in the life of a soul. But Jesus can raise the dead back to life. In His public ministry He demonstrates this most dramatically, i.e the raising of Lazarus. But something more must happen. And to the sinful woman Jesus says, "... and do not sin again". But how will this be possible? These souls now forgiven were no match for Satan before, will he not just infect them again with sin? Jesus' plan for these souls to be saved by Mercy is unimaginably more profound.  Jesus does not send the forgiven back alone to be victims of Satan all over again, He goes with them. Jesus enters the soul of the one he forgives and lives within them and they within Him.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ LIVES IN ME. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20  So when Satan returns to seduce the forgiven one it is Jesus he finds himself up against. The old person is gone and a totally new person has taken its place. In the Office of Readings for Tuesday of Holy Week, quoting St. Basil we read "First of all we must make 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." I know a person who upon returning from making the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius was greeted by his friends with: "What happened to you, we do not recognize you, you have changed."  When and how this "New Life in the Spirit" comes about may vary, perhaps in a dramatic hour of encounter with Christ, or over a period time while in pursuit of a deeper spiritual life. What matters is that it happens.

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Second Reading, Tuesday of Holy Week 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.

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Holy Week One - TEMPTATION - 2020

How much less is man, who is only a maggot, or a man's children, who are only worms!" Job 25.6 - Isaiah 41:14 – Psalm 22:6 – Isaiah 53

When the gates of heaven finally opened, inward toward the earth, gates that  were closed by the sin of Adam and Eve, there appear descending to earth the Son of God. He is coming for one reason and one reason alone, for this HOUR. Emptied of all his divine privilege he comes with only the faculties of a human man, the same faculties that Adam had going for him. Satan, by barely lifting a finger was able to totally corrupt the mind and heart of Adam, rendering unfit ever to be allowed to enter the presence of God and share in His glory; the same glory that Satan himself had lost through pride. But now the battle was on. Would Satan be able to do the same to Jesus that he did to Adam? The HOUR has begun.  It begins in the wilderness where Jesus goes after his official anointing and commissioning by the Father through the Holy Spirit at Jesus baptism by John.  This should be easy, he is merely a man, who now is hungry. “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become loaves of bread.” Mtt. 4:3  Satan tells himself that every human knows that the first priority of life is bread. Without bread death will surely overtake them, ("... death that I brought into the world"). This fails. Next Satan reasons that God did not reach down His hand to protect Adam, to prevent me, Satan from doing him grievous harm. Surely Jesus must be vulnerable to some doubt. Will the Father protect Him from death?  “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you’ and ‘with their hands they will support you, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” Mtt. 4:6 This too fails. Now Satan must play his trump card. Every man knows that success in this world is inexorably tied to power and control. Surely Jesus knows this. When I show him how I, Satan can guarantee Him that no power on earth shall be greater than the power I can give Him He's mine. I will take Him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence, I will say to Him, “All these I shall give to you, if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.” Mtt. 4:8 This too fails. But Satan is not willing to give up.  This is how our own Lenten time began. We too went with Jesus into our wilderness to be put to the test, a microcasm of our whole life. So how did you do? How have you been managing these deceits sown in your mind, ever so logically, ever so necessary and valid?  These three temptation are the three main principles upon which mark the rights and freedoms of this society in which we live. Unlike Jesus, no doubt we have all failed and our failure has disqualified us from being placed among the just. (Recall Jesus teaching in Matt. 5 which concludes: "Be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect.") The scales of justice demand it, Satan has claimed us and now carries us off to GEHENNA!

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Passion (Palm) Sunday 2020

While praying in anticipation of the coming of Palm Sunday, this image emerged in my thoughts. Here are some of my thoughts that I derived from the image. Perhaps you may have some personal to yourself. For those who were looking forward to Palm Sunday and the beautiful liturgy that surrounds it this Palm Sunday with the churches empty and the church doors locked seems incomprehensible. At this time in our society with all that is being denied us because of this terrible pandemic the lost of access to worship crushes our hearts. As I looked at the image above, I realized that what is missing in the 2020 picture is not Jesus, rather it is the people. Jesus is not taken away from us, his triumphant entry into our lives is not being prevented. Look, there he is: “Behold, your king comes to you, meek and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” This gives us an opportunity to penetrate more deeply into the Mystery and meaning of these sacred days we are now entering. Because of man’s abandonment of God’s design that man should embrace truth and holiness of life Sin and Death has carried us away from God; taken us out of the picture, no longer able to gather with the saints in worship. We are prisoners of the guilt of our sins. But, “Behold, Jesus comes!” Palm Sunday and the days of Holy Week are not about us saving us, making us feel good about us, it’s about Jesus savings us who have been ripped out of the picture, rounded up by Satan and imprisoned in the inescapable darkness of death. Jesus comes to defeat Satan, to free us from the bondage of guilt and to restore us ounce again into the "picture" – the picture where the saints are gathered praising God and singing, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is the he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest.” Has there ever been a time when all the churches were locked up? I was reminded of the Cold War days when all of eastern Europe was under the control of Communism. Indeed, the churches were locked up, the priests were rounded up and put into prison, many executed and anyone who would be caught displaying any adherence to religion would be severally punished.  Then in 1979, Pope St. John Paul II made his triumphant 9 day visit to Poland speaking out boldly to all Catholics of eastern Europe, and thus began the end of the reign of Communism. “Upwards of half a million cheering, weeping Poles sank to their knees when "Our own Pope" stepped from his white helicopter in a field outside the town.” [ … Link … ] Catherine de Hueck Doherty, founder of the Madonna House movement who had escaped from communist Russia would say of the of Russian people under oppression that while there may not have been any outward evidence of religion, under every Russian bed there was hidden sacred icons which would come out at night for devotion. For us in these days of confinement, while liturgy my be taken from us grace is not, Jesus is not. Indeed, we have now time, time to explore some of the deeper approaches to prayer that have been taught by the great mystics of prayer. On the side panel of this blog I have provided some direction to just such prayer.

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“The HOUR has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

As we prepare to enter Holy Week there are two important words that will focus our attention: HOUR and GLORIFY. Sometimes the word "hour" refers simply and literally to a short period of chronological time (a 60-minute period during the day). But in John's gospel, "Jesus' hour" refers more broadly and metaphorically to the climactic event of Jesus' death and resurrection, which it also refers to as his "glorification". (Jo.12:23; 17:1) As you see these words occurring throughout the course of John's gospel, you realize how important they are to understanding the message of the gospel. Jesus understood well why he was sent, "... it is for this HOUR that I have come". We must understand how we too are connected to these words; that Jesus' HOUR continues through time, for it is the final HOUR in the story of creation. It is now our hour in time. To be a true Christian, one must be drawn into the effects of this HOUR, for it is our destiny as well. We must share in the passion of the Cross by the "Christ-like" acceptance of the crosses in our lives. We must undergo the death of all desire for what is sin, the product of evil, until it no longer has influence over us. Finally, we say with Jesus, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit and we enter into our glorification. We may be able to identify with suffering in its many manifestation. So too, we can appreciate the struggle that is required to conquer the inordinate passions that would subdue us. We will all face our own death, our final hour on earth. But how do we understand glorification? It is not uncommon to hear the expression, "glorious", used to describe something one beholds with their eyes, i.e. a theatrical production, a celebration, such as a wedding or an Easter liturgy, sunset and sunrise, the vista of a natural landscape. By glorious we mean something of breathtaking beauty, fulfilled to perfection, eclipsing all our superlatives. Jesus' disciples beheld such a vision in the transfiguration of Jesus. ( He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Mtt. 17:2) St. Paul beheld the glorious risen Jesus, which began his conversion. In Acts he describes it in his own words:  “But it happened that as I was on my way, approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ ... “And those who were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me. Acts 22:6 Paul tells that the glorious brightness of the light caused him to be temporally blinded so that he had to led by the hand into Damascus. This glorification, seen in Jesus, is the glorification God has planned every soul that comes into His presence. It is natural humanity transfigured into a new state, the state of grace. St. Catherine of Siena was given a vision of a soul glorified. The Soul in the State of Grace- Catherine of Siena was permitted by God to see the beauty of a soul in the state of grace. It was so beautiful that she could not look on it; the brightness of that soul dazzled her. Blessed Raymond, her confessor, asked her to describe to him, as far as she was able, the beauty of the soul she had seen. St. Catherine thought of the sweet light of that morning, and of the beautiful colours of the rainbow, but that soul was far more beautiful. She remembered the dazzling beams of the noonday sun, but the light which beamed from that soul was far brighter. She thought of the pure whiteness of the lily and of the fresh snow, but that is only an earthly whiteness. The soul she had seen was bright with the whiteness of Heaven, such as there is not to be found on earth. ” My father,” she answered. “I cannot find anything in this world that can give you the smallest idea of what I have seen. Oh, if you could but see the beauty of a soul in the state of grace, you would sacrifice your life a thousand times for its salvation. I asked the angel who was with me what had made that soul so beautiful, and he answered me, “It is the image and likeness of God in that soul, and the Divine Grace which made it so beautiful.” (Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena ) The goal of the prayer of meditation/contemplation is to connect us consciously with the process of glorification that has begun in us, through our state of grace. This way of prayer opens a vista for us to see into our souls. We experience on a human level what is happening to us on a mystical level. The ways we perceive this experience can vary, from a sense of peace coming over our heart, to visions and revelations, such as describe by the saints and the spiritual writers, (like Catherine of Siena). It is important that we realize our glorification has already begun in us by the state of grace of our souls. People may not be blinded by our outward appearance as we walk around, but there is an evidence that is perceptible to everyone. It is the fruit of our lives, the works of holiness and charity that we display by our actions. All the trees may look alike. You can tell the good ones by their fruit. (Mtt. 7:16) The following are the references for Jesus' Hour in John's gospel. Jesus, to his mother, at the Wedding at Cana: 2:4 – “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” Jesus, to the Jews (using the word "kairos"): 7:6 – Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.” The Evangelist/Narrator: 7:30 – Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come. 8:20 – He spoke these words while he was teaching in the treasury of the temple, but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. Jesus, to his disciples, before raising Lazarus from the dead: 11:9 – “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world.” Jesus, to his disciples, after Andrew and Philip tell him that some Greeks wanted to see him: 12:23 – “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” 12:27 – “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” The Evangelist/narrator, beginning the "Book of Signs"; introducing the Washing of the Feet:13:1 – Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Jesus, to his disciples, in the Last Supper Discourses: 16:2 – “They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.” 16:4 – “But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them. “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.” 16:21 – “When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.” 16:25 [Jesus, to his disciples] – “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father.” 16:32 – “The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.” Jesus, praying to his Father, at the end of the Last Supper Discourses: 17:1 – After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” Jesus, just before his dies on the cross: 19:27 – Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

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