Introduction
There are two different ways of looking at things, two world views: one looks at the things of the world, pleasure, profit, possessions and power as reality but the other sees beyond the "stuff of this world" another world, a world of spirits and virtues, vices and visions. St. Paul admonishes us, wayfarers in this world of sense and sight, pomp and circumstance: "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2)
Baptism make us citizens of this "other world," beyond sight and sense. The Holy Eucharist is the important means of continuing our "transformation." So too the other sacraments and sacramentals, so too prayer, both public and private, play their role.
Another means by which God's grace works its transformation in our lives is the Christian year: the way in which Christians are to relate to the passing of seasons.
The secular or Calendar year begins, as we know, on the first day of
Janurary. For Christians the "year" is already well under way on this
date. It begins on the Sunday next St Andrew's Day (November 30) and runs
for four Sundays up to Christmas.
For non-Christians this period becomes Holiday Shopping time and runs from
around Thanksgiving until Christmas day. It is a time of light and
festivity. Of getting and spending, of gift buying and merry making.
For Christians it is rather a time of darkness and fasting. Christ will
come on Christmas Day, but while we wait we are in darkness, "until the day
dawn and the day star arise in your hearts." (2Peter 1:19) We are the people
that sit in darkness. And, while we wait, we do penance for our blindness,
stupidity, pride and rebellion to which the coming of God as a little
child, to "tabernacle among us," is both rebuke and judgment, both remedy
and forgiveness.
We sing the Alma Redemptoris Mater:
Gracious Mother of our Redemption, forever abiding, Heaven's gateway and
star of ocean. O succour the people who though falling strive to rise again.
Thou Maiden who barest thy holy Creator, to the wonder of all nature. . .
and we sing Veni Emmanuel:
O Come O Come Emmanuel ( God-with-us is the meaning of this word. )
and ransom captive Israel (God's people seen as the Israel of old still in
bondage.)
that mourns in lonely exile here. ( away from our true home in God)
until the Son of God appear.
For non-Christians it is a time of frolicking in the things of this world;
for Christians it is a penitential time ( Vestments worn by Priests change
from green to purple. ), a time of watching for the invasion into time and
space of that other world of
spirit and life.
The first invasion came as a helpless Child, but the second time it will
erupt in triumph and judgement. So, this proud time of human "achievement,"
of war and peace, of conquest of
disease and occurance of natural disasters, of printing press and
television,
of computer and space travel is really only an interim between the two
comings, a mere interstice in Anno Domini.
The thoughts of light and darkness and waiting between two comings are
summed up well in the English collect for the First Sunday in Advent. Let
us pray this together:
Almighty God give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness
and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal
life,
in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility:
that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal,
through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost,
now and ever. Amen
Perhaps the strongest rebuke to the secularized mode of celebrating this
time of year comes toward the end of Advent: the Ember Days. The name comes
down from the Old English, ymbrendaeg, meaning circuit day, the days which
come around again. The name is related to an Old Norse word eimyrja which
refers both to the smoldering remains of a fire and to responses or ideas
that can be rekindled. The Ember Days are Wednesday, Friday and Saturday
and they are days not of gift buying and festivity but of fasting,
abstinance and penance. The Advent Ember Days are Wednesday, Friday and
Saturday following the feast of St. Lucy ( December 13 ). There are also
Ember days connected with other seasons in the life of the Church: after Ash
Wednesday, after Whitsunday or Pentecost and after the Exaltation of the
Cross (September 14).
The origin of the ember days is in pre-Christian agricultural festivals.
The ancient Romans, for example, had three such festivals: June for the
grain harvest, September for the new vintage wine, December for planting.
The designation of certain times for such things persists into modern times.
My own grandfather, David Elliott, who had a farm in Southern Maryland,
although he had been quite ill, insisted on officiating at the planting of
seed potatoes on St. Patricks Day, March 17, because that was the day for
planting potatoes, be one ill or well. It was, as it turned out also the
day of his own seeding to new life, for he passed to eternity that night.
The Christian Church, as with many other pagan customs, baptized the Ember
Days into the faith and practice of Christians, transforming and infusing
them
with new meaning and significance. Times of ignorance, God winked at,
St. Paul told the Greeks on Mars Hill, but now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent. The repentance not only involved new lives for the newly
baptized
Christians, but new mores, new customs for the Christian communities. Yet
there was a continuity: the old ways they had sought God were not so much
wrong as incomplete, needing the Advent of Christ to perfect their meaning.
So these feasts of nature become fasts preceeding feasts celebrating the
history of our redemption. Thus the cycle of the seasons is transcended or
transformed, though still a circuit, it points beyond to eternity.
We have record of a third century Bishop of Rome sanctifying the three
seasonal or circuit celebrations with fasts, but it is probable that the
custom was much older. By the fourth Century a fourth had been added. They
were not known in Gaul and Germany until much later, perhaps the Tenth
Century, nor in Spain until the Eleventh. They are still not celebrated in
most parts of the Eastern Church. The Ember Days were, however, brought to
England by Augustine of Canterbury in the Sixth. Thus they are a
celebration
deeply rooted in Anglican tradition. As an interesting recollection of the
agricultural origin of these days, the Church is accustomed to ordain
priests & deacons, that is, those who will work in the harvest of souls.
The situation in the modern era is the flip side of this conversion of
customs. Instead of turning pagan customs into Christian ones, our society
is fast turning Christian customs into pagan ones. But we are exhorted, "be
not conformed to this world," ( the Greek word here is aion, whence we get
our word aeon. It can as easily be translated "age."--we might say, be not
determined by the zeitgeist) "but be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind."
These Ember Days of the various seasons are yet another opportunity for
stirring the ashes, the embers of our souls and remembering that, we must
prepare for the coming of our Lord, both his coming as a Child on Christmas
and his coming in Glory to judge the quick and the dead. Thus we must
repent of our sins and turn to Jesus who is our only way to God, the only
truth to which we can give ultimate trust and the only life that has no end.
The Introit or entrance hymn for Ember Wednesday preserves something of the
agricultural origins of the day:
Drop down ye Heavens from above and
let the skies pour down justice:
Let the earth open and bring forth a Saviour!
THE VIGIL OF CHRISTMAS
The tone for the vigil of Christmas is struck by the Introit of the Mass for
the day:
"Today shall ye know that the Lord will come to deliver us:
And in the morning shall ye behold his Glory."
This felicitous song to which the sacred ministers make their entrance into
the sanctuary has its original setting in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus.
The people of Israel had been brought out of their Egyptian captivity, not
by their own strength but by the mighty hand of God that worked great
miracles for them. On the Passover night in which they left Egypt, a plague
passed through the land killing the firstborn of both man and
beast---except, in the houses of the Israelites. In these houses God
protected his people with the sign of blood. A lamb was slain and the door
posts marked with his blood. When the death Angel saw this sign of the shed
blood he "passed over" that house; hence, the name of the commemorative
feast, Passover.
As they fled Egypt, the armies of Pharoah pursued. they came to the edge of
a great sea. They were between the Army and the Sea. Did they say God has
delivered us from the Death Angel, no doubt he will deliver us from
Pharoah's army? No. They said: "Because there were no graves in Egypt , hast
thou taken us away to die in the wilderness?"
But their leader Moses rebuked their fear: "Fear ye not," he said, "Stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord." As the Egyptians drew closer,
following God's command, Moses ordered them into the Sea. Into the Sea they
went. What an absurd thing to do! But, they crossed over on dry land. The
Egyptians, who tried to follow that act, got drowned for their trouble.
And now they have come to a bleak spot in the wilderness: they are out of
food and hungry. So these people who have been delivered from death and
Egypt, who have passed through the Sea dry shod while watching their enemies
drown, they will trust the God who has delivered them, will they not? The
second verse says that, "The whole congregation murmured---can you not hear
the low hum of complaint?--the whole congregation murmured." What did they
say? "Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt!" This is
the setting for the Vigil Introit. To this ungrateful & unbelieving people
whom he has saved from destruction, God sends another miracle: "I will rain
bread from Heaven," he tells Moses, "At even then ye shall know that the
Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt and in the morning ye shall
see the glory of the Lord,"
And so they did: in the morning when they looked out on the field about
them, it was strewn with a tiny flake like substance called Manna; it was
bread from heaven, as promised. The supply of this miraculous bread failed
not, until they reached the promised land of Canaan.
Christians too have been miraculously delivered from the power of
destruction and death by the sheding of blood, blood of a lamb without spot
or blemish, blood of the very Son of God. Christians too have been saved by
passing through the waters, the waters of baptism. Still we too, like the
Israelites, murmur more than we should about the routes God chooses for our
journeys. The bread he provides to sustain us on our journey will, like
theirs, last until we reach our Promised land, Paradise. It is, however,
far superior to the manna of the old Israel. In the sixth Chapter of Saint
John's Gospel, Jesus reminds the Jews that their fathers who ate the manna,
nevertheless died. He promises to give to those who believe in him, "the
bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die."
He elaborates: " the bread which I will give is my flesh which I will give
for the life of the world." It is to partake of this bread in the Holy Mass,
that we as Christians are invited. It is by this bread that our murmurs are
hushed, and we are sustained on our journey.
The verse that closes the Gradual, sung befor the Gospel of this day is
read, will serve well to close our meditation:
"On the morrow the iniquity of the world shall be blotted out: and the
Saviour of the world shall reign over us!"
Christ-Mass
For the secular man, Christmas, now often called more generically Holiday
(itself a corruption of Holy Day ), begins with Thanksgiving sales and ends
with the Dec 26th, Boxing Day in Canada and England and
Return-what-doesn't-fit day in America.
This is the day on which Santa Claus ( a secularized corruption of a
Christian Saint and Bishop named St. Nicholas. ) disappears and the latest
incarnation of tickle-me-Elmo, the gift every grand mother or mother thought
was this years must-have toy or doll at what ever price must be paid: this
is the day the thing is put aside by every normal kid, put aside from a
natural instinct for boredom with the trivial.
For the Christian, Christmas begins with the first Christ-Mass traditionally
at midnight and lasts until Janurary 6th, The Feast of the Epiphany of our
Lord. There are, as are famously celebrated in song, twelve days of
Christmas, beginning, not ending on December 25th.
It begins with lines from Psalm two, in the Introit of the first Christ
mass:
"The Lord hath said unto me: thou art my Son; this day have I begotten
thee.
why do the heathen so furiously rage together and why do the people
imagine a vain thing?"
On this day the Church celebrates a wonderfully absurd thing: The creator of
the world becomes en-fleshed in the womb of the Blessed Theotokos, the God
bearing Virgin Mary. He who made all things, the all-powerful God becomes
man as a vulnerable baby. What are we to make of such a paradox ?
St. Paul explains in Phillipians 2:4ff.
'Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who
being
in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant and
was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death
of the Cross."
Why a baby? Humility and obedience. And these are the habits St. Paul urges
upon us. Not easy these things; no lapses into sentimental and amorphous
"spirituality," such as is hawked by the television Gurus.
In case we still do not get it, the second day of Christmas, December 26th,
commemorates the Martyrdom of St. Steven, who was stoned by the Jews for
his outspoken condemnation of their refusal to accept Christ as the only Way
to God. The Priest changes his vestment from White to Red. "Princes did
sit and speak against me, and the wicked persecute me. " So the Introit for
this day speaks.
On the third day of Christmas, December 27th, we remember St. John Apostle
and Evangelist and pray:
Merciful Lord we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy
Church: that it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle
and
Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it
may at length
attain to the light of everlasting life.
On the fourth day, we remember the Holy Innocents, the little babes slain by
King Herod in a frantic and fierce effort to make sure he got the little
Christ child, a child he saw as a threat to his own rule. And we remember
that little innocent babies are still killed, not so much today because they
threaten rule, but often because they threaten convenience.
On the fifth day of Christmas, we remember St. Thomas of Canterbury, who was
murdered at the Alter of Canterbury Cathedral because he put Faith ahead of
politics. And we sing
Rejoice we all in the Lord keeping feast day in honor of Blessed Thomas
the Martyr: in whose passion the Angels rejoice and glorify the Son of
God. "
In our day the minions of control kill not with swords so often as with
various forms of ostracism for being politically incorrect.
As we have for many days now meditated on various forms of sin, the sixth
day brings us back to the central event of the season, the birth of the
Christ Child, and the reason for it all.
And so, we pray:
Grant we beseech thee, Almighty God: that we who through our ancient
bondage are held beneath the yoke of sin may by the new birth of thine
only
begotten Son in the flesh obtain deliverance.
The seventh day usually celebrates the memory of Saint Sylvester who was
Pope when the Council of Nicea met in 325 and proclaimed that Christ Jesus
was "very God of very God. . . . one substance with the Father." In this
year of our Lord 2000, this day falls on a Sunday and so we simply celebrate
the Sunday in Christmas.
The Eighth Day of Christmas called News Years Day is, by Christians, also
called the Octave of the Nativity and the feast of the Circumcision of Our
Lord, for it was on the eighth day that all Jewish babies were-- most still
are-- circumcised and on this day Jesus shed his first blood in obedience to
the Law of the Jewish Covenant and as prototoken of his great sacrifice for
us on the Cross. The theme of the Collect is this obedience, again
reverting back to the thought of Paul in Philippians that we quoted above:
Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised and obedient
to the Law for man: grant us true circumcision of the Spirit.
The Ninth Day, Janurary 2nd, is the great feast of the Holy Name of Jesus;
for when he was circumcised he was given that name, because he was born as
our Savior-- that is what Jesus means-- "to take away our sins."
The Tenth and Eleventh days repeat the Mass for the previous Sunday and
serve to continue the meditation on sin and redemption, humility and
obedience.
The twelth day celebrates the martyrdom of another Pope named Telesphorus.
And with that we come to the end of the Christmas season.
We beseech thee O Lord, graciously enlighten thy Church by the gifts we
offer that in every place thy flock may increase and prosper and the
shepherds by thy governance may be made pleasing to thy name through
Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee
in the unity of the Holy Ghost: God world without end.Amen
EPIPHANY
Christ-mass is God's suprise party. True it had been foretold by the Jewish
prophets, predicted by Roman poets and hinted at by Greek dramatists. Still,
it did come as something of a suprise: it caught most men unawares. Perhaps
the second coming, though also predicted, yea promised, will be as big a
surprise as the first.
The Introit for Mass on the Sunday in the Christmas Octave catches
perfectly and quite beautifully this note of God's suprise party:
While all things were in quiet silence, and night was in the midst
of her course,
thine Almighty Word, O Lord, leapt down from heaven out of thy royal
throne.
Epiphany comes from a Greek word, EPIPHANEIA, meaning manifestation. It
celebrates the realization by at least a few mortals of what had happened at
Christmas.
St. John is to the point:"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us."--that is Christmas.
"And we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth." -- that is Epiphany ( Jn 1:14).
The Greek word translated "dwelt," in this verse is a verb meaning "to
tent."
You remember that in the wilderness journeys from Egypt to Palestine, God,
or, perhaps more precisely, his Glory, "tented" among the Hebrews. ( Cf.
Exodus 40 ). The "Grace and Truth" answers to the Hebrew "Mercy and Truth"
which recur especially in the Psalms, again and again as the singular
attributes of Almighty God.
So the three traditional mysteries that the Church celebrates in Epiphany:
the story of the Magi, the Baptism of Jesus and the Marriage at Cana, are
not pretty moralistic tales; they are manifestations of the God who has come
in the flesh to share man's lot, to be in all points like us, except sin.
These three Epiphany mysteries serve to teach us right worship, right
teaching and right formation. The story of the Magi (Mt,2) says that right
worship is exuberant--gold , frankincense, myrrh--and palpable: the baby was
God in the flesh. Yet , much of our worship today is docetic & minimalistic.
Docetism is one of the oldest of heresies. It comes from a word meaning
"seems." The docetists believed that Christ only "seemed," to have a human
body, only "seemed" to die on the Cross. So many today shy from the scandal
that God could take on human flesh and die on a Cross for our redemption.
They are willing to see Christ as a great moral example, showing love to the
unlovely and caring for the outcast of his time, but not as a
Divine redeemer who, knowing what was in man, viz. that evil was
a inner condition of the heart, not, except derivatively and secondarily and
symptomatically, an outward condition of society, he came not to overthrow
oppressive governments, but to change our hearts, to save us from our sins.
( Mt 1:21)
Docetic worship shuns the enfleshed God in the crib and sentimentalizes the
"baby Jesus."
Just as the modern Christology is docetic, so the modern soteriology
(doctrine of salvation) is Pelagian ( from the British heretic
Pelagius)--"pull yourself up by your own boot straps, and/or ( for, though
superficially they sound opposed, they are really two sides of the same
Pelagian coin, "Create the perfect society to take care of everyone from
cradle to grave." And here we come to the Second mystery of Epiphany
The Baptism of Christ says that right teaching is redemptive and
Trinitarian.
When John the Baptist looked up and saw Jesus coming to be baptized by him,
he did not say: "Behold the great example of love!" No, he said, "Behold
the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world!" (Jn 1:28-29)
We see clearly the doctrine of the Holy Trinity here, as well: "the Holy
Ghost descended. . . a voice from heaven . . . said thou art my beloved Son
(Lk3:22). Since man is created in the image of God, we find, in him also a
trinity in image:
Man is memory, understanding and will. Thus a man with a mental disease who
has no memory is not "all there," yet he functions in his other forms. So
too with a man who has, as we say "lost his wits," or a man who is brain
dead, though his heart and lungs still work, or a man who has become so
enslaved by man or drug that he loses capacity for independent decision.
So, in man there are three forms: each has a kind of completeness; yet there
are not three men but one man.
Science that has not the Holy Trinity as its homing point is merely a series
of false trails; literature and history that ignore divine providence and
original sin are shallow stuff and
art that does not have its referent in divine harmonics is empty indulgence.
We come now to the third Epiphany mystery. The marriage at Cana tells us
that right formation involves the communion and intercession of the Saints
and centers on obedience.
The Blessed Mother of God has a unique relationship with her Divine Son and
ever desires to intercede for us in the most mundane matters. When the wine
ran out for the marriage celebration, "the Mother of Jesus saith unto him:
they have no wine." (Jn 2:3)
Now miracles belong to God, but we have our part. Before the enfleshment of
Christ, our Lady Mary said: "Be it unto me according to thy word." Before
we feed on the Body and Blood of our Lord, we must present the bread and
wine. Our part is obedience. The essence of obedience is explained very
simply by Our Lady of Good Counsel: --"Whatsoever he (Jesus) saith unto
you, do it. "(Jn2:5)
The inter-relation of the three Epiphany mysteries is summed up beautifully
in the Antiphon on the Benedictus for this feast day:
TODAY, the Church is joined to her heavenly Spouse,
for Christ has cleansed here sins in the Jordan;
With gifts the Magi hasten to the royal nuptials, and the guests
are gladened
with water made wine.
CANDLEMAS
Toward the end of Epiphanytide, comes Candlemas. The Old Testament law
required a woman who had given birth to a male to wait for forty days
double time for a female child ) after childbirth before she could return
to worship in the temple(Leviticus 12:2-8). After that time, the mother was
to come to the temple with two sacrifice offerings: one for an holocaust,
signifying that given completely up to God and another for sin. So it is
that, forty days after Christmas, the Church celebrates the Purification of
the Blessed Virgin Mary and, for it is also known by this name, the
Presentation of Christ, her son, in the temple. As a first-born son, Jesus
was consecrated to God, and had to be redeemed with sacrifice.
This ceremony was a recollection of a saving event in the history of the
Hebrews. When the Egyptians would not release the Hebrew slaves, despite
God's command to "Let my people go, that they may serve me," (Exodus 9:1),
God sent a series of plagues to compel compliance with his will ( Ex
cc7-10.) The last of these plagues was the passing of the death angel
through the land, taking the lives of all the first-born, both man and
beast, except in the homes of the Hebrews. The Hebrews were saved by the
killing of a lamb and smearing of the blood on the door posts. When the
death angel saw this blood he "passed-over" the homes of the Hebrews. (Ex cc
11-12) As the old song says: "When I see the blood, I will pass-over you."
This event is remembered, of course, in the annual passover celebration and
was a type of the sacrifice of Christ" the lamb of God," upon the Cross, for
our salvation. But, it was also the origin of the ceremony of the
presentation that we celebrate this day.
By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from
the house of bondage: and it came
to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord
slew all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of
beast. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all
that openeth the matrix, being males; but all the firstborn
of my children, I redeem. (Ex 13:13-14)
So our Lord Jesus is here brought to the temple, to fulfill the demands of
the Law for redemption, fulfilling
the Law, on our behalf. The Epistle is taken from the Old Testament book of
Malachi ( 3:1f), "The Lord
whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple!"
The story of Jesus' Presentation is beautifully told in the Gospel reading
for this feast, taken from Luke 2.
When Our Lady Mary brought her son into the temple, there was an old man
named Simeon who had been
promised by the Holy Ghost that he would not die until he had seen Christ.
So, you can imagine the thrill
this old man experienced when he saw Mary bring Jesus into the temple. He
watched and waited until the
required sacrifices had been performed and then, able to contain his joy no
longer, he took the young
child in his arms and sang the joyful hymn that is now used for Evensong in
the Anglican rite and
Compline in the Latin rite: the Nunc Dimittis,
Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word,
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou
hast prepared before the
face of all people, to be a light to lighten the
gentiles and the glory of thy
people, Israel.
The theme of "light to lighten the gentiles," is of course fitting for
Epiphanytide. En passant, modern liturgical revisions not-with-standing,
there is no such thing for the Christian as 'ordinary time." All time is
sanctified and offered to God and, as we see here Epiphanytide continues its
theme of manifestation to the gentiles, right up to the door of Pre-Lent,
when it is replaced by themes of sin and penance. There is never any
"ordinary time."
We have not yet said how the feast got its popular name, Candlemas. The
clue is in the Song of old Simeon: he refers to Christ as a "light to
lighten the gentiles." The blessing and procession of candles, whence
"Candelmas," is an enactment of this truth. The ceremony is very old,
dating at least to the 4th century. It began in the East but spread
eventually to the Western Church, as well.
Before the Mass, the Priest blesses, sprinkles with holy water, incenses and
distributes candles. As candles are distrubuted to the clergy and people,
the Nunc Dimittis is sung. During the procession another hymn is sung:
O Sion, adorn thy bride-chamber, and receive Christ the
King: greet Mary, who is the gate of heaven:
for she beareth the King of the glory of the new light: she
remaineth a Virgin, yet beareth in her hands
a Son begotten before the morning star: whom Simeon took
into his arms, declaring to the peoples,
that he is the Lord of life and death, and Saviour of the
world.
Where possible, the procession goes outdoors and, if one is available,
visits the Church Yard cemetery.
Returning to the Church, the people sing:
They offered for him unto the Lord, a pair of turtle doves
or two young pigeons: as it is written
in the Law of the Lord. . .
And the Mass begins with the Introit, which expresses the need for God's
presence in our lives and the longing we all feel:
"We have waited, O God for thy loving kindness, in the midst
of thy temple . . ."
Lenten Season PRE-LENT
A great part of the Western Church has lately abandoned this season.
Yet, it is with, perhaps, more expediency than propriety that we dare
lay aside the wisdom of our ancestors. The prelenten season is of
some antiquity, going back certainly to the 6th Century, probably
farther, and there was reason to it.
Remember the races of your childhood: you did not just shout, "go!" and
start running. The ritual required a preparatory beat. "Ready?"--everyone
started to get in place--"set;"--nervousness mounts,and then: "Go!" Well,
Lent, the great forty days of Christian penance, is like that. We do not
plunge all at once into this yearly warfare with the world, flesh and the
devil; we must first get ready and set. Since it is Catholic custom to
honor the Blessed Trinity in all things, the preparation for Lent is over
three Sundays. Since Lent is forty days before Easter, the Sundays before
are called *Septuagesima ( Seventy ), Sexagesima (sixty ) and Quinquagesima
(fifty ).* Since Lent (the forty day mark ) begins on Ash Wednesday, one
must go to the preceeding Wednesday to count these "days before Easter." So,
the Sundays in those weeks are properly *Dominica IN Septuagesima* etc.
So how does one get ready and set for such a time as Lent?
F irst, one change has already ben made: Since Candlemas, we have changed
the final Antiphon to the Blessed Virgin, sung at Evensong (Compline in the
Roman Rite) from the* Alma Redemptoris Mater* of Advent to the *Ave Regina
Coelorum.*
Queen of the Heavens, we hail thee; Hail thee Lady of all the
Angels;
Thou the dawn, the door of the morning, whence the world's
true Light is risen.
Joy to thee, O Virgin Glorious; beautiful beyond all other;
Hail and fairewell, O most Gracious, intercede for us alway to
Jesus.
(translated by Winfred Douglas, Canon of
Fond du Lac)
As we prepare for Lent, we shall certainly need the intercession of Our
Lady,
of our Patron Saint and indeed of all the Holy Saints,
"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against Principalities,
against powers,
against the Rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual
wickedness in high places."
(Ephesians 6:12)
So, the green vestments symbolic of the manifestation of Divine life in
our Lord and his Church are laid aside for the violet of penance. This is a
time for self examination and penance. These are days when the Church bids
us re-read the story of creation, sin and promised redemption from Genesis,
A story that will climax with th deliverance or Exodus on Easter Eve.
Meditating on this story of our great fall from original grace and goodness,
we must pray for contrition or sorrow for our sins.
"The sorrows of death compassed me, the pains of hell came about me."
(Psalm 18) begins the Introit of *Septuagesima*. The Collect picks up the
theme: "
O Lord we beseech thee to hear the prayers of thy people; that we who are
justly punished for our offenses may be mercifully delivered by thy
goodness,
for the glory of thy name. " The lesson from First Corinthians (4:24f)
admonishes
us, "every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things, now
they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible!"
The Gradual from Psalm 9 sings confidently: A refuge in time of trouble:
they that
know thee will put their trust in thee," and the Tract from psalm 130
continues: "De profundis clamo ad te Domine! Out of the deep have I
called unto thee O Lord! This is the great cry of the human soul in
distress to the God who made it. We have sinned, we are fallen from
that goodness in which God created us, we have turned everyone to
his own way, we are lost and we cannot save ourselves. But there
is hope: the Gospel of the day is the story of the laborers in the
Lord's Vinyard. (Matthew 20:1f) To this we are called, and it is never too
late.
Yet, there is a warning: "many are called but few are chosen."
*Sexagessima* begins with an urgent cry to God from Psalm 44:
Arise O Lord, wherefore sleepest thou? Awake and cast us not
away forever." In the Collect we pray:
"O Lord who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do!"
This is the point to which we must come before God can save us.
We must give up the vain notion that we can save ourself.
In the Epistle, St. Paul recounts the story of his "thorn in the
flesh," an infirmity or disability of some sort, we know not
what, for which he asked God to deliver him. Yet. the Divine
reply was: "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made
perfect in weakness." St. Paul then concludes: " Most gladly,
therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of
Christ may rest upon me."
Dear Brother, suffering Sister, if God will, he can heal you.
But, perhaps, he desires rather that you learn that HIS grace
is "sufficient for you. Perhaps, you are chosen to "fill-up
that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ," (Col 1:24)
in your flesh, "for his body's sake which is the Church."
This then, beloved, is your share in his Priesthood. Offer it
up to God in union with his great Sacrifice; offer it in your
prayers for the conversion of sinners and especially offer it
with him in Holy Mass.
In the Gospel of the Day (Lk 8: 4f ) we learn that there is
danger in letting the things of this world, keep us from
our souls' true love and good.
*Quinquagesima* Begins "Be thou my strong rock and house of defense!
(Ps 31) and we pray: "O Lord who hast taught us that all our doings
without charity are nothing worth: send thy Holy Ghost and pour
into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity." We have begun
to see that Christ only is the Way in whom we must hope; we have
bound our souls to him as the only Truth in whom we can place our faith.
Now, we come to him who is our very Life, to ask of him
that Love without which "all our doings are nothing worth."
The Epistle is, of course, from First Corinthians 13, the great
hymn of love: " though I speak with the tongues of men and Angels
and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass and tinkling
symbol . . . . though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and
though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth
me nothing."
But Charity, divine love, comes only as a gift from God. It is seen
at its greatest extent in God's, redemptive act, in which he paid the
price to redeem us from the slavery of sin into which the human
race, the sons of Adam, were sold: "God so loved the world, that
he gave his only begotten Son! " (John 3:16) "Herein is love, not
that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins." (I John 4:10 ) So in the Gospel for this
last Sunday before Lent ( Lk 18:31 f ) Jesus says: "Behold, we go
up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets
concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished, For he shall
be delivered unto the gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully
entreated, and spitted on; and they shall scourge him, and put him
to death, and the third day he shall rise again." God, the Son goes
forth to die for sinful men. Such was the cost of our sins, such was
the price of our redemption!
"Amazing love, how can it be, that thou my God should die for me!"
The last days of pre-Lent, just before Ash Wednesday are known as
Shrovetide, for these are the days when many driven by their sins to
the foot of the Cross, go to their confessor to
make confession of their sins and be "shriven," or absolved of their sins.
Thus during Lent they can fittingly offer as penance the amendment of
life required of Christians.
From *Septuagisima* through Lent, except for great feasts, The festal
Matins Hymn, *Te Deum* and the festal Mass hymn, *the Gloria in Excelsis*,
are both supressed. The Alleuia chant of the Gospel procession is
also laid aside. So too, all alleluias, in both Office and Mass are
suppressed. In some places, it is customary to add an extra alleluia to the
*Benedicamus Domino* at Evensong ,on the Saturday before *Septuagisima*
Sunday and to sing a "song of farewell" to the alleluia: * Alleluia, Dulce
Carmen ,*
sung, as the Episcopal 1940 Hymnal tells us, "with joyful dignity."
This hymn reminds us that our time of penance is short and will soon bring
us to Easter, when our beloved alleluias will return. Just so, "this
transitory life,"
will soon pass and culminate in an eternal Easter with never-ending
alleluias.
Alleluia, song of gladness, voice of joy that cannot die;
Alleluia is the anthem ever dear to choirs on high.
In the house of God abiding, thus they sing eternally.
Alleluia, thou resoundest, true Jerusalem and free;
Alleluia, joyful mother, all thy children sing with thee;
But by Babylon's sad waters, mourning exiles now are we,
Alleluia, we deserve not here to chant for ever more;
Alleluia, our transgressions make us for a while give o'er
For the holy time is coming bidding us our sins deplore.
Therefore in our hymns we pray thee, grant us blessed Trinity,
at the last to keep thine Easter in our home beyond the sky;
there to thee forever singing alleluias joyfully. A LENTEN MEDITATION
*Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation:
the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.*
Matthew 26:41
"Non sit vobis vanum mane surgere ante lucem,
quia promisit Dominus coronam vugulantibus
Lenten Invitatory on Psalm 95 (v94)
Let it not be vain for you to rise up early before light,
For the Lord has promised a crown to those who watch.
So from Ash Wednesday through Saturday before Passion Sunday,
we frame the recitation of the Matins Psalm. It is an appropriate
theme we sound here: rise up early and watch! Lent is a time of
watching, waiting and watching. But, what for?
Lent comes from an Old English word *lencten* meaning *springtime*.
It was used to translate the Latin *Quadragessima*, meaning the 40th
day,* viz*. the 40th day before Easter. This dating excludes the Sundays
which are in Lent, but not "of it." Lent is a season of fasting, and
all Sundays, as commemorations of the Resurrection, are to a greater
or lesser extent, feast days. From early times, at least as early as
the early 4th century, this forty days has been kept as a fast, preliminary
to Easter. We learn from a letter of St. Athanasius that,
by 339, during this period, "all the world is fasting."
The forty days comes directly from our Lord's 4o days of fasting
and temptation in the wilderness, between his baptism and his
active ministry that led, in three short years, to his death, for
us men and for our salvation, and his Resurrection from the
dead.
During these forty days, the Church relives with our Lord
his forty days of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. ( Matthew
4:1-11).
When Jesus had thus fasted and so was hungry and physically week,
the Devil came to him and tempted him, first, to end his hunger with a
miracle,
by turning rocks to bread. "It is written, man shall not live by bread
alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
You will remember that we began our prelenten celebration with the
reading of Genesis. It will be well to recall here an earlier temptation:
the primordial one of Adam and Eve. You will remember that the Devil
began his temptation of Eve by getting her to question the words of
God. "Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,
God hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye
die, and the Serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die.
For, God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall
be opened and YE SHALL BE AS GODS. knowing good and evil! "
(Genesis 3:3-5)
Well, from that heady promise, it was a small step to get Eve to see
how much pleasure she could derive, both lower ( good for food . . .
pleasant for the eyes) and higher (desired to make one wise, ) V. 6
from disobeying God.
Now God did not forbid all pleasure. Indeed, man was permitted
everything *except* that single tree. What was forbidden was
pleasure that God, in his wisdom, saw would focus man, not on
his relationship with his Divine Creator, but rather on the pleasure
derived directly from the creature. The notion that life without
limits is good is one of the central errors of modern culture.
From Epicurus to Freud, the *pleasure principal* becomes a
dominant motif in and a central threat to civilization.
*Freedom* and *pleasure* are indeed, as God explained to
Adam and Eve, preludes to death, whether of individuals or
cultures.
Now, you will note that Jesus precisely reversed Eve's
(and Adam's ) disobedience with his own obedience.
Eve prefered the satisfaction of her desires to
God's commandment; Jesus prefered the "word of God." to
the satisfaction of his desires, even though his hunger was
both real and natural.
Having failed on his first temptation, the devil then tempts
Jesus next, to presume on the promises and mercies of
God, to make daring display of his religion. The not
very subtle effect of this is to draw worship to personality
and "personal magnetism." This is the religion of all
who pursue the various "personal power cults."
It is also the religion of those to whom "success" becomes
the dominant god of their life, that to which, and for which,
they make sacrifice and take trouble.
When that failed too, the Devil promised Jesus, real power,
the power that comes from achieving status and possessions.
This is a temptation that still whispers to us about how
we could do much good, if we possessed great power.
We live in a society in which it is usual for families and
individuals to go into debt with mortgages and credit
cards, where both parents work, leaving children to raise
themselves, all to have more possessions and more
amusements.
Neither possessions nor power are evils *per se*. They,
like pleasure and personality, become evil when they become
the dominant focus of life, for then they lure us from our
relation with God, from our eternal connection and destiny
to a contentment with the temporal. Is it not a very serious
silliness to beome so satisfied and sated with *hors d'oeures*
that we are not able to enjoy the main courses and desserts?
So, whatever faith we profess, the preoccupation with
pleasure, personality and power becomes an implicit
denial that anything beyond this poor mess exists.
But a still small voice, a thirst that is not satisfied with
these ephemeral satisfactions, tells us there is more;
there is a beyond. The mild fasting and abstinence that
Christians practice during Lent is a reminder that we
are citizens of a "better country," and are called to seek,
not earthly, but heavenly satisfaction.
So on Ash Wednesday, we begin our fast with ashes smeared
on forehead and the reminder: "Remember O man that dust
thou art and to dust thou shalt return." and in the *Introit*
we sing: "Thou hast mercy upon all, O Lord and hatest nothing
that thou hast created." In the Lesson, God speaks to us and says:
"Turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with fasting and
with weeping and with mourning and rend your hearts and not
your garments and turn unto the Lord your God." (Joel 2:12ff)
But, we began with the Invitatory reminding us that the crown.
symbolic of eternal--not temporal-- joys, is for those who
rise up early to watch. So let us close where we began,
with a few thoughts on watching. We know indeed, that
as our text says: "the flesh is weak." What is the remedy?
"Watch and pray!"
Our Lord's temptation is the primary pattern for our lenten
fast, but there are three other 40day periods of fasting in
the Old Testament that are interesting. The first two are
fasts of Moses. When he went up to receive the Ten
Commandments, the Moral Law of civilization, he relates:
"I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights,
I neither did eat bread nor drink water. . . . and it
came to pass that at the end of forty days and nights that
the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, even the
tables of the Covenant." (Deuteronomy 9:9-11)
Perhaps you remember that when Moses came down
with these Tables, he discovered that the People of
God had backslidden: they had made new Gods of
gold in the shape of a fertility icon and were dancing
and singing, in worship of this deity of immediate
satisfaction and temporal enjoyment who did
not impose limits on their "freedom".
So God would have destroyed this rebellious
and stiff-necked people, except that Moses
pulled another fast of 40 days.
"Thus, I fell down before the Lord 40 days and
40 nights, as I fell down at the first; because the
Lord had said he would destroy you. I prayed
therefore unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God
destroy not thy people, and thine inheritance,
which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness,
which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with
a mighty hand. . . . Yet they are thy people and
thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out
by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out
arm." (Deuteronomy 9: 25,26,29)
From Moses we learn that, in this fast, we are
not only to turn from our sins, as represented by
the Tables of the Covenant, given by God as
the fruits of Moses' first fast, but also that we are
to intercede for God's people, for they have fallen
and do fall into sin. Yet they are his redeemed, and
so we are called upon to bring this to God's
remembrance and to plead the blood of Christ to
offer and to pray in and with the Holy Sacrifice,
that God will once again, spare his people.
The third Old Testament pattern is that of Elijah.
After Elijah had challenged and destroyed the
priests of the native fertility cults of the Baalim
of Canaan, the heathen Queen Jezebel was
pursuing him, to kill him. So Elijah fled into the
wilderness and prayed God to take his life.
He fell asleep and presently, an Angel awoke
him and said " Arise and eat, for the journey is
too great for thee!"
So it is for us my brethern; the journey through
the wilderness is far too great for us, in our
human weakness; we must rise and eat the
Holy Feast, our good Lord has prepared for
us, for, "except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man
and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."
The story of Elijah continues:
"And he arose and did eat and drink and went in the
strength of that meat forty days and nights unto
Horeb, the mount of God." ( I Kings 19: 1-8 )
Let us then watch and pray, let us confess our
sins and intercede for our brethern; let us fast
that we may maintain our focus on the things
above, not on the things of this world which pass
away. Let us pray and feast on our Lord in the
Holy Sacrament, that we may go in his
strength and not our own for, "the journey is
too great," for us. Let us arise then, eat and
so journey to the Mount of God.
"So Lord at length when sacraments shall cease,
May we be one with all thy Church above,
One with thy saints in one unbroken peace,
One with thy saints in one unbounded love:
more blessed still in peace and love to be
One with the Trinity in Unity. Amen"
STAGES IN OUR LENTEN JOURNEY
LENTEN EMBER DAYS
Wednesday, Friday & Saturday of the first week of Lent are special
prayer-days called Ember Days. They are fast days within a fast season and
so are sometimes observed with a special degree of strictness, but they are
principally days set aside for special prayers and special concerns.
*Reminiscere miserationum tuarum, Domine* ,
"Call to remembrance, thy tender mercies, O Lord, and thy
loving-kindnesses, which have ever been of old.
So we chant the beginning of Holy Mass for this Wednesday.
Then after singing *Kyrie eleison* we pray to God: "Stretch forth the
right hand of thy mercy against all things that may hurt us!"
And well might we cry out: for our politicians parading their immorality
hurts us. But, instead of self-examination and repentance--after all
we elected them--we have acquiesence and laughter. Our doctors,
aided and abetted by our judges and our politicians, hurt us; they
slaughter the unborn and instead of electing officials who will
change the laws and the judges, we elect the same ones who
condone the slaughter of the innocents. Our children too hurt us;
they slaughter each other in school rooms and and on play grounds
and instead of loving discipline and Christian teaching, we offer
blame for the dumb weapons they use to shoot their friends.
The first lesson of this Mass is from *Exodus* and tells of Moses'
experience in the Mount: "The Lord said unto Moses, come up to
me in the Mount. . . and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law,
and commandments which I have written: that thou mayest teach
them unto the children of Israel."
Well, these are the commandments the teaching of which has been
outlawed in schools and proclaimed by judges who should know
better as a violation of the US Constitution. How dare we ask,
naively, why our children shoot each other in our schools!
How dare we, like some primitive tribe, try the weapon,
pronounce the weapon guilty, and ask for laws against guns, while
pronouncing the teaching of God's Law against murder, unconstitutional.
We have substituted "values clarification" for the laws of God, and
our own "feelings" about what is good for God himself.
We must ask ourselves hard questions:
Do Christians have any business voting for politicians who
believe a mother has the "right to choose" to have her baby
murdered while in her womb?
Should Christians send their children to schools where God is
not honored and where the Ten Commandments are off limits?
This lesson from *Exodus* concludes with an awful--full of awe--
picture of the glory of God :
"And the sight of the Glory of the Lord was
like devouring fire on the top of the mount."
This is a vision that we need badly to recapture today.
We have so domesticated God that we have lost the sense
of what the German scholar, Rudolph Otto called *mysterium
tremendum* We have, instead, taught our children the Hindu
doctrine: "Brahman is Atman; Aatman is Brahman." We are God,
and God is us. Nature, man and God are a continuum.
In the name of multi-cultural tolerance, every religious notion
can be taught, except the Judeo-Christian notion of a God who
makes demands, the failure to live up to which is sin and subject
to punishment. We need to recapture the vision of God who
is "like a devouring fire." Perhaps such a vision will drive
us to our knees in repentance. Perhaps such a vision will
make us and our children fear, lest we offend by sinning
against his law. We have forgotten the Scripture that
says "The FEAR of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
Well indeed do we sing in the Gradual, after the lesson:
"The sorrows of my heart are enlarged: O Lord bring me
out of my troubles"
Have we not learned yet that we cannot bring ourselves out,
not with metal detectors nor self expression nor values clarification
nor "tolerance" of different view points. Only God can bring
us out and only when we continue, as in this gradual, to sing from
the depths of our being to the God who made us:
"Look upon my adversity; and forgive me all my sin."
In the Offertory we sing, from Psalm 119,
"My delight shall be in thy commandments, which I have
loved exceedingly: my hands also will I lift up
to thy commandments which I have loved."
Yes, wisdom does indeed begin in fear, but it ends in love.
But how can we learn to love his commandments? Surely
this limitation on our behavior is not something that we
naturally love. No for we are "born in sin, " and naturally
prefer our own way.
On Ember Friday, we hear the Gospel of the sick man who lay
all day by the healing waters of the pool, Bethesda. When Jesus
came to him and asked: "Wilt thou be made whole?" he replied.
"Sir I have no man to put me into the pool."
In the collect for the following Sunday we confess to Almighty God,
"that we have no power of ourselves to help our selves."
So we stand in need of the amazing grace of God. He gives us this
grace chiefly in the sacraments. In Holy Baptism, we are given a new
nature and made sons of God, and given the grace to delight in HIS
ways, to please our Father. In Holy Mass, we offer ourselves,
our souls and bodies, to him in union with his great sacrifice of love
on Calvary and receive God himself into our being to strengthen us
and to remake us in his will.
But, you say, "I was baptised, but I have strayed; I do not delight
in my Father's will nor do I love his commandments. " You must
regain the vision of God who is a consuming fire, whom you fear
to displease. You must go again in your spirit to that place where
fear and love meet, at the foot of the cross. You must see the price
of your sins in the death of him who knew no sin of his own but
willingly died for yours and trembling with guilt you must die for
love, die to self and your desires, your ways, your will, for love
of him who died for you.
Go to your priest and open your heart to confess your sins and
receive at his hands the forgiveness of the Father whose love you
have so despised. Thus, when Easter comes, you too may sing the
alleluias of the redeemed. Lent is a season of grace given us that
we may repent and turn again unto the God who made us, unto the
Father who loves us.
LAETARE SUNDAY
We have reached the midpoint and so we sing *Laetare Jerusalem!*
"Rejoice ,O Jerusalem, and come together all ye that love her;
Rejoice for joy, all ye that have mourned, that ye may be glad . . ."
There are outward signs of this rejoicing--such is the Catholic way--
magnificant sounds from the organ, the fragrance of flowers, often
roses, the splendor of rose vestments, rose of rejoicing, replacing,
for this one day, the purple of penance. From the color of vestments,
and ( and from the golden rose the Pope used to send to Catholic Kings)
the day is sometimes called *Dominica de Rosa*, Rose Sunday.
Thus far we have come in our lenten discipline, thus far with our
fasting and prayers. But, we still have a ways to go and, frankly,
the "journey is too far for us." So we must cry to the Lord for strength
to continue our journey. This lenten journey is, of course, a
microcosm of our life: we must continually cry to God for strength and
grace to go on our way, that "so we may obtain what he has promised,
we may love what he has commanded."
As our help in this journey, to direct and aid us, our gracious Lord has
given us the Holy Church and the Holy sacraments. In the Gospel,for
this day we read the story of the great crowd that had followed Jesus
and listened to his message and were now hungry. "Whence shall we
buy bread, that these may eat?" Jesus asks his disciples. "There is a lad
here," says Andrew. "who hath five barley-loaves and two small fishes.
But," he adds, "what are they among so many?" Jesus then commanded
to make the men sit down and took the loaves and blessed them and
distributed them and this vast crowd was filled and, there were fragments
left over.
So it is that we bring what we have to Christ in this Holy Sacrament
of the Mass. We bring our failings and our joys, whatsoever good we
have tried to do and whatsoever evil we have endured, all this we
offer to our Lord and he blesses it in union with this re-presentation
of the Sacrifice of Calvary: the passion, death, Resurrection and
Ascension of our Blessed Lord. And he gives himself, his Body
and Blood, in return, so the "life which we live in the flesh we live
no longer unto ourselves; but in Christ within us, the hope of glory!"
The Blessed sacrament is profered to us by Holy Mother Church, who
nourishes us as a true mother. In the epistle, we hear St. Paul compare
the Church to the old Holy City Jerusalem, "which is," he says, "the
Mother of us all." Thus, the day is also called *Mothering Sunday*.
And, this Holy Supper is indeed a foretaste of the Marriage Supper
of the Lamb in the heavenly Jerusalem. This idea is beautifully summed
up in John Mason Neale's translation of Peter Abelard's great hymn
in which Jerusalem( the Church ) yearns for the Holy Jerusalem
(the heavenly city).
Truely Jerusalem name we that shore,
Vision of peace that brings joy evermore;
Wish and fulfilment can sever'd be be ne're
Nor the thing hoped for come short of the prayer.
(And so *Laetare Jerusalem*! Rejoicing Sunday is an anticipation of
this eternal joy. )
There where no troubles distraction can bring,
We the sweet anthems of Sion shall sing;
While for thy grace, Lord their voices of praise (*Laetare!*)
Thy blessed people eternally raise.
(But, we are not there yet.)
Now in the meantime with hearts raised on high,
We for that country must yearn and must sigh,
Seeking Jerusalem, dear native land,
Through our long exile on Babylon's strand.
(In traditional typology, the seventy days , from
*Septuagesima* until the Saturday after Easter, carry the
mystical meaning of the seventy years of the Babylonian
Captivity. So the *Septuagessima* introit from Psalm 18:
"The sorrows of death compassed me, the pains of hell came
about me; and in my tribulation, I called upon the Lord,"
reminding us of the song of the exiles in Psalm 137 (V. 136):
"By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we
remembered thee, O Sion. . . . How shall we sing the Lord's
Song [ the *alleluia*, now banished til Easter ] in a strange
land? If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget
its cunning.
And so the symbolic captivity of the Church lasts until
on Low Saturday, *Sabbato in Albis*, the second
Exodus, the return of the exiles from Babylon, is
symbolized by singing in the Introit complete with the return
of the "Lord's song," i.e. the *alleluia*:
"The Lord hath brought forth his people with joy, Alleluia
and his chosen with gladness, alleluia, alleluia. "
So we conclude by bowing in praise before the Most Holy
Trinity from whom all our help must come, if we are to reach
our true home safely. )
Low before him, with our praises, we fall,
Of whom, and in whom, and through whom are all
O whom, the Father; and in whom the Son;
Through whom, the Spirit, with them ever One.
Amen
Copyright by David A. E. Horsman, 2001
PASSIONTIDE
Passiontide consists of the two weeks between Passion Sunday and Easter.
The first week is called simply PASSION WEEK, the second is called
Holy Week. During this season, it is customary to veil all statues, icons
and crosses, except those on the Stations of the Cross. The crosses remain
veiled until Good Friday; the statues and icons until the *Gloria in
Excelsis* of Holy Saturday.
Another signature of the season is the use of two office hymns, by the
6th century Bishop, Fortunatus. At Matins, the hymn *Pange Lingua* is sung:
Sing my tongue the glorious battle, sing the winning of the fray.
Now above the Cross the trophy, Sound the high triumphal lay!
Tell how Christ, the worlds Redeemer, as a victim won the day.
And for Evensong, throughout the season, is sung the *Vexilla Regis*:
The Royal Banners forward go, the Cross shines forth in mystic glow.
Where he as man who gave man breath, now bows beneath the yoke
of death.
Thus every day, there are repeated the twin paradoxes of the season:
1) The Friday on which our Lord died , is yet called "Good," because,
although he was the intended victim, "crucified, died and buried," Jesus
Christ was the true Victor, because by dying, he destroyed death and won
for mankind the redemption from sin and death that was the inheritance from
Adam.
As John Henry Newman put it in his hymn:
"A second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came."
2) The Creator of the World, he, without whom "was not any thing made
that was made," he who was very God of very God, who breathed into
man the "breath of life," was here , on cruel Cross, put to death. And yet,
what a pyric victory for death, and Satan, it was; for, it was indeed, a
death that destroyed death.
So, as its name implies, this is a time given over to meditation upon
the passion and death of our Lord. The introit on Passion Sunday is from
Psalm 43 (42) *Judica me Deus*: Give Sentence with me O God and
defend my cause. This psalm, sung here, is not used, as at other times,
in prayers at the foot of the Altar, before Mass. As befits the more
somber tone of the nearer approach to the sacred days of our Lord's
Passion and Death, the concluding *Gloria Patri* for psalms is also
eliminated.. In the Collect, we beseech ,
"Almighty God, to look upon thy people: that by thy great
goodness, they may be governed and preserved, both in body and soul."
The lesson is from the Epistle to the Hebrews ( C 9 ), in which Christ is
proclaimed as,
"an High Priest of good things to come . . .neither by the blood of goats
and calves, but by *his own blood * he entered once into the Holy
Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."
Thus did our Lord sum up and fulfill all the sacrifices of all the world's
religions and, specifically, became the anti-type that had been typified
by the annual Day of Atonement ritual, when the Jewish High Priest
entered into the inner chamber of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, to
sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat. "For if," the lesson continues,
"the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heffer sprinkling the
unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall
the *blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve
the living God? "
"How much more," indeed! There is, my brethern, no need to mope
around with consciences burdened by dead and killing works: Christ,
by his death has freed us from this burden, not so we could live after
our own desires and pleasure, not to "do our own thing," not to follow
the "devices and desires of our own hearts,"but, rather, "to serve the
living God." Only God himself could meet the demands of justice, to
free man of sin; nothing merely human would suffice. So the Gospel
for this Sunday ( John 8 ), announces very clearly Christ's unique
qualifications as both Priest and Victim for this impending offering:
"If a man keep my sayings he shall never see death." said our Lord.
"Abraham is dead," replied the Jews,"art thou greater than our Father
Abraham?"
This is one of those great dramatic moments, when all history waits,
with breath held, and when you could hear the proverbial pin drop,
waiting for the answer.
"Your Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and
was glad." Christ responded.
" Then said the Jews unto him: thou art not yet fifty years old, and
hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them: verily, verily I say
unto you before Abraham was, *I am.* " Perhaps it is unclear to
some modern theologians and exegetes what our Lord meant, but it
was perfectly clear to the Jews:
" They took up stones to cast at him."
Death by stoning was the penalty for blasphemy. When Jesus said,
"Before Abraham was, I am," Jews knew he was claiming identity
with the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, who appeared to Moses
in the burning bush, before the Exodus, and when Moses asked
"What is his Name?" the Almighty replied: "I am that I am: and he
said thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent
me unto thee. . . This is my name forever "(Exodus 3 ).
The Jews understood that Christ was here claiming identity with the
God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. What they did not understand,
what not even the Apostles quite understood yet, was that he was
proclaiming the verge of a new and greater Exodus: an Exodus not
just for one nation, but for all people, everywhere and forever,
eternal redemption from the yoke of sin and death, which Adam's
flesh is heir to and which we all join in perpetuating by sinning daily
in "thought word and deed, by what we have done and by what we
have left undone," for that is our nature. But Christ by his offering,
"for us men and for our salvation," on the wood of the Cross, the
Cross we aptly hail in the hymns of Fortunatus, has died for us, has
paid the penalty for our sins.
So, on MONDAY, we can sing with warrent, in the Introit for the
Mass, "Be merciful unto me O Lord!"
And The Lesson is about God's mercy: the story of Jonah's
preaching to Nineveh ( C 3) and their repentance, in sack cloth
and ashes for their sins. Thus we are made clear that, although
God-in-Christ has paid the debt for our sins, we must yet repent,
and claim his shed blood for our pardon. The Ninevites were
given "forty days" to repent--a type of Lent-- Let us, brethern, make
as good use of our forty days as did this people. They repented in
earnest and , "they turned from their evil way: and the Lord our God
had mercy on his people."
In the Gospel,( John 7 ) we remember that, " the Chief Priests sent
officers to take Jesus, Then said Jesus unto them; Yet a little while
am I with you: and then I go unto him that sent me." And so we
remember again how close we are coming to the time of our
Redemption.
On TUESDAY, we enter Mass singing, " O tarry thou the Lord's
leisure, be strong and he shall comfort thy heart." The lesson is
the familar story of the deliverance of Daniel (C 29 ) from the
lions' den, whither he had been cast for his faithfulness to God.
It ends with the King, whose order had cast him into the den,
exclaiming: "Let all the inhabitants of the whole earth fear the
God of Daniel, for he is the Saviour, working signs and wonders
in the earth: who hath delivered Daniel from the lions' den. "
Already in Jonah's mission, a reluctant mission, you may
remember, we see salvation offered beyond the Jewish nation.
We have here prefiqured a Saviour, not only of the Jews, but
of the "inhabitants of the whole world."
In the Gospel, ( John 7 ) we are told that "Jesus walked in Galilee,
for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to
kill him."
On WEDNESDAY, we sing in the Introit, ( Psalm 18 ) :
"The Lord is my stony rock, my defense, and my Saviour."
The Lesson from Leviticus 19, reminds us of God's commandments
and concludes, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, I am the
Lord; ye shall keep my statues, for I am the Lord your God."
In the Gospel for the day, ( John 10 ), the Jews seek more evidence
for their charge of blasphemy: "If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly."
Our Lord does not disappoint: "I and my Father are one. Then
the Jews took up stones again to stone him."
And, in the Offertory, we sing from Psalm 59:
"Deliver me from mine enemies, O God, defend me from them
that rise up against me, O Lord."
On THURSDAY, we begin by admiting:
"Everything that thou hast done to us, O Lord, thou hast done
in true judgment: for we have sinned., and not obeyed thy
commandments." and in the Gospel from Luke 7. we hear our
Lord, say to a woman who anointed his feet, anointed them in
anticipation of the impending death, "Thy sins are forgiven."
FRIDAY after Passion Sunday, commemorates the Seven Sorrows
of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It begins by remembering the
scene at the Cross: "There stood by the cross of Jesus his Mother."
In the Collect, we recall the Presentation in the Temple of the
young Christ Child, and Simeon's prophesy about the "sword of
sorrow," that would pierce her soul. The Lesson recalls a
type of the Blessed Virgin in Judith ( C 13 ) "O daughter, blessed
art thou of the most high God, above all the women upon the earth."
And the great sequence hymn is sung: "At the Cross, her station
keeping, stood the mournful Mother weeping where he hung,
the dying Son."
And the Gospel recalls again the scene, and we hear Jesus, say
to his Mother, "Woman behold thy son." and we know that he
speaks not only of John but of us as well. Then, when he says to
John, "Behold thy Mother," we know he speaks not only to the
Blessed Apostle but, to us, as well.
SATURDAY begins with the lament from Psalm 31:
"Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble, save me and
deliver me from the hand of mine enemies and from them that
persecute me." And we recall, in a Lesson from Jeremiah ( C 18 ),
a type of Jesus, in the persecution of Jeremiah, "In those days, the
wicked Jews said one to another: Come and let us devise devices
against the righteous."
The theme of the Saviour coming, not only to the Jews, but to
Gentiles as well is continued in the Gospel ( John C 12):
"The Pharisees therefore said among themselves: perceive ye
how ye prevail nothing? Behold the world is gone after him. And
there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at
the feast. the same came therefore to Philip, who was of Bethsaida
of Galilee: and desired him, saying: Sir we would see Jesus."
So must we pursue our devotions, desiring above all things that
in the coming days: we, too, "would see Jesus."
All Hallows Hall presents a traditionalist Christian Classical alternative
to "politically correct" prep schools.
"Tradition refused to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those
who merely happen to be walking about."
HOLY WEEK
The second week of Passiontide is called simply Holy Week. We are on a
count-down to the Cross and the Resurrection: the great days when the
salvation of our race was wrought.
The week begins with a procession, the first of many: the greeting of the
King of the Jews by the people of Israel. This procession is re-enacted by
Christians throughout the world. It begins with the antiphon sung by those
Jews who had gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover: They believed that Jesus had come to overthrow the Roman power and to
restore the throne of David. Well, indeed, he had, but in a far deeper
sense
than they suspected. Perhaps the disapointment with Jesus' failure to take
political power as his agenda was one thing that made it so easy for the
Jewish leaders to turn this band of well wishers into a lynch mob, in just
six short days.
We must remember that these Jewish enthusiasts ,with their praise songs and
shouts of joy, represent not just the Jewish people but us as well, for we
too lose the things eternal in the things temporal; we too lavish our hopes
on the things seen and forget the things unseen; we too get so caught up in
life's transient dream that we miss the eternal reality thus concealed. So
we too bless branches and process around Church or out doors , sometimes
making a station at a churchyard cross, singing our praise, just as did the
Children of the Hebrews. We too shout Hosanna to Jesus as our King and
Lord: it is easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm: "Glory Laud and honor
to thee Redeemer King!" Palm Sunday should teach us to beware a little
of our enthusiasm. Praise is easier than obedience, but, as we shall soon
discover, the lamentation of sacrifice is more lonely than the song of
praise.
The Introit of the Mass quickly returns us to a more sober mood: "Be not
thou far from me O Lord. . . haste thee to help me!" And the promise of
God's answer to this cry for help is chanted in the Collect for this day:
Almighty, everlasting God who didst cause our Saviour to take upom him our
flesh and to suffer on the Cross . . ."
Ah, here, not in the procession and posession of earthly power and pomp, but
in the humiliation of God's condescension to take upon him our sinful flesh
and to offer himself as a sacrifice on the cruel Cross: here is the answer
to man's need.
So the Lesson exhorts us to: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God . . . humbled himself and became
obedient, unto death, even the death of the Cross." Our Lord's obedience is
thus a *reversal * of Adam's disobedience. Adam, being in the form of a
man, in pride, strove to become God, through disobedience;
Jesus, being in the form of God, in humility, stooped to become man, through
obedience. Which example, are we most enclined to imitate?
The Gospel is the* Passion according to St. Matthew.* We hear again the
familiar story of betrayal and sacrifice. Those people who had
enthusiastically
praised and sung Hosanna to the Lord, now cry "crucify him!" He had
disappointed them; his Gospel was not one of "success"; his Kingdom was not
one of earthly power, and so "crucify him!"
So the earth grew dark at that awful event but the veil of the Temple was
rent and the way for man into the Holy of Holies was purchased by that only
offering perfect in the eyes of God: the immortal sacrifice of the Son of
God.
MONDAY
Unfortunately, not many can or will, even of the devout, attend Mass for the
next three days of Holy Week. On Monday, we pray to God that, "We who in so
many adversities fail, by reason of our weakness; may be renewed by the
interceeding passion," of our Lord. We hear a lesson from Isaiah 50, in
which Jesus speaks in prophetic anticipation of that passion: "I gave my
back to the smiters . . . I hid not my face from shame and spitting. . . ."
FOR YOU, he endured these indignities.
On TUESDAY, he speaks again in Jeremiah 11: " I was like a lamb or an ox
that
is brought to the slaughter" In the Gospel for that day, *the Passion
according to St. Mark,* we see these things fulfilled in the description of
Pilate's command for the scourging of Jesus--for our healing, beloved, he
endured those strokes of the whip that tore that sacred flesh, for your
healing--and in the mocking of the
soldiers who, "platted a crown of thorns and put it about his head: and
began to salute him: hail King of the Jews!"--an ironic twist to the
enthusiasm of Palm Sunday-- "And they smote him on the head . . . and did
spit upon him." Pause awhile to take that in. Imagine someone important to
you, a teacher, or your mother being so foully treated. But this, beloved,
is the very Son of Almighty God.
On WEDNESDAY, we have two Lessons: in the first, from Isaiah 62 & 63, we
hear "Thus saith the Lord God: say ye to the daughter of Sion behold thy
salvation cometh . . .I have trodden the winepress alone. " The other is
the
majestic passage, one of the most beautiful in the Bible, from Isaiah 53.
I cannot read about the "Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief,"
without hearing Handel's music, from *Messiah.* Indeed, with the banishment
of the King James' Bible from most churches, Handel's music is often the
only place where our children can hear again those great words:
"The iniquity of us all!" What a breathtaking thought is that. Mine alone,
( or yours ) would have been sufficient indignity, but there was laid
upon him, "the iniquity of us all."
The Gospel is the * Passion according to Saint Luke.* There are some
unique touches in this Gospel: Only from Luke, do we hear that during the
Agony in the Garden, before Jesus' trial, that, as he prayed, "Father, if
thou be willing, , remove this cup from me: never the less, not my will but
thine be done, there appeared an Angel unto him from heaven, strengthening
him, and being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. And his sweat was,
as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." "Never the
less, not my will. " Again, Jesus reverses Adam's willful disobedience
by his willing obedience. As Saint Paul put it:
"As by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
(Romans 5:19)
The strengthening Angel and the bloody sweat are found only in Luke.
And, only in Luke, do we find the dying thief's plea: "Lord remember me
when thou comest into thy Kingdom." and our Lord's response:
" Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise."
MAUNDY THURSDAY
There is an echo of the absolution of the dying thief in the Collect for
Thursday:
"O God from whom both Judas received the punishment of his guilt,
and the thief the reward of his confession, grant unto us the effect of thy
propiation: that as in his passion Jesus Christ, our Lord, gave unto
each the divers rewards of his merits; so he may deliver us from the
transgressions of our old nature, and bestow upon us the grace of his
Resurrection. "
But, it is from the Antiphon sung after the Gospel ( John 13: 1-15 ),
that this day gets its name. The Antiphon is from this same Chapter
of the Gospel, Verse 34: "A *new commandment* I give unto you;
that ye love one another, as I have loved you." The Latin for
"New Commandment" is *mandatum novum.* The Gospel describes
Christ's washing of the Disciples' feet and during the singing of
the Antiphon quoted above (and others ) it is customary for the
ranking clerics to wash the feet of lesser clerics or of representatives
of the laity. This act is a sacramental of Christian humility and love.
The Epistle, read earlier, is from I Corinthians 11. It describes a
event much more important than the footwashing, the tradition of the
institution of the Holy Eucharist and, in the same event, the institution
of the ministers of that Eucharist, the Christian Priesthood. So, in
the words of institution, in the Mass this night, after saying, "For in
the night in which he was betrayed," the Priest adds the words:
"that is on this night--" .
And, indeed from early times, it has been the custom to celebrate
Mass on this day in the evening. There is another displacement of
observance sometimes practiced during this time. Matins, is done
later in the day, so that more people might attend. Since in Northern
Europe it gets dark early at this time of the year, the services for
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are called *Tenebrae* (darkness).
The usual introductory and closing formulae and office hymns are
omitted and along with the Psalms and proper lessons, there are
sung each day the beautiful *Lamentations* of Jeremiah. Another
feature is the gradual extinction of fifteen candles arranged on a
triangular candlestick, as the service proceeds. By the end of the
singing of the *Benedictus*, there is only one candle left: the
topmost candle, representing Jesus. This is taken down and hidden
behind the Altar, until the conclusion of the service, when it is restored
to its place accompanied by a loud noise, symbolic of the great
desturbance of nature at the death of Christ.
There are special customs for this Mass: it is celebrated in white
vestments and the *Gloria in Excelsis* is sung--it has been suppressed
since Septuagessima--with much ringing of bells. After this, both
Gloria and bells are again suppressed until Easter Eve.
Another special custom is the consecration of the Holy Sacrament
in extra amount to be used in the Mass of presanctified on
Good Friday when there is communion but no consecration.
At the end of the Mass, there is another procession: while the faithful
sing:
the Blessed Sacrament is carried in procession to a separate
Altar or Chapel where it is enshrined in a garden of floral display,
emblematic of the garden in which our Lord prayed after he instituted
the Holy Mass. Remembering our Lord's question to the Apostles,
when he arose from his prayers to find them sleeping-- "Could you
not watch with me one hour?" -- in many places, the faithful take
turns watching, for an hour or so, in groups of two or three, all night.
The final act of this night is the "stripping, "removing all vestments and
adornments from the sanctuary, and the washing of the Altar,
while the Choir sings Psalm 22, with the Antiphon from Verse 19:
"They part my garments among them, and upon my vesture they cast lots."
GOOD FRIDAY
The Altar for this service is completely bare, without linen, cross or
candle sticks. The ministers, vested in albs amice and girdle, with black
stoles for the Deacon and Celebrant, process into the Church in silence,
reverence the Altar and prostrating themselves, lie in silent prayer for
a while. The Celebrant rises and says the Collect:
Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously behold this thy family,
for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed,
and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death
upon the Cross: who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the
Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen
The Collect is followed by alternating Lessons, Responsories
and Collects, first from Hosea 6 --
"Come and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn and he
will heal us; he hath smitten and he will bind us up. After two
days will he revive us: in the third he will raise us up, and we
shall live in his sight."-- the second from Exodus 12, the
institution of the Passover-- "the lamb shall be without blemish
. . . kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood and
strike it on the two door posts." Then is chanted the Gospel for
the day: * Passion according to St. John.*
The Gospel done, a cloth is spread on the Altar and the solemn
Collects are prayed. These are very old going back to the early
days of the Church, intercessions for the Church and the world.
Next a veiled Cross is brought out and, while chanting,
"Behold the wood of the Crosss, whereon was hung the world's
salvation; O come let us worship,"the Cross is gradually unveiled.
After it is unveiled first the clergy and then the people, come
forward, "creeping to the Cross," to adore, kissing the feet on
the cross, while there is sung the beautiful *Reproaches --
Hagios Ischyros, Hagios Athanatos, Eleison humas,
C. S. Lewis said of this service: "The body must do its homage."
Indeed it must, and with the body our souls must here be offered
a living sacrifice in union with his Sacrifice--but there is no
Mass today. Still, the Blessed Sacrament is brought back in solemn
procession, singing: "We adore thee O Cross and we bless thee
because by the Cross thou hast redeemed the world."
The Celebrant says a confession, the Lord's prayer, Prayer of
Humble Access and, after making his own communion, distributes
to the people, in one kind. Communion done, the Celebrant says three
collects and everyone departs silently. The first of these sums up the
devotions of the week, quite well; it must be our devout prayer for
this season :
A PASCHA MEDITATION
EASTER AND PASCH
*Easter*, the Venerable Bede tells us comes from the name of a Tutonic
goddess of the rising light and Spring named Estre. Perhaps he was right;
Bede was a very learned as well as a very saintly man. However, I do not
know of any other attestation of this derivation. Perhaps both terms are
derived from the Old English *east*, which indicates the place of the rising
sun and early-on was associated with the risen Son, the Son of
righteousness who rose from death, with healing for the mortal wound of
diobedience, the original sin with which our father Adam infected our poor
race. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." (I Cor
15:22 ). The tradition of the Church placed, both the lost Paradise of Eden
and Christ's Ascension in the east. The Vulgate translation of Psalm
67:33 -34 ( KJV 68) goes : *Psalte Deo, qui ascendit super caelum caeli. ad
orientem!* ( Sing to God who ascended above the heaven of heaven to the
east. ) So, from earliest days, Christians have prayed facing East,
waiting for the return of our Lord in Glory. "As the lightning cometh out
of the east and shineth even unto the west; so also the coming of the Son of
Man shall be." ( Matthew 24:27 ) Thus also, in the old liturgies ( e.g.,
St. Basil and St. Mark ) there is the recurrent cry of the Deacon befor
prayers:
* "eis anatolas blepsate!" * (Look to the east ) This cry and its
obedience was, in much of Eastern and Anglican Christendom still is, an
outward and visible sign of the Church waiting in expectation for our
Lord's return.
The term more often used for this great feast, in the East is *Pascha*. This
name connects the Resurrection with the experience of the Children of Israel
in their Exodus, their coming out of their captivity in Egypt. The name,
*Pascha*, comes, you will remember, from the sacrificial meal eaten "in
haste," before the departure. (Exodus 12 ) The center piece of this meal
was a "lamb without blemish," slain and and eaten with blood smeared, "on
the two side posts and on the upper door posts," so that when the death
angel passed through Egypt, slaying first-born of both man and beast, when
I, saith the Lord God, "see the blood, I will *pass-over* ( paska ) you.
The word in Greek was easily connected with the verb *pasko* meaning to
suffer. The Johannine tradition put the time of Christ's death at the time
of the slaying of the young lambs for the Passover. Thus, Christ was seen
as the Passover Lamb, the *Agnus Dei * who took away the sins of the world.
( I Peter 1: 18-20 ) A most interesting passage in this connection is the
Pericope of the Transfiguration in Luke 9:28-31. Jesus took Peter, James
and John into a Mountain to pray. Whilst he prayed, " the fashion of his
countenance was altered and his raiment was white and glistering and behold
there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias, who appeared in
glory , and spoke of his decease which he should accomplish in Jerusalem. "
The Greek word translated here " decease," is *Exodus* and it can mean
death, but it can also mean way out or *exodus *. So we could read it that
Christ talked with Moses about his own *Exodus* ! How rich these
associations between suffering and passover and exodus and death.
ALL THINGS NEW
"And he that sat upon the throne said: Behold I make all things
new." (Rev 21:5 )
As the Exodus was the beginning of new life for the people of Israel, so the
exodus of our Lord was and is the beginning of new life for Christians.
Let us look at the Pasch, the Vigil and the first Mass, more closely as the
time when all things are * made new* .
THE NEW FIRE
As we sit waiting in dark church, waiting at the Vigil--for that is what a
vigil is, a waiting-- waiting for the Resurrection,
suddenly, the darkness is pierced by a voice from the back of the Church:
"The Lord be with you." We respond: "and with thy spirit." The Celebrant
prays:
"O God who through thy Son, the cornerstone, hast bestowed upon
the faithful
the fire of thy brightness: sanctify this new fire, now
struck from the flint stone."
The new fire of Spring is an old pre-Christian custom in Europe. It was
baptized by the Church and, as we shall see, given
new associations. The first, we already see in the collect: Christ the
cornor stone ( I Peter 2:6 ), has indicated the replacement of flintstone
for the wood friction, more common with the pagans. The stone rolled to the
door of the tomb was also a factor here. After the new fire is blessed, a
great bees-wax candle, called the *Paschal Candle * is brought forward and
blessed. First , the Candle is marked with a cross: a verticle line while
the Celebrant says:"Christ, yesterday, and today." and then, a horizontal,
"the beginning and the end;" atop the vertical line, the Greek letter
*alpha*, and beneath, * omega ,* upper left, the number "2" "His are the
times;" upper right, the number "0", "and ages" ;lower left, another "0",
"To him be glory and dominion;" lower right the number "1". "throughout all
the ages of eternity, Amen."
Next five grains of blessed incense are placed at the etremes of the incised
Cross, while saying:
"Through his holy, and glorious wounds, may he guard, and preserve
us, Christ the Lord. Amen"
ThePaschal Candle is lighted from the new fire, incensed and processed by
the Deacon through the Church singing thrice, each time with higher tone:
"*Lumen Christi!"( Light of Christ ) to which each time, the congregation
responds. "Deo Gratias!" (Thanks be to God ). The lights on the Altar and
elsewhere in the Church as well as candles held by the congregation are lit
from the Paschal candle, en route, the Church gradually bursting into a
blaze of light. On reaching the Choir, the Deacon censes the lectern from
which he is next to read and then the Candle itself and finally sings the
*Praecomium Pascale * a beautiful Canticle to, the Paschal Candle, to
Christ the Light of the World."
" Now let the Angelic host of heaven rejoice; let the divine
mysteries rejoice;
and for the victory of the mighty King let the trumpet of
salvation sound forth.
Let the earth also be glad, illumined by the rays of this
great brightness;
and enlightened by the splendor of the eternal King,
Let her know that she hath put away the darkness of the
whole world.
Let our Mother the Church also rejoice, adorned with the
brightness of so great a light: . . . "
After an introduction similar to that used at Mass in the Sursum Corda he
continues:
Thus are all the Paschal associations to which we have referred, brought
together in this marvelous piece of Christian liturgical poetry. To which,
must be added burning bush wherein God revealed his sacred Name to Moses
Ex 3 )and the pillar of fire that led the Children of Israel through the
wilderness journey ( Ex 13: 21-22 ).
Let us remember that Christ is both the Light and the Way and so we must
walk in that light which we are promised will
lead us into all truth. But we too are "lights of the world," ( Mt 5:14,
2Cor 4:4 ), lit from the Great light, as the small candles from the Paschal
Light, we are to be witnesses to the Truth and Way that is Christ. May God
grant us so to shine in his Light. that the darkness around us may be
dispelled.
THE NEW WATER
After lessons and prayers, the new water for the baptismal font is blessed,
recalling not only the Spirit of God brooding over the waters of creation
from Genesis1:2 , but also the flood waters of Genesis 7, in which a few
souls were saved in the arc. ( Cf. 1 Peter 3:20) This water is the water of
regeneration in which the blood of the Paschal lamb is applied to the
washing away of our sins, for "except a man be born of water and of the
Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. "(John3:5 ). Jesus Christ
came, "not by water only but by water and blood, and it is the Spirit that
beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three
are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the
water, and the blood; and these three agree in one." ( I John 5: -8 ) The
baptismal water is living water in which we are reborn to new life.
THE NEW CREATURE AND NEW LIFE
"Therefore if any man be IN CHRIST, he is a new creature: old things are
passed away; behold all things become new."
(2 Cor 5:17) "And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in
righteousness and true holiness." (Eph 4: 24 )
This new identity comes about when the Holy Ghost regenerates us, brooding
over the waters of baptism , as in the original creation. For in these
mystical waters we are, as St. Paul tells us, "baptized INTO JESUS CHRIST .
. . therefore
we are buried WITH HIM by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life. " (Rom 6:3-4 ) Please note, that this life which we now
live, is a life IN CHRIST. The "righteousness" in which God creates us is
NOT our own righteousness, but, as St. Paul reminds us, we are to " be found
IN HIM, [ i.e. IN CHRIST ] not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. " ( Phil 3: 9 ) "IN
CHRIST JESUS , who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption." ( 1 Cor 1:30 ). In fine, "not by works of
righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us,
by the WASHING OF REGENERATION, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus
3:5 )The Church's baptism of infants is a constant witness to this mercy and
grace of God wherein he bestows his gifts upon little children, as helpless
to actuate their second birth as they were their first, testifying that it
is "not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his
mercy he saved us!" Thus we are incorporated into the Church which is the
Body of Christ. and, after Baptism , anointed and sealed by the Holy Spirit,
( Eph 1: 12-13 ) and in this sealing given a new name.
THE NEW NAME
It is at baptism that we are given our name. If we are adults and have not
a Saint's name already given, it is customary to take such, a new name, for
our patron, in our journey through the wilderness of this world toward our
promised home. For our Lord says. " to him that overcometh will I give to
eat of the hidden Manna [ more on this later ] and will give him a white
stone, and in the stone a NEW NAME." ( Rev 2:17 )
With the baptisms, we have accomplished the chief task of the preparation
for the great Resurrection Feast; that is, we have built up the Body of
Christ in adding new members, who now in the first Pascha Mass are to be
nourished as new born babes. In some places, the 23rd psalm is used as a
processional hymn for the newly baptized, as they come for their first
Communion.
THE NEW SONG
"O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvellous things!" and
indeed he has, both in his redemption wrought on Calvary and in its
sacramental re-presentation in the washing of regeneration in Baptism and in
the Sacrifice of the Mass in which we may join ourselves to his offering
that we may receive very God of very God, "the Body and Blood of Christ, and
be made one body with him, that he may dwell in us and we in him." And so
these newborn babes sing, " as it were, a new song, before the throne. . . "
( Rev 14: 3 ) as they approach to receive this new food.
"The Lord is my Shepherd; * therefore can I lack nothing.
He shall feed me in a green pasture, * and lead me forth beside the waters
of comfort.
He shall convert my soul, and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness
for his Name's sake.
. . . . Thou shalt prepare a table before me . . . thou hast anointed my
head with oil
and my cup shall be full. . . "
NEW FOOD
"Your fathers, did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the
bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not
die, I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of
this bread, he shall live forever. . . .except ye eat the flesh of the Son
of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you."
( John : 51-53 ) Indeed this is true for the new Children of the Font, but,
dearly beloved, it is true for all of us who are therein united to Christ.
Yes we have been grafted into his body, i.e. INTO CHRIST and made new
creatures, but, if we are not to cast away this great gift, we must ever
abide in him and bring forth fruits of this new life, permitting Christ to
work in us his will and way and this we cannot do in our own strength: we
must "eat his flesh and drink his blood," if we are to continue to have his
life in us.
NEW CITIZENSHIP
Born to new life we must, as do all God's people, "seek a country and truely
if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out [ that is
the Egypt of sin and worldly desires and ambitions ] they might have had
opportunity to return [ they surround us on all sides, do they not? ] but
now they desire a better country, that is an heavenly; wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city."
Hebrews 11: 14-16 ) Every Eucharist is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet
and we are "strangers and pilgrims on earth," ( Hebrews 11 : 13 ) and so we
are admonished by the Apostle Paul: " Be not conformed to this world: but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God." In this transformation,
frequent and regular prayer and the sacraments are indespensible, for these
are the contacts with our true native land whilst we are pilgrims in this
world. And so brethern, let us take diligence to make our calling and
election sure.
If, dear creature of God, you have heard his voice but have stood waiting
at the gates of salvation, seek out some godly priest and make known to him
your need of salvation, so that you may not let this season of opportune
grace pass you by:
" The Spirit and the Bride [ the Church ] say come and let him that
heareth say come and
let him that is athrist come and whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely."
EASTERTIDE
"They entered in and found not the body of Jesus.
And it came to pass as they were much perplexed thereabout,
behold two men stood by them in shining garments:
and as they were afraid and bowed down their faces to
the earth, they said unto them: why seek ye the living
among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!"
Luke24: 3-5
A TIME FOR REJOICING
This great event, the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, began a new chapter in
the the Salvation History of our race.
As St. Anselm argued persuasively, in * Cur Deus Homo *, the
Incarnation, the en-fleshment, of our Lord was necessary, because the
atonement
that his death made, demanded that he be both man-- for man owes the debt of
sin--
and God--for only God can pay such a debt. But the atoning death would,
in its turn, have been in vain, without the Resurrection. It would have
been a
great example of sacrificial love, but not the completion of redemptive
love.
It would have showed us the way to live, but not given us the enjoyment of
everlasting life.
There have been many attempts to have a form of Christianity without the
risen Christ. Theories have been promologated of the "not quite dead," or
the "spiritual vision" or the "with us in living spirit" variety since early
times. But ,in the final analysis only two theories make any sense at all:
either the Resurrection was a deliberate pious fraud, which we should
condemn
along with its perpetrators, or it was a true,actual bodily resurrection
from the dead,
and we should believe it: As Saint Paul put it:
"If Christ be not raised your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. . . .
If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable. But now is Christ risen and become the first fruits of them that
slept." ( I Corintiians 15:17-20 )
Thus, in Baptism, we were indeed, "baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized
into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death. "
(Romans 6: 3-4 ) But "buried with him in baptism, wherein ye are also risen
with him through the faith of the cooperation of God who hath raised him
from
the dead." ( Colossians 2:12)
So, for believers -- and I use the term advisedly, in its full sense, this
is a time of
rejoicing. If one does not believe in the reality of the Resurrection, there
is neither
point nor reason to the rejoicing. But, as believers, we sing in the Easter
gradual
from Psalm 118: "This is the day which the Lord
hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!"
Eastertide then is first of all forty days , from Easter to Ascension, of
festal rejoicing,
to balance the 4o days of fasting and waiting of Lent that preceded Easter.
There are many other signs of rejoicing: the more glorious white or gold
vestments
replace the somber purple and black; the * Alleluia * not only returns but
is, if one might
so put it, indulged. Seldom is Psalm verse heard without a concluding or
prefacing
single, double or triple *alleluia*. Through out other times of the year,
*asperges me Domine,
"Thou shalt purge me, O Lord, with hyssop and I shall be clean;
Thou shalt wash me and I shall be whiter than snow, "
accompanies the sprinkling of holy water. But during this season, the
sprinkling
is accompanied by the joyful *Vidi aquam egredientem*:
"I beheld water issuing out from the temple, on the right side alleluia;
and all to whom that water came were saved, and they shall say:
alleluia, alleluia!
O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is gracious because his mercy
endureth forever."
In the morning office, the* Te Deum * is heard:
We praise thee O God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord!
In the evening, the joyful antiphon to the Blessed Virgin * Regina caeli
laetare *is heard:
"O Queen of Heaven, be joyful, alleluia;
because he whom so meetly thou barest, alleluia;
hath arisen as he promised, alleluia.
A TIME FOR RE-ORIENTATION
When one is sailing without landmarks, it is very necessary to frequently
re-check
the compass, or the stars: to check one's place in the scheme of things. We
have
begun this during Lent and especially into Holy week, as we see the death of
our
Lord as the price of our sins. We have seen our Divine Lamb sacrificed for
us;
We have surveyed the wondrous Cross: we
"see from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down."
And as we kneel, on Good Friday, to adore the wooden cross, we cannot,
if we have kept faithfully the devotional exercises of the season, we
cannot but say:
"Love so amazing so divine demands my soul, my life, my all."
We hear the whispered call to holiness: "Ye are not your own. For ye are
bought
with a price!" ( I Corinthians 6:19-20 )
The modern attempt to have Easter without Good Friday is a vain dream.
Lest we forget the price paid, even in this season of rejoicing, we sing for
the
first eight days, the beautiful sequence hymn:
"Christians to the pascal victim offer your thankful praises.
A Lamb the sheep redeemeth: Christ who only is sinless,
reconcileth sinners to the Father.
Death and Life have contended in that combat stupendous:
the Prince of life who died reigns immortal."
Well, there is the turn: died--reigns immortal! So the next verse goes
straight
to the Resurrection morn:
" Speak Mary, declaring what thou sawest wayfaring.
The tomb of Christ who is living: the glory of Jesu's Resurrection. "
On Holy Saturday we have renewed our baptismal vows, abjuring the world,
the flesh and the devil and have been, in spirit, plunged with the
neophytes,
as they are newbaptized, beneath the waves that wash from sin. And . . .
Remembering our own bath of regeneration, we have risen to new birth.
Very well, we have come now to see whither we must point our little craft,
if we would safely sail the tempestous sea of this vain, proud and passing
world,
a sea full of mirages of mischief concealing dangerous shoals on which we
could
easily sail to shipwreck, full of dizzying attracting whirlpools of
pleasure and
power that would pull us down to destruction. St. Paul puts it:
"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above . .
. set
your affection on things above, not on things of the earth. For ye are
dead
and your life is hid with Christ in God."
A TIME FOR RESUME
In the Gospel for Easter Monday, we read the beautiful story of the
encounter of the disciples with the risen Christ, on the road to Emmaus.
The told him of their astonishment at the report of the women, concerning
the empty tomb. He does not yet reveal his identify, but he cannot let them
simply ramble on.
"Then he said unto them: O fools and slow of heart to believe all that
the Prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these
things, and to enter into glory? And beginning at Moses, and all the
prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning himself." (Luke 24: 13ff )
This same theme of the resume of Scripture, appropriating it to Christ is
found in the Gospel for Easter Tuesday, this time from Verses 44 & 45
of the same Chapter of Luke from which the Gospel on Monday was taken.
This time, our Lord appears to the Apostles. He first disproves the
"spiritual " Resurrection theories, that deny or doubt the bodily, physical
nature of the Resurrection. He shows them his hands and feet--" A spirit
hath not flesh and blood as ye see me have."-- and asks for food--"have
ye any meat?--which they gave him, and he ate it before them. Then,
"He said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you while
I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms, concerning
me. Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the
Scriptures."
The Apostles needed this Resume of the "Words which I spake unto you,
while I was yet with you," because they had not yet seen the Risen Lord,
indeed, had not yet understood the nature of his death, when they first
heard
this teaching. The early Church used to expound the nature of the
Sacraments
and salvation during this period, adding to the elementary instruction begun
before Baptism.
Are not we like the Apostles often forgetful? Is it not true of us, as of
them,
that we often don't "get it."
Let us make these great forty days a time when we learn to read Scriptures,
especially the Psalms, and Isaiah, to see Christ speaking in them, for
truely then
he will open our understanding.
(translation by John Mason Neale )
Latin Hymn 1661, translated by J. Athelstan
& L. Riley 1906
"Hosanna to the Son
of David: blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, O King of
Israel:
Hosanna in the highest. As with everything this people did during this
week, they knew not what they did.
"Surely he hath born our grief and carried our sorrows:
Yet we did esteme him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities:
The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes, we are
healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way.
And the Lord hath laid on him, the iniquity of us all."
"Now my tongue the mystery telling, of the glorious Body sing, and the
Blood, all price excelling, which the world's eternal King in a noble
womb once dwelling, shed for this world's ransoming,"
"O my people what have I done unto thee: or wherein have I
wearied thee: Answer me!
Because I brought thee forth from the land of Egypt:
thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Saviour;
Followed by a refrain in Greek--a sign of the very ancient
origin of this rite-- Hagios O Theos, Holy God
holy Mighty
Holy and Immortal. have mercy upon us.
We beseech thee, O Lord that upon thy people,
who with devout mind have recalled the passion and death of thy Son,
may descend thy plenteous benediction, thy pardon given,
thy consolation granted, their holy faith increased,
their eternal redemption made sure,
through the same Christ our Lord. Amen
It is very meet and right that we should with the whole
affection of our heart and mind,
and with the service of our lips, give praise unto the invisible
God, the Father almighty,
and unto his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. who paid
for us to the eternal
Father, the debt of Adam's transgression: and with his dear
blood wiped away the reproach of
our former offences. For this is the very Paschal feast wherein
the very Lamb is slain by
whose blood the doorposts of the faithful are made holy. This is
the night, wherein of old
thou didst lead forth our fathers, the children of Israel, out
of Egypt and didst make them
to pass on dry land through the Red Sea . . . ."
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