Leo the Great: Love of God and Neighbour Saturday, Nov 10 2012

There are two loves from which proceed all wishes, as different in quality as they are different in their sources.

For the reasonable soul, which cannot exist without love, is the lover either of God or the world.

In the love of God there is no excess, but in the love of the world all is hurtful.

Therefore we must cling inseparably to eternal treasures, but things temporal we must use like passers-by.

Accordingly, as we are sojourners hastening to return to our own land, all the good things of this world which meet us may be as aids on the way, not snares to detain us.

[…] But as the world attracts us with its appearance, and abundance and variety, it is not easy to turn away from it unless in the beauty of things visible the Creator rather than the creature is loved.

When He says, “thou shalt love the Lord thy God from all thy heart, and from all thy mind, and from all thy strength” He wishes us in nothing to loosen ourselves from the bonds of His love.

And when He links the love of our neighbour also to this command, He enjoins on us the imitation of His own goodness, that we should love what He loves and do what He does.

For … in all things He requires our ministry and service, and wishes us to be the stewards of His gifts, that he who bears God’s image may do God’s will.

For this reason, in the Lord’s prayer we say most devoutly, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done as in heaven, so also on earth.”

What else do we ask for in these words but that God may subdue those whom He has not yet subdued, and as in heaven He makes the angels ministers of His will, so also on earth He may make men?

And in seeking this we love God, we love also our neighbour. And the love within us has but one Object, since we desire the bond-servant to serve and the Lord to have rule.

This state of mind, therefore, beloved, from which earthly love is excluded, is strengthened by the habit of well-doing, because the conscience must needs be delighted at good deeds, and do willingly what it rejoices to have done.

Thus it is that fasts are kept, alms freely given, justice maintained, frequent prayer resorted to, and the desires of individuals become the common wish of all.

Labour fosters patience, gentleness extinguishes anger, loving-kindness treads down hatred, unclean desires are slain by holy aspirations, avarice is cast out by liberality, and burdensome wealth becomes the means of virtuous acts.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 90, 3-4.

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Leo the Great: The Transfiguration Laid the Foundation of the Church’s Hope Monday, Aug 6 2012

For the Saviour’s exhortation…instilled and taught this, that they who wished to follow Him should deny themselves, and count the loss of temporal things as light in the hope of things eternal.

Because he alone could save his soul that did not fear to lose it for Christ.

In order, therefore, that the Apostles might entertain this happy, constant courage with their whole heart, and have no tremblings about the harshness of taking up the cross…Jesus took Peter and James and his brother John, and ascending a very high mountain with them apart, showed them the brightness of His glory.

Because, although they had recognised the majesty of God in Him, yet the power of His body, wherein His Deity was contained, they did not know.

And, therefore, rightly and significantly, had He promised that certain of the disciples standing by should not taste death till they saw “the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom”, that is, in the kingly brilliance which, as specially belonging to the nature of His assumed Manhood, He wished to be conspicuous to these three men.

For the unspeakable and unapproachable vision of the Godhead Itself which is reserved till eternal life for the pure in heart, they could in no wise look upon and see while still surrounded with mortal flesh.

The Lord displays His glory, therefore, before chosen witnesses, and invests that bodily shape which He shared with others with such splendour, that His face was like the sun’s brightness and His garments equalled the whiteness of snow.

And in this Transfiguration the foremost object was to remove the offence of the cross from the disciple’s heart, and to prevent their faith being disturbed by the humiliation of His voluntary Passion by revealing to them the excellence of His hidden dignity.

But with no less foresight, the foundation was laid of the Holy Church’s hope, that the whole body of Christ might realize the character of the change which it would have to receive, and that the members might promise themselves a share in that honour which had already shone forth in their Head.

About which the Lord had Himself said, when He spoke of the majesty of His coming, “Then shall the righteous shine as the sun in their Father’s Kingdom”.

And the blessed Apostle Paul bears witness to the self-same thing, and says: “for I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us”;

and again, “for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  For when Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.”

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 51, 2-3.

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Leo the Great: That Which Before was Visible of Our Redeemer was Changed into a Sacramental Presence Sunday, May 20 2012

Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the fortieth day after the Resurrection in the presence of the disciples, was raised into heaven, and terminated His presence with us in the body, to abide on the Father’s right hand….

And so that which till then was visible of our Redeemer was changed into a sacramental presence.

So that faith might be more excellent and stronger, sight gave way to doctrine, the authority of which was to be accepted by believing hearts enlightened with rays from above.

This faith, increased by the Lord’s Ascension and established by the gift of the Holy Ghost…cast out spirits, drove off sicknesses, raised the dead.

Through it the blessed Apostles themselves also, who had…been panic-stricken by the horrors of the Lord’s Passion and had not accepted the truth of His resurrection without hesitation, made such progress after the Lord’s Ascension that everything which had previously filled them with fear was turned into joy.

For they had lifted the whole contemplation of their mind to the Godhead of Him that sat at the Father’s right hand.

And they were no longer hindered by the barrier of corporeal sight from directing their minds’ gaze to That Which had never quitted the Father’s side in descending to earth, and had not forsaken the disciples in ascending to heaven.

The Son of Man and Son of God, therefore, dearly-beloved, then attained a more excellent and holier fame, when He betook Himself back to the glory of the Father’s Majesty….

A better instructed faith then began to draw closer to a conception of the Son’s equality with the Father without the necessity of handling the corporeal substance in Christ whereby He is less than the Father.

For, while the Nature of the glorified Body still remained the faith of believers was called upon to touch not with the hand of flesh, but with the spiritual understanding the Only-begotten, Who was equal with the Father.

Hence comes that which the Lord said after His Resurrection, when Mary Magdalene, representing the Church, hastened to approach and touch Him:  Touch Me not, for I have not yet ascended to My Father.

It was as if He had said: “I would not have you come to Me as to a human body, nor yet recognize Me by fleshly perceptions:  I put thee off for higher things, I prepare greater things for thee.

“When I have ascended to My Father, then thou shalt handle Me more perfectly and truly, for thou shalt grasp what thou canst not touch and believe what thou canst not see.”

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 74, 2-4.

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Leo the Great: The Ascension Perfects Our Faith Tuesday, May 15 2012

The mystery of our salvation, dearly-beloved, which the Creator of the universe valued at the price of His blood, has now been carried out under conditions of humiliation from the day of His bodily birth to the end of His Passion.

And although even in “the form of a slave” many signs of Divinity have beamed out, yet the events of all that period served particularly to show the reality of His assumed Manhood.

But after the Passion, when the chains of death were broken, which had exposed its own strength by attacking Him, Who was ignorant of sin, weakness was turned into power, mortality into eternity, contumely into glory.

All of this the Lord Jesus Christ showed by many clear proofs in the sight of many, until He carried even into heaven the triumphant victory which He had won over the dead.

At the Easter commemoration, the Lord’s Resurrection was the cause of our rejoicing; so the subject of our present gladness is His Ascension.

On the feast of the Ascension we commemorate and duly venerate that day on which the Nature of our humility in Christ was raised above all the host of heaven, over all the ranks of angels, beyond the height of all powers, to sit with God the Father.

On this providential order of events we are founded and built up, so that God’s Grace might become more wondrous.

Notwithstanding the removal from men’s sight of what was rightly felt to command their awe, faith did not fail, hope did not waver, love did not grow cold.

For it is the strength of great minds and the light of firmly-faithful souls, unhesitatingly to believe what is not seen with the bodily sight, and there to fix one’s affections whither you cannot direct your gaze.

And whence should this godliness spring up in our hearts, or how should a man be justified by faith, if our salvation rested on those things only which lie beneath our eyes?

Hence our Lord said to him who seemed to doubt of Christ’s Resurrection, until he had tested by sight and touch the traces of His Passion in His very Flesh:

“Because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed:  blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 74, 1.

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Leo the Great: Christ Trampled the Fear of Death Under His Feet Friday, Apr 6 2012

The Lord Himself is rightly made our way, because save through Christ there is no coming to Christ.

But through Him and to Him does he take his way who treads the path of His endurance and humiliation.

On that road you may be sure there are not wanting the heats of toil, the clouds of sadness, the storms of fear.

The snares of the wicked, the persecutions of the unbelieving, the threats of the powerful, the insults of the proud are there.

And all these things the Lord of hosts and King of glory passed through in the form of our weakness and in the likeness of sinful flesh.

He did this so that, amid the danger of this present life, we might desire not so much to avoid and escape them as to endure and overcome them.

Hence it is that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Head, representing all the members of His body in Himself, and speaking for those whom He was redeeming in the punishment of the cross, uttered that cry which He had once uttered in the psalm: “O God, My God, look upon Me:  why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

That cry, dearly-beloved, is a lesson, not a complaint.

For in Christ there is one person of God and man, and He could not have been forsaken by Him, from Whom He could not be separated.

Accordingly, it is on behalf of us, trembling and weak ones, that He asks why the flesh that is afraid to suffer has not been heard.

For when the Passion was beginning, to cure and correct our weak fear He had said: “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me:  nevertheless not as I will but as Thou.”

And again He said, “Father, if this cup cannot pass except I drink it, Thy will be done.”

He had conquered the tremblings of the flesh, and had now accepted the Father’s will. Trampling all dread of death under foot, He was then carrying out the work of His design.

Why, then, at the very time of His triumph over such a victory does He seek the cause and reason of His being forsaken, that is, not heard?

He does this to show that the feeling which He entertained in excuse of His human fears is quite different from the deliberate choice which, in accordance with the Father’s eternal decree, He had made for the reconciliation of the world

And thus the very cry of “Unheard” is the exposition of a mighty Mystery, because the Redeemer’s power would have conferred nothing on mankind if our weakness in Him had obtained what it sought.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 67, 6-7.

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Leo the Great: Inheriting the Earth Sunday, Sep 4 2011

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

This mourning, beloved, to which eternal comforting is promised, is not the same as the affliction of this world:  nor do those laments which are poured out in the sorrowings of the whole human race make any one blessed.

The reason for holy groanings, the cause of blessed tears, is very different.  Religious grief mourns sin either that of others’ or one’s own.

Nor does it mourn for that which is wrought by God’s justice, but it laments over that which is committed by man’s iniquity, where he that does wrong is more to be deplored than he who suffers it, because the unjust man’s wrongdoing plunges him into punishment, but the just man’s endurance leads him on to glory.

Next the Lord says:  “blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth by inheritance.” To the meek and gentle, to the humble and modest, and to those who are prepared to endure all injuries, the earth is promised for their possession.

And this is not to be reckoned a small or cheap inheritance, as if it were distinct from our heavenly dwelling, since it is no other than these who are understood to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The earth, then, which is promised to the meek, and is to be given to the gentle in possession, is the flesh of the saints, which in reward for their humility will be changed in a happy resurrection, and clothed with the glory of immortality, in nothing now to act contrary to the spirit, and to be in complete unity and agreement with the will of the soul.

For then the outer man will be the peaceful and unblemished possession of the inner man.

Then the mind, engrossed in beholding God, will be hampered by no obstacles of human weakness nor will it any more have to be said “The body which is corrupted, weighs upon the soul, and its earthly house presses down the sense which thinks many things” (Wisdom 9:15).

For the earth will not struggle against its tenant, and will not venture on any insubordination against the rule of its governor.

For the meek shall possess it in perpetual peace, and nothing shall be taken from their rights, “when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53), that their danger may turn into reward, and what was a burden become an honour.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 96, 4-5.

 

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Leo the Great: Fixing the Eyes of Our Heart on Jesus Crucified Friday, Apr 8 2011

True reverence for the Lord’s passion means fixing the eyes of our heart on Jesus crucified and recognizing in him our own humanity.

The earth – our earthly nature – should tremble at the suffering of its Redeemer.

The rocks – the hearts of unbelievers – should burst asunder.

The dead, imprisoned in the tombs of their mortality, should come forth, the massive stones now ripped apart.

Foreshadowings of the future resurrection should appear in the holy city, the Church of God: what is to happen to our bodies should now take place in our hearts.

No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the cross.

No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ.

His prayer brought benefit to the multitude that raged against him.

How much more does it bring to those who turn to him in repentance.

Ignorance has been destroyed, obstinacy has been overcome.

The sacred blood of Christ has quenched the flaming sword that barred access to the tree of life.

The age-old night of sin has given place to the true light.

The Christian people are invited to share the riches of paradise.

All who have been reborn have the way open before them to return to their native land, from which they had been exiled.

[…] The business of this life should not preoccupy us with its anxiety and pride, so that we no longer strive with all the love of our heart to be like our Redeemer, and to follow his example.

Everything that he did or suffered was for our salvation: he wanted his body to share the goodness of its head.

First of all, in taking our human nature while remaining God, so that the Word became man, he left no member of the human race, the unbeliever excepted, without a share in his mercy.

Who does not share a common nature with Christ if he has welcomed Christ, who took our nature, and is reborn in the Spirit through whom Christ was conceived?

[…] The body that lay lifeless in the tomb is ours.

The body that rose again on the third day is ours.

The body that ascended above all the heights of heaven to the right hand of the Father’s glory is ours.

If then we walk in the way of his commandments, and are not ashamed to acknowledge the price he paid for our salvation in a lowly body, we too are to rise to share his glory.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 66, 3-4, taken from the Office of Readings for Thursday of the 4th week of Lent @ Crossroads Initiative.

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Leo the Great: Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane Friday, Mar 18 2011

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19), and the Creator Himself was wearing the creature which was to be restored to the image of its Creator.

After the divinely-miraculous works had been performed, … Jesus, knowing that the time was now come for the fulfilment of His glorious Passion, said “my soul is sorrowful even unto death”.

And again: “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matt. 26:38-39).

And these words, expressing a certain fear, show His desire to heal the affection of our weakness by sharing them, and to check our fear of enduring pain by undergoing it.

In our nature, therefore, the Lord trembled with our fear, that He might fully clothe our weakness and our frailty with the completeness of His own strength.

For He had come into this world a rich and merciful merchant from the skies, and by a wondrous exchange had entered into a bargain of salvation with us, receiving ours and giving His – honour for insults, salvation for pain, life for death.

He, whom more than 12,000 of the angel-hosts might have served (see Matt. 26:53) for the annihilation of His persecutors, preferred to entertain our fears, rather than employ His own power.

And how much this humiliation conferred upon all the faithful, the most blessed Apostle Peter was the first to prove.

After the fierce blast of threatening cruelty had dismayed him, Peter quickly changed, and was restored to vigour, finding remedy from the great pattern, so that the suddenly-shaken member [of Christ’s mystical body] returned to the firmness of the head.

For the bond-servant could not be “greater than the Lord, nor the disciple greater than the master” (Matt. 10:24), and Peter could not have vanquished the trembling of human frailty had not the Vanquisher of death first feared.

The Lord, therefore, “looked back upon Peter” (Luke 22:61), and, amid the calumnies of priests, the falsehoods of witnesses, the injuries of those that scourged and spat upon Him, met His dismayed disciple with those eyes wherewith He had foreseen his dismay.

And the gaze of the Truth entered into Peter, on whose heart correction must be wrought, as if the Lord’s voice were making itself heard there, and saying:

“Where are you going, Peter? Why do you retire upon yourself? Turn to me, put your trust in me, follow me.

This is the time of my Passion; the hour of your suffering is not yet come.  Why do you fear what you, too, shall overcome?

Let not the weakness, in which I share, confound you.  I was fearful on your behalf. You should be confident of me.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 54, 4-5.

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Leo the Great: We Aim to Keep the Super-Excellent Mystery of the Lord’s Passion with Bodies and Hearts Purified Friday, Mar 11 2011

There are no seasons which are not full of divine blessings, and access is ever open to us to God’s mercy through His grace.

Nevertheless, at this time – when the return of the day, on which we were redeemed, invites us to all the duties of godliness – the minds of all should be moved with greater zeal to spiritual progress, and animated by larger confidence.

Thus we may aim to keep the super-excellent mystery of the Lord’s Passion with bodies and hearts purified.

These great mysteries do indeed require from us such unflagging devotion and unwearied reverence that we should remain in God’s sight always the same, as we ought to be found on the Easter feast itself.

But few have this constancy, and, so long as the stricter observance is relaxed in consideration of the frailty of the flesh, and so long as one’s interests extend over all the various actions of this life, even pious hearts must get some soils from the dust of the world.

Therefore the Divine Providence has with great beneficence taken care that the discipline of the forty days should heal us and restore the purity of our minds, during which the faults of other times might be redeemed by pious acts and removed by chaste fasting.

[…] Let us take care to obey the Apostle’s precepts, cleansing “ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1).

Let us control the struggles that go on between our two natures, the spirit which, if it is under the guidance of God, should be the governor of the body, may uphold the dignity of its rule.

[…] Our fast does not consist chiefly of mere abstinence from food, nor are dainties withdrawn from our bodily appetites with profit, unless the mind is recalled from wrong-doing and the tongue restrained from slandering.

This is a time of gentleness and long-suffering, of peace and tranquillity: when all the pollutions of vice are to be eradicated and continuance of virtue is to be attained by us.

Now let godly minds boldly accustom themselves to forgive faults, to pass over insults, and to forget wrongs.

[…] The self-restraint of the religious should not be gloomy, but sincere; no murmurs of complaint should be heard from those who are never without the consolation of holy joys.

[…] Forego vengeance, forgive offences:  exchange severity for gentleness, indignation for meekness, discord for peace.

Let everyone find us self-restrained, peaceable, kind:  that our fastings may be acceptable to God.

For in a word to Him we offer the sacrifice of true abstinence and true godliness, when we keep ourselves from all evil.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 42, 1,2,6.

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Leo the Great: Lift Your Faithful Hearts to the Gracious Blaze of Eternal Light Monday, Jan 3 2011

The wise men, therefore, fulfil their desire, and come to the child, the Lord Jesus Christ, the same star going before them.

They adore the Word in flesh, the Wisdom in infancy, the Power in weakness, the Lord of majesty in the reality of man:

And by their gifts make open acknowledgment of what they believe in their hearts, that they may show forth the mystery of their faith and understanding.

The incense they offer to God, the myrrh to Man, the gold to the King, consciously paying honour to the divine and human nature in union:

Because while each substance had its own properties, there was no difference in the power of either.

And when the wise men had returned to their own land, and Jesus had been carried into Egypt at the Divine suggestion, Herod’s madness blazes out into fruitless schemes.

He orders all the little ones in Bethlehem to be slain, and since he knows not which infant to fear, extends a general sentence against the age he suspects.

But that which the wicked king removes from the world, Christ admits to heaven.

And on those for whom He had not yet spent His redeeming blood, He already bestows the dignity of martyrdom.

Lift your faithful hearts then, dearly-beloved, to the gracious blaze of eternal light.

And in adoration of the mysteries dispensed for man’s salvation give your diligent heed to the things which have been wrought on your behalf.

Love the purity of a chaste life, because Christ is the Son of a virgin.

“Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11), as the blessed Apostle, present in his words as we read, exhorts us:

“In malice be ye children” (1 Cor.14:20), because the Lord of glory conformed Himself to the infancy of mortals.

Follow after humility which the Son of God deigned to teach His disciples.

Put on the power of patience, in which ye may be able to gain your souls; seeing that He who is the Redemption of all, is also the Strength of all.

“Set your minds on the things which are above, not on the things which are on the earth” (Col. 3:2).

Walk firmly along the path of truth and life:  let not earthly things hinder you for whom are prepared heavenly things.

Leo the Great (c.400-461): Sermon 31, 2-3.

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