Gregory of Nyssa: Baptism in the Jordan (2) – Regeneration, Transformation and Adoption according to Grace Sunday, Jan 13 2013

But do ye all, as many as are made glad, by the gift of regeneration, and make your boast of that saving renewal, show me, after the sacramental grace, the change in your ways that should follow it, and make known by the purity of your conversation the difference effected by your transformation for the better.

[...] But there is certainly need of some manifest proof, by which we may recognize the new-born man, discerning by clear tokens the new from the old.

And these I think are to be found in the intentional motions of the soul, whereby it separates itself from its old customary life, and enters on a newer way of conversation, and will clearly teach those acquainted with it that it has become something different from its former self, bearing in it no token by which the old self was recognized.

[...] The man that was before Baptism was wanton, covetous, grasping at the goods of others, a reviler, a liar, a slanderer, and all that is kindred with these things, and consequent from them…:

Let him now become orderly, sober, content with his own possessions, and imparting from them to those in poverty, truthful, courteous, affable—in a word, following every laudable course of conduct.

For as darkness is dispelled by light…, so the old man also disappears when adorned with the works of righteousness.

You see how Zacchæus also by the change of his life slew the publican, making fourfold restitution to those whom he had unjustly damaged, and the rest he divided with the poor—the treasure which he had before got by ill means from the poor whom he oppressed.

[...] Such ought you to be in your regeneration: so ought you to blot out your habits that tend to sin; so ought the sons of God to have their conversation: for after the grace bestowed we are called His children.

And therefore we ought narrowly to scrutinize our Father’s characteristics, that by fashioning and framing ourselves to the likeness of our Father, we may appear true children of Him Who calls us to the adoption according to grace.

[...] The Lord, laying down for us in the Gospels the rules of our life, uses these words to His disciples, “Do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven….”

For then He says they are sons when in their own modes of thought they are fashioned in loving kindness towards their kindred, after the likeness of the Father’s goodness.

Gregory of Nyssa (c 335 – after 394): A Sermon for the Day of Lights.

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Jerome: Do Not Despair of His Mercy, for Great Mercy Will Take Away Great Sins Friday, Aug 26 2011

Return to me with all your heart and show a spirit of repentance with fasting, weeping and mourning; so that while you fast now, later you may be satisfied, while you weep now, later you may laugh, while you mourn now, you may some day enjoy consolation.

It is customary for those in sorrow or adversity to tear their garments…. I bid you not to tear your garments but rather to rend your hearts which are laden with sin. Like wine skins, unless they have been cut open, they will burst of their own accord.

After you have done this, return to the Lord your God, from whom you had been alienated by your sins. Do not despair of his mercy, no matter how great your sins, for great mercy will take away great sins.

For the Lord is gracious and merciful and prefers the conversion of a sinner rather than his death. Patient and generous in his mercy, he does not give in to human impatience but is willing to wait a long time for our repentance.

So extraordinary is the Lord’s mercy in the face of evil, that if we do penance for our sins, he regrets his own threat and does not carry out against us the sanctions he had threatened. So by the changing of our attitude, he himself is changed.

[...]  In like manner, given all that we have said above – that God is kind and merciful, patient, generous with his forgiveness, and extraordinary in his mercy toward evil – lest the magnitude of his clemency make us lax and negligent, he adds this word through his prophet: Who knows whether he will not turn and repent and leave behind him a blessing?

In other words, he says: “I exhort you to repentance, because it is my duty, and I know that God is inexhaustibly merciful, as David says: Have mercy on me, God, according to your great mercy, and in the depths of your compassion, blot out all my iniquities.

“But since we cannot know the depth of the riches and of the wisdom and knowledge of God, I will temper my statement, expressing a wish rather than taking anything for granted, and I will say: Who knows whether he will not turn and repent?”

[...] To these words the prophet adds: Offerings and tribulations for the Lord our God. What he is saying to us in other words is that, God having blessed us and forgiven us our sins, we will then be able to offer sacrifice to God.

Jerome (347-420): Commentary on Joel, from the Office of Readings for Friday in the 21st week of Ordinary Time @ Crossroads Initiative.

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Gregory the Great: They Abandoned the Errors of Darkness and were Bathed with the Light of Holy Faith Friday, May 27 2011

Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth, because the grain of wheat has fallen into the earth and has died.

Christ has died in order to reign in heaven.

Not only that: by his death we live; by his weakness we are strengthened; by his passion we are freed from suffering.

Impelled by his love, we are seeking in Britain brothers whom we do not know.

Through his help we have found those for whom we were searching, although we were not acquainted with them.

Who, dear brother, is capable of describing the great joy of believers when they have learned what the grace of Almighty God and your own cooperation achieved among the Angles? They abandoned the errors of darkness and were bathed with the light of holy faith.

With full awareness they trampled on the idols which they had previously adored with savage fear.

They are now committed to Almighty God. The guidelines given them for their preaching restrain them from falling into evil ways.

In their minds they are submissive to the divine precepts and consequently feel uplifted.

They bow down to the ground in prayer lest their minds cling too closely to earthly things.

Whose achievement is this? It is the achievement of him who said: My Father is at work until now and I am at work as well.

God chose illiterate preachers and sent them into the world in order to show the world that conversion is brought about not by men’s wisdom but rather by his own power.

So in like manner God worked through weak instruments and wrought great things among the Angles.

Dear brother, in this heavenly gift there is something which should inspire us with great fear and great joy.
For I know through your love for that people, specially chosen for you, that Almighty God has performed great miracles.

But it is necessary that the same heavenly gift should cause you to rejoice with fear and to fear with gladness.

You should be glad because by means of external miracles the souls of the Angles have been led to interior grace.

But you should tremble, lest on account of these signs, the preacher’s own weak soul be puffed up with presumption; lest, while seeming externally raised aloft in honour, it fall internally as a result of vainglory.

We should remember that when the disciples on their joyous return from their preaching mission said to their heavenly master: Lord, in your name even devils were subjected to us, he immediately retorted: Do not rejoice about this but rather that your names are inscribed in heaven.

Gregory the Great (c.540-604): A Letter from the Office of Readings for the Feast of St Augustine of Canterbury @ Crossroads Initiative.  

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F.W. Faber: Our Hearts Are Enlarged While We Are Magnifying God Thursday, Mar 24 2011

There is nothing…which so multiplies graces upon us, or causes God to throw the doors of His treasury so wide open, as the devotion of thanksgiving.

[...] Many persons try to advance in spirituality, and are held back, as it were, by some invisible hand.

The fact is, and they do not realize it, they have never been thoroughly converted to God.

They have stayed too short a time in the purgative way of the spiritual life, or they have bargained with God, and kept back some attachment…so as to be spared the pain of conversion.

Now thanksgiving swiftly but imperceptibly turns our religion into a service of love;

It draws us to take God’s view of things, to range ourselves on His side even against ourselves, and to identify ourselves with His interests even when they seem to be in opposition to our own.

Hence we are led to break more effectually with the world, and not to trail its clouds and mists along with us on our road to heaven.

[...] And what is all this but to make our conversion more thorough and complete?

Neither is the effect of thanksgiving less upon our growth than it is upon our conversion.

All growth comes of love; and love is at once both the cause and effect of thanksgiving.

What light and air are to plants, that is the sense of God’s Presence to the virtues; and thanksgiving makes this sensible Presence of God almost a habit in our souls.

For it leads us continually to see mercies which we should not otherwise have perceived, and it enables us far more worthily to appreciate their value, and in some degree to sound the abyss of Divine condescension out of which they come.

Moreover, the practice of thanksgiving in ourselves leads us to be distressed at the absence of it in others; and this keeps our lore of God delicate and sensitive, and breeds in us a spirit of reparation, which is especially congenial to the growth of holiness.

Our hearts are enlarged while we are magnifying God, and when our hearts are enlarged we run the way of His commandments, where we have only walked or crept before.

We feel a secret force in overcoming obstacles and in despising fears, and altogether a liberty in well-doing, which we used not to feel before.

[...] Our hearts are crowned with thanksgiving.

Frederick William Faber (1814—1863): All for Jesus, pp. 288-290.

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Fulgentius of Ruspe: Spiritual Resurrection and Justification; Bodily Resurrection and Glorification Tuesday, Nov 16 2010

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye as the final trumpet sounds, for the trumpet shall indeed sound, the dead shall rise incorruptible and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:52).

In saying “we”, Paul is indicating that the gift of that future change will also be given to those who during their time on earth are united to him and his companions by upright lives within the communion of the Church.

He hints at the nature of the change when he says: This corruptible body must put on incorruptibility, this mortal body immortality.

In order, then, that men may obtain the transformation which is the reward of the just, they must first undergo here on earth a change which is God’s free gift.

Those who in this life have been changed from evil to good are promised that future change as a reward.

Through justification and the spiritual resurrection, grace now effects in them an initial change that is God’s gift.

Later on, through the bodily resurrection, the transformation of the just will be brought to completion, and they will experience a perfect, abiding, unchangeable glorification.

The purpose of this change wrought in them by the gifts of both justification and glorification is that they may abide in an eternal, changeless state of joy.

Here on earth they are changed by the first resurrection, in which they are enlightened and converted, thus passing from death to life, sinfulness to holiness, unbelief to faith, and evil actions to holy life.

For this reason the second death has no power over them. It is of such men that the Book of Revelation says: Happy the man who shares in the first resurrection; over such as he the second death has no power.

Elsewhere the same book says: He who overcomes shall not be harmed by the second death. As the first resurrection consists of the conversion of the heart, the second death consists of unending torment.

Let everyone, therefore, who does not wish to be condemned to the endless punishment of the second death now hasten to share in the first resurrection.

For if any during this life are changed out of fear of God and pass from an evil life to a good one, they pass from death to life and later they shall be transformed from a shameful state to a glorious one.

Fulgentius of Ruspe (462/467—527/533): On the Forgiveness of Sins, book 2 (CCL 92A, 693-695), taken from the Office of Readings for Monday of the 33rd week in Ordinary Time @ Crossroads Initiative.

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