Ambrose of Milan: Whoever Reads the Book of Psalms will Find a Medicine to Cure the Wounds Caused by His Own Particular Passions Saturday, Jun 15 2013

Although the whole of Scripture breathes God’s grace upon us, this is especially true of that delightful book, the book of the psalms.

Moses, when he related the deeds of the patriarchs, did so in a plain and unadorned style.

But when he had miraculously led the people of Israel across the Red Sea, when he had seen King Pharaoh drowned with all his army, he transcended his own skills (just as the miracle had transcended his own powers) and he sang a triumphal song to the Lord.

Miriam the prophetess herself took up a timbrel and led the others in the refrain: Sing to the Lord: he has covered himself in glory, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

History instructs us, the law teaches us, prophecy foretells, correction punishes, morality persuades; but the book of psalms goes further than all these.

It is medicine for our spiritual health.

Whoever reads it will find in it a medicine to cure the wounds caused by his own particular passions.

Whoever studies it deeply will find it a kind of gymnasium open for all souls to use, where the different psalms are like different exercises set out before him.

In that gymnasium, in that stadium of virtue, he can choose the exercises that will train him best to win the victor’s crown.

If someone wants to study the deeds of our ancestors and imitate the best of them, he can find a single psalm that contains the whole of their history, a complete treasury of past memories in just one short reading.

If someone wants to study the law and find out what gives it its force (it is the bond of love, for whoever loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law) let him read in the psalms how love led one man to undergo great dangers to wipe out the shame of his entire people; and this triumph of virtue will lead him to recognise the great things that love can do.

And as for the power of prophecy – what can I say? Other prophets spoke in riddles. To the psalmist alone, it seems, God promised openly and clearly that the Lord Jesus would be born of his seed: I promise that your own son will succeed you on the throne.

Thus in the book of psalms Jesus is not only born for us: he also accepts his saving passion, he dies, he rises from the dead, he ascends into heaven, he sits at the Father’s right hand.

The Psalmist announced what no other prophet had dared to say, that which was later preached by the Lord himself in the Gospel.

Ambrose of Milan (c. 337-397): Explanations of the Psalms (Psalm 1, 4.7-8; CSEL 64, 4-7) from the Office of Readings for Friday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time @ Crossroads Initiative.

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Nikolai Velimirovich: The Ascent of the Swallow Thursday, Jun 13 2013

When swallows run short of food and the cold weather is coming, they set off to warm climes, where there is plenty of sun and food.

One swallow flies ahead, testing the air and showing the way, while the rest of the flock follows after.

When our souls run short of food in the material world, and when the cold of death draws near—ah, is there a swallow like that one, to take us to a warm place, where there is plenty of spiritual warmth and food?

Is there such a place? Is there, oh, is there such a swallow? [...] The Church…has seen that part of Paradise for which our souls yearn in the frozen twilight of this earthly existence.

It has also seen this blessed swallow, the first to fly to that yearned-for place, dispersing the darkness and cutting through the heavy atmosphere between earth and Heaven with its powerful wings, opening the way to the flock behind it.

Apart from this, the Church on earth can tell one of innumerable flocks of swallows that have followed the first Swallow and flown off with it to that blessed land, a land abounding with all good things—the land of eternal Spring.

You will see from this that, by this saving Swallow, I am thinking of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ. Has He not said of Himself that He is the Way?

Did He not Himself say to His Apostles: “I go to prepare a place for you…and if I go…I will receive you unto Myself”(St. John 14:2–3)?

And did He not say to them before this: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me” (St. John 12:32)?

This that He Himself said began to be fulfilled a few weeks later, and has continued to be fulfilled right down to our own day, and shall be to the end of time.

That is, being the beginning of the first creation of the world, He became also the beginning of the second creation, or the blessed renewing of the old.

Sin clipped Adamʼs wings and those of all his descendants, and they all fell away from God, went off, and were blinded with the dust from which their bodies were created.

Christ, as the New Adam, the first Man, the Firstborn among men, was the first to rise up to Heaven on spiritual wings, to the throne of Eternal Glory and power, thus cleaving the way to Heaven and opening all Heavenʼs gates to His followers, with their spiritual wings—as an eagle cleaves the way for its eaglets ,as the swallow which goes ahead, showing the flock the way and breaking the airʼs heavy resistance.

Nikolai Velimirovich (1880-1956; Orthodox Church): from Homily 27: The Ascension of the Lord in Homilies (Birmingham: Lazarica Press, 1996, Vol. I, pp. 296-299; full text @ Kandylaki.

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Benedict XVI: The Mystery of the Heart of a God Who Feels Compassion Friday, Jun 7 2013

In a little while we shall sing in the antiphon to the Magnificat: “The Lord has drawn us to his heart—Suscepit nos Dominus in sinum et cor suum”.  

God’s heart, as the expression of his will, is spoken of twenty-six times in the Old Testament.

Before God’s heart men and women stand judged.  His heartfelt pain at sins of mankind makes God decide on the flood, but then he is touched by the sight of human weakness and offers his forgiveness.

Yet another passage of the Old Testament speaks of God’s heart with absolute clarity: it is in the eleventh chapter of the book of the Prophet Hosea, whose opening lines portray the Lord’s love for Israel at the dawn of its history: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1).

Israel, however, responds to God’s constant offer of love with indifference and even outright ingratitude. “The more I called them”, the Lord is forced to admit, “the more they went from me” (v. 2).

Even so, he never abandons Israel to the power of its enemies, because “my heart”—the the Creator of the universe observes—”recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender” (v. 8).

The heart of God burns with compassion!  On today’s solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus the Church presents us this mystery for our contemplation: the mystery of the heart of a God who feels compassion and who bestows all his love upon humanity.

A mysterious love, which in the texts of the New Testament is revealed to us as God’s boundless and passionate love for mankind.

God does not lose heart in the face of ingratitude or rejection by the people he has chosen; rather, with infinite mercy he sends his only-begotten Son into the world to take upon himself the fate of a shattered love, so that by defeating the power of evil and death he could restore to human beings enslaved by sin their dignity as sons and daughters.

But this took place at great cost—the only-begotten Son of the Father was sacrificed on the Cross: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (cf. John 13:1).

The symbol of this love which transcends death is his side, pierced by a spear.  The Apostle John, an eyewitness, tells us: “one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water” (cf. Jn 19:34).

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): Homily on the Solemnity of the sacred Heart of Jesus, 2009.

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John Chrysostom: The Body of Christ (1) – Triumphing Over the Principalities and Powers Tuesday, Jun 4 2013

One would not inconsiderately receive a king. Why say I a king? Nay, were it but a royal robe, one would not inconsiderately touch it with unclean hands.

Even though he should be in solitude, though alone, though no man were at hand,  and although the robe is nought but certain threads spun by worms…, nevertheless, one would not choose to venture on it with polluted hands.

If even a man’s garment be what one would not venture inconsiderately to touch, what shall we say of the Body of Him Who is God over all, spotless, pure, associate with the Divine Nature, the Body whereby we are, and live, whereby the gates of hell were broken down and the sanctuaries of heaven opened?

How shall we receive this with so great insolence? Let us not, I pray you, let us not slay ourselves by our irreverence, but with all awfulness and purity draw nigh to It.

And when thou seest It set before thee, say thou to thyself, “Because of this Body am I no longer earth and ashes, no longer a prisoner, but free. Because of this I hope for heaven, and to receive the good things therein, immortal life, the portion of angels, converse with Christ.

“This Body, nailed and scourged, was more than death could stand against; this Body the very sun saw sacrificed, and turned aside his beams; for this both the veil was rent in that moment, and rocks were burst asunder, and all the earth was shaken.

“This is even that Body, the blood-stained, the pierced, and that out of which gushed the saving fountains, the one of blood, the other of water, for all the world.”

Wouldest thou from another source also learn its power? Ask of her diseased with an issue of blood, who laid hold not of Itself, but of the garment with which It was clad; nay not of the whole of this, but of the hem.

Ask of the sea, which bare It on its back: ask even of the Devil himself, and say, “Whence hast thou that incurable stroke? whence hast thou no longer any power? Whence art thou captive? By whom hast thou been seized in thy flight?”

And he will give no other answer than this, “The Body that was crucified.” By this were his goads broken in pieces; by this was his head crushed; by this were the powers and the principalities made a show of.

“For,” saith St Paul, “having put off from himself principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it” Col. 2:15.)

John Chrysostom (c.347-407): Homily 24, 7 on 1 Corinthians [on 1 Cor. 10:13].

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Bede the Venerable: Passover, Pentecost and Jubilee Monday, May 20 2013

Behold how the Jewish feast of the Law is a foreshadowing of our feast today.

When the children of Israel had been freed from slavery in Egypt by the offering of the paschal lamb, they journeyed through the desert toward the Promised Land, and they reached Mount Sinai.

On the fiftieth day after the Passover, the Lord descended upon the mountain in fire, and with the sound of a trumpet and with thunder and lightning, He gave them the ten commandments of the Law.

[...] We already know that the Passover Lamb and the deliverance from Egypt foreshadow the death of Christ and our deliverance from sin, as it is written: “Christ our Passover Lamb is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor 5:7).

He is “the true Lamb Who has taken away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), Who has redeemed us from the slavery of sin at the price of His blood, and by the example of His resurrection has shown us the hope of life and everlasting liberty.

The Law was given on the fiftieth day after the slaying of the lamb, when the Lord descended upon the mountain in fire; likewise on the fiftieth day after the resurrection of our Redeemer, which is today, the grace of the Holy Spirit, descending in the outward appearance of fire, was given to the disciples as they were assembled in the upper room.

The height of the mountain, and the elevation of the upper room, both indicate the sublimity of the commands and of the gifts.

At the sealing of the first covenant, the people remained at the base of the mountain, a handful of elders went partway up, and only Moses ascended to the summit.

At the sealing of the second covenant, the whole community of God’s people was gathered at the summit, in the upper room.

[...] In the law, the fiftieth year was ordered to be called the Year of Jubilee. During that year, all debts were to be cancelled, all slaves to be set free, the very beasts of burden to be eased from their yokes, and the year given over to celebrating the Divine praises.

Therefore, by this number is rightly indicated the tranquillity of that greatest peace when, at the sound of the trumpet, the dead shall be raised imperishable, and we shall all be changed into glory.

Then, when we are freed from every yoke of sin…the entire company of the people of God will give themselves over to contemplating the Heavenly Vision, and the command of the Lord will be fulfilled: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

The Venerable Bede (672/4-735): Homily on the Feast of Pentecost @ Society of Archbishop Justus.

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Athanasius of Alexandria: Through the Holy Spirit We Are Partakers of God Thursday, May 16 2013

He is called a quickening Spirit. For it says: ‘He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken also your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.’ The Lord is the very life, and ‘author of life’, as Peter put it.

And as the Lord said himself: ‘The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life. . . . But this spake he concerning the Spirit which they that believed in him were to receive.’

[...] The Spirit is called unction and he is seal. For John writes : ‘As for you, the unction which ye received of him abideth in you, and you need not that anyone teach you, but his unction’ — his Spirit ‘teacheth you concerning all things.’

[...] Paul says: ‘In whom having also believed, ye were sealed unto the day of redemption.’ But the creatures are by him sealed and anointed and instructed in all things.

[...] The seal could not be from among the things that are sealed, nor the unction from among the things that are anointed; it pertains to the Word who anoints and seals.

For the unction has the fragrance and odour of  him who anoints; and those who are anointed say, when they receive thereof: ‘We are the fragrance of Christ.’

The seal has the form of Christ who seals, and those who are sealed partake of it, being conformed to it; as the Apostle says: ‘My little children, for whom I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.’

Being thus sealed, we are duly made, as Peter put it, ‘sharers in the divine nature’; and thus all creation partakes of the Word in the Spirit. Further it is through the Spirit that we are all said to be partakers of God.

For it says: ‘Know ye not that ye are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.’

[...]  The fact of our being called partakers of Christ and partakers of God shows that the unction and seal that is in us belongs…to the nature of the Son who, through the Spirit who is in him, joins us to the Father.

This John taught us, as is said above, when he wrote: ‘Hereby know we that we abide in God and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.’

[...] It is on this account that those in whom he is are made divine.

Athanasius of Alexandria (c.293-373): Letters to Serapion, 1.23-24.

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Gregory Palamas: Clothed in Immortality, Glory and Incorruption by the Power of the Holy Spirit Thursday, May 16 2013

Christ…, in His all-surpassing love for mankind, showed at Pentecost that His disciples were partakers, fathers and ministers of everlasting light and life, who bring us to new birth for eternal life and make those who are worthy children of the Light and fathers of enlightenment.

Thus, He Himself is with us unto the end of the world, as was promised through the Spirit (Matt. 28:20). For He is One with the Father and the Spirit, not according to hypostasis, but in His divinity, and God is One in Three, in one tri-hypostatic and almighty divinity.

The Holy Spirit always existed and was with the Son in the Father. How could the Father and divine Mind be without beginning if the Son and Word were not also without beginning? How could there be a pre-eternal Word without there also being a pre-eternal Spirit?

Thus the Holy Spirit ever was and is and will be, co-Creator with the Father and the Son, together with them renewing that which has suffered corruption, and sustaining the things that endure.

He is everywhere present and fills, directs and oversees everything. “Whither shall I go from thy spirit”, says the Psalmist to God, “Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?” (Ps. 139:7). He is ‘not just everywhere, but also above all, not just in every age and time, but before them all.

And, according to the promise, the Holy Spirit will not just be with us until the end of the age, but rather will stay with those who are worthy in the age to come, making them immortal and filling their bodies as well with eternal glory, as the Lord indicated by telling His disciples, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16).

“It is sown”, says the Apostle (meaning buried and committed to the earth), “a dead natural body”, that is to, say, an ordinary created body with a created soul, stable and capable of movement.

“It is raised” (that is, comes back to life), “a spiritual body” (cf. 1Cor. 15:44), which means a supernatural body, framed and ordered by the Holy Spirit, and clothed in immortality, glory and incorruption by the Spirit’s power (cf. 1Cor. 15:53).

“The first man, Adam”, he says, “was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (cf. 1Cor. 15:45,47-48).

Gregory Palamas (1296-1359): On Pentecost, 12-13 @Mystagogy.

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Georges Florovsky: Within the Church, through an Acquisition of the Spirit in the Fellowship of Sacraments, the Ascension Continues…Until the Measure is Full Tuesday, May 14 2013

The revelation of the Holy Trinity was completed. Now the Spirit Comforter is poured forth on all flesh.

“Hence comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of what is hidden, distribution of good gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a place in the chorus of angels, joy without end, abiding in God, the being made like to God, and, highest of all, ,the being made God!” (St Basil, On the Holy Spirit, IX).

Beginning with the Apostles, and through communion with them – by an unbroken succession – Grace is spread to all believers. Through renewal and glorification in the Ascended Christ, man’s nature became receptive of the Spirit. “And unto the world He gives quickening forces through His human body,” says Bishop Theophanes.

“He holds it completely in Himself and penetrates it with His strength, out of Himself; and He likewise draws the angels to Himself through the spirit of man, giving them space for action and thus making them blessed.”

All this is done through the Church, which is “the Body of Christ;” that is, His “fullness” (Ephesians 1:23). “The Church is the fulfillment of Christ,” continues Bishop Theophanes, “perhaps in the same way as the tree is the fulfillment of the seed. That which is contained in the seed in a contracted form receives its development in the tree.”

The very existence of the Church is the fruit of the Ascension. It is in the Church that man’s nature is truly ascended to the Divine heights. “And gave Him to be Head over all things” (Ephesians 1:22).

St John Chrysostom comments: “Amazing! Look again, whither He has raised the Church. As though He were lifting it up by some engine, He has raised it up to a vast height, and set it on yonder throne; for where the Head is, there is the body also.

“There is no interval of separation between the Head and the body; for were there a separation, then would the one no longer be a body, nor would the other any longer be a Head.”

The whole race of men is to follow Christ, even in His ultimate exaltation, “to follow in His train.” Within the Church, through an acquisition of the Spirit in the fellowship of Sacraments, the Ascension continues still, and will continue until the measure is full.

“Only then shall the Head be filled up, when the body is rendered perfect, when we are knit together and united,” concludes St John Chrysostom. The Ascension is a sign and token of the Second Coming. “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Georges Florovsky (1893-1979; Eastern Orthodox): And Ascended Into Heaven…; originally published in St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly, Vol. 2 # 3, 1954; full text @ Mystagogy.

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Benedict XVI: The Invisible Presence of Jesus Working through the Power of His Spirit Friday, May 10 2013

The Evangelist Luke says that after the Ascension the disciples returned to Jerusalem “with great joy” (24: 52).

Their joy stems from the fact that what had happened was not really a separation, the Lord’s permanent absence.

On the contrary, they were then certain that the Crucified-Risen One was alive and that in him God’s gates, the gates of eternal life, had been opened to humanity for ever.

In other words, his Ascension did not imply a temporary absence from the world but rather inaugurated the new, definitive and insuppressible form of his presence by virtue of his participation in the royal power of God.

It was to be up to them, the disciples emboldened by the power of the Holy Spirit, to make his presence visible by their witness, preaching and missionary zeal.

The Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension must also fill us with serenity and enthusiasm, just as it did the Apostles who set out again from the Mount of Olives “with great joy”.

Like them, we too, accepting the invitation of the “two men in dazzling apparel”, must not stay gazing up at the sky, but, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit must go everywhere and proclaim the saving message of Christ’s death and Resurrection.

His very words, with which the Gospel according to St Matthew ends, accompany and comfort us: “and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28: 19).

Dear brothers and sisters, the historical character of the mystery of Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension helps us to recognize and understand the transcendent condition of the Church which was not born and does not live to compensate for the absence of her Lord who has “disappeared” but on the contrary finds the reason for her existence and mission in the invisible presence of Jesus, a presence working through the power of his Spirit.

In other words, we might say that the Church does not carry out the role of preparing for the return of an “absent” Jesus, but, on the contrary, lives and works to proclaim his “glorious presence” in a historical and existential way.

Since the day of the Ascension, every Christian community has advanced on its earthly pilgrimage toward the fulfilment of the messianic promises, fed by the word of God and nourished by the Body and Blood of her Lord.

This is the condition of the Church, the Second Vatican Council recalls, as she “presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God’, announcing the Cross and death of the Lord until he comes” (Lumen Gentium, n. 8).

Benedict XVI (b. 1927): Homily on the Solemnity of the Ascension, 2009.

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Georges Florovsky: The Victory of Christ is Wrought in Us by the Power of the Holy Spirit Friday, May 10 2013

Terror-stricken and trembling stand the angelic hosts, contemplating the Ascension of Christ.

[...] The Office for the Feast of the Ascension depicts the mystery in a poetical language. As on the day of Christ’s Nativity the earth was astonished on beholding God in the flesh, so now the Heavens do tremble and cry out.

“The Lord of Hosts, Who reigns over all, Who is Himself the head of all, Who is preeminent in all things, Who has reinstated creation in its former order – He is the King of Glory.”

And the heavenly doors are opened: “Open, Oh heavenly gates, and receive God in the flesh.” It is an open allusion to Psalms 24:7-10, now prophetically interpreted.

“Lift up your heads, Oh ye gates, and be lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty….”

St Chrysostom says, “Now the angels have received that for which they have long waited, the archangels see that for which they have long thirsted.

“They have seen our nature shining on the King’s throne, glistening with glory and eternal beauty…. Therefore they descend in order to see the unusual and marvelous vision: Man appearing in heaven.”

The Ascension is the token of Pentecost, the sign of its coming, “The Lord has ascended to heaven and will send the Comforter to the world”.

For the Holy Spirit was not yet in the world, until Jesus was glorified. And the Lord Himself told the disciples, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you” (John 16:7).

The gifts of the Spirit are “gifts of reconciliation,” a seal of an accomplished salvation and of the ultimate reunion of the world with God. And this was accomplished only in the Ascension.

“And one saw miracles follow miracles,” says St John Chrysostom, “ten days prior to this our nature ascended to the King’s throne, while today the Holy Ghost has descended on to our nature.”

The joy of the Ascension lies in the promise of the Spirit. “Thou didst give joy to Thy disciples by a promise of the Holy Spirit.” The victory of Christ is wrought in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

“On high is His body, here below with us is His Spirit. And so we have His token on high, that is His body, which He received from us, and here below we have His Spirit with us.

“Heaven received the Holy Body, and the earth accepted the Holy Spirit. Christ came and sent the Spirit. He ascended, and with Him our body ascended also” (St John Chrysostom).

Georges Florovsky (1893-1979; Eastern Orthodox): And Ascended Into Heaven…; originally published in St Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly, Vol. 2 # 3, 1954; full text @ Mystagogy.

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