Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012

                                                                            (Mark 16: 1-8)

We are now in Paschal Time, the Lenten fast having ended yesterday at noon. Jesus told us, (John 10: 10) “I have come that [you] may have life and may have it more abundantly.” Those who fasted have received a growth in God’s grace and will show this more abundant life in the principles they live by and in their conduct.

 During Easter season no fasting is permitted in the Church. It’s a time of celebration. Even Christmas is celebrated in anticipation of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. His resurrection is the link between the Old Covenant with the promise of a Messiah, and the New Covenant established by the Messiah for all peoples. Easter is called the Feast of Feasts in the same manner that the most sacred part of the old Temple was called the Holy of Holies.

Yesterday, Saturday, was the Sabbath day under the Old Covenant. It was the day set aside for rest from our labors, and it was right that our Lord should rest in the tomb from the labor of our Redemption. But we Christians seek the eight day, the day beyond the measure of time, the day of eternity. Easter is that day. It is on Easter Sunday that the Son of God attains His goal – mankind is raised up from his fall and regains what he had lost by Adam’s sin. As St. Paul describes it: (1 Corinthians: 15: 21, 22) “By a man came death, and by a Man the Resurrection of the dead [that] as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.” We have good reason to rejoice!

We can continue to rejoice throughout the year and throughout our lives. The Collect Prayer from this coming Tuesday tells us how: “Grant to thy servants, O God, that they may keep up, by their manner of living, the Mystery they have received by believing” in Christ and His Resurrection. So it is by our manner of living that we continue to rejoice in Easter. Jesus ascended to Heaven but left upon us the impress of His Resurrection, and why should we not retain this in our lives? As Dom Guéranger writes: “Are not all the mysteries of our divine Master ours also? From His very first coming in the Flesh, He has made us sharers in everything He has done. He was born in Bethlehem: we were born together with Him. He was crucified: our ‘old man was crucified with Him.’ (Romans 6: 6) He was buried: ‘we were buried with Him.’ (Romans 6: 4) And therefore, when He rose from the grave, we also received the grace that we should ‘walk in the newness of life.’” (Romans 6: 4) In explaining Baptism in Romans 6, St. Paul also showed us what it means to be one with Christ.

How can we illustrate life before Christ came and life after He came? One small example is found in John 9:7. Jesus told a man who was blind from birth to go wash in the pool of Siloe, or Siloam as some interpret it. The fountain of Siloe was at the walls of Jerusalem and the water collected in a pool or reservoir for the use of those who lived there. At certain times the sick would gather at the pool and an angel would come down from heaven and move the still waters. When that happened, the first person that stepped into the pool was cured of his or her infirmity.  In the Old Covenant, one person stepping into the pool of Siloe exhausted the grace from Heaven. Under the New Covenant, millions can step into the pool of Baptism and never exhaust Heaven’s grace.

 The rolling back of the stone in today’s Gospel suggests the unlocking of the Mysteries of Christ, which were concealed by the covering of the Law of Moses.  The Law of Moses was written on stone. The stone of this Law was great enough in size to shut in and cover the body of the Creator of the world. But Christ moved the Law of Moses aside for the New Covenant that He established in His Church for all people, with Himself as the cornerstone of His one and true Church.

Let us thank God this Easter for our lives, our families, our friends and our faith. Especially let us thank our Lord for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, where every day at an  altar priests recreate in an unbloody manner the Passion and Death of our Lord, Jesus Christ. +++

We Celebrate the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass

Sermon, Palm Sunday, Apr 1, 2012 & Seven Dolours of Mary, Mar 30, 2012

Palm Sunday, April 1, 2012

Seven Dolours of Mary, March 30, 2012

            Today we begin Holy Week, but before we concentrate on our Lord’s Passion I want to say a few words about the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, which was this past Friday. On that day the Church directed Her devotion to the special sorrow of Mary standing at the foot of the Cross of Jesus. Three times Mary was called on to take part in what God Himself did for the Redemption of Man. The first was the Incarnation where Jesus would not take flesh in her womb until she consented to become His mother. The second time was at the foot of the Cross where she stood to take part in the expiatory sacrifice in atonement for the sins of all of us, and the third was on Pentecost where she, along with the Apostles, received the Holy Ghost in order that she also might effectively labor to establish our Lord’s Church that He promised to build upon the rock of Peter.

            When the Christ Child was presented at the temple, Simeon told Mary, “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thought may be revealed.” (Luke 2: 35) From then until the arrest of Jesus, Mary carried these words in her heart. She suffered through her Son’s arrest, being beaten up and scourged. She followed Him to Calvary as He carried His Cross. Modernists deny this but if there ever was a valiant woman, such as described in Proverbs 31: 10-31, it was Mary, and we are sure that in her strength and love she was with Jesus throughout His suffering. Each hammer blow that drove the nails through her Son’s hands and feet was like a sword piercing her heart.

            We must ask why God asked Mary to be there and to suffer through the death of Jesus. Why did He not take her sooner like he took Joseph? As God would not give Jesus to her until she said yes, He would not take Him away from her unless she gave Him back. “It was not God’s justice that took him from her,” Dom Guéranger writes, “it is she herself that gives Him up. But, in return, she is raised to a degree of greatness, which her humility could never have suspected was to be hers: an ineffable union is made to exist between the two offerings, that of the Incarnate Word, and that of Mary; the Blood of the divine Victim, and the tears of the Mother, flowing together for the redemption of mankind.” St. Ambrose said Mary stood at the foot of the cross “not waiting for her Jesus to die, but [waiting] for the world to be saved.”

            Dom Guéranger helps us to understand more fully when he wrote:  Thus this Mother of Sorrows, standing at the foot of the Cross, blessed us who did not deserve it. She sacrificed her Son for our salvation. In spite of all the love in her heart for her Son, Jesus, she gave back to God the Father the Eternal Treasure he had given her for safekeeping. The sword pierced through her soul, but we were saved, and she, a mere human, cooperated with the Son of God in the work of our salvation. We needn’t wonder this is the moment Jesus chose to make Mary the Mother of all of us in the person of the Apostle John. When the sword pierced her heart we gained admission to it. Now, and through eternity, Mary will extend to us the love she has for her Son because she just heard Him say that we are her children.

The Prophet Zacharias, 500 years before the Lord's day,  foretold today's triumphal entrance into Jerusalem by the Messiah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion! Shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold thy King will come to thee; the Just and the Savior. He is poor, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.” (Zacharias 9: 9) The streets of Jerusalem echoed with the voices of children singing, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” The Roman soldiers stood by, silent under the banner of their Imperial Eagle. The scribes and Pharisees stood by in silent rage.

            The ass he led behind Him represented the Jewish nation, which had been long under the yoke of the Law. The colt, upon which no man had yet sat, represents the Gentile world. The future of these two people will be decided in a few days – the Jewish nation, under their title as the Chosen People, will be rejected for refusing to acknowledge the Messiah, and the Redemption brought by Jesus will then be offered to all peoples, Jew and Gentile alike.

            In our Lord's day the state of the Jew's religion under the scribes and Pharisees was corrupt, much like the Catholic Church is corrupted today by the Modernist heresy. In our Lord's day many thousands of Jews came to know, to understand,  to love and  to accept Jesus Christ, the Messiah.  Over the centuries probably millions of Jews have come to know Him.

            Today also the remnant of those holding fast to  Christ’s  True Faith is growing. These pray with Psalm 118, v. 66: “Teach me goodness, and discipline, and knowledge; for I have believed thy commandments.” And with Verses 3-8: “For they that work iniquity, have not walked in his ways. Thou hast commanded thy commandments to be kept most diligently. O! That my ways may be directed to keep thy justifications. Then shall I not be confounded, when I shall look into all thy commandments. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned the judgments of thy justice. I will keep thy justifications: O! do not thou utterly forsake me.”

            When He was born Three Kings came to adore Him because they knew Him. These were the Gentiles, the Magi. On the first Palm Sunday, under the prompting of the Holy Ghost, thousands of Jews turned out to welcome their King. Even the Roman Procurator, Pilate, recognized Jesus in a way, when he had nailed to the cross a placard reading, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

Maintain the Lenten fast for six more days. You will be glad you did. +++