BENEDICAMUS DOMINO

“They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”

OPENING PRAYER

Prayer to Follow Christ

O Lord Jesus, gentle and humble of heart, full of compassion and maker of peace, you lived in poverty and suffered persecution for the cause of justice. You chose the Cross as the path to glory to show us the way of salvation. May we receive the word of the Gospel joyfully and live by your example as heirs and citizens of your kingdom. Amen.

http://www.catholicdoors.com/prayers/english4/p02989.htm

COLLECT

O God, who on this day,

through your Only Begotten Son,

have conquered death

and unlocked for us the path to eternity,

grant, we pray, that we who keep

the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection

may, through the renewal brought by your Spirit,

rise up in the light of life.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Acts 10:34a, 37-43

Peter proceeded to speak and said:

“You know what has happened all over Judea,

beginning in Galilee after the baptism

that John preached,

how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth

with the Holy Spirit and power.

He went about doing good

and healing all those oppressed by the devil,

for God was with him.

We are witnesses of all that he did

both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree.

This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible,

not to all the people, but to us,

the witnesses chosen by God in advance,

who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

He commissioned us to preach to the people

and testify that he is the one appointed by God

as judge of the living and the dead.

To him all the prophets bear witness,

that everyone who believes in him

will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 438 Jesus’ messianic consecration reveals his divine mission, “for the name ‘Christ’ implies ‘he who anointed’, ‘he who was anointed’ and ‘the very anointing with which he was anointed’. The one who anointed is the Father, the one who was anointed is the Son, and he was anointed with the Spirit who is the anointing.’”1 His eternal messianic consecration was revealed during the time of his earthly life at the moment of his baptism by John, when “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power”, “that he might be revealed to Israel”2 as its Messiah. His works and words will manifest him as “the Holy One of God”.3

CCC 486 The Father’s only Son, conceived as man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, is “Christ”, that is to say, anointed by the Holy Spirit, from the beginning of his human existence, though the manifestation of this fact takes place only progressively: to the shepherds, to the magi, to John the Baptist, to the disciples.4 Thus the whole life of Jesus Christ will make manifest “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.”5

CCC 597 The historical complexity of Jesus’ trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone. Hence we cannot lay responsibility for the trial on the Jews in Jerusalem as a whole, despite the outcry of a manipulated crowd and the global reproaches contained in the apostles’ calls to conversion after Pentecost.6 Jesus himself, in forgiving them on the cross, and Peter in following suit, both accept “the ignorance” of the Jews of Jerusalem and even of their leaders.7 Still less can we extend responsibility to other Jews of different times and places, based merely on the crowd’s cry: “His blood be on us and on our children!”, a formula for ratifying a judicial sentence.8 As the Church declared at the Second Vatican Council:

… [N]either all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his Passion. .. [T]he Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture.9

CCC 659 “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.”10 Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys.11 But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity.12 Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand.13 Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul “as to one untimely born”, in a last apparition that established him as an apostle.14

CCC 679 Christ is Lord of eternal life. Full right to pass definitive judgment on the works and hearts of men belongs to him as redeemer of the world. He “acquired” this right by his cross. The Father has given “all judgment to the Son”.15 Yet the Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself.16 By rejecting grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one’s works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love.17

CCC 761 The gathering together of the People of God began at the moment when sin destroyed the communion of men with God, and that of men among themselves. The gathering together of the Church is, as it were, God’s reaction to the chaos provoked by sin. This reunification is achieved secretly in the heart of all peoples: “In every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable” to God.18

CCC 781 “At all times and in every race, anyone who fears God and does what is right has been acceptable to him. He has, however, willed to make men holy and save them, not as individuals without any bond or link between them, but rather to make them into a people who might acknowledge him and serve him in holiness. He therefore chose the Israelite race to be his own people and established a covenant with it. He gradually instructed this people. .. All these things, however, happened as a preparation for and figure of that new and perfect covenant which was to be ratified in Christ. .. the New Covenant in his blood; he called together a race made up of Jews and Gentiles which would be one, not according to the flesh, but in the Spirit.”19

CCC 995 To be a witness to Christ is to be a “witness to his Resurrection,” to “[have eaten and drunk] with him after he rose from the dead.”20 Encounters with the risen Christ characterize the Christian hope of resurrection. We shall rise like Christ, with him, and through him.

CCC 1289 Very early, the better to signify the gift of the Holy Spirit, an anointing with perfumed oil (chrism) was added to the laying on of hands. This anointing highlights the name “Christian,” which means “anointed” and derives from that of Christ himself whom God “anointed with the Holy Spirit.”21 This rite of anointing has continued ever since, in both East and West. For this reason the Eastern Churches call this sacrament Chrismation, anointing with chrism, or myron which means “chrism.” In the West, the term Confirmation suggests that this sacrament both confirms and strengthens baptismal grace.

1 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3,18,3: PG 7/1, 934.

2 Acts 10:38; Jn 1:31.

3 Mk 1:24; Jn 6:69; Acts 3:14.

4 Cf. Mt 1:20; 2:1-12; Lk 1:35; 2:8-20; Jn 1:3 1-34; 2:11.

5 Acts 10:38.

6 Cf. Mk 15:11; Acts 2:23, 36; 3:13-14; 4:10; 5:30; 7:52; 10:39; 13:27-28; I Th 2:14-15.

7 Cf. Lk 23:34; Acts 3:17.

8 Mt 27:25; cf. Acts 5:28; 18:6.

9 NA 4.

10 Mk 16:19.

11 Cf Lk 24:31; Jn 20:19, 26.

12 Cf. Acts 1:3; 10:41; Mk 16:12; Lk 24:15; Jn 20:14-15; 21:4.

13 Cf. Acts 1:9; 2:33; 7:56; Lk 9:34-35; 24:51; Ex 13:22; Mk 16:19; Ps 110:1.

14 1 Cor 15:8; cf. 9:1; Gal 1:16.

15 Jn 5:22; cf. 5:27; Mt 25:31; Acts 10:42; 17:31; 2 Tim 4:1.

16 Cf. Lk 21:12; Jn 15:19-20.

17 Cf. Jn 3:17; 5:26. 588 Cf. Jn 3:18; 12:48; Mt 12:32; I Cor 3:12-15; Heb 6:4-6; 10:26-31.

18 Acts 10:35; cf. LG 9; 13; 16.

19 LG 9; Cf. Acts 10:35; 1 Cor 11:25.

20 Acts 1:22; 10:41; cf. 4:33.

21 Acts 10:38.

APPLICATION

This passage from Acts has been selected for Easter Sunday not only because the resurrection is mentioned in it, but especially because St. Peter in his first discourse to a Gentile makes the resurrection the basic doctrine and the crowning proof of the truth of the Christian faith. As St. Paul says: “If Christ has not risen vain is our preaching, vain too is your faith” (1 Cor. 15: 14). And like Paul, St. Peter stresses the truth of the resurrection by citing witnesses, including himself, who had not only seen the risen Jesus but had spoken to him and actually eaten with him.

There is no room for doubt but that Apostles and disciples had thought that the sad events of Good Friday had put an end forever to the mission of love and mercy of their beloved Master. In spite of his previous references to his resurrection, they had completely forgotten it and were convinced that the tomb near Calvary was the end of all their hopes. They had locked themselves into the room of the Last Supper for fear of the Jews—two of them had set off for home on the Sunday morning, down-hearted at the Master’s failure; the others were waiting for an opportunity to slip out of the city quietly. But the resurrection changed all this. The unexpected, the unhoped-for happened. Even the most skeptical of them all, doubting Thomas, was eventually convinced of its reality. Had they been hoping for it, or even thinking of it, there might be some reason to suspect it was only an hallucination, the result of their “wishful thinking,” but the very opposite was the case. They were hard to convince even when it happened.

All this was intended by God–the basis of our Christian faith was proved beyond doubt. Christ, who had died on the cross on Good Friday, was raised from the dead by his Father on Easier morning. He returned to heaven in the full glory of the divinity which he had hidden while on earth, together with his human body, now also glorified. There (in heaven), as God and Man, he pleads for us at the right hand of the Father until the day when he who redeemed all men will come to judge them all.

The Alleluia is repeated often during the Easter ceremonies. It is a Hebrew word, which means “praise ye the Lord.” It is our attempt to give verbal expression to our joy and gratitude for all that God has done for us. We are no longer mere humans living on this planet for a few short years. We are citizens of heaven, made children of God the Father by Christ our Brother. And he has gone before us to his and our kingdom to prepare a place for us. He conquered death. Our earthly death has, therefore, now no real fears for us: it is not the end but the beginning of our true lives. It is only after our earthly death that we truly begin to live.

There is only one death now which we can fear–the spiritual death of serious sin which can keep us from our true heavenly life. But while this is a possibility for all of us, it is only a possibility. The sincere Christian who realizes what God has done for him and what is in store for him, will never be so ungrateful to God or so forgetful of his own best interests as to let some temporal and passing pleasure, pride, or profit, come between him and the eternal home which God’s love has prepared and planned for him.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,

for his mercy endures forever.

Let the house of Israel say,

“His mercy endures forever.”

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.

“The right hand of the LORD has struck with power;

the right hand of the LORD is exalted.

I shall not die, but live,

and declare the works of the LORD.”

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.

The stone which the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone.

By the LORD has this been done;

it is wonderful in our eyes.

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.

READING II

Col 3:1-4

Brothers and sisters:

If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above,

where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ your life appears,

then you too will appear with him in glory.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 655 Finally, Christ’s Resurrection – and the risen Christ himself is the principle and source of our future resurrection: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep… For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”1 The risen Christ lives in the hearts of his faithful while they await that fulfillment. In Christ, Christians “have tasted… the powers of the age to come”2 and their lives are swept up by Christ into the heart of divine life, so that they may “live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”3

CCC 1002 Christ will raise us up “on the last day”; but it is also true that, in a certain way, we have already risen with Christ. For, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, Christian life is already now on earth a participation in the death and Resurrection of Christ:

And you were buried with him in Baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead… If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.4

CCC 1003 United with Christ by Baptism, believers already truly participate in the heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains “hidden with Christ in God.”5 The Father has already “raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”6 Nourished with his body in the Eucharist, we already belong to the Body of Christ. When we rise on the last day we “also will appear with him in glory.”7

CCC 1420 Through the sacraments of Christian initiation, man receives the new life of Christ. Now we carry this life “in earthen vessels,” and it remains “hidden with Christ in God.”8 We are still in our “earthly tent,” subject to suffering, illness, and death.9 This new life as a child of God can be weakened and even lost by sin.

CCC 2772 From this unshakeable faith springs forth the hope that sustains each of the seven petitions, which express the groanings of the present age, this time of patience and expectation during which “it does not yet appear what we shall be.”10 The Eucharist and the Lord’s Prayer look eagerly for the Lord’s return, “until he comes.”11

CCC 2796 When the Church prays “our Father who art in heaven,” she is professing that we are the People of God, already seated “with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” and “hidden with Christ in God;”12 yet at the same time, “here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling.”13

[Christians] are in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They spend their lives on earth, but are citizens of heaven.14

1 I Cor 15:20-22.

2 Heb 6:5.

3 2 Cor 5:15; cf. Col 3:1-3.

4 Col 2:12; 3:1.

5 Col 3:3; cf. Phil 3:20.

6 Eph 2:6.

7 Col 3:4.

8 2 Cor 4:7; Col 3:3.

9 2 Cor 5:1.

10 1 Jn 3:2; Cf. Col 3:4.

11 1 Cor 11:26.

12 Eph 2:6; Col 3:3.

13 2 Cor 5:2; cf. Phil 3:20; Heb 13:14.

14 Ad Diognetum 5: PG 2, 1173.

APPLICATION

Children at boarding schools draw, up calendars and mark off each day which brings them one nearer to the end of the, term. Fiancés mark off the months, the weeks, the days that separate them from, the great day when they will be united forever, they say, to their beloved one. Seminarians count the years, months, weeks to the great day when, they will be ordained and say their first Masses. Parents look forward anxiously to the day when their children will be educated and safely settled in life. In fact, we are all always looking forward to a happier day which is to come some time. All this is very natural and very human, because our present life is not our permanent life; our present home, this earth, is not the real home destined for us by our loving Creator.

We were created for unending happiness in heaven, and it is only when we get there that our desire and our quest for some greater happiness will end. From then on, we will always enjoy and possess that all-satisfying happiness.

Today, Easter Sunday, St. Paul reminds us that we have this happiness within our grasp. We are moving steadily and more quickly than we realize toward it. The Holy Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, have already done, and are daily continuing, to do for us, all within their power. All that is needed is that we do the little that is asked of us.

St. Paul tells us we must “mind the things that are above not the things that are on earth.” We must never let the “things of earth,” the pleasures, the power, the possessions which we can or could, have in this life, block or impede us on our upward journey. Does this mean that we must all return to the deserts of Egypt, as some early Christians did? By no means. We are not forbidden to have the lawful pleasures of life. We are not forbidden possessions or power if they are used justly. All we are forbidden is the unlawful use of the things of this world.

And as regards minding the things that are above, this is not something calling for extraordinary self-sacrifice or unnatural mental activity. All we are asked to do is to try to stay in God’s grace, and do our daily chores whatever they be, as well and as diligently as we can. We are expected to recognize our natural weakness and to turn to God frequently for pardon and for help.

Whilst there are saints in heaven who lived lives of extreme self-mortification and did extraordinary things for God and for their neighbor, it is an encouraging and consoling thought that there are millions of unknown saints in heaven who lived normal lives, unnoticed by the world and maybe even by themselves. They are people who kept in God’s friendship all their lives, or got back quickly to it, if they sometimes forgot or offended their heavenly Father.

What millions of others have done I can do too. We are aided by God’s grace as they were. God wants me in heaven. He has an Easter resurrection planned for me.

GOSPEL

Jn 20:1-9

On the first day of the week,

Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,

while it was still dark,

and saw the stone removed from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter

and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,

“They have taken the Lord from the tomb,

and we don’t know where they put him.”

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.

They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter

and arrived at the tomb first;

he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.

When Simon Peter arrived after him,

he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there,

and the cloth that had covered his head,

not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.

Then the other disciple also went in,

the one who had arrived at the tomb first,

and he saw and believed.

For they did not yet understand the Scripture

that he had to rise from the dead.

 

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 515 The Gospels were written by men who were among the first to have the faith1 and wanted to share it with others. Having known in faith who Jesus is, they could see and make others see the traces of his mystery in all his earthly life. From the swaddling clothes of his birth to the vinegar of his Passion and the shroud of his Resurrection, everything in Jesus’ life was a sign of his mystery.2 His deeds, miracles and words all revealed that “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”3 His humanity appeared as “sacrament”, that is, the sign and instrument, of his divinity and of the salvation he brings: what was visible in his earthly life leads to the invisible mystery of his divine sonship and redemptive mission

CCC 640 “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”4 The first element we encounter in the framework of the Easter events is the empty tomb. In itself it is not a direct proof of Resurrection; the absence of Christ’s body from the tomb could be explained otherwise.5 Nonetheless the empty tomb was still an essential sign for all. Its discovery by the disciples was the first step toward recognizing the very fact of the Resurrection. This was the case, first with the holy women, and then with Peter.6 The disciple “whom Jesus loved” affirmed that when he entered the empty tomb and discovered “the linen cloths lying there”, “he saw and believed”.7 This suggests that he realized from the empty tomb’s condition that the absence of Jesus’ body could not have been of human doing and that Jesus had not simply returned to earthly life as had been the case with Lazarus.8

CCC 2174 Jesus rose from the dead “on the first day of the week.”9 Because it is the “first day,” the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the “eighth day” following the sabbath,10 it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day (he kuriake hemera, dies dominica) Sunday:

We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [after the Jewish sabbath, but also the first day] when God, separating matter from darkness, made the world; and on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose from the dead.11

1 Cf. Mk 1:1; Jn 21:24.

2 Cf Lk 2:7; Mt 27: 48; Jn 20:7.

3 Col 2:9.

4 Lk 24:5-6.

5 Cf. Jn 20:13; Mt 28:11-15.

6 Cf. Lk 24:3, 12, 22-23.

7 Jn 20:2, 6, 8.

8 Cf. Jn 11:44; 20:5-7.

9 Cf. Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1.

10 Cf. Mk 16:1; Mt 28:1.

11 St. Justin, I Apol. 67: PG 6, 429 and 432.

APPLICATION

As we said above, the accounts of the Resurrection of Christ differ in many details in the different writings of the New Testament, but the fact of the Resurrection stressed in all of them, was the basis of the new Christian Faith. Had it not happened, Christianity would have been stillborn. It would have disappeared from Jerusalem and the world on that first Easter Sunday. Peter and his companions would have returned to their fishing-nets and boats on Lake Genesareth, and Christ the good and the kind man who had helped so many, would have been forgotten in half a generation.

But Christ was no mere man of kindly acts and words of wisdom. He was the Messiah promised for centuries. He was the suffering servant foretold by Isaiah, whose perfect obedience to his Father had led him to the Cross and the grave. But above all, he was the Son of God who had emptied himself (St. Paul) of his divine glory in order to be the perfect human servant of the Father, and who was now raised by the Father, with his divine glory restored, and his glorified resurrected body sharing in that glory. This was the divine plan of God for mankind, through Christ, and because of Christ, the new Adam’s perfect obedience, all mankind would be made worthy of divine sonship, and worthy of one day rising like Christ from the grave in glorified bodies.

Is all this too good to be true? It is, if we make God to our image and likeness, as so many opponents of Christianity do. He is God and his love is infinite and incomprehensible to us. What God can see in me and my fellowman will always be a mystery to me, but then I have not the mind of God. All I know and all I need to know is that I have sufficient proofs that God loves all men. The Incarnation, death and Resurrection of his Divine Son for man’s sake is the greatest proof of love for us that even the omnipotent God could give He has given it. As a necessary consequence from this act of divine love, we are guaranteed our resurrection from the dead to a life of unending happiness and glory if we do not, in extreme folly, reject God’s offer.

Today, let us thank God once more for Easter and for all that it means for us. Our personal Easter morning is not far away from even the youngest amongst us. We have a few Calvary’s to climb perhaps in the meantime but what are they when we see our glorious Easter on the horizon?

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan OFM and used with permission from Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

The Breakthrough of Easter

What would it mean if Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus, had not taken place?… Well, if there were no Resurrection, the story of Jesus would have ended with Good Friday. His body would have decayed, and he would have become a has-been. But that would mean that God does not take initiatives in history, that he is either unable or unwilling to touch this world of ours, our human living and dying. And that in turn would bean that love is futile, nugatory, an empty and vain promise. It would mean that there is no judgment and no justice. It would mean that the moment is all that counts and that right belongs to the cunning, the crafty and those without consciences. There would be no judgment. Many people, and by no means only wicked people, would welcome that because they confuse judgment with petty calculation and give more room to fear than to a trusting love… All this makes clear what Easter does mean: God has acted. History does not go on aimlessly. Justice, love, truth – these are realities, genuine reality. God love us; he comes to meet us. The more we go along his path and live in his way, the less we need to fear justice and truth, the more our hearts will be full of Easter joy. Easter is not only a story to be told: it is a signpost on life’s way. It is not an account of a miracle that happened a very long time ago: it is the breakthrough which has determined the meaning of all history. If we grasp this, we too, today, can utter the Easter greeting with undiminished joy: Christ is risen; yes, he is risen indeed!

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord, the Resurrection of Your Son

has given us new life and renewed hope.

Help us to live as new people

in pursuit of the Christian ideal.

Grant us wisdom to know what we must do,

the will to want to do it,

the courage to undertake it,

the perseverance to continue to do it,

and the strength to complete it.

We ask this through Christ, Our Lord.

Amen.

The New Saint Joseph People’s Prayer Book, Catholic Book Publishing Co. New York 1999

“Hosanna in the highest!  Blessed are you, who have come in your abundant mercy.”

OPENING PRAYER

The Passion Of Christ, Strengthen Me Prayer

Passion of Christ, strengthen me! Strengthen me under the pressure of temptation. Strengthen me when principle is at stake. Strengthen me to do Your Will, My God. Strengthen me in moments of suffering, in times of loneliness, in periods of depression. Strengthen me that I may never swerve from You, dear Christ, nor weaken through human respect, through a desire to be popular, through hope of social distinction. Strengthen me to accept my cross and carry it generously to the end. On the battlefield of life, stand by me that I may never prove a traitor in the ranks. Stand by me that I may not be dazzled by the glitter and glow of the enemy camp. We ask this and all things through Christ our Lord. Amen.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=2477

COLLECT

Almighty ever-living God,

who as an example of humility for the human race

to follow,

caused our Savior to take flesh and submit

to the Cross,

graciously grant that we may heed his lesson

of patient suffering

and so merit a share in his Resurrection.

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

THE COMMEMORATION OF THE LORD’S ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM

At The Procession With Palms

Gospel Lk 19:28-40

 

Jesus proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem.

As he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany

at the place called the Mount of Olives,

he sent two of his disciples.

He said, “Go into the village opposite you,

and as you enter it you will find a colt tethered

on which no one has ever sat.

Untie it and bring it here.

And if anyone should ask you,

‘Why are you untying it?’

you will answer,

‘The Master has need of it.’”

So those who had been sent went off

and found everything just as he had told them.

And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them,

“Why are you untying this colt?”

They answered,

“The Master has need of it.”

So they brought it to Jesus,

threw their cloaks over the colt,

and helped Jesus to mount.

As he rode along,

the people were spreading their cloaks on the road;

and now as he was approaching the slope of the Mount of Olives,

the whole multitude of his disciples

began to praise God aloud with joy

for all the mighty deeds they had seen.

They proclaimed:

“Blessed is the king who comes

in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven

and glory in the highest.”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him,

“Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

He said in reply,

“I tell you, if they keep silent,

the stones will cry out!”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 559 How will Jerusalem welcome her Messiah? Although Jesus had always refused popular attempts to make him king, he chooses the time and prepares the details for his messianic entry into the city of “his father David”.1 Acclaimed as son of David, as the one who brings salvation (Hosanna means “Save!” or “Give salvation!”), the “King of glory” enters his City “riding on an ass”.2 Jesus conquers the Daughter of Zion, a figure of his Church, neither by ruse nor by violence, but by the humility that bears witness to the truth.3 And so the subjects of his kingdom on that day are children and God’s poor, who acclaim him as had the angels when they announced him to the shepherds.4 Their acclamation, “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord”,5 is taken up by the Church in the “Sanctus” of the Eucharistic liturgy that introduces the memorial of the Lord’s Passover.

1 Lk 1:32; cf. Mt 21:1-11; Jn 6:15.

2 Ps 24:7-10; Zech 9:9.

3 Cf. Jn 18:37.

4 Cf. Mt 21:15-16; cf. Ps 8:3; Lk 19:38; 2:14.

5 Cf. Ps 118:26.

READING I

 

Is 50:4-7

The Lord GOD has given me

a well-trained tongue,

that I might know how to speak to the weary

a word that will rouse them.

Morning after morning

he opens my ear that I may hear;

and I have not rebelled,

have not turned back.

I gave my back to those who beat me,

my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;

my face I did not shield

from buffets and spitting.

The Lord GOD is my help,

therefore I am not disgraced;

I have set my face like flint,

knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

APPLICATION

The sufferings and crucifixion of our divine Lord in his humanity are the Christian’s source of strength and encouragement in his daily struggles against, the enemies of God and of his own spiritual progress. Because of our earthly bodies, and because of the close grip that this world of the senses has on us, to keep free from sin and to keep close to God on our journey to heaven is a daily struggle for even the best among us. But we have the example before our eyes, the example of our true brother. He was one of ourselves, the truly human Christ. He not only traveled the road before us and made the journey, to heaven possible for us, but he is with us every day, close beside us, to encourage and help us on the way.

We need to remind ourselves daily of this. We have the crucifix in our Christian homes, on our rosary beads, on our altars, on the very steeples of our churches. These crucifixes are not ornaments, but stark reminders that our Savior’s path to heaven led through Calvary and through all that preceded Calvary. They are also stern reminders to us that the carrying of our crosses on the road to heaven is not an unbearable burden for us, but an essential aid to our progress.

When you are tried by temptations, when you are tested by bodily pain or mental suffering, worried to death perhaps by the bodily needs of yourself or your family or by the disobedience and insults of ungrateful children, stop and think on the Leader and his humiliations and sufferings. He came to open the road to heaven for us, to make us all sons of God, to preach the message of divine forgiveness and mercy to mankind. What did he get in return? He was scourged, tied to a pillar, spat upon and insulted, jeered at and mocked. He was nailed to a cross on Calvary between two thieves!

How light is my cross in comparison, how easy my Calvary. But he was sin less; his obedience, as man, to the Father was perfect. Can we or should we complain, we whose life up to now has often been far from perfect? Stop, think and listen to today’s lesson.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

All who see me scoff at me;

they mock me with parted lips, they wag their heads:

“He relied on the LORD; let him deliver him,

let him rescue him, if he loves him.”

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Indeed, many dogs surround me,

a pack of evildoers closes in upon me;

They have pierced my hands and my feet;

I can count all my bones.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

They divide my garments among them,

and for my vesture they cast lots.

But you, O LORD, be not far from me;

O my help, hasten to aid me.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

I will proclaim your name to my brethren;

in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:

“You who fear the LORD, praise him;

all you descendants of Jacob, give glory to him;

revere him, all you descendants of Israel!”

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

READING II

Phil 2:6-11

Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

something to be grasped.

Rather, he emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

coming in human likeness;

and found human in appearance,

he humbled himself,

becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

Because of this, God greatly exalted him

and bestowed on him the name

which is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend,

of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

APPLICATION

As Christians we have no doubt as to the two natures of our Savior. He was the God-man. He humbled himself so low in order to represent us before his Father and by his perfect obedience. (“even unto the death on a cross”) earn for us not only God’s forgiveness but a sharing in the divinity, through his being our brother but also the Son of God. These words of Paul, or rather of the early Christian hymn he is quoting, are for us today a consolation and an encouragement.

Surely every sincere Christian must be consoled by the thought of Gods infinite love for him, as shown in the Incarnation. We are not dealing with some distant, cold, legal God of justice who spends his time marking up our sins and failures against us. We are dealing with a loving Father who sent his own beloved Son to live among us and die for us in order to bring home to us the greatness of divine love. Could any human mind, even the minds of the greatest of this world’s philosophers, have invented such a humanly incredible story of true love? No, it was only in the infinite mind of God that such a proof of love could have its source.

What encouragement this should and does give to every sincere Christian. We know we are weak. We can and do sin often. We know we are mean and ungrateful and that we seldom stop to thank God for the love he has shown us. If we were dealing with a human, narrow-visioned God, we should have reason to despair, but when our Judge is the all-loving, all-merciful God how can even the worst sinner ever lose hope?

No, there is no place for despair in the Christian faith. But there is room for gratitude and confidence. We can never thank God sufficiently for all that he has done for us. Eternity itself will not be long enough for this, but we must do the little we can. Let us face this coming Holy Week with hearts full of thanks to God and to his divine Son for all they have done for us. When meditating on the passion of Christ on Good Friday let us look with gratitude and confidence on the Son of God who died on the cross in order to earn eternal life for us.

He did not die to lose us but to save us. He has done ninety per cent of the work of our salvation. And, even as regards the remaining ten per cent that he asks us to do, he is with us helping us to do it. Could we be so mean and so foolish as to refuse the little he asks of us?

GOSPEL

Lk 22:14—23:56

When the hour came,

Jesus took his place at table with the apostles.

He said to them,

“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,

for, I tell you, I shall not eat it again

until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”

Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and said,

“Take this and share it among yourselves;

for I tell you that from this time on

I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine

until the kingdom of God comes.”

Then he took the bread, said the blessing,

broke it, and gave it to them, saying,

“This is my body, which will be given for you;

do this in memory of me.”

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying,

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood,

which will be shed for you.

“And yet behold, the hand of the one who is to betray me

is with me on the table;

for the Son of Man indeed goes as it has been determined;

but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.”

And they began to debate among themselves

who among them would do such a deed.

Then an argument broke out among them

about which of them should be regarded as the greatest.

He said to them,

“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them

and those in authority over them are addressed as ‘Benefactors’;

but among you it shall not be so.

Rather, let the greatest among you be as the youngest,

and the leader as the servant.

For who is greater:

the one seated at table or the one who serves?

Is it not the one seated at table?

I am among you as the one who serves.

It is you who have stood by me in my trials;

and I confer a kingdom on you,

just as my Father has conferred one on me,

that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom;

and you will sit on thrones

judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

“Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded

to sift all of you like wheat,

but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail;

and once you have turned back,

you must strengthen your brothers.”

He said to him,

“Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.”

But he replied,

“I tell you, Peter, before the cock crows this day,

you will deny three times that you know me.”

He said to them,

“When I sent you forth without a money bag or a sack or sandals,

were you in need of anything?”

“No, nothing, “ they replied.

He said to them,

“But now one who has a money bag should take it,

and likewise a sack,

and one who does not have a sword

should sell his cloak and buy one.

For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me,

namely, He was counted among the wicked;

and indeed what is written about me is coming to fulfillment.”

Then they said,

“Lord, look, there are two swords here.”

But he replied, “It is enough!”

Then going out, he went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives,

and the disciples followed him.

When he arrived at the place he said to them,

“Pray that you may not undergo the test.”

After withdrawing about a stone’s throw from them and kneeling,

he prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing,

take this cup away from me;

still, not my will but yours be done.”

And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him.

He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently

that his sweat became like drops of blood

falling on the ground.

When he rose from prayer and returned to his disciples,

he found them sleeping from grief.

He said to them, “Why are you sleeping?

Get up and pray that you may not undergo the test.”

While he was still speaking, a crowd approached

and in front was one of the Twelve, a man named Judas.

He went up to Jesus to kiss him.

Jesus said to him,

“Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”

His disciples realized what was about to happen, and they asked,

“Lord, shall we strike with a sword?”

And one of them struck the high priest’s servant

and cut off his right ear.

But Jesus said in reply,

“Stop, no more of this!”

Then he touched the servant’s ear and healed him.

And Jesus said to the chief priests and temple guards

and elders who had come for him,

“Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs?

Day after day I was with you in the temple area,

and you did not seize me;

but this is your hour, the time for the power of darkness.”

After arresting him they led him away

and took him into the house of the high priest;

Peter was following at a distance.

They lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat around it,

and Peter sat down with them.

When a maid saw him seated in the light,

she looked intently at him and said,

“This man too was with him.”

But he denied it saying,

“Woman, I do not know him.”

A short while later someone else saw him and said,

“You too are one of them”;

but Peter answered, “My friend, I am not.”

About an hour later, still another insisted,

“Assuredly, this man too was with him,

for he also is a Galilean.”

But Peter said,

“My friend, I do not know what you are talking about.”

Just as he was saying this, the cock crowed,

and the Lord turned and looked at Peter;

and Peter remembered the word of the Lord,

how he had said to him,

“Before the cock crows today, you will deny me three times.”

He went out and began to weep bitterly.

The men who held Jesus in custody were ridiculing and beating him.

They blindfolded him and questioned him, saying,

“Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?”

And they reviled him in saying many other things against him.

When day came the council of elders of the people met,

both chief priests and scribes,

and they brought him before their Sanhedrin.

They said, “If you are the Christ, tell us, “

but he replied to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe,

and if I question, you will not respond.

But from this time on the Son of Man will be seated

at the right hand of the power of God.”

They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?”

He replied to them, “You say that I am.”

Then they said, “What further need have we for testimony?

We have heard it from his own mouth.”

Then the whole assembly of them arose and brought him before Pilate.

They brought charges against him, saying,

“We found this man misleading our people;

he opposes the payment of taxes to Caesar

and maintains that he is the Christ, a king.”

Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

He said to him in reply, “You say so.”

Pilate then addressed the chief priests and the crowds,

“I find this man not guilty.”

But they were adamant and said,

“He is inciting the people with his teaching throughout all Judea,

from Galilee where he began even to here.”

On hearing this Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean;

and upon learning that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction,

he sent him to Herod who was in Jerusalem at that time.

Herod was very glad to see Jesus;

he had been wanting to see him for a long time,

for he had heard about him

and had been hoping to see him perform some sign.

He questioned him at length,

but he gave him no answer.

The chief priests and scribes, meanwhile,

stood by accusing him harshly.

Herod and his soldiers treated him contemptuously and mocked him,

and after clothing him in resplendent garb,

he sent him back to Pilate.

Herod and Pilate became friends that very day,

even though they had been enemies formerly.

Pilate then summoned the chief priests, the rulers, and the people

and said to them, “You brought this man to me

and accused him of inciting the people to revolt.

I have conducted my investigation in your presence

and have not found this man guilty

of the charges you have brought against him,

nor did Herod, for he sent him back to us.

So no capital crime has been committed by him.

Therefore I shall have him flogged and then release him.”

But all together they shouted out,

“Away with this man!

Release Barabbas to us.”

— Now Barabbas had been imprisoned for a rebellion

that had taken place in the city and for murder. —

Again Pilate addressed them, still wishing to release Jesus,

but they continued their shouting,

“Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Pilate addressed them a third time,

“What evil has this man done?

I found him guilty of no capital crime.

Therefore I shall have him flogged and then release him.”

With loud shouts, however,

they persisted in calling for his crucifixion,

and their voices prevailed.

The verdict of Pilate was that their demand should be granted.

So he released the man who had been imprisoned

for rebellion and murder, for whom they asked,

and he handed Jesus over to them to deal with as they wished.

As they led him away

they took hold of a certain Simon, a Cyrenian,

who was coming in from the country;

and after laying the cross on him,

they made him carry it behind Jesus.

A large crowd of people followed Jesus,

including many women who mourned and lamented him.

Jesus turned to them and said,

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me;

weep instead for yourselves and for your children

for indeed, the days are coming when people will say,

‘Blessed are the barren,

the wombs that never bore

and the breasts that never nursed.’

At that time people will say to the mountains,

‘Fall upon us!’

and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’

for if these things are done when the wood is green

what will happen when it is dry?”

Now two others, both criminals,

were led away with him to be executed.

When they came to the place called the Skull,

they crucified him and the criminals there,

one on his right, the other on his left.

Then Jesus said,

“Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

They divided his garments by casting lots.

The people stood by and watched;

the rulers, meanwhile, sneered at him and said,

“He saved others, let him save himself

if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God.”

Even the soldiers jeered at him.

As they approached to offer him wine they called out,

“If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.”

Above him there was an inscription that read,

“This is the King of the Jews.”

Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying,

“Are you not the Christ?

Save yourself and us.”

The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply,

“Have you no fear of God,

for you are subject to the same condemnation?

And indeed, we have been condemned justly,

for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes,

but this man has done nothing criminal.”

Then he said,

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

He replied to him,

“Amen, I say to you,

today you will be with me in Paradise.”

It was now about noon and darkness came over the whole land

until three in the afternoon

because of an eclipse of the sun.

Then the veil of the temple was torn down the middle.

Jesus cried out in a loud voice,

“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”;

and when he had said this he breathed his last.

Here all kneel and pause for a short time.

The centurion who witnessed what had happened glorified God and said,

“This man was innocent beyond doubt.”

When all the people who had gathered for this spectacle saw what had happened,

they returned home beating their breasts;

but all his acquaintances stood at a distance,

including the women who had followed him from Galilee

and saw these events.

Now there was a virtuous and righteous man named Joseph who,

though he was a member of the council,

had not consented to their plan of action.

He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea

and was awaiting the kingdom of God.

He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

After he had taken the body down,

he wrapped it in a linen cloth

and laid him in a rock-hewn tomb

in which no one had yet been buried.

It was the day of preparation,

and the sabbath was about to begin.

The women who had come from Galilee with him followed behind,

and when they had seen the tomb

and the way in which his body was laid in it,

they returned and prepared spices and perfumed oils.

Then they rested on the sabbath according to the commandment.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/032016.cfm

APPLICATION

The story and most, if not all, of the details of our divine Lord’s sufferings at the hands of his fellow-Jews, his Father’s Chosen People, on that first Holy Thursday night in Jerusalem and the subsequent sentence of crucifixion pronounced by a pagan Roman judge on one he had declared innocent of any crime, is well-known to any Christian, worthy of the name. But theoretical knowledge is not what makes a Christian or a follower of Christ. Down through the ages great men have lived and died and their lives and deeds have benefited others in many ways, for greater or lesser periods. But the life and death of Christ has not only benefited man’s life on earth, it has changed the very purpose of man’s existence, for it has changed his relationship with God and with his eternal destiny.

Through and by the Incarnation, death, resurrection of Christ, we, mere human mortals, have been made sons of God by divine decree, and heirs of God’s eternal kingdom of heaven. This was God’s original plan in creating the universe. Man was to be the masterpiece of the divine act of creation and the master of the universe. He contains within himself a part of every created being and has the necessary faculties to dominate all the lesser creatures. But he was to be more than that. His human nature was to be raised to union with the Godhead in the Incarnation. This completed plan was eventually fulfilled in Christ.

Therefore, the life and death of Christ is not just some recorded bit of history of the past, rather it is for all men, not Christians only, a fact of the past which dominates and basically affects rational man’s purpose in life today and always as well as his day-to-day mode of living that life. There are millions on our earth today who, through no fault of their own, have not yet heard of God’s infinite love for them as proved in the Incarnation, but God will find ways of extending its benefits to them if they do their part. There are millions too who have heard the good news but refuse to believe it or to act according to it; those too we can safely leave to the all merciful God. But for ourselves, professed followers of Christ, who during this Holy Week will be reminded daily of what God has done and is continuing to do for us, our only answer is to beat our breasts in humble contrition like some of the crowds returning from Calvary on that first Good Friday.

We know we are utterly unworthy of the unfathomable love that God has shown us. When we look at the crucifix and see the Son of God nailed hands and feet to that cross, slowly shedding his heart’s blood for us, what can we do but bow our heads in shame? If we did not jeer at him and mock him openly as the Pharisees did that day on Calvary, we did so indirectly by our coldness, our forgetfulness, and worse still by our many deliberate sins against God and neighbor. Pilate condemned the innocent Christ “for fear of the Jews, for fear of losing his job (St. John says); Judas betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver; the Pharisees forced Pilate to crucify him because of their pride. If we look into our past, how often have we offended him, that is, condemned him for similar reasons, and we are less excusable than these people were. We do, or should, know so much better than they did what Christ means to us.

But while we have reason, all of us, to repent of our past faults during this Holy Week, we have also every reason not to despair but to hope. In the very height of his agony on the cross, our loving Savior uttered a fervent plea to his heavenly Father, asking for forgiveness for all those who had brought his death-agony on him. The words, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” hold for all time, we too were included there, and God’s merciful answer to his dying Christ is for us too if we avail of it.

Holy Week will be truly a holy week and a turning point in our lives if we repent of our part and turn to our loving God. Through the life, sufferings and resurrection of his beloved Servant and Son, He has made us his adopted sons and heirs of heaven. He will not fail us now.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

The Personal Dimension of Forgiveness

As sin, despite all our bonds with the human community, is ultimately something totally personal, so also our healing with forgiveness has to be something totally personal. God does not treat us as part of a collectivity. He knows each one by name, and he calls him personally and saves him if he has fallen into sin. Even if in all the sacraments, the Lord addresses the person as an individual, the personalist nature of the Christian life is manifested in a particularly clear way in the sacrament of Penance. That means that the personal confession and the forgiveness directed to this person are constitutive parts of the sacrament… Of course, the confession of one’s own sin can seem to be something heavy for the person, because it humbles his pride and confronts him with his poverty. It is this that we need: we suffer exactly for this reason: we shut ourselves up in our delirium of guiltlessness and for this reason we are closed to others and to any comparison with them. In psychotherapeutic treatments a person is made to bear the burden of profound and often dangerous revelations of his inner self. In the sacrament of Penance, the simple confession of one’s guilt is presented with confidence in God’s merciful goodness. It is important to do this without falling into scruples, with the spirit of trust proper to the children of God. In this way confession can become an experience of deliverance, in which the weight of the past is removed from us and we can feel rejuvenated by the merit of the grace of God who each time gives back the youthfulness of the heart.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

A Prayer for Healing

Lord, look upon me with eyes of mercy, may Your healing hand rest upon me, may Your life-giving powers flow into every cell of my body and into the depths of my soul, cleansing, purifying, restoring me to wholeness and strength for service in Your Kingdom. Amen.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=480

 

“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

OPENING PRAYER

Prayer to Turn from Sin

Father, Your Love never fails.

Keep me from danger

and provide for all my needs.

Teach me to be thankful for Your Gifts.

Confident in Your Love,

may I be holy by sharing Your Life,

and grant me forgiveness of my sins.

May Your unfailing Love turn me from sin

and keep me on the way that leads to you.

Help me to grow in Christian love.

I ask this and all things through

Christ our Lord. Amen.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=724

COLLECT

By your help, we beseech you, Lord our God,

may we walk eagerly in that same charity

with which, out of love for the world,

your Son handed himself over to death.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Is 43:16-21

Thus says the LORD,

who opens a way in the sea

and a path in the mighty waters,

who leads out chariots and horsemen,

a powerful army,

till they lie prostrate together, never to rise,

snuffed out and quenched like a wick.

Remember not the events of the past,

the things of long ago consider not;

see, I am doing something new!

Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

In the desert I make a way,

in the wasteland, rivers.

Wild beasts honor me,

jackals and ostriches,

for I put water in the desert

and rivers in the wasteland

for my chosen people to drink,

the people whom I formed for myself,

that they might announce my praise.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 711 “Behold, I am doing a new thing.”1 Two prophetic lines were to develop, one leading to the expectation of the Messiah, the other pointing to the announcement of a new Spirit. They converge in the small Remnant, the people of the poor, who await in hope the “consolation of Israel” and “the redemption of Jerusalem.”2

We have seen earlier how Jesus fulfills the prophecies concerning himself. We limit ourselves here to those in which the relationship of the Messiah and his Spirit appears more clearly.

1 Isa 43:19.

2 Cf. Zeph 2:3; Lk 2:25, 38

APPLICATION

During Lent the Church is helping us to prepare for the great events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. These events set us free from the slavery resulting from sin but also raised us up to be sons of God and heirs to the eternal kingdom of heaven. They were foreshadowed in the liberation of the Chosen People, first from Egypt and later from their Babylonian exile.

When God brought them out of Egypt he gave them the country of Canaan to be their own kingdom. Because of their sinful, worldly lives and their neglect of their kind God, they lost their homeland and were taken prisoners to Babylon (586 B.C.). But he was merciful to them once more, brought them back to their home, and established them there once again.

In both of these acts of his mercy, and in all his loving kindness to the Chosen People of old down through the ages, God had not the Jews alone in mind. Through them he was planning for the great future liberation of all mankind which the death and resurrection of his divine Son was to bring about.

The death of Christ atoned for the sins of the whole world. His resurrection is the proof and the guarantee of our resurrection to an unending life of happiness in God’s kingdom. In baptism we die with Christ and coming out of the waters of baptism we rise with him to a new life. As St. Paul says, we are a “new creation.” We are new creatures, because we become sons of God by being made brothers of Christ in our baptism.

Unfortunately we often forget our eternal destiny. We live on earth as if it were our eternal home when we are really only passing through. We may and we must use the things of this life. God created them for our use, and made us masters of all created, earthly goods. It is not the proper use of this world’s goods that will impede us on our road to heaven. It is not by mastering created things that we sin. It is by letting these gifts, intended by the Creator for our use, become our masters and make us their slaves. This is what happens to so many. They become so fully occupied in the pursuit of possessions. power, and pleasure, that they forget God and their own eternal destiny.

The holy season of Lent is an ideal time for us to have an honest look into our consciences. We would all like to rise with Christ and enter the eternal kingdom prepared and won for us by Christ’s life and suffering. We shall do so only if we are following him closely during our few years on earth. Am I carrying my cross and climbing my Calvary slowly but willingly day by day? This is the test of a true Christian.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6

The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion,

we were like men dreaming.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with rejoicing.

The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Then they said among the nations,

“The LORD has done great things for them.”

The LORD has done great things for us;

we are glad indeed.

The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,

like the torrents in the southern desert.

Those that sow in tears

shall reap rejoicing.

The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

Although they go forth weeping,

carrying the seed to be sown,

They shall come back rejoicing,

carrying their sheaves.

The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.

READING II

Phil 3:8-14

Brothers and sisters:

I consider everything as a loss

because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things

and I consider them so much rubbish,

that I may gain Christ and be found in him,

not having any righteousness of my own based on the law

but that which comes through faith in Christ,

the righteousness from God,

depending on faith to know him and the power of his resurrection

and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death,

if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

It is not that I have already taken hold of it

or have already attained perfect maturity,

but I continue my pursuit in hope that I may possess it,

since I have indeed been taken possession of by Christ Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, I for my part

do not consider myself to have taken possession.

Just one thing: forgetting what lies behind

but straining forward to what lies ahead,

I continue my pursuit toward the goal,

the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 133 The Church “forcefully and specifically exhorts all the Christian faithful. .. to learn the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ, by frequent reading of the divine Scriptures. Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.”1

CCC 428 Whoever is called “to teach Christ” must first seek “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus”; he must suffer “the loss of all things. ..” in order to “gain Christ and be found in him”, and “to know him and the power of his resurrection, and [to] share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible [he] may attain the resurrection from the dead”.2

CCC 648 Christ’s Resurrection is an object of faith in that it is a transcendent intervention of God himself in creation and history. In it the three divine persons act together as one, and manifest their own proper characteristics. The Father’s power “raised up” Christ his Son and by doing so perfectly introduced his Son’s humanity, including his body, into the Trinity. Jesus is conclusively revealed as “Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his Resurrection from the dead”.3 St. Paul insists on the manifestation of God’s power4 through the working of the Spirit who gave life to Jesus’ dead humanity and called it to the glorious state of Lordship.

CCC 989 We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day.5 Our resurrection, like his own, will be the work of the Most Holy Trinity:

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.6

CCC 1006 “It is in regard to death that man’s condition is most shrouded in doubt.”7 In a sense bodily death is natural, but for faith it is in fact “the wages of sin.”8 For those who die in Christ’s grace it is a participation in the death of the Lord, so that they can also share his Resurrection.9

1 DV 25; cf. Phil 3:8 and St. Jerome, Commentariorum in Isaiam libri xviii prol.: PL 24, 17B.

2 Phil 3:8-11.

3 Rom I 3-4; cf. Acts 2:24.

4 Cf. Rom 6:4; 2 Cor 13:4; Phil 3:10; Eph 1:19-22; Heb 7:16.

5 Cf. Jn 6:39-40.

6 Rom 8:11; cf. 1 Thess 4:14; 1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14; Phil 3:10-11.

7 GS 18.

8 Rom 6:23; cf. Gen 2:17.

9 Cf. Rom 6:3-9; Phil 3:10-11.

APPLICATION

Like St. Paul, we too have the Christian faith, we are firmly convinced that Christ was the Son of God who became man, that he died for us and was raised from the dead. We are firmly convinced too that God’s ultimate destiny for us in the Incarnation is an unending life in heaven, and that we can win this eternal life if we follow the teaching and the example of Christ. To die with Christ during our earthly life means to carry cheerfully the cross that God allots us. We know that if we do this we shall, on the day of resurrection, rise to a new life that will never end. This is our Christian faith. It is based on God’s revelation and promise. And it is the only truly satisfying explanation of human life that we have. But as St. Paul tells us today, it is not enough just to be a Christian. Paul’s own life, which from his conversion on was given entirely to the service of Christ, proves this. Being a Christian is but the first step on the right road. There are many more steps to take before we reach our eternal goal. Of course, it is true that we are not all called on to suffer all that St. Paul suffered for Christ. We are however called on to live our Christian lives within the laws laid down for us by Christ and by the Church which he founded to guide us on our way to heaven.

If we remind ourselves frequently of “the prize to which God calls us,” an eternal happy life, the affairs of this world will seem very paltry and very trifling. They will not come between us and the winning post. Rather will they help us on our way. When we compare them with the eternal riches of the future life, we shall see them as they really are, stepping stones to help us across the river.

We may not have run as fast as we should up to now. But we are still in the race. Like St. Paul. let us forget the past, and press on vigorously towards the prize that awaits us. It is still ours for the taking.

GOSPEL

Jn 8:1-11

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

But early in the morning he arrived again in the temple area,

and all the people started coming to him,

and he sat down and taught them.

Then the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman

who had been caught in adultery

and made her stand in the middle.

They said to him,

“Teacher, this woman was caught

in the very act of committing adultery.

Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.

So what do you say?”

They said this to test him,

so that they could have some charge to bring against him.

Jesus bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger.

But when they continued asking him,

he straightened up and said to them,

“Let the one among you who is without sin

be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Again he bent down and wrote on the ground.

And in response, they went away one by one,

beginning with the elders.

So he was left alone with the woman before him.

Then Jesus straightened up and said to her,

“Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?”

She replied, “No one, sir.”

Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you.

Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/031316-fifth-sunday-lent.cfm

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 582 Going even further, Jesus perfects the dietary law, so important in Jewish daily life, by revealing its pedagogical meaning through a divine interpretation: “Whatever goes into a man from outside cannot defile him. .. (Thus he declared all foods clean.)… What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts…”1 In presenting with divine authority the definitive interpretation of the Law, Jesus found himself confronted by certain teachers of the Law who did not accept his interpretation of the Law, guaranteed though it was by the divine signs that accompanied it.2 This was the case especially with the Sabbath laws, for he recalls, often with rabbinical arguments, that the Sabbath rest is not violated by serving God and neighbor,3 which his own healings did.

1 Mk 7:18-21; cf. Gal 3:24.

2 Cf. Jn 5:36; 10:25, 37-38; 12:37.

3 Cf. Num 28 9; Mt 12:5; Mk 2:25-27; Lk 13:15-16; 14:3-4; Jn 7:22-24.

APPLICATION

This incident of the merciful forgiveness of an adulteress by the Son of God has many lessons for all of us in this season of Lent. We are all sinners in greater or lesser degree. We all offend the good God in many ways. But, thank God, we are not dealing with the Scribes and Pharisees as our judges, but with a God of mercy, a God who knows and understands our weaknesses and frailties. No matter how many and how serious our sins may have been, no matter how low we may have fallen, the mercy and forgiveness of God is ever there for the asking.

But ask we must and repent we must, for not even the omnipotent and all-merciful God can take away from us the sin we want to keep. Who could be so foolish as not to accept the divine offer of mercy? Who could ever let his personal pride and selfishness put his own eternal happiness in jeopardy? There are probably people in hell, but if there are, it is not because of their sins that they are there. It is rather because they were too proud and too selfish to repent of them and ask God for his forgiveness.

A second lesson for all of us in today’s story is that we should try to imitate our divine Lord’s mercy by being more merciful and more compassionate towards sinners. Too many of us are inclined to judge too harshly and heartlessly the neighbor whose sins happen to become public, whilst we minimize our own failings because they are secret. Remember our Lord’s words to the Pharisees: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” Spreading scandal may be, and often is, a more grievous sin than the fall of a neighbor which we tell about with gusto whilst pretending to be seriously disgusted with his moral failing. Whilst we must hate sin in ourselves and others we must learn from our Lord to love the sinner even while disapproving of the sin. This love will be proved in part by our silence regarding his sin.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

The Denial of Sin

It is precisely the existence of sin that modern man is unable to take seriously. Because of this rejection of the concept of sin, no one is directly touched today by the Gospel claim that the evidence of Jesus’ divine nature is based on his power to forgive sin. Most people do not explicitly deny the existence of God, but they do not believe that he is of any importance in the realm of human life. Hardly anyone seriously thinks nowadays that men’s wrong actions may concern God so much that he regards them as sinful and offensive to himself, with the result that such sin must be forgiven by him alone. Even theologians have discussed the possibility of replacing the practice of confessing sin by conversations with psychologists, sociologists, and lawyers. Sin does not really exist. There are only problems, and these can be settled with the help of experts. Sin has disappeared and with it forgiveness, and behind that disappearance there is also the disappearance of a God who is turned toward man. In this situation, Christians can only turn to the Gospel, which can give us courage to grasp the truth. Only the truth can make us free. But the truth is that there is guilt and that we ourselves are guilty. It is Christ’s new truth that there is also forgiveness by the one who has the power to forgive. The Gospel calls on us to accept this truth. There is a God. Sin exists and there is also forgiveness. We need that forgiveness if we are not to seek refuge in the lie of excuses and thus destroy ourselves… Where there is forgiveness, there is also healing.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

A Prayer for the Forgiveness of Sins

By St. Gemma Galgani

My Jesus, I place all my sins before you.

In my estimation They do not deserve pardon,

But I ask you

To close your eyes

To my want of merit

And open them

To your infinite merit.

Since you willed To die for my sins,

Grant me forgiveness

For all of them.

Thus, I may no longer feel

The burden of my sins,

A burden that oppresses me

Beyond measure.

Assist me, dear Jesus,

For I desire to become good

No matter what the cost.

Take away, destroy,

And utterly root out

Whatever you find in me

That is contrary To your holy will.

At the same time, dear Jesus, illumine me

So that I may walk in your holy light.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=2129

 

‘your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’”

 

OPENING PRAYER

Prayer of Reconciliation

God of compassion, You sent Jesus to proclaim a time of mercy reaching out to those who had no voice, releasing those trapped by their own shame, and welcoming those scorned by society.

Make us ambassadors of reconciliation. Open our ears that we may listen with respect and understanding. Touch our lips that we may speak your words of peace and forgiveness. Warm our hearts that we may bring wholeness to the broken-hearted and dissolve the barriers of division.

Guide the work of your Church and renew us with the Spirit of your love. Help us and all people to shape a world where all will have a place, where the flames of hatred are quenched, and where all can grow together as one.

Forgive, restore and strengthen us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

http://www.paulist.org/reconciliation/prayer-reconciliation

COLLECT

O God, who through your Word

reconcile the human race to yourself in a wonderful way,

grant, we pray,

that with prompt devotion and eager faith

the Christian people may hasten

toward the solemn celebrations to come.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Jos 5:9a, 10-12

The LORD said to Joshua,

“Today I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you.”

While the Israelites were encamped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho,

they celebrated the Passover

on the evening of the fourteenth of the month.

On the day after the Passover,

they ate of the produce of the land

in the form of unleavened cakes and parched grain.

On that same day after the Passover,

on which they ate of the produce of the land, the manna ceased.

No longer was there manna for the Israelites,

who that year ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.

APPLICATION

The Pharao of Egypt refused to listen to the pleas of Moses to let the Israelites go. The first nine plagues left him still stubborn. God therefore sent the final plague. The first-born male of man and beast was to be struck dead on the fourteenth night of the first month. On that night the Israelites were to sacrifice an unspotted lamb, smearing their door posts with its blood, so that the avenging angel would pass over their homes and strike death in the homes of the Egyptians. The whole lamb was to be eaten, without breaking any of its bones. It was to be eaten by the family, or by two or more families if the members of one family were not numerous enough to eat it all. They were to eat the lamb with bitter herbs and unleavened bread (a reminder of their slavery) whilst standing, ready to get on their way.

This final plague of death frightened the Pharao and the Jews were given their liberty. Our interest as Christians in this is more than historical. It happened for us. The Israelites were set free so that from them would come the One who was to set all mankind free. The Paschal Lamb and the liberation from Egypt were a foreshadowing of our liberation from sin and our change from slavery to this world into the freedom of the sons of God.

Because Christ was our Pascal Lamb –“Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed,” St. Paul says (1 Cor. 5: 7) – he chose to die for us in the Jewish feast of Passover, and to be raised again on the third day to prove our true liberation. Thus the religion of the Israelites and all their festivals were brought to fruition, and fulfilled for all mankind in our Christian Passover, in Christ’s death and resurrection.

This is why we are reminded today, the fourth Sunday of Lent, of the paschal feast we shall celebrate with joy and gratitude at the end of this holy season of preparation. God’s love for us and his interest in our true welfare dates back to eternity. Before he created all things his plan was to give man, his highest earthly creature, a share in his own divinity. With the call of Abraham, his interest in us was his motive. The liberation from Egypt was a prelude to his plan of redemption for us. The first Good Friday and Easter morning were the culmination of this divine love for mankind. It went to such lengths–the sacrifice of Christ the Son of God – so that we could share in the eternal happiness of heaven.

Cold is the human heart that fails to react to such proofs of true, unselfish love. Weak indeed is the faith of the Christian who can look on the scene enacted on Calvary while throwing his own mean little cross on the ground. Foolish beyond belief is the man who would let the passing things of this world so engage him that he has no time to earn the everlasting life that God’s infinite love has planned for him from all eternity.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

I will bless the LORD at all times;

his praise shall be ever in my mouth.

Let my soul glory in the LORD;

the lowly will hear me and be glad.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Glorify the LORD with me,

let us together extol his name.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me

and delivered me from all my fears.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,

and your faces may not blush with shame.

When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,

and from all his distress he saved him.

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

READING II

2 Cor 5:17-21

Brothers and sisters:

Whoever is in Christ is a new creation:

the old things have passed away;

behold, new things have come.

And all this is from God,

who has reconciled us to himself through Christ

and given us the ministry of reconciliation,

namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,

not counting their trespasses against them

and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

So we are ambassadors for Christ,

as if God were appealing through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ,

be reconciled to God.

For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin,

so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 433 The name of the Savior God was invoked only once in the year by the high priest in atonement for the sins of Israel, after he had sprinkled the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies with the sacrificial blood. The mercy seat was the place of God’s presence.1 When St. Paul speaks of Jesus whom “God put forward as an expiation by his blood”, he means that in Christ’s humanity “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”2

CCC 602 Consequently, St. Peter can formulate the apostolic faith in the divine plan of salvation in this way: “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers. .. with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake.”3 Man’s sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death.4 By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God “made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”5

CCC 827 “Christ, ‘holy, innocent, and undefiled,’ knew nothing of sin, but came only to expiate the sins of the people. The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal.”6 All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners.7 In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time.8 Hence the Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness:

The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live her life, her members are sanctified; if they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for those offenses, of which she has the power to free her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.9

CCC 859 Jesus unites them to the mission he received from the Father. As “the Son can do nothing of his own accord,” but receives everything from the Father who sent him, so those whom Jesus sends can do nothing apart from him,10 from whom they received both the mandate for their mission and the power to carry it out. Christ’s apostles knew that they were called by God as “ministers of a new covenant,” “servants of God,” “ambassadors for Christ,” “servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.”11

CCC 981 After his Resurrection, Christ sent his apostles “so that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations.”12 The apostles and their successors carry out this “ministry of reconciliation,” not only by announcing to men God’s forgiveness merited for us by Christ, and calling them to conversion and faith; but also by communicating to them the forgiveness of sins in Baptism, and reconciling them with God and with the Church through the power of the keys, received from Christ:13

[The Church] has received the keys of the Kingdom of heaven so that, in her, sins may be forgiven through Christ’s blood and the Holy Spirit’s action. In this Church, the soul dead through sin comes back to life in order to live with Christ, whose grace has saved us.14

CCC 1214 This sacrament is called Baptism, after the central rite by which it is carried out: to baptize (Greek baptizein) means to “plunge” or “immerse”; the “plunge” into the water symbolizes the catechumen’s burial into Christ’s death, from which he rises up by resurrection with him, as “a new creature.”15

CCC 1265 Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,”16 member of Christ and co-heir with him,17 and a temple of the Holy Spirit.18

CCC 1424 It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament. In a profound sense it is also a “confession” – acknowledgment and praise – of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.

It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest’s sacramental absolution God grants the penitent “pardon and peace.”19

It is called the sacrament of Reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner the live of God who reconciles: “Be reconciled to God.”20 He who lives by God’s merciful love is ready to respond to the Lord’s call: “Go; first be reconciled to your brother.”21

CCC 1442 Christ has willed that in her prayer and life and action his whole Church should be the sign and instrument of the forgiveness and reconciliation that he acquired for us at the price of his blood. But he entrusted the exercise of the power of absolution to the apostolic ministry which he charged with the “ministry of reconciliation.”22 The apostle is sent out “on behalf of Christ” with “God making his appeal” through him and pleading: “Be reconciled to God.”23

CCC 1461 Since Christ entrusted to his apostles the ministry of reconciliation,24 bishops who are their successors, and priests, the bishops’ collaborators, continue to exercise this ministry. Indeed bishops and priests, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, have the power to forgive all sins “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

CCC 1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:25

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.26

CCC 2844 Christian prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies,27 transfiguring the disciple by configuring him to his Master. Forgiveness is a high-point of Christian prayer; only hearts attuned to God’s compassion can receive the gift of prayer. Forgiveness also bears witness that, in our world, love is stronger than sin. The martyrs of yesterday and today bear this witness to Jesus. Forgiveness is the fundamental condition of the reconciliation of the children of God with their Father and of men with one another.28

1 Cf. Ex 25:22; Lev 16:2,15-16; Num 7:89; Sir 50:20; Heb 9:5,7.

2 Rom 3:25; 2 Cor 5:19.

3 I Pt 1:18-20.

4 Cf. Rom 5:12; I Cor 15:56.

5 2 Cor 5:21; cf. Phil 2:7; Rom 8:3.

6 LG 8 § 3; Cf. UR 3; 6; Heb 2:17; 726; 2 Cor 5:21.

7 Cf. 1 Jn 1:8-10.

8 Cf. Mt 13:24-30.

9 Paul VI, CPG § 19.

10 Jn 5:19, 30; cf. Jn 15:5.

11 2 Cor 3:6; 6:4; 5:20; 1 Cor 4:1.

12 Lk 24:47.

13 2 Cor 5:18.

14 St. Augustine, Sermo 214,11:PL 38,1071-1072.

15 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Cf. Rom 6:34; Col 2:12.

16 2 Cor 5:17; 2 Pet 1:4; cf. Gal 4:5-7.

17 Cf. l Cor 6:15; 12:27; Rom 8:17.

18 Cf. l Cor 6:19.

19 OP 46 formula of absolution.

20 2 Cor 5:20.

21 MT 5:24.

22 2 Cor 5:18.

23 2 Cor 5:20.

24 Cf. In 20:23; 2 Cor 5:18.

25 Cf. Jn 4:14; 7:38-39.

26 2 Cor 5:17-18.

27 Cf. Mt 5:43-44.

28 Cf. 2 Cor 5:18-21; John Paul II, DM 14.

APPLICATION

We are Christians. To many perhaps this statement is about as important as if we say we are Americans, we are Germans, we are Irish, we are Italians. But as every sincere Christian knows, and as St. Paul has reminded us today, to be a Christian means something different. It means that our relationship with God and the whole meaning of life has been radically changed. The divine plan of the Incarnation reached its climax in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. As a result of this plan we are no longer mere human beings. We have been raised up to adopted sonship by God. We are already by baptism citizens of God’s earthly kingdom, and we are legal heirs of his eternal kingdom in heaven. These are not empty words, nor empty titles. Because the Son of God became a man, and one of us, we have been made brothers of his and sons of God. Because we are sons of God we are heirs to heaven, and have a legal right – through the sheer gift of God’s infinite love for us, not through any merit whatsoever of our own – to eternal happiness.

The plan for our eternal happiness was made by God before creation began. It was signed and sealed by the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. At baptism each Christian is handed his bill of rights, his guarantee of eternal citizenship, together with the map which shows him the road he must travel to attain his kingdom.

But reading and following the road map is for many of us the part we like least. We are all thankful to God and to his divine Son for all he has done for us. We are all delighted with the privilege of divine sonship and the promise of a part in the eternal kingdom of God in heaven. But many of us get sleepy and faint-hearted when it comes to following the road mapped out for us. We know that we have been raised above our mere human nature and given a new status in relation to God. We also know and feel that we are still very human, very earthly beings, naturally attracted to the things of this world.

But we can and we must overcome this attraction. This is what St. Paul is exhorting us to do today. “Be reconciled to God,” he says. Repent of past faults, of past sins, he tells us. If we turn to God with a sincere heart, he will accept us back once more into the divine family of which baptism made us members. We are the chosen children of God, not in any metaphorical or figurative sense, but in the true sense of the words. Heaven is the eternal home earned for us by our true brother Christ. Could we be so foolish as to let some earthly passing pleasure or possession deprive us of that everlasting reward?

GOSPEL

Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,

but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,

“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So to them Jesus addressed this parable:

“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father,

‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’

So the father divided the property between them.

After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings

and set off to a distant country

where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.

When he had freely spent everything,

a severe famine struck that country,

and he found himself in dire need.

So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens

who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.

And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed,

but nobody gave him any.

Coming to his senses he thought,

‘How many of my father’s hired workers

have more than enough food to eat,

but here am I, dying from hunger.

I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,

“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.

I no longer deserve to be called your son;

treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’

So he got up and went back to his father.

While he was still a long way off,

his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.

He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

His son said to him,

‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;

I no longer deserve to be called your son.’

But his father ordered his servants,

‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;

put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.

Then let us celebrate with a feast,

because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;

he was lost, and has been found.’

Then the celebration began.

Now the older son had been out in the field

and, on his way back, as he neared the house,

he heard the sound of music and dancing.

He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.

The servant said to him,

‘Your brother has returned

and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf

because he has him back safe and sound.’

He became angry,

and when he refused to enter the house,

his father came out and pleaded with him.

He said to his father in reply,

‘Look, all these years I served you

and not once did I disobey your orders;

yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.

But when your son returns

who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,

for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’

He said to him,

‘My son, you are here with me always;

everything I have is yours.

But now we must celebrate and rejoice,

because your brother was dead and has come to life again;

he was lost and has been found.’”

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/030616-fourth-sunday-lent.cfm

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 589 Jesus gave scandal above all when he identified his merciful conduct toward sinners with God’s own attitude toward them.1 He went so far as to hint that by sharing the table of sinners he was admitting them to the messianic banquet.2 But it was most especially by forgiving sins that Jesus placed the religious authorities of Israel on the horns of a dilemma. Were they not entitled to demand in consternation, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”3 By forgiving sins Jesus either is blaspheming as a man who made himself God’s equal, or is speaking the truth and his person really does make present and reveal God’s name.4

CCC 1423 It is called the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father5 from whom one has strayed by sin.

It is called the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner’s personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction.

CCC 1439 The process of conversion and repentance was described by Jesus in the parable of the prodigal son, the center of which is the merciful father:6 the fascination of illusory freedom, the abandonment of the father’s house; the extreme misery in which the son finds himself after squandering his fortune; his deep humiliation at finding himself obliged to feed swine, and still worse, at wanting to feed on the husks the pigs ate; his reflection on all he has lost; his repentance and decision to declare himself guilty before his father; the journey back; the father’s generous welcome; the father’s joy – all these are characteristic of the process of conversion. The beautiful robe, the ring, and the festive banquet are symbols of that new life – pure worthy, and joyful – of anyone who returns to God and to the bosom of his family, which is the Church. Only the heart Of Christ Who knows the depths of his Father’s love could reveal to us the abyss of his mercy in so simple and beautiful a way.

CCC 1443 During his public life Jesus not only forgave sins, but also made plain the effect of this forgiveness: he reintegrated forgiven sinners into the community of the People of God from which sin had alienated or even excluded them. A remarkable sign of this is the fact that Jesus receives sinners at his table, a gesture that expresses in an astonishing way both God’s forgiveness and the return to the bosom of the People of God.7

CCC 1468 “The whole power of the sacrament of Penance consists in restoring us to God’s grace and joining us with him in an intimate friendship.”8 Reconciliation with God is thus the purpose and effect of this sacrament. For those who receive the sacrament of Penance with contrite heart and religious disposition, reconciliation “is usually followed by peace and serenity of conscience with strong spiritual consolation.”9 Indeed the sacrament of Reconciliation with God brings about a true “spiritual resurrection,” restoration of the dignity and blessings of the life of the children of God, of which the most precious is friendship with God.10

CCC 1700 The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God (article 1); it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude (article 2). It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment (article 3). By his deliberate actions (article 4), the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience (article 5). Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their whole sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth (article 6). With the help of grace they grow in virtue (article 7), avoid sin, and if they sin they entrust themselves as did the prodigal son11 to the mercy of our Father in heaven (article 8). In this way they attain to the perfection of charity.

CCC 1846 The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners.12 The angel announced to Joseph: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”13 The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”14

CCC 2795 The symbol of the heavens refers us back to the mystery of the covenant we are living when we pray to our Father. He is in heaven, his dwelling place; the Father’s house is our homeland. Sin has exiled us from the land of the covenant,15 but conversion of heart enables us to return to the Father, to heaven.16 In Christ, then, heaven and earth are reconciled,17 for the Son alone “descended from heaven” and causes us to ascend there with him, by his Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.18

CCC 2839 With bold confidence, we began praying to our Father. In begging him that his name be hallowed, we were in fact asking him that we ourselves might be always made more holy. But though we are clothed with the baptismal garment, we do not cease to sin, to turn away from God. Now, in this new petition, we return to him like the prodigal son and, like the tax collector, recognize that we are sinners before him.19 Our petition begins with a “confession” of our wretchedness and his mercy. Our hope is firm because, in his Son, “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”20 We find the efficacious and undoubted sign of his forgiveness in the sacraments of his Church.21

1 Cf. Mt 9:13; Hos 6:6.

2 Cf. Lk 15:1-2, 22-32.

3 Mk 2:7.

4 Cf. Jn 5:18; 10:33; 17:6,26.

5 Cf. Mk 1:15; Lk 15:18.

6 Cf. Lk 15:11-24.

7 Cf. Lk 15; 19:9.

8 Roman Catechism, II, V, 18.

9 Council of Trent (1551): DS 1674.

10 Cf. Lk 15:32.

11 Lk 15:11-32

12 Cf. Lk 15.

13 Mt 1:21.

14 Mt 26:28.

15 Cf. Gen 3.

16 Jer 3:19-4:1a; Lk 15:18, 21.

17 Cf. Isa 45:8; Ps 85:12.

18 Jn 3:13; 12:32; 14 2-3; 16:28; 20:17; Eph 4:9-10; Heb 1:3; 2:13.

19 Cf. Lk 15:11-32, 18:13.

20 Col 1:14; Eph 1:7.

21 Cf. Mt 26:28; Jn 20:23.

APPLICATION

This parable or story refuted the Pharisees’ objection to Christ’s friendliness with sinners very effectively. The infinite mercy of God, the Father of saint and sinner, is brought out very clearly in the story of the younger son. Even though he abandoned his father, the father did not abandon him. The father’s mercy was big enough and generous enough to forgive and forget. His love for his son was strong enough to smother any feelings of personal resentment. His son’s return, humble and chastened, blotted out all his past faults and failures. It was surely an occasion for general rejoicing.

Could the Pharisees fail to see that the father in that story was God and the wayward son the sinners with whom Christ was associating? That the elder son who had stayed with his father looking after the part of the property given to him represented themselves, must have been evident to them too. They were faithful to God and to his law in most ways even if not from completely unselfish motives. But their lack of charity, especially their lack of interest in their fellow-men and the pride they took in their own strict observance, made imperfect all their otherwise good deeds. They were the elder sons, they were still nominally God’s chosen people. But their place was about to be taken by the younger son, by the sinners and publicans, by the Gentiles they so despised.

They must have seen the point of the story and the message Christ had in it for them. Yet they failed to learn its lesson. They remained stubborn in their pride and refused to accept Christ and his salvation.

For the vast majority of us, Christians, our message of consolation and hope is in the first part of today’s parable. All of us have, many a time, been prodigal, ungrateful, selfish sons of our loving Father. But he is still a Father of infinite love, of boundless mercy. He is not only waiting for us to return, like the human father in the story. He is continually sending out messengers to recall us and to help us on the return journey. Like the prodigal in the story, we may have squandered the gifts that our heavenly father gave us. We may have abused our freedom and broken his laws. We may have descended to the deepest depths of degradation (to a Jew to become a swine-herd was the last step in human debasement). We may now feel torn and tattered but, never forget it, our loving, merciful Father is waiting for us with open arms to welcome us back the moment we come to ourselves and decide to return. Until we have drawn our last breath on earth, the mercy of God and his pardon, are there for our asking.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

Love and Correction

Anger is not necessarily always in contradiction with love. A father, for instance, sometimes has to speak crossly to his son so as to prick his conscience, just because he loves him. And he would fall short of his loving obligation and his will to love if, in order to make things easier for the other person, and also for himself, he avoided the task of putting him right sometimes by making a critical intervention in his life. We know that spoiled children, to whom everything has been permitted, are often in the end quite unable to come to terms with life, because later on life treats them quite differently, and because they have never learned to discipline themselves, to get themselves on the right track. Or if, for instance, because I want to be nice to him, I give to an addict the drugs he wants instead of weaning him off them (which would seem to him very hard treatment), then in that case you cannot talk of real love. To put it another way: love, in the true sense, is not always a matter of giving way, being soft, and just acting nice. In that sense, a sugar-costed Jesus or a God who agrees to everything and is never anything but nice and friendly is no more than a caricature of real love. Because God loves us, because he wants us to grow into truth, he must necessarily make demands on us and must also correct us. God has to do those things we refer to in the image of “the wrath of God,” that is, he has to resist us in our attempts to fall from our own best selves and when we pose a threat to ourselves.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Rebellious Youth

Dear Lord, you have witnessed the rebelliousness of youth since the very beginnings of time. You understand a parent’s anguish and helplessness over the actions of his child. Please help us to transform our anger and frustration into loving care for our child who has gone astray. Help us begin to mend our broken fences and heal our broken hearts. Bless our child and also help him to mend the error of his ways. Help and bless us all to do right in Your name and restore us to peace and tranquility. We ask this and all things through Christ our Lord. Amen.

http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=2989

                                           “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”

OPENING PRAYER

You were transfigured on the mountain,

O Christ our God,

revealing as much of your glory to your disciples

as they could behold.

Through the prayers of the Mother of God,

let your everlasting light also shine upon us sinners.

O Giver of Light, glory be to You!

COLLECT

O God, who have commanded us

to listen to your beloved Son,

be pleased, we pray,

to nourish us inwardly by your word,

that, with spiritual sight made pure,

we may rejoice to behold your glory.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Gn 15:5-12, 17-18

The Lord God took Abram outside and said,

“Look up at the sky and count the stars, if you can.

Just so,” he added, “shall your descendants be.”

Abram put his faith in the LORD,

who credited it to him as an act of righteousness.

He then said to him,

“I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans

to give you this land as a possession.”

“O Lord GOD,” he asked,

“how am I to know that I shall possess it?”

He answered him,

“Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old she-goat,

a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

Abram brought him all these, split them in two,

and placed each half opposite the other;

but the birds he did not cut up.

Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses,

but Abram stayed with them.

As the sun was about to set, a trance fell upon Abram,

and a deep, terrifying darkness enveloped him.

When the sun had set and it was dark,

there appeared a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch,

which passed between those pieces.

It was on that occasion that the LORD made a covenant with Abram,

saying: “To your descendants I give this land,

from the Wadi of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 146 Abraham thus fulfills the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”:1 “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”2 Because he was “strong in his faith”, Abraham became the “father of all who believe”.3

CCC 288 Thus the revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and forging of the covenant of the one God with his People. Creation is revealed as the first step towards this covenant, the first and universal witness to God’s all-powerful love.4 And so, the truth of creation is also expressed with growing vigor in the message of the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and the liturgy, and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen People.5

CCC 343 Man is the summit of the Creator’s work, as the inspired account expresses by clearly distinguishing the creation of man from that of the other creatures.6

CCC 762 The remote preparation for this gathering together of the People of God begins when he calls Abraham and promises that he will become the father of a great people.7 Its immediate preparation begins with Israel’s election as the People of God. By this election, Israel is to be the sign of the future gathering of All nations.8 But the prophets accuse Israel of breaking the covenant and behaving like a prostitute. They announce a new and eternal covenant. “Christ instituted this New Covenant.”9

CCC 2571 Because Abraham believed in God and walked in his presence and in covenant with him,10 the patriarch is ready to welcome a mysterious Guest into his tent. Abraham’s remarkable hospitality at Mamre foreshadows the annunciation of the true Son of the promise.11 After that, once God had confided his plan, Abraham’s heart is attuned to his Lord’s compassion for men and he dares to intercede for them with bold confidence.12

1 Heb 11:1.

2 Rom 4:3; cf. Gen 15:6.

3 Rom 4:11, 18; 4:20; cf. Gen 15:5.

4 Cf. Gen 15:5; Jer 33:19-26.

5 Cf. Isa 44:24; Ps 104; Prov 8:22-31.

6 Cf. Gen 1-26.

7 Cf. Gen 12:2; 15:5-6.

8 Cf. Ex 19:5-6; Deut 7:6; Isa 2:2-5; Mic 4:1-4.

9 LG 9; cf. Hos 1; Isa 1:2-4; Jer 2; 31:31-34; Isa 55:3.

10 Cf. Gen 15:6; 17:1 f.

11 Cf. Gen 18:1-15; Lk 1:26-38.

12 Cf. Gen 18:16-33.

APPLICATION

The lesson we are to learn from these verses of the book of Genesis is that we should imitate the faith of Abram and trust in God’s word. He promised Abram what seemed the impossible, namely that he would have a numerous progeny even though his wife was barren. Abram trusted God’s word and God then goes on to confirm it by promising to give a large territory to those descendants yet to come. This promise is ratified with a solemn pact, as was then the custom, God pledging his word with his life, as it were.

Now Abram had a very limited knowledge of God. He had a vague idea that he was God of the whole world for he could dispose of any part of it as he wished, and also that he was interested in the welfare of all men, for he was using Abram as the means through which he would bless all nations (see Gen. 12: 1-3). He knew little more than that. Yet he believed God’s promise and continued to believe it even when its fulfillment was postponed for years.

How much greater should be our faith in God’s word, our trust in his promises? We have seen the fulfillment of his promise to Abram–we have seen the blessing that was sent to all nations. We have that blessing in the New Covenant that Christ made with us. He has not only made us his Chosen People, he has also raised us up, through his Incarnation, to the supernatural status of sons of God. It is not the land of Canaan that is promised to us but the mansions of heaven to be our home for all eternity.

But to profit by all this we have our part to play. We must not only accept the faith, and the truths which Christ has revealed to us, but we must live by these truths, and put our faith into daily practice. It is only by doing this that we can receive the promises that he has made to us. There is no sane man alive who does not want eternal happiness. There is no Christian who does not want to rise with Christ because he knows that this is the way to reach it. But not every Christian is willing to follow Christ first to Calvary. Am I following Christ to Calvary in my daily living? It is through the daily carrying of the Christian cross that an eternal crown is earned. What I do in life will determine what kind of resurrection is in store for me.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 27:1, 7-8, 8-9, 13-14

The Lord is my light and my salvation.

The LORD is my light and my salvation;

whom should I fear?

The LORD is my life’s refuge;

of whom should I be afraid?

The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Hear, O LORD, the sound of my call;

have pity on me, and answer me.

Of you my heart speaks; you my glance seeks.

The Lord is my light and my salvation.

Your presence, O LORD, I seek.

Hide not your face from me;

do not in anger repel your servant.

You are my helper: cast me not off.

The Lord is my light and my salvation.

I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD

in the land of the living.

Wait for the LORD with courage;

be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.

The Lord is my light and my salvation.

READING II

 

Phil 3:17—4:1

Join with others in being imitators of me, brothers and sisters,

and observe those who thus conduct themselves

according to the model you have in us.

For many, as I have often told you

and now tell you even in tears,

conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction.

Their God is their stomach;

their glory is in their “shame.”

Their minds are occupied with earthly things.

But our citizenship is in heaven,

and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He will change our lowly body

to conform with his glorified body

by the power that enables him also

to bring all things into subjection to himself.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters,

whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,

in this way stand firm in the Lord.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 556 On the threshold of the public life: the baptism; on the threshold of the Passover: the Transfiguration. Jesus’ baptism proclaimed “the mystery of the first regeneration”, namely, our Baptism; the Transfiguration “is the sacrament of the second regeneration”: our own Resurrection.1 From now on we share in the Lord’s Resurrection through the Spirit who acts in the sacraments of the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming, when he “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”2 But it also recalls that “it is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God”:3

Peter did not yet understand this when he wanted to remain with Christ on the mountain. It has been reserved for you, Peter, but for after death. For now, Jesus says: “Go down to toil on earth, to serve on earth, to be scorned and crucified on earth. Life goes down to be killed; Bread goes down to suffer hunger; the Way goes down to be exhausted on his journey; the Spring goes down to suffer thirst; and you refuse to suffer?”4

CCC 793 Christ unites us with his Passover: all his members must strive to resemble him, “until Christ be formed” in them.5 “For this reason we. .. are taken up into the mysteries of his life,. .. associated with his sufferings as the body with its head, suffering with him, that with him we may be glorified.”6

CCC 999 How? Christ is raised with his own body: “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself”;7 but he did not return to an earthly life. So, in him, “all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear,” but Christ “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body,” into a “spiritual body”:8

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel. .. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. .. The dead will be raised imperishable. .. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.9

CCC 1003 United with Christ by Baptism, believers already truly participate in the heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains “hidden with Christ in God.”10 The Father has already “raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”11 Nourished with his body in the Eucharist, we already belong to the Body of Christ. When we rise on the last day we “also will appear with him in glory.”12

CCC 2796 When the Church prays “our Father who art in heaven,” she is professing that we are the People of God, already seated “with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” and “hidden with Christ in God;”13 yet at the same time, “here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling.”14

[Christians] are in the flesh, but do not live according to the flesh. They spend their lives on earth, but are citizens of heaven.15

1 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 45, 4, ad 2.

2 Phil 3:21.

3 Acts 14:22.

4 St. Augustine, Sermo 78, 6: PL 38, 492-493; cf. Lk 9:33.

5 Gal 4:19.

6 LG 7 # 4; cf. Phil 3:21; Rom 8:17.

7 Lk 24:39.

8 Lateran Council IV (1215): DS 801; Phil 3:21; 2 Cor 15:44.

9 1 Cor 15:35-37,42,52,53.

10 Col 3:3; cf. Phil 3:20.

11 Eph 2:6.

12 Col 3:4.

13 Eph 2:6; Col 3:3.

14 2 Cor 5:2; cf. Phil 3:20; Heb 13:14.

15 Ad Diognetum 5: PG 2, 1173.

APPLICATION

The season of Lent, the six weeks that precede Easter, is a period which long tradition has set apart as a time to prepare for the crowning event of our salvation, the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Christ came on earth to reveal to men by his teaching, and especially by his life, God’s infinite love for the human race. God has shown that love down through the centuries, to the Chosen People especially, but also to others. He showed it by the words sent through the prophets, and by his deeds. But it was in Christ that he gave men the full revelation of his divine love for us.

God’s plan for man in creation was to raise him up to an intimate union with the divinity. The masterpiece of creation was to become an adopted son of God, a member of the divine family. This was done in the Incarnation. The Son of God became a man, one of us, so that we, through and in him, could become sons of God. Christ, representing us, gave perfect human respect and obedience to God the Father in every action of his life. This perfect homage and obedience led him to his death on the cross: he gave him human life in fulfillment of it.

And, because he did, God raised him up again from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heaven. Christ, one of us, has the principal place in heaven next to God the Father–as God, he is equal to the Father. Ever since this plan of God’s love for us was carried out, ever since the day of Christ’s Resurrection, our home, our permanent abode, is heaven. Our time on earth is only a period of exile. It is a period in which, if we try to imitate Christ, giving true reverence and obedience to God our Father, we can secure for ourselves a place in the eternal home which he has planned for us, and which Christ has won for us.

The true Christian should be aware of what God’s love has planned for us, and of what humiliations and sufferings this loving plan caused our Savior. How could a person with such an awareness ever forget his supernatural vocation and purpose in life? There are too many who do just this, too many who attach themselves to the fleeting, passing things of this world, and neglect the everlasting possessions which are theirs for the taking.

Let us not be among their number. Let us pay heed today to St. Paul’s advice to the Philippians and strive to imitate him who was the true lover and follower of Christ. While using thankfully the gifts that God has given us in this life to help us on our journey let us never forget our journey’s end, our heritage in heaven, of which Christ our brother has made us co-heirs.

GOSPEL

 

Lk 9:28b-36

Jesus took Peter, John, and James

and went up the mountain to pray.

While he was praying his face changed in appearance

and his clothing became dazzling white.

And behold, two men were conversing with him, Moses and Elijah,

who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus

that he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem.

Peter and his companions had been overcome by sleep,

but becoming fully awake,

they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.

As they were about to part from him, Peter said to Jesus,

“Master, it is good that we are here;

let us make three tents,

one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

But he did not know what he was saying.

While he was still speaking,

a cloud came and cast a shadow over them,

and they became frightened when they entered the cloud.

Then from the cloud came a voice that said,

“This is my chosen Son; listen to him.”

After the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.

They fell silent and did not at that time

tell anyone what they had seen.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/022116.cfm

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 516 Christ’s whole earthly life – his words and deeds, his silences and sufferings, indeed his manner of being and speaking – is Revelation of the Father. Jesus can say: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”, and the Father can say: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”1 Because our Lord became man in order to do his Father’s will, even the least characteristics of his mysteries manifest “God’s love. .. among us”.2

CCC 554 From the day Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Master “began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things. .. and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”3 Peter scorns this prediction, nor do the others understand it any better than he.4 In this context the mysterious episode of Jesus’ Transfiguration takes place on a high mountain,5 before three witnesses chosen by himself: Peter, James and John. Jesus’ face and clothes become dazzling with light, and Moses and Elijah appear, speaking “of his departure, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem”.6 A cloud covers him and a voice from heaven says: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”7

CCC 556 On the threshold of the public life: the baptism; on the threshold of the Passover: the Transfiguration. Jesus’ baptism proclaimed “the mystery of the first regeneration”, namely, our Baptism; the Transfiguration “is the sacrament of the second regeneration”: our own Resurrection.8 From now on we share in the Lord’s Resurrection through the Spirit who acts in the sacraments of the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming, when he “will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”9 But it also recalls that “it is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God”:10

Peter did not yet understand this when he wanted to remain with Christ on the mountain. It has been reserved for you, Peter, but for after death. For now, Jesus says: “Go down to toil on earth, to serve on earth, to be scorned and crucified on earth. Life goes down to be killed; Bread goes down to suffer hunger; the Way goes down to be exhausted on his journey; the Spring goes down to suffer thirst; and you refuse to suffer?”11

CCC 557 “When the days drew near for him to be taken up [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem.”12 By this decision he indicated that he was going up to Jerusalem prepared to die there. Three times he had announced his Passion and Resurrection; now, heading toward Jerusalem, Jesus says: “It cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.”13

CCC 659 “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.”14 Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys.15 But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity.16 Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand.17 Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul “as to one untimely born”, in a last apparition that established him as an apostle.18

CCC 697 Cloud and light. These two images occur together in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. In the theophanies of the Old Testament, the cloud, now obscure, now luminous, reveals the living and saving God, while veiling the transcendence of his glory – with Moses on Mount Sinai,19 at the tent of meeting,20 and during the wandering in the desert,21 and with Solomon at the dedication of the Temple.22 In the Holy Spirit, Christ fulfills these figures. The Spirit comes upon the Virgin Mary and “overshadows” her, so that she might conceive and give birth to Jesus.23 On the mountain of Transfiguration, the Spirit in the “cloud came and overshadowed” Jesus, Moses and Elijah, Peter, James and John, and “a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’”24 Finally, the cloud took Jesus out of the sight of the disciples on the day of his ascension and will reveal him as Son of man in glory on the day of his final coming.25

CCC 1151 Signs taken up by Christ. In his preaching the Lord Jesus often makes use of the signs of creation to make known the mysteries of the Kingdom of God.26 He performs healings and illustrates his preaching with physical signs or symbolic gestures.27 He gives new meaning to the deeds and signs of the Old Covenant, above all to the Exodus and the Passover,28 for he himself is the meaning of all these signs.

CCC 2583 After Elijah had learned mercy during his retreat at the Wadi Cherith, he teaches the widow of Zarephath to believe in The Word of God and confirms her faith by his urgent prayer: God brings the widow’s child back to life.29

The sacrifice on Mount Carmel is a decisive test for the faith of the People of God. In response to Elijah’s plea, “Answer me, O LORD, answer me,” the Lord’s fire consumes the holocaust, at the time of the evening oblation. The Eastern liturgies repeat Elijah’s plea in the Eucharistic epiclesis.

Finally, taking the desert road that leads to the place where the living and true God reveals himself to his people, Elijah, like Moses before him, hides “in a cleft of he rock” until the mysterious presence of God has passed by.30 But only on the mountain of the Transfiguration will Moses and Elijah behold the unveiled face of him whom they sought; “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God [shines] in the face of Christ,” crucified and risen.31

CCC 2600 The Gospel according to St. Luke emphasizes the action of the Holy Spirit and the meaning of prayer in Christ’s ministry. Jesus prays before the decisive moments of his mission: before his Father’s witness to him during his baptism and Transfiguration, and before his own fulfillment of the Father’s plan of love by his Passion.32 He also prays before the decisive moments involving the mission of his apostles: at his election and call of the Twelve, before Peter’s confession of him as “the Christ of God,” and again that the faith of the chief of the Apostles may not fail when tempted.33 Jesus’ prayer before the events of salvation that the Father has asked him to fulfill is a humble and trusting commitment of his human will to the loving will of the Father.

1 Jn 14:9; Lk 9:35; cf. Mt 17:5; Mk 9:7, “my beloved Son”.

2 Jn 4:9.

3 Mt 16:21.

4 Cf. Mt 16:22-23; 17:23; Lk 9:45.

5 Cf. Mt 17:1-8 and parallels; 2 Pt 1:16-18.

6 Lk 9:31.

7 Lk 9:35.

8 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 45, 4, ad 2.

9 Phil 3:21.

10 Acts 14:22.

11 St. Augustine, Sermo 78, 6: PL 38, 492-493; cf. Lk 9:33.

12 Lk 9:51; cf. Jn 13:1.

13 Lk 13:33; cf. Mk 8:31-33; 9:31-32; 10:32-34.

14 Mk 16:19.

15 Cf Lk 24:31; Jn 20:19, 26.

16 Cf. Acts 1:3; 10:41; Mk 16:12; Lk 24:15; Jn 20:14-15; 21:4.

17 Cf. Acts 1:9; 2:33; 7:56; Lk 9:34-35; 24:51; Ex 13:22; Mk 16:19; Ps 110:1.

18 1 Cor 15:8; cf. 9:1; Gal 1:16.

19 Cf. Ex 24:15-18.

20 Cf. Ex 33:9-10.

21 Cf. Ex 40:36-38; 1 Cor 10:1-2.

22 Cf. 1 Kings 8:10-12.

23 Lk 1:35.

24 Lk 9:34-35.

25 Cf. Acts 1:9; cf. Lk 21:27.

26 Cf. Lk 8:10.

27 Cf. Jn 9:6; Mk 7:33ff.; 8:22ff.

28 Cf. Lk 9:31; 22:7-20.

29 Cf. 1 Kings 17:7-24.

30 Cf. 1 Kings 19:1-14; cf. Ex 33:19-23.

31 2 Cor 4:6; cf. Lk 9:30-35.

32 Cf. Lk 3:21; 9:28; 22:41-44.

33 Cf. Lk 6:12; 9:18-20; 22:32.

APPLICATION

It was out of the abundance of his divine love that God gave a glimpse of the future glory of Christ in his risen humanity to the three disciples on that memorable occasion. And with Christ he showed two others of his faithful servants also in glory. He understood the human weakness of the disciples, and foresaw the shock to their faith which the sad scenes of the passion and crucifixion of their beloved Master would be some weeks later. So, to strengthen and forearm them for that sad trial, he gave them a glimpse of the future glory which was to be theirs, too, if they persevered.

It is for this same reason that this all-important event in the life of Christ and of his Apostles has been preserved for us in the Gospels and is put before us today.

Like the Apostles, we, too, believe firmly in God. We, too, are convinced that Christ was sent by God to bring us to heaven. We now have much more convincing proof that Christ was not only the Messiah, an envoy of God, but the very Son of God–something the Apostles did not then understand. But we are still very much like them in our human weakness, and in our half-hearted acceptance of God’s purpose for and promises to us.

The Apostles had to face the awful test to their faith and trust in God, which the passion and crucifixion of Christ was for them. We now accept with gratitude and realize that Christ “had to suffer and thus enter into his glory.” We even understand that the very purpose of Christ’s passion was that, in spite of our mortality and weakness, we also might enter into eternal glory through his suffering, on condition that we remain true to our faith.

In our moments of cool, calm reasoning we can see clearly how good God has been to us, how wonderful his love which has arranged for us an eternity of happiness, the perfect fulfillment of every rational human desire. We can also see how little God asks of us during our few short years here, in return for the everlasting happy home he has prepared for us.

But unfortunately we have many moments in life in which cool, calm reasoning does not prevail. We have moments when our vices and not our virtues take charge, moments when we are prepared to sell our eternal heritage in exchange for a mess of earthly pottage. Some of us may already have bartered our heavenly home for some temporal gain or pleasure–but while there is life there is hope. We can still put things right with God.

“Lord, it is good for us to be here,” it is wonderful to be adopted sons of God on the road back to our Father. It is wonderful to be assured that in death this body of ours with its pains and aches, its attraction to earthly things and worse still its propensity to sin, will give place to a glorified body. This glorified body will be free from all pain and corruption and will possess all the human spiritual gifts of intelligence and will to so much greater a degree as will enable us to appreciate and enjoy the eternal happiness in store for us.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

The Chair of St. Peter

Peter expressed in the first place, in the name of the apostles, the profession of faith: “You are the Christ. The Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). This is the task of all the successors of Peter: to be the leader in the profession of faith in Christ, the Son of the living god. The chair of Rome is, first of all, the chair of this creed. From the loftiness of this chair the Bishop of Rome is obliged to repeat constantly “Dominus Iesus.” “Jesus is Lord,” as Paul wrote in his Letters to the Romans (10: 9), and to the Corinthians (1 Cor 12: 3). To the Corinthians he said, with particular emphasis: “For although there may be so-called gods in heaven and on earth… yet for us there is one God, the Father… and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (! Cor 8:5). The chair of Peter obliges its incumbents to say, as Peter did at a moment of crisis of the disciples, when many wished to go away: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; (Jn 6: 68 and following). Whoever sits on the chair of Peter must remember the words that the Lord said to Simon Peter at the Last Supper: “And when you have returned again, strengthen your brethren” (Lk 22: 32). The holder of the Petrine ministry must be conscious of being a frail and weak man, as his own strength is frail and weak, constantly needing purification and conversion. But he can also be conscious that from the Lord he receives strength to confirm his brethren in the faith and to keep them united in the confession of Christ, crucified and risen.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

God, our Father, in the transfigured glory of Christ your Son, you strengthen our faith by confirming the witness of your prophets and by showing to us the splendor of your beloved Son, help us to become heirs to the eternal life with Him, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/novena/Transfiguration.htm#ixzz2LDV3Mpo6

“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

OPENING PRAYER

A Three O’Clock Prayer

Dear Lord, remembering the hour when You experienced death

So that we might have Eternal Life,

May we appreciate in our hearts

the necessity of Your sacrifice for us

And with Your help, Your guidance, and Your grace,

May we be made worthy of it.

COLLECT

Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care,

that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace,

they may be defended always by your protection.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Sprit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Is 6:1-2a, 3-8

In the year King Uzziah died,

I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,

with the train of his garment filling the temple.

Seraphim were stationed above.

They cried one to the other,

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!

All the earth is filled with his glory!”

At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook

and the house was filled with smoke.

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed!

For I am a man of unclean lips,

living among a people of unclean lips;

yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me,

holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it, and said,

“See, now that this has touched your lips,

your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,

“Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”

“Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

 

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 332 Angels have been present since creation and throughout the history of salvation, announcing this salvation from afar or near and serving the accomplishment of the divine plan: they closed the earthly paradise; protected Lot; saved Hagar and her child; stayed Abraham’s hand; communicated the law by their ministry; led the People of God; announced births and callings; and assisted the prophets, just to cite a few examples.1 Finally, the angel Gabriel announced the birth of the Precursor and that of Jesus himself.2

CCC 712 The characteristics of the awaited Messiah begin to appear in the “Book of Emmanuel” (“Isaiah said this when he saw his glory,”3 speaking of Christ), especially in the first two verses of Isaiah 11:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,

the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might,

the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.4

CCC 1137 The book of Revelation of St. John, read in the Church’s liturgy, first reveals to us, “A throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne”: “the Lord God.”5 It then shows the Lamb, “standing, as though it had been slain”: Christ crucified and risen, the one high priest of the true sanctuary, the same one “who offers and is offered, who gives and is given.”6 Finally it presents “the river of the water of life. .. flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb,” one of most beautiful symbols of the Holy Spirit.7

CCC 1138 “Recapitulated in Christ,” these are the ones who take part in the service of the praise of God and the fulfillment of his plan: the heavenly powers, all creation (the four living beings), the servants of the Old and New Covenants (the twenty-four elders), the new People of God (the one hundred and forty-four thousand),8 especially the martyrs “slain for the word of God,” and the all-holy Mother of God (the Woman), the Bride of the Lamb,9 and finally “a great multitude which no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and tongues.”10

CCC 2584 In their “one to one” encounters with God, the prophets draw light and strength for their mission. Their prayer is not flight from this unfaithful world, but rather attentiveness to The Word of God. At times their prayer is an argument or a complaint, but it is always an intercession that awaits and prepares for the intervention of the Savior God, the Lord of history.11

CCC 2809 The holiness of God is the inaccessible center of his eternal mystery. What is revealed of it in creation and history, Scripture calls “glory,” the radiance of his majesty.12 In making man in his image and likeness, God “crowned him with glory and honor,” but by sinning, man fell “short of the glory of God.”13 From that time on, God was to manifest his holiness by revealing and giving his name, in order to restore man to the image of his Creator.14

1 Cf. Job 38:7 (where angels are called “sons of God”); Gen 3:24; 19; 21: 17; 22:11; Acts 7:53; Ex 23:20-23; Judg 13; 6:11-24; Is 6:6; 1 Kings 19:5.

2 Cf. Lk 1:11, 26.

3 Jn 12:41; cf. Isa 6-12.

4 Isa 11:1-2.

5 Rev 4:2, 8; Isa 6:1; cf. Ezek 1:26-28.

6 Rev 5:6; Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, Anaphora; cf. Jn 1:29; Heb 4:14-15; 10:19-2.

7 Rev 22:1; cf. 21:6; Jn 4:10-14.

8 Cf. Rev 4-5; 7:1-8; 14:1; Isa 6:2-3.

9 Rev 6:9-11; Rev 21:9; cf. 12.

10 Rev 7:9.

11 Cf. Am 7:2, 5; Isa 6:5, 8, 11; Jer 1:6; 15: 15-18; 20: 7-18.

12 Cf. Ps 8; Isa 6:3.

13 Ps 8:5; Rom 3:23; cf. Gen 1:26.

14 Col 3:10.

APPLICATION

This incident–the call of Isaiah to the office of Prophet–happened over 2,600 years ago and yet it has a lesson, a practical lesson, for each one of us today. Every one of us, every human being on earth has his own mission to perform. Each one of us has a personal vocation, a special purpose in life, which God expects (but will not force him) to perform. And this personal task is in addition to the basic, the principal purpose God has for each one of us, namely, that we should work our way to heaven.

I said it is in addition to our principal purpose, but in fact it is rather the means through which we shall attain to our principal purpose. In other words if we carry out faithfully our particular vocation we shall earn heaven.

Catholics too often understand by vocation a call to serve God in the priesthood or the religious life. This is a vocation, but, so are the various other calls which God gives to men and women in lay life. The call to the married life is a divine vocation, and in many, if not most cases, a more difficult vocation than that of the priest or the religious. The call to the single life when a man or woman, through no personal fault, does not find a life-partner, is also a vocation, and one in which God is frequently served loyally, in spite of difficulties and great personal problems and heart-aches.

We are all then in God’s army and each one of us has his or her task to perform. Our eternal fate, our eternal destiny, will depend on how well we carry out the task given us.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 138:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 7-8

In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,

for you have heard the words of my mouth;

in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;

I will worship at your holy temple

and give thanks to your name.

In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

Because of your kindness and your truth;

for you have made great above all things

your name and your promise.

When I called, you answered me;

you built up strength within me.

In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

All the kings of the earth shall give thanks to you, O LORD,

when they hear the words of your mouth;

and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD:

“Great is the glory of the LORD.”

In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

Your right hand saves me.

The LORD will complete what he has done for me;

your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;

forsake not the work of your hands.

In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

READING II

1 Cor 15:1-11

I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,

of the gospel I preached to you,

which you indeed received and in which you also stand.

Through it you are also being saved,

if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,

unless you believed in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:

that Christ died for our sins

in accordance with the Scriptures;

that he was buried;

that he was raised on the third day

in accordance with the Scriptures;

that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.

After that, Christ appeared to more

than five hundred brothers at once,

most of whom are still living,

though some have fallen asleep.

After that he appeared to James,

then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one born abnormally,

he appeared to me.

For I am the least of the apostles,

not fit to be called an apostle,

because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am,

and his grace to me has not been ineffective.

Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;

not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.

Therefore, whether it be I or they,

so we preach and so you believed.

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 186 From the beginning, the apostolic Church expressed and handed on her faith in brief formula normative for all.1 But already very early on, the Church also wanted to gather the essential elements of her faith into organic and articulated summaries, intended especially for candidates for Baptism:

This synthesis of faith was not made to accord with human opinions, but rather what was of the greatest importance was gathered from all the Scriptures, to present the one teaching of the faith in its entirety. And just as the mustard seed contains a great number of branches in a tiny grain, so too this summary of faith encompassed in a few words the whole knowledge of the true religion contained in the Old and the New Testaments.2

CCC 519 All Christ’s riches “are for every individual and are everybody’s property.”3 Christ did not live his life for himself but for us, from his Incarnation “for us men and for our salvation” to his death “for our sins” and Resurrection “for our justification”.4 He is still “our advocate with the Father”, who “always lives to make intercession” for us.5 He remains ever “in the presence of God on our behalf, bringing before him all that he lived and suffered for us.”6

CCC 552 Simon Peter holds the first place in the college of the Twelve;7 Jesus entrusted a unique mission to him. Through a revelation from the Father, Peter had confessed: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Our Lord then declared to him: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”8 Christ, the “living Stone”,9 thus assures his Church, built on Peter, of victory over the powers of death. Because of the faith he confessed Peter will remain the unshakable rock of the Church. His mission will be to keep this faith from every lapse and to strengthen his brothers in it.10

CCC 601 The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of “the righteous one, my Servant” as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of sin.11 Citing a confession of faith that he himself had “received”, St. Paul professes that “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.”12 In particular Jesus’ redemptive death fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering Servant.13 Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God’s suffering Servant.14 After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles.15

CCC 624 “By the grace of God” Jesus tasted death “for every one”.16 In his plan of salvation, God ordained that his Son should not only “die for our sins”17 but should also “taste death”, experience the condition of death, the separation of his soul from his body, between the time he expired on the cross and the time he was raised from the dead. The state of the dead Christ is the mystery of the tomb and the descent into hell. It is the mystery of Holy Saturday, when Christ, lying in the tomb,18 reveals God’s great sabbath rest19 after the fulfillment20 of man’s salvation, which brings peace to the whole universe.21

CCC 627 Christ’s death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union which the person of the Son retained with his body, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for “it was not possible for death to hold him” 22 23 and therefore “divine power preserved Christ’s body from corruption.” Both of these statements can be said of Christ: “He was cut off out of the land of the living”,24 and “My flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption.”25 Jesus’ resurrection “on the third day” was the sign of this, also because bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death.26

CCC 639 The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness. In about A.D. 56 St. Paul could already write to the Corinthians: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. ..”27 The Apostle speaks here of the living tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his conversion at the gates of Damascus.28

CCC 641 Mary Magdalene and the holy women who came to finish anointing the body of Jesus, which had been buried in haste because the Sabbath began on the evening of Good Friday, were the first to encounter the Risen One.29 Thus the women were the first messengers of Christ’s Resurrection for the apostles themselves.30 They were the next to whom Jesus appears: first Peter, then the Twelve. Peter had been called to strengthen the faith of his brothers,31 and so sees the Risen One before them; it is on the basis of his testimony that the community exclaims: “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”32

CCC 642 Everything that happened during those Paschal days involves each of the apostles – and Peter in particular – in the building of the new era begun on Easter morning. As witnesses of the Risen One, they remain the foundation stones of his Church. The faith of the first community of believers is based on the witness of concrete men known to the Christians and for the most part still living among them. Peter and the Twelve are the primary “witnesses to his Resurrection”, but they are not the only ones – Paul speaks clearly of more than five hundred persons to whom Jesus appeared on a single occasion and also of James and of all the apostles.33

CCC 652 Christ’s Resurrection is the fulfillment of the promises both of the Old Testament and of Jesus himself during his earthly life.34 The phrase “in accordance with the Scriptures”35 indicates that Christ’s Resurrection fulfilled these predictions.

CCC 659 “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.”36 Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys.37 But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity.38 Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand.39 Only in a wholly exceptional and unique way would Jesus show himself to Paul “as to one untimely born”, in a last apparition that established him as an apostle.40

CCC 752 In Christian usage, the word “church” designates the liturgical assembly,41 but also the local community42 or the whole universal community of believers.43 These three meanings are inseparable. “The Church” is the People that God gathers in the whole world. She exists in local communities and is made real as a liturgical, above all a Eucharistic, assembly. She draws her life from the word and the Body of Christ and so herself becomes Christ’s Body.

CCC 857 The Church is apostolic because she is founded on the apostles, in three ways:

– she was and remains built on “the foundation of the Apostles,”44 the witnesses chosen and sent on mission by Christ himself;45

– with the help of the Spirit dwelling in her, the Church keeps and hands on the teaching,46 the “good deposit,” the salutary words she has heard from the apostles;47

– she continues to be taught, sanctified, and guided by the apostles until Christ’s return, through their successors in pastoral office: the college of bishops, “assisted by priests, in union with the successor of Peter, the Church’s supreme pastor”:48

You are the eternal Shepherd

who never leaves his flock untended.

Through the apostles

you watch over us and protect us always.

You made them shepherds of the flock

to share in the work of your Son. ..49

1 Cf. Rom 10:9; I Cor 15:3-5, etc.

2 St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. illum. 5, 12: PG 33, 521-524.

3 John Paul II, RH II.

4 I Cor 15:3; Rom 4:25.

5 I Jn 2:1 Heb 7:25.

6 Heb 9:24.

7 Cf Mk 3:16; 9:2; Lk 24:34; I Cor 15:5.

8 Mt 16:18.

9 I Pt 2:4.

10 Cf. Lk 22:32.

11 Is 53:11; cf. 53:12; Jn 8 34-36; Acts 3:14.

12 1 Cor 15:3; cf. also Acts 3:18; 7:52; 13:29; 26:22-23.

13 Cf. Is 53:7-8 and Acts 8:32-35.

14 Cf. Mt 20:28.

15 Cf. Lk 24:25-27, 44-45.

16 Heb 2:9.

17 I Cor 15:3.

18 Cf. Jn 19:42.

19 Cf. Heb 4:7-9.

20 Cf. Jn 19:30.

21 Cf Col 1: 18-20.

22 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh III, 51, 3.

23 Acts 2:24.

24 Is 53:8.

25 Acts 2:26-27; cf. Ps 16:9-10.

26 Cf. I Cor 15:4; Lk 24:46; Mt 12:40; Jon 2:1; Hos 6:2; cf. Jn 11:39.

27 I Cor 15:3-4.

28 Cf. Acts 9:3-18.

29 Mk 16:1; Lk 24:1; Jn 19:31,42.

30 Cf Lk 24:9-10; Mt 28:9-10; Jn 20:11-18.

31 Cf I Cor 15:5; Lk 22:31-32.

32 Lk 24:34, 36.

33 I Cor 15:4-8; cf. Acts 1:22.

34 Cf. Mt 28:6; Mk 16:7; Lk 24:6-7, 26-27, 44-48.

35 Cf. I Cor 15:3-4; cf. the Nicene Creed.

36 Mk 16:19.

37 Cf Lk 24:31; Jn 20:19, 26.

38 Cf. Acts 1:3; 10:41; Mk 16:12; Lk 24:15; Jn 20:14-15; 21:4.

39 Cf. Acts 1:9; 2:33; 7:56; Lk 9:34-35; 24:51; Ex 13:22; Mk 16:19; Ps 110:1.

40 1 Cor 15:8; cf. 9:1; Gal 1:16.

41 Cf. 1 Cor 11:18; 14:19,28,34,35.

42 Cf. 1 Cor 1:2; 16:1.

43 Cf. 1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:6.

44 Eph 2:20; Rev 21:14.

45 Cf. Mt 28:16-20; Acts 1:8; 1 Cor 9:1; 15:7-8; Gal 1:1; etc.

46 Cf. Acts 2:42.

47 Cf. 2 Tim 1:13-14.

48 AG 5.

49 Roman Missal, Preface of the Apostles I.

APPLICATION

If St. Paul, the great Apostle, found it necessary to recall to the minds of his Corinthian converts the basic doctrines of the faith that he had preached to them some five years earlier, it is very fitting that we too should meditate on the same basic doctrines today. We have many of the difficulties and problems that made living a truly Christian life a hard struggle for the first Christians of Corinth. They were a relatively small group, living in the midst of pagan neighbors whose purpose in life was to get what they could out of this world. These pagans had no thought for the future and only ridicule for anyone who was foolish enough, according to their philosophy, to forego the pleasures and the comforts of this life for the sake of something they expected after death. It was far from easy to carry the Christian cross through a throng of jeering pleasure-seekers. It was hard to mortify the senses and the flesh when the neighbor’s motto in life was “eat, sleep and be merry for tomorrow we die.”

But what of us Christians today? Is our lot that much easier; have we no pagans or paganism to contend with? Leaving out for the moment the countries that have not yet learned of Christianity–how Christian is the so-called western world? More than half of the people of Europe are living under a regime that not alone denies Christianity but proclaims that there is no God, and no future for man but the grave. And how Christian are the peoples of the other half of Europe, and Europe’s western allies, who, for political and commercial reasons, condemn the eastern atheists? In theory they do not deny the existence of God, but what part does God play in their national legislation and their international deliberations? To come down from the legislators to the masses: what part does the law of the Gospel play in the lives of the majority of them?

The Christian of today is tempted on all sides to forget his Christian calling. He is tempted to forget the future life and urged to live in the present, to enjoy the pleasures of the moment, to join in the mad rush for worldly wealth and power. But as Christians, we have a philosophy of life which shows up the folly and the emptiness of these temptations. Granted that this world could give us (which, of course, it cannot) all the pleasures, all the wealth, all the power we desire, death will still come to cut us off from all these cherished things. And what then?

We know that our true home is in heaven, that true happiness consists in loving God and neighbor, that true wealth is supernatural grace and virtue, which will last for all eternity. The Incarnation, death and Resurrection of our Savior, of which St. Paul reminds us today, are for us an absolute guarantee that God wants us in heaven and that we shall be with him in heaven if we live the few short years given us in the world, as true Christians, lovers of God and of Christ.

GOSPEL

Lk 5:1-11

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening

to the word of God,

he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.

He saw two boats there alongside the lake;

the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.

Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,

he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore.

Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

Simon said in reply,

“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,

but at your command I will lower the nets.”

When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish

and their nets were tearing.

They signaled to their partners in the other boat

to come to help them.

They came and filled both boats

so that the boats were in danger of sinking.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,

“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him

and all those with him,

and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,

who were partners of Simon.

Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid;

from now on you will be catching men.”

When they brought their boats to the shore,

they left everything and followed him.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/020716.cfm

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 208 Faced with God’s fascinating and mysterious presence, man discovers his own insignificance. Before the burning bush, Moses takes off his sandals and veils his face in the presence of God’s holiness.1 Before the glory of the thrice-holy God, Isaiah cries out: “Woe is me! I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips.”2 Before the divine signs wrought by Jesus, Peter exclaims: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”3 But because God is holy, he can forgive the man who realizes that he is a sinner before him: “I will not execute my fierce anger. .. for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst.”4 The apostle John says likewise: “We shall. .. reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”5

1 Cf. EX 3:5-6.

2 Is 6:5.

3 Lk 5:8.

4 Hos 11:9.

5 I Jn 3:19-20.

APPLICATION

How the wisdom of God differs from the wisdom of men! If a businessman of today (or even of the year 28 A.D.) were choosing a chairman and assistants for the world-wide enterprise he was about to set up, is it likely that he would choose them from among the unknown, unlettered fishermen of Galilee? Yet Christ, who was about to set up not only a world-wide institute but an everlasting one, chose these simple fishermen and made them his assistants and his successors in the work that he had taken in hand.

And it wasn’t that he was restricted in his choice. There were many highly educated priests and scribes in Jerusalem whom he could have won over, men who could preach and instruct so much more eloquently than Peter or Andrew. There were Roman officers in Palestine who were highly educated, and who would be much more eagerly listened to in the Gentile world. There were Greek philosophers whose very name would add prestige to the Gospel message had they been Apostles. Yet it was to none of these that Christ entrusted the arduous task of spreading the good news of the Gospel, it was to none of these that he gave the keys of his kingdom.

Christ was not influenced in his judgement by external, accidental qualifications. He judged the heart and the will. He knew the true worth of men. Furthermore, the society that he was about to set up was not a worldly business concern but a free transport system to heaven. The truths he was committing to its keeping were not based on earthly wisdom which would require eloquence and prestige to bolster them up. They were the eternal, divine truths which needed no human propaganda, no help from mere men.

Thus, in the selection of his Apostles, Christ has given us an extra proof, if one were needed, of his own divine wisdom and of the divine origin of the Christian religion which we profess. Our religion is not man-made, God is its author.

While thanking God today for our Christian religion, with its clearly drawn map of salvation, let us show our appreciation by doing our own little part, as humble apostles, weak but willing helpers of Christ. This we can do without eloquence, or personal prestige. We do so by living as true Christians in our homes, in our places of work, and in our recreations, by carrying our cross daily and patiently, ever ready to give a hand when the neighbor’s cross seems too heavy for him. This will be Christian eloquence, this will be a true apostleship of Christ, because actions speak louder than words.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission of Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

Entering into Lent

Lent is a propitious time in which the Church invites Christians to be more intensely aware of Christ’s redeeming work and to live our baptism more profoundly… With its duration of forty days, Lent tries to recall some of the events that marked the life and history of ancient Israel, presenting to us again its paradigmatic value… The Lenten season is an invitation to relive with Jesus the forty days he spent in the desert, praying and fasting, before undertaking his public mission… This is the authentic and central program of the Lenten Season: to listen to the Word of truth, to live, speak, and do the truth, to reject lies that poison humanity and are the door to all evils. It is urgent, therefore, during these forty days, to listen again to the Gospel, the Lord’s Word, Word of truth, so that in every Christian, in each one of us, the awareness be reinforced of the truth that has been given, that he has given us, to live it and be his witnesses. Lent stimulates us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and in this way to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we came from, where we must go, what path we must take in life. Thus, the Lenten season offers us an ascetic and liturgical journey that, helping us to open our eyes in face of our weakness, makes us open our hearts to the merciful love of Christ.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Prayer Before a Crucifix

BEHOLD, O good and sweetest Jesus,

I cast myself upon my knees in Thy sight,

and with the most fervent desire of my soul

I pray and beseech Thee

to impress upon my heart

lively sentiments of faith,

hope and charity,

with true repentance for my sins

and a most firm desire of amendment:

whilst with deep affection and grief of soul

I consider within myself and mentally contemplate

Thy five most precious Wounds,

having before mine eyes that which David, the prophet,

long ago spoke in Thine own person concerning Thee,

my Jesus: “They have pierced My hands and My feet,

they have numbered all My bones.”

 

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

OPENING PRAYER

Fifth Centenary Prayer

Your Word of Life, O God, reached these lands five centuries ago, and calls us still to proclaim the saving message of Christ. We pray today for a dawn of a new evangelization in these lands. Send us out to draw others to You, into Your peace, into the Church, into lives dedicated to the Gospel. As people of many cultures and races, may our voices speak together of hope and welcome to all. May our hands lift high the torch of new life and solidarity. May our hearts yearn for justice and truth. Renew in us the courage and strength to reach out to the neediest in our midst. United in faith and prayer, with Mary, Virgin Mother of the Americas, keep us ever steadfast in Your love as we strive for Your vision of a world renewed. We ask this through Christ, Our Lord.

Amen.

COLLECT

Almighty ever-living God,

direct our actions according to your good pleasure,

that in the name of your beloved Son

we may abound in good works.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Neh 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10

Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly,

which consisted of men, women,

and those children old enough to understand.

Standing at one end of the open place that was before the Water Gate,

he read out of the book from daybreak till midday,

in the presence of the men, the women,

and those children old enough to understand;

and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.

Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform

that had been made for the occasion.

He opened the scroll

so that all the people might see it

— for he was standing higher up than any of the people —;

and, as he opened it, all the people rose.

Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God,

and all the people, their hands raised high, answered,

“Amen, amen!”

Then they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the LORD,

their faces to the ground.

Ezra read plainly from the book of the law of God,

interpreting it so that all could understand what was read.

Then Nehemiah, that is, His Excellency, and Ezra the priest-scribe

and the Levites who were instructing the people

said to all the people:

“Today is holy to the LORD your God.

Do not be sad, and do not weep”—

for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law.

He said further: “Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks,

and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared;

for today is holy to our LORD.

Do not be saddened this day,

for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!”

APPLICATION

The infinite goodness and the infinite mercy, which God has shown to mankind down through the ages, is the theme of the lessons read at today’s Mass. These verses of Nehemiah describe the return of the Jews from the Babylonian exile and their resettlement in Jerusalem and Judah. They owed this return to the gracious act of God and they had the good grace to acknowledge this in a public religious ceremony.

This recalling of the Jews from Babylon was part of God’s remote preparation for the coming of his Son, our divine Lord, on earth. Before creation began he had the Incarnation in mind. And the purpose of the Incarnation was to raise man, the highest being in his created universe, to a capacity to share in the infinite happiness of the Blessed Trinity. Man was thus raised to the adopted sonship of God through the descent of God’s Son to take our humanity.

This is expressed in the mixing of the water and wine at the offertory of the Mass when the celebrant says: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

So the story of the return of the Jewish exiles is not just some faded page of past history. It is for us a very important incident in God’s plan for our elevation and glorification. All through pre-history his plan was being slowly but surely shaped. From Abraham, the pagan called from Ur of the Chaldees, to become the Father of his Chosen People, down to Mary the humble unknown young Jewess of Nazareth, who was chosen to be the Mother of Christ, God was drawing the lines of his great design on every page of the Old Testament.

Notwithstanding the open opposition of men, of pagan nations who tried to crush and annihilate his Chosen People, and of the many rebellious sons within his fold who refused to have Him rule over them, he brought his plan to completion. He raised humanity to the status of sonship that be had intend for it from all eternity.

This return from exile then has deep meaning for us Christians today, twenty-five centuries after it happened. It was a very important step in God’s plan to return us from perpetual exile, a merely earthly life, to a spiritual life, and to the home that in his mercy and goodness he had planned for us.

Through God’s infinite generosity we are destined for an eternal homeland. We must thank God for that but, let us not forget, we have not yet arrived there. We are on the way, and we must work our passage. When the work seems dreary and hard, we must remember that we are not left alone. We have such abundant helps from God as will enable even the weakest to reach home if they avail of them.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 15

(cf John 6:63c) Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

The law of the LORD is perfect,

refreshing the soul;

The decree of the LORD is trustworthy,

giving wisdom to the simple.

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

The precepts of the LORD are right,

rejoicing the heart;

The command of the LORD is clear,

enlightening the eye.

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

The fear of the LORD is pure,

enduring forever;

The ordinances of the LORD are true,

all of them just.

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

Let the words of my mouth and the thought of my heart

find favor before you,

O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.

READING II

1 Cor 12:12-30

Brothers and sisters:

As a body is one though it has many parts,

and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body,

so also Christ.

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,

whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,

and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

Now the body is not a single part, but many.

If a foot should say,

“Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,

“it does not for this reason belong any less to the body.

Or if an ear should say,

“Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body, “

it does not for this reason belong any less to the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?

If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

But as it is, God placed the parts,

each one of them, in the body as he intended.

If they were all one part, where would the body be?

But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you, “

nor again the head to the feet, “I do not need you.”

Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker

are all the more necessary,

and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable

we surround with greater honor,

and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety,

whereas our more presentable parts do not need this.

But God has so constructed the body

as to give greater honor to a part that is without it,

so that there may be no division in the body,

but that the parts may have the same concern for one another.

If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it;

if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.

Now you are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.

Some people God has designated in the church

to be, first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers;

then, mighty deeds;

then gifts of healing, assistance, administration,

and varieties of tongues.

Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?

Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing?

Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 694 Water. The symbolism of water signifies the Holy Spirit’s action in Baptism, since after the invocation of the Holy Spirit it becomes the efficacious sacramental sign of new birth: just as the gestation of our first birth took place in water, so the water of Baptism truly signifies that our birth into the divine life is given to us in the Holy Spirit. As “by one Spirit we were all baptized,” so we are also “made to drink of one Spirit.”1 Thus the Spirit is also personally the living water welling up from Christ crucified2 as its source and welling up in us to eternal life.3

CCC 790 Believers who respond to God’s word and become members of Christ’s Body, become intimately united with him: “In that body the life of Christ is communicated to those who believe, and who, through the sacraments, are united in a hidden and real way to Christ in his Passion and glorification.”4 This is especially true of Baptism, which unites us to Christ’s death and Resurrection, and the Eucharist, by which “really sharing in the body of the Lord,. .. we are taken up into communion with him and with one another.”5

CCC 791 The body’s unity does not do away with the diversity of its members: “In the building up of Christ’s Body there is engaged a diversity of members and functions. There is only one Spirit who, according to his own richness and the needs of the ministries, gives his different gifts for the welfare of the Church.”6 The unity of the Mystical Body produces and stimulates charity among the faithful: “From this it follows that if one member suffers anything, all the members suffer with him, and if one member is honored, all the members together rejoice.”7 Finally, the unity of the Mystical Body triumphs over all human divisions: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”8

CCC 798 The Holy Spirit is “the principle of every vital and truly saving action in each part of the Body.”9 He works in many ways to build up the whole Body in charity:10 by God’s Word “which is able to build you up”;11 by Baptism, through which he forms Christ’s Body;12 by the sacraments, which give growth and healing to Christ’s members; by “the grace of the apostles, which holds first place among his gifts”;13 by the virtues, which make us act according to what is good; finally, by the many special graces (called “charisms”), by which he makes the faithful “fit and ready to undertake various tasks and offices for the renewal and building up of the Church.”14

CCC 953 Communion in charity. In the sanctorum communio, “None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.”15 “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”16 “Charity does not insist on its own way.”17 In this solidarity with all men, living or dead, which is founded on the communion of saints, the least of our acts done in charity redounds to the profit of all. Every sin harms this communion.

CCC 1227 According to the Apostle Paul, the believer enters through Baptism into communion with Christ’s death, is buried with him, and rises with him:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.18

The baptized have “put on Christ.”19 Through the Holy Spirit, Baptism is a bath that purifies, justifies, and sanctifies.20

CCC 1265 Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte “a new creature,” an adopted son of God, who has become a “partaker of the divine nature,”21 member of Christ and co-heir with him,22 and a temple of the Holy Spirit.23

CCC 1267 Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ: “Therefore. .. we are members one of another.”24 Baptism incorporates us into the Church. From the baptismal fonts is born the one People of God of the New Covenant, which transcends all the natural or human limits of nations, cultures, races, and sexes: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.”25

CCC 1396 The unity of the Mystical Body: the Eucharist makes the Church. Those who receive the Eucharist are united more closely to Christ. Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one body – the Church. Communion renews, strengthens, and deepens this incorporation into the Church, already achieved by Baptism. In Baptism we have been called to form but one body.26 The Eucharist fulfills this call: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread:”27

If you are the body and members of Christ, then it is your sacrament that is placed on the table of the Lord; it is your sacrament that you receive. To that which you are you respond “Amen” (“yes, it is true!”) and by responding to it you assent to it. For you hear the words, “the Body of Christ” and respond “Amen.” Be then a member of the Body of Christ that your Amen may be true.28

CCC 1454 The reception of this sacrament ought to be prepared for by an examination of conscience made in the light of the Word of God. The passages best suited to this can be found in the Ten Commandments, the moral catechesis of the Gospels and the apostolic letters, such as the Sermon on the Mount and the apostolic teachings.29

CCC 1469 This sacrament reconciles us with the Church. Sin damages or even breaks fraternal communion. The sacrament of Penance repairs or restores it. In this sense it does not simply heal the one restored to ecclesial communion, but has also a revitalizing effect on the life of the Church which suffered from the sin of one of her members.30 Re-established or strengthened in the communion of saints, the sinner is made stronger by the exchange of spiritual goods among all the living members of the Body of Christ, whether still on pilgrimage or already in the heavenly homeland:31

It must be recalled that… this reconciliation with God leads, as it were, to other reconciliations, which repair the other breaches caused by sin. The forgiven penitent is reconciled with himself in his inmost being, where he regains his innermost truth. He is reconciled with his brethren whom he has in some way offended and wounded. He is reconciled with the Church. He is reconciled with all creation.32

CCC 1508 The Holy Spirit gives to some a special charism of healing33 so as to make manifest the power of the grace of the risen Lord. But even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses. Thus St. Paul must learn from the Lord that “my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” and that the sufferings to be endured can mean that “in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church.”34

CCC 1988 Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ’s Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself:35

[God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature… For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.36

CCC 2004 Among the special graces ought to be mentioned the graces of state that accompany the exercise of the responsibilities of the Christian life and of the ministries within the Church:

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; he who teaches, in his teaching; he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who contributes, in liberality; he who gives aid, with zeal; he who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.37

1 1 Cor 12:13.

2 Jn 19:34; 1 Jn 5:8.

3 Cf. Jn 4:10-14; 738; Ex 17:1-6; Isa 55:1; Zech 14:8; 1 Cor 10:4; Rev 21:6; 22:17.

4 LG 7.

5 LG 7; cf. Rom 6:4-5; 1 Cor 12:13.

6 LG 7 # 3.

7 LG 7 # 3; cf. 1 Cor 12:26.

8 Gal 3:27-28.

9 Pius XII, encyclical, Mystici Corporis: DS 3808.

10 Cf. Eph 4:16.

11 Acts 20:32.

12 Cf. 1 Cor 12:13.

13 LG 7 # 2.

14 LG 12 # 2; cf. AA 3.

15 Rom 14:7.

16 1 Cor 12:26-27.

17 1 Cor 13:5; cf. 10:24.

18 Rom 6:3-4; cf. Col 2:12.

19 Gal 3:27.

20 CE 1 Cor 6:11; 12:13.

21 2 Cor 5:17; 2 Pet 1:4; cf. Gal 4:5-7.

22 Cf. l Cor 6:15; 12:27; Rom 8:17.

23 Cf. l Cor 6:19.

24 Eph 4:25.

25 1 Cor 12:13.

26 Cf. 1 Cor 12:13.

27 1 Cor 10:16-17.

28 St. Augustine, Sermo 272: PL 38, 1247.

29 Cf. Mt 5-7; Rom 12-15; 1 Cor 12-13; Gal 5; Eph 4-6; etc.

30 Cf. 1 Cor 12:26.

31 Cf. LG 48-50.

32 John Paul II, RP 31, 5.

33 Cf. 1 Cor 12:9, 28, 30.

34 2 Cor 12:9; Col 1:24.

35 Cf. 1 Cor 12; Jn 15:1 4.

36 St. Athanasius, Ep. Serap. 1, 24: PG 26, 585 and 588.

37 Rom 12:6-8.

APPLICATION

St. Paul is urging his Corinthian converts to appreciate and be grateful to God for the wonderful gifts he has given them. Not only have they received the gift of the true faith, but God is proving the truth of that faith in their very midst by the miraculous powers he is giving to individuals amongst them. But they must never forget that these gifts are not for their own benefit or glory. They are given to help build up the whole new Christian community.

To drive this lesson home, he compares the new Christian community–the Church–to a human body. Man’s body has many and various members, but each member is there for the good of the whole body. No one member can survive on its own, the brain needs the stomach, as the stomach needs the brain, the eye needs the foot as the foot needs the eye and so on. All the members must work for the good of the whole body, using the capabilities given it, and it is only thus that the body will survive and thrive.

Now for St. Paul this comparison of the Christian community to the members of a human body, is not merely a metaphor, it is a reality. “You are the body of Christ,” he says, “member for member.” This consoling doctrine that the Church is the mystical body of Christ was not invented by St. Paul–he invented the name only–it follows of necessity from the doctrine of the Incarnation. When the Son of God took on human nature, he made us one with him. As Christ himself said: “I am the vine, you are the branches” (Jn. 15: 5). i.e. we form one tree with him. This is the same idea as the body and its members.

We Christians then (and all men of good-will who are not actually in the Church through no fault of their own) are intimately united with the risen and glorious body of Christ in heaven. He is the Head, the director, of his new Chosen People. We are the other members of his body, whom he uses to spread the life-stream of grace and growth to the whole body until it reaches its full stature in the future life. What a glorious position is ours. What an exalted status the Incarnation has given us mere mortals!

Do we think often enough of our privileged status? Do we especially realize our obligations as members of that body? Do we always do all that Christ expects of us to promote the welfare of the whole body? If I think that I am doing enough by providing for my own spiritual well-being, and take no interest in the needs of the other members, I can be sure I am not in fact providing for my spiritual well-being. If the foot says: “I am tired of walking and looking for food for that stomach,” and rests in comfort, it won’t be long until the foot feels the bad effects of a starving stomach and will not be able to walk.

Each one of us must ever keep before his mind this inspiring thought that we are individual members of Christ’s body and that it is only by the full cooperation of all members that that body, which means all of us, will reach its full maturity.

Today especially, in a world which is growing daily more materialistic, more individualistic, more selfish, the Church must set a shining, noticeable, example of unselfish dedication to the material and spiritual welfare of all mankind. And the Church can do this only if each one of its members, that is you and I, will begin today to use the gifts, material and spiritual that God gave us, for the benefit of the community in which we live.

GOSPEL

Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events

that have been fulfilled among us,

just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning

and ministers of the word have handed them down to us,

I too have decided,

after investigating everything accurately anew,

to write it down in an orderly sequence for you,

most excellent Theophilus,

so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings

you have received.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,

and news of him spread throughout the whole region.

He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,

and went according to his custom

into the synagogue on the sabbath day.

He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring glad tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,

and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.

He said to them,

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/012416.cfm

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC)

CCC 436 The word “Christ” comes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Messiah, which means “anointed”. It became the name proper to Jesus only because he accomplished perfectly the divine mission that “Christ” signifies. In effect, in Israel those consecrated to God for a mission that he gave were anointed in his name. This was the case for kings, for priests and, in rare instances, for prophets.1 This had to be the case all the more so for the Messiah whom God would send to inaugurate his kingdom definitively.2 It was necessary that the Messiah be anointed by the Spirit of the Lord at once as king and priest, and also as prophet.3 Jesus fulfilled the messianic hope of Israel in his threefold office of priest, prophet and king.

CCC 544 The kingdom belongs to the poor and lowly, which means those who have accepted it with humble hearts. Jesus is sent to “preach good news to the poor”;4 he declares them blessed, for “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”5 To them – the “little ones” the Father is pleased to reveal what remains hidden from the wise and the learned.6 Jesus shares the life of the poor, from the cradle to the cross; he experiences hunger, thirst and privation.7 Jesus identifies himself with the poor of every kind and makes active love toward them the condition for entering his kingdom.8

CCC 695 Anointing. The symbolism of anointing with oil also signifies the Holy Spirit,9 to the point of becoming a synonym for the Holy Spirit. In Christian initiation, anointing is the sacramental sign of Confirmation, called “chrismation” in the Churches of the East. Its full force can be grasped only in relation to the primary anointing accomplished by the Holy Spirit, that of Jesus. Christ (in Hebrew “messiah”) means the one “anointed” by God’s Spirit. There were several anointed ones of the Lord in the Old Covenant, pre-eminently King David.10 But Jesus is God’s Anointed in a unique way: the humanity the Son assumed was entirely anointed by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit established him as “Christ.”11 The Virgin Mary conceived Christ by the Holy Spirit who, through the angel, proclaimed him the Christ at his birth, and prompted Simeon to come to the temple to see the Christ of the Lord.12 The Spirit filled Christ and the power of the Spirit went out from him in his acts of healing and of saving.13 Finally, it was the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.14 Now, fully established as “Christ” in his humanity victorious over death, Jesus pours out the Holy Spirit abundantly until “the saints” constitute – in their union with the humanity of the Son of God – that perfect man “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”:15 “the whole Christ,” in St. Augustine’s expression.

CCC 714 This is why Christ inaugurates the proclamation of the Good News by making his own the following passage from Isaiah:16

The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me,

because the LORD has anointed me

to bring good tidings to the afflicted;

he has sent me to bind up the broken hearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.

CCC 1168 Beginning with the Easter Triduum as its source of light, the new age of the Resurrection fills the whole liturgical year with its brilliance. Gradually, on either side of this source, the year is transfigured by the liturgy. It really is a “year of the Lord’s favor.”17 The economy of salvation is at work within the framework of time, but since its fulfillment in the Passover of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the culmination of history is anticipated “as a foretaste,” and the kingdom of God enters into our time.

CCC 1286 In the Old Testament the prophets announced that the Spirit of the Lord would rest on the hoped-for Messiah for his saving mission.18 The descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus at his baptism by John was the sign that this was he who was to come, the Messiah, the Son of God.19 He was conceived of the Holy Spirit; his whole life and his whole mission are carried out in total communion with the Holy Spirit whom the Father gives him “without measure.”20

CCC 2444 “The Church’s love for the poor. .. is a part of her constant tradition.” This love is inspired by the Gospel of the Beatitudes, of the poverty of Jesus, and of his concern for the poor.21 Love for the poor is even one of the motives for the duty of working so as to “be able to give to those in need.”22 It extends not only to material poverty but also to the many forms of cultural and religious poverty.23

CCC 2684 In the communion of saints, many and varied spiritualities have been developed throughout the history of the churches. The personal charism of some witnesses to God’s love for men has been handed on, like “the spirit” of Elijah to Elisha and John the Baptist, so that their followers may have a share in this spirit.24 A distinct spirituality can also arise at the point of convergence of liturgical and theological currents, bearing witness to the integration of the faith into a particular human environment and its history. The different schools of Christian spirituality share in the living tradition of prayer and are essential guides for the faithful. In their rich diversity they are refractions of the one pure light of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is truly the dwelling of the saints and the saints are for the Spirit a place where he dwells as in his own home since they offer themselves as a dwelling place for God and are called his temple.25

1 Cf. Ex 29:7; Lev 8:12; 1 Sam 9:16; 10:1; 16:1, 12-13; I Kings 1:39; 19:16.

2 Cf. Ps 2:2; Acts 4:26-27.

3 Cf. Is 11:2; 61:1; Zech 4:14; 6:13; Lk 4:16-21.

4 Lk 4:18; cf. 7:22.

5 Mt 5:3.

6 Cf. Mt 11:25.

7 Cf. Mt 21:18; Mk 2:23-26; Jn 4:6 1; 19:28; Lk 9:58.

8 Cf. Mt 25:31-46.

9 Cf. 1 In 2:20:27; 2 Cor 1:21.

10 Cf. Ex 30:22-32; 1 Sam 16:13.

11 Cf. Lk 418-19; Isa 61:1.

12 Cf. Lk 2:11,26-27.

13 Cf. Lk 4:1; 6:19; 8:46.

14 Cf. Rom 1:4; 8:11.

15 Eph 4:13; cf. Acts 2:36.

16 Isa 61:1-2; cf. Lk 4:18-19.

17 Lk 4:19.

18 Cf. Isa 11:2; 61:1; Lk 4:16-22.

19 Cf. Mt 3:13-17; Jn 1:33-34.

20 Jn 3:34.

21 CA 57; cf. Lk 6:20-22, Mt 8:20; Mk 12:41-44.

22 Eph 4:28.

23 Cf. CA 57.

24 Cf. 2 Kings 2:9; Lk 1:1; PC 2.

25 St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, 26, 62: PG 32, 184.

APPLICATION

In the first four verses of St. Luke’s Gospel which have been read to you today, you will find reason to be grateful to him. He went to a lot of trouble in order to put in a permanent form, in a written record, the essential facts concerning Christ, his words and his works, so that we “would understand (like Theophilus) the certainty of the faith in which we have been instructed.”

But while we must be grateful to St. Luke, we owe a bigger debt of gratitude still to the all-good, all-wise God who moved Luke and the other Evangelists to preserve for us in writing the essential truths of the Christian faith that has been handed down to us. The Apostles were companions of Christ. They witnessed his works and his words; they remembered most of his doings and his sayings, and what they might have forgotten the Holy Spirit recalled to their memory on that first Pentecost day in Jerusalem. The first two generations of Christians received the facts of the faith from these eye-witnesses and the miracles so frequent in the infant Church were confirmation of the truth of their teaching. But God in his wisdom provided for the many generations to come who would not have this evident confirmation of their faith. He established a teaching body in his Church which would safeguard the purity of the Christian truths, for “he himself would be with it all days ” and he gave us a written record of the facts of the faith in the Gospels and the other writings of the New Testament.

How can we ever thank God sufficiently for his thoughtfulness in our regard? We Christians of today can be as certain, as assured, of the truth of the faith that we are trying to practice as was St. Luke who was converted by St. Paul. We have a living, teaching magisterium in the Church, which authentically preserves and interprets for us the true facts of Christ’s teaching and works as written down for us by a first-generation Christian under the impulse and guidance of God’s Holy Spirit. If we needed further proof of the priceless value of our New Testament Books, the virulent attacks on their authenticity, on their objectivity, and on their veracity, by enemies of the faith down to and including our own day, should be sufficient.

But they have stood the test of time and the onslaughts of biassed, prejudiced criticism, for they are the word of truth, which is eternal, and comes from God.

We have a priceless gift of God in the inspired Books of the Bible. Let us show true appreciation for that gift by using it to build up a better knowledge of the Christian faith which it teaches us. There should be a Bible, or at least the New Testament, in every Christian home. It should not be an ornament on a shelf, but a fountain and source from which we can draw strength and refreshment in the daily practice of our Christian faith. Almost two thousand years ago, God’s infinite goodness provided this source of strength, the “fountain of living water,” for us Christians of this century. Are we grateful for his thoughtfulness? Are we nourishing our faith at this blessed fountain of his infinite wisdom and love?

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan O.F.M. and used with permission from Franciscan Press.

BENEDICTUS

Conversion and Obedience

Faith requires conversion and that conversion is an act of obedience toward a reality which precedes me and which does not originate from me. Moreover, this obedience continues, inasmuch as knowledge never transforms this reality into a constituent element of my own thought, but rather the converse is true: it is I who make myself over to it, while it always remains above me. For Christians, this prior reality is not an “it” but a “he” or, even better, a “you.” It is Christ, the Word made flesh. He is the new beginning of our thought. He is the new “I” which bursts open the limits of subjectivity and the boundaries dividing subject from object, this enabling me to say: “It is no longer I who live.” Conversion does not lead into a private relationship with Jesus, which in reality would be another form of mere monologue. It is delivery into the pattern of doctrine, as Paul says, or, as we discovered in John, entrance into the “we” of the Church. This is the sole guarantee that the obedience which we owe to the truth is concrete… Only the concrete God can be something other than a new projection of one’s own self. Following in Christ’s footsteps is the only way of losing oneself which attains the desired goal… The one who becomes flesh has remained flesh. He is concrete… Obedience to the Church is the concreteness of our obedience. The Church is that new and greater subject in which past and present, subject and object come into contact. The Church is our contemporaneity with Christ: there is no other.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Christ, The Way Of Conversion Communion, And Solidarity In America

We thank You, Lord Jesus,

because the Gospel of the Father’s love,

with which You came to save the world,

has been proclaimed far and wide in America

as a gift of the Holy Spirit

that fills us with gladness.

We thank You for the gift of Your Life,

which You have given us by loving us to the end:

Your Life makes us children of God,

brothers and sisters to each other.

Increase, O Lord, our faith and our love for You,

present in all the tabernacles of the continent.

Grant us to be faithful witnesses

to your Resurrection

for the younger generation of Americans,

so that, in knowing You, they may follow You

and find in You their peace and joy.

Only then will they know that they

are brothers and sisters

of all God’s children scattered

throughout the world.

You who, in becoming man,

chose to belong to a human family,

teach families the virtues which filled with light

the family home of Nazareth.

May families always be united,

as You and the Father are one,

and may they be living witnesses

to love, justice and solidarity;

make them schools of respect,

forgiveness and mutual help,

so that the world may believe;

help them to be the source of vocations

to the priesthood and the consecrated life,

and all the other forms

of firm Christian commitment.

Protect Your Church and the Successor of Peter,

to whom You, Good Shepherd, have entrusted

the task of feeding Your flock.

Grant that the Church in America may flourish

and grow richer in the fruits of holiness.

Teach us to love Your Mother, Mary,

as you loved her.

Give us strength to proclaim

Your word with courage

in the work of the new evangelization,

so that the world may know new hope.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of America,

pray for us!

(Given at Mexico City on January 22, 1999, by Pope John-Paul II).

‘And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

OPENING PRAYER

When You, O Lord were baptized in the Jordan

The worship of the Trinity was made manifest,

For the voice of the Father bore witness to You

And called You His beloved Son.

And the Spirit, in the form of a dove,

Confirmed the truthfulness of His word.

O Christ, our God, You have revealed Yourself

And have enlightened the world, glory to You!

COLLECT

Almighty ever-living God,

who, when Christ had been baptized in the River Jordan

and as the Holy Spirit descended upon him,

solemnly declared him your beloved Son,

grant that your children by adoption,

reborn of water and the Holy Spirit,

may always be well pleasing to you.

Thorough our Lord Jesus Christ; your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity

of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

READING I

Is 42: 1-4, 6-7

Thus says the LORD:
Here is my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen one with whom I am pleased,
upon whom I have put my spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
not crying out, not shouting,
not making his voice heard in the street.
a bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,
until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.

I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
to open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.

APPLICATION

This prophecy of second-Isaiah was chosen for today, the feast which commemorates the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, because on that occasion the Father’s voice from heaven proclaimed that Christ was “his beloved servant in which he was well pleased.” Following the interpretation of the inspired Evangelists and of the ancient and constant tradition of the Church, we can have no hesitation in seeing in these words of second-Isaiah, written five centuries or so before Christ, a description of the Savior who came on earth to teach Jew and Gentile the new law of God, the law of love and mercy.

He who was the Son of God took our human nature in order to represent us, and as one of us to give our heavenly Father the perfect obedience and service which no mere man had done ever since the creation, and which no mere man could ever do. This perfect obedience or service of God which Christ, the perfect servant, gave the Father, went as far as the acceptance of the shameful and excruciating death on a cross. But all this he accepted gladly for us–it was in our name he did it–and because he did it, we are all raised to a new relationship with God. He has made us all, Jew and Gentile, the whole human race, adopted sons of his heavenly Father.

As members of his mystical body we can now, because he is our Head, give a service to God worthy of our new status, a service which God accepts from us because it is given to him and through “Christ our Lord.”

Today, as we offer the Mass, the sacrifice of Christ renewed before our eyes, let us try to realize the privilege that is ours. We are able, through Christ, to offer a sacrifice which gives infinite honor to God. We are able in spite of all our weaknesses and all our faults to give a service that is pleasing to God and to make some return for all he has done for us. We have become “good and faithful servants” because Christ the Son of God became the perfect servant of God for our sake.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

Ps 29:1-2, 3-4, 3, 9-10.

The Lord will bless his people with peace.

Give to the LORD, you sons of God,
give to the LORD glory and praise,
Give to the LORD the glory due his name;
adore the LORD in holy attire.

The Lord will bless his people with peace.

The voice of the LORD is over the waters,
the LORD, over vast waters.
The voice of the LORD is mighty;
the voice of the LORD is majestic.

The Lord will bless his people with peace.

The God of glory thunders,
and in his temple all say, “Glory!”
The LORD is enthroned above the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as king forever.

The Lord will bless his people with peace.

READING II

Acts 10:34-38

Peter proceeded to speak to those gathered
in the house of Cornelius, saying:
“In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him.
You know the word that he sent to the Israelites
as he proclaimed peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all,
what has happened all over Judea,
beginning in Galilee after the baptism
that John preached,
how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth
with the Holy Spirit and power.
He went about doing good
and healing all those oppressed by the devil,
for God was with him.”

APPLICATION

That day, nearly two thousand years ago, when Christ by his baptism in the Jordan, began his public preaching of salvation for all men, is a day–a feastday–no true Christian can ever forget. The baptism of John was for sinners–a sign of change of heart and a turning to God. Christ had no sin, he had never turned away from God, he was God–but he was the representative of sinful humanity. He represented us sinners that day and opened the door of salvation for us. In that ceremony Christ was proclaimed by the heavenly Father to be his son and faithful servant, and the power of the Holy Spirit came upon him.

But this was all for us; as God he already had all things in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But in his human nature–our weak human nature which he took on himself in order to be one of us, and our representative–he was on that day proclaimed God’s true and faithful servant. At the same moment we human beings were accepted in him and through him (i.e. through his perfect obedience even unto the death on the cross) as God’s adopted children. The mission of Christ was for us. The Incarnation took place because God’s infinite love wanted man, the masterpiece of his whole creation, to have a share in the divine gifts of the Blessed Trinity. God united the divine with the human nature in Christ. We mortal men were raised above our human nature; we would become immortal, not that we would never die on this earth–Christ himself died in his human nature-but “he would raise us up on the last day” to share forever with the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Incarnate Son the eternal bliss of heaven.

How could a Christian, one who knows all this, ever refuse to do the little part he is called on to do–“to fear God, that is, to reverence and respect him and to do what is right”? Reverence and respect for God should come easily from anyone who realizes what God has done for him. But true respect for God is not proved by a few distracted prayers and a grudging attendance at Sunday Mass. It is proved by striving to keep the laws Christ gave us, i.e. doing what is right, every day of our lives. This is difficult at times but if we keep our eternity–the unending life–before our eyes, the few short years of hardship and training on earth, will seem very short indeed. There is no comparison between what God has prepared for us, and promises us, and the trifling conditions he asks us to fulfill in order to earn his promised reward.

GOSPEL

Lk 3:15-16, 21-22

The people were filled with expectation,
and all were asking in their hearts
whether John might be the Christ.
John answered them all, saying,
“I am baptizing you with water,
but one mightier than I is coming.
I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

After all the people had been baptized
and Jesus also had been baptized and was praying,
heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him
in bodily form like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
“You are my beloved Son;
with you I am well pleased.”

http://usccb.org/bible/readings/011016.cfm

Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)

CCC 536 The baptism of Jesus is on his part the acceptance and inauguration of his mission as God’s suffering Servant. He allows himself to be numbered among sinners; he is already “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”.1 Already he is anticipating the “baptism” of his bloody death.2 Already he is coming to “fulfill all righteousness”, that is, he is submitting himself entirely to his Father’s will: out of love he consents to this baptism of death for the remission of our sins.3 The Father’s voice responds to the Son’s acceptance, proclaiming his entire delight in his Son.4 The Spirit whom Jesus possessed in fullness from his conception comes to “rest on him”.5 Jesus will be the source of the Spirit for all mankind. At his baptism “the heavens were opened”6 – the heavens that Adam’s sin had closed – and the waters were sanctified by the descent of Jesus and the Spirit, a prelude to the new creation.

CCC 608 After agreeing to baptize him along with the sinners, John the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”.7 By doing so, he reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel’s redemption at the first Passover.8 Christ’s whole life expresses his mission: “to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”9

CCC 696 Fire. While water signifies birth and the fruitfulness of life given in the Holy Spirit, fire symbolizes the transforming energy of the Holy Spirit’s actions. The prayer of the prophet Elijah, who “arose like fire” and whose “word burned like a torch,” brought down fire from heaven on the sacrifice on Mount Carmel.10 This event was a “figure” of the fire of the Holy Spirit, who transforms what he touches. John the Baptist, who goes “before [the Lord] in the spirit and power of Elijah,” proclaims Christ as the one who “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”11 Jesus will say of the Spirit: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled!”12 In the form of tongues “as of fire,” the Holy Spirit rests on the disciples on the morning of Pentecost and fills them with himself13 The spiritual tradition has retained this symbolism of fire as one of the most expressive images of the Holy Spirit’s actions.14 “Do not quench the Spirit.”15

CCC 2600 The Gospel according to St. Luke emphasizes the action of the Holy Spirit and the meaning of prayer in Christ’s ministry. Jesus prays before the decisive moments of his mission: before his Father’s witness to him during his baptism and Transfiguration, and before his own fulfillment of the Father’s plan of love by his Passion.16 He also prays before the decisive moments involving the mission of his apostles: at his election and call of the Twelve, before Peter’s confession of him as “the Christ of God,” and again that the faith of the chief of the Apostles may not fail when tempted.17 Jesus’ prayer before the events of salvation that the Father has asked him to fulfill is a humble and trusting commitment of his human will to the loving will of the Father.

1 Jn 1:29; cf. Is 53:12.

2 Cf. Mk 10:38; Lk 12:50.

3 Mt 3:15; cf. 26:39.

4 Cf. Lk 3:22; Is 42:1.

5 Jn 1:32-33; cf. Is 11:2.

6 Mt 3:16.

7 Jn 1:29; cf. Lk 3:21; Mt 3:14-15; Jn 1:36.

8 Is 53:7,12; cf. Jer 11:19; Ex 12:3-14; Jn 19:36; 1 Cor 5:7.

9 Mk 10:45.

10 Sir 48:1; cf. 1 Kings 18:38-39.

11 Lk 1:17; 3:16.

12 Lk 12:49.

13 Acts 2:3-4.

14 Cf. St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, tr. K. Kavanaugh, OCD, and O. Rodriguez, OCD (Washington DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1979), 577 ff.

15 1 Thess 5:1.

16 Cf. Lk 3:21; 9:28; 22:41-44.

17 Cf. Lk 6:12; 9:18-20; 22:32.

APPLICATION

Of the hundreds of Jews who had flocked to hear the Baptist’s message, and who were present when Christ insisted on going through John’s baptismal rite and who had probably heard the words from heaven proclaiming him to be the expected Messiah, only two left the Baptist and followed him. One of these was Andrew and the other was most probably John the Evangelist. Later in that day Andrew told Peter, his brother, that he had found the Messiah and Peter joined him too.

What was wrong with the hundreds of others? We are told they were all agog about the Messiah and were wondering in their hearts if John was not he. Yet when the real Messiah was pointed out to them they did nothing about it. John had told them the Messiah would baptize them, not with water as he did, but with the Holy Spirit of God, and with fire. As Jews they must have understood that this meant he would make of them a holy people, a spiritual people, a people close to God and cleansed from all earthly attachments.

Was it this that held them back? Were their hearts so centered on the things of earth, the things of this life, that they had no time for things spiritual? Were they so anxious for a king, a messiah, who would set them free from the hated pagan Romans and give them once more a powerful earthly kingdom, that talk of the kingdom of God and of a spiritual life made no impression on them? Their dealings with Christ during his public mission amongst them, their disbelief, their opposition, their persecution, which led eventually to the death on the cross answer these questions for us. The vast majority of the Jews of that day did not want a spiritual Messiah or kingdom. They were not interested in a heaven of the future, they wanted their heaven, their happiness, and prosperity here on earth.

Before we pass any judgement on such folly let us have a look into our own hearts today. We are Christians, we are followers of Christ, we know he was God, we believe his word. We are convinced that getting to heaven is more important than getting all the treasures and pleasures this earth has to offer. But do we always live up to these convictions, are we true Christians the seven days of the week? In our work, in our speech, in our dealings with others, in our family life are we truly following Christ and his teaching?

Is my way of life, my daily conduct, such that it would cause a non-Christian to say: “That man has something noble and sensible about him, that man is concerned with the things that really matter; that man has an inward peace and sense of security which I have not got, a sense of peace and security which comes not from the things of this world. I must find out what it is and get it for myself?”

In all sincerity I cannot see any non-Christian speaking thus of me today, but helped by God’s grace, it could and may be truly said of me in the days to come. God grant that this may be so.

Applications written by Fr. Kevin O’Sullivan and used with permission of Franciscan Press

BENEDICTUS

The Baptism of the Lord

In the gospel account of the baptism of Jesus, the mystery of death and Resurrection, sin and redemption, sin and forgiveness is prefigured: Jesus descends into the depths of the Jordan. Being submerged in the river is a symbolic representation of the process of death. An old life is buried, so that a new one can arise. Because Jesus himself is without sin and has no old life to bury, his acceptance of baptism is an anticipation of the cross, whereby he begins to share in our lot and to take upon himself our sins and our death. At the moment when he comes up out of the river, the heavens part, and from them is heard the voice in which the Father acknowledges him as his Son. The opening of heaven is a sign that this descent into our night is the dawning of a new day, that the barrier between God and man is being broken down by this identification of the Son with us: God and man is being broken down by this identification of the Son with us: God is no longer inaccessible; in the depths of our sins, and even of death, he searches for us and brings us into the light again. To this extent the baptism of Jesus anticipates the entire drama of his life and death and at the same time explains them to us.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

CLOSING PRAYER

Almighty, eternal God, when the Spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan, you revealed him as your own beloved Son. Keep us, your children born of water and the Spirit, faithful to our calling. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pray0328.htm