A Short Advent Reflection

 

What a beautiful drive to Mission #2 for evening Mass as the sun tried to break through the clouds. "This," I thought gravely to myself, "is Texas." Mind like a steel trap, you see, but en lieu of anything beyond bears, climate change and impending civil war, here's Austin Farrer on the season, behold wisdom:

OUR journey sets out from God in our creation, and returns to God at the final judgement.  As the bird rises from the earth to fly, and must some time return to the earth from which it rose; so God sends us forth to fly, and we must fall back into the hands of God at last.  But God does not wait for the  failure and the expiry of our days to drop us back into his lap.  He goes himself to meet us and everywhere confronts us.  Where is the countenance which we must finally look in the eyes, and not be able to turn away our head?  It smiles up at Mary from the cradle, it calls Peter from the nets, it looks on him with grief when he has denied his master.  Our judge meets us at every step of our way, with forgiveness on his lips and succour in his hands.  He offers us these things while there is yet time.  Every day opportunity shortens, our scope for learning our Redeemer’s love is narrowed by twenty-four hours, and we come nearer to the end of our journey, when we shall fall into the hands of the living God, and touch the heart of the devouring fire.

 

Touch the heart of the devouring fire. I love that.

Pax,

LSP

A Short Sunday Sermon

 

"And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Mk 10:21) Says Christ to the rich young man, and note, our Savior "loved him." Why? Perhaps because he sought spiritual perfection. 

Regardless, Jesus gives him the key. Be truly righteous, obedient to the Law, and give all that you have for the love of God and neighbor. And then you will have treasure in heaven as you follow Christ to Calvary and from there to eternal life. The man is grieved and walks away, for he had "great possessions."

And so to us; Christ looks down from the Cross in love and asks us to follow him. What holds us back, what earthly store of value locks us into the temporal at the expense of the heavenly? Is it wealth, literal cash with all the things it represents, is that where our heart lies? Remember, sinner, ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Or perhaps it's food, drink and beyond. 

What aspect of the world, the flesh, and by extension the Devil, do we set our hearts on at the expense of life? To cut to the quick, who do we love, ourselves or God.

We must decide, and in that choice, that act of will, lies the difference between Heaven and Hell, life and death, salvation and perdition. I say again, on this choice hangs our eternal destiny.

Choose well, punters, in the power of the Spirit and by the grace of God, so that in following Christ on the way to the Cross we may be raised with and in him to everlasting life. And remember, it's harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.

Caveat,

LSP

And When I am Lifted up

 

"And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself," says Christ (Jn. 12:32). I found this helpful, by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange OP:

The power upon which rests the spiritual life of all souls striving to be freed from evil and raised up to God is the redemptive action of Christ, his ever active and efficacious love directed to the Father and to us. He himself told us: As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. The branches can live only if they are united to the vine and receive the sap from it. Come to me, all of you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest—that is, burdened under the weight of your faults and sufferings. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself.

Life itself teaches us that the strength of a soul in the midst of trial and temptations comes from its practical and experiential consciousness of the infinite value of Redemption, of the omnipotent efficacy of Christ’s death on the cross...

According to the definition of the Church, the redemptive act of Christ has an infinite value and efficacy. It makes satisfaction for any guilt whatsoever, repairs fully any offense against God, even though its gravity is infinite. It satisfies for all the sins of men, and still more. It compensates for all the rebellions against God, all the apostasies, all the acts of despair and presumption, all the feelings of hatred, and all kinds of crime. It merits all graces for even the most degraded souls, provided they are not stubbornly fixed in evil. It is impossible to think of a limit to the efficacy of the redemptive act.

 

The redemptive act of Christ has an infinite value and efficacy. Amen to that.

Happy St. Pat's,

LSP

The Baptism of Christ

Listen up, heathen. Today we celebrated the Baptism of Christ and with it an epiphany. What do we see as Christ goes down into the Jordan?

The Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and our minds go to the Spirit hovering over the waters of creation and Noah's dove, finding dry ground. And so he is. In Christ, mankind's recreated and finds dry ground, a new creation over the waters of our fallen deluge. No wonder, he is the Father's only begotten son.

Thou art my son, with thee I am well pleased, speaks the divine voice from glory. Consider the echo from psalm two. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Such is Christ, begotten of the Father in the timeless day of eternity. The poetry of Proverbs speaks:

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.  When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth... when he appointed the foundations of the earth:  Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him...

And St. John puts it with implacable force and simplicity: 

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.

Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, very God of very God, begotten not made. The Word made Flesh. As such he is utterly holy, utterly righteous and infinitely full of the perfection and infinite power of God. Power to save fallen mankind, as foretold by Isaiah:

...a light of the Gentiles; To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

He has power, as God's Son, to redeem. But where is his power exercised, where is the strength of his arm outsretched in might? On Calvary. We see a glimmer of this in Our Lord's baptism.

Christ goes down into the waters of the Jordan to receive John's baptism of repentance. He, who is sinless, does so in humility, love and solidarity with fallen man; humility and love which will take him to Golgotha and the destruction of sin, death and Satan.

As adopted sons of God, we are invited to share in his victory, won on the hard wood of the Cross. Rejoice in that.

By the grace of God,

LSP