One year ago today we placed our community under the protection of Our Lady of Fatima, asking her protection and intercession. This morning, in thanksgiving, we offered a Mass of Our Lady of Fatima and blessed a new statue of her which, we hope, will become the centrepiece of a Marian shrine on our property. In the interim it has been placed in the monastery refectory with a votive lamp that shall be lit before each meal. May Our Lady of Fatima continue to protect our community and and intercede for us! We are profoundly grateful to our carpenters, Menuiserie Pierlot, for the construction of two beautiful new wooden pillars, upon one of which the statue has been placed. | Il y a tout juste une année nous placions notre communauté sous la protection particulière de Notre Dame de Fatima, lui demandant sa protection et son intercession particulière. Ce matin, en action de grâce, nous avons offert une Messe en l'honneur de Notre Dame de Fatima et avons béni sa nouvelle statue qui deviendra, nous l'espérons, le point culminant d'une future chapelle sur notre propriété. En attendant, la statue est placée dans le réfectoire monastique. Que Notre Dame de Fatima continue de nous protéger et d'intercéder pour nous! Nous sommes extrêmement reconnaissants envers la Menuiserie Pierlot pour la réalisation de deux magnifiques colonnes en bois dont l'une est soutient la statue de Notre Dame. |
+ Quid est veritas? Pontius Pilate retorts to Our Lord in the Passion of Good Friday. “What is truth?”
It is a good question. No, it is more than a “good” question—that is simply too banal and dismissive. It is the question; the fundamental question which, if its import is faced up to and is honestly answered, can transform everything—ourselves included—for the good, temporally and eternally, and which, if it is avoided, can leave us mired in and sinking ever more deeply into the quicksand of relativism and despair. For the temptation—nay, the presumption, if not the unwritten constitutional principle—of the world in which we live is that of the cynical Pilate: truth is relative; claims to speak the truth, let alone to be the truth (cf. Jn 14:16) are both absurd and completely unacceptable. Power is truth, political authority is truth, positive law is truth, wealth is truth and confers power, and it is with these realities that we must reckon daily—even as they change according to whom it is that holds and controls them, each according to their desired ends. Thus, the concept of marriage can be redefined to include situations utterly inimical to human nature, the word “gender” is subjected to perverse preferences of personal will, murder can be routinely practised as a normal medical procedure under the guise of alleviating suffering—even that of others than the human person being killed. The boundaries for the use gift of sexuality are purely utilitarian—a matter of personal and sometimes social 'health and safety', as it were, and it is to these same criteria that any use at all of the words “good” and “bad” must be subjected. So too, questions of faith and religious practice are relativised and privatised. Religious tolerance rapidly becomes religious indifferentism where, at best, the god of syncretism is worshipped as the only one true god (with all the logical fallacy that that involves), ignoring the realities involved in any given religion. Even the One True Church of Christ suffers from these worldly diseases: episcopal conferences announce their resolve to bless sinful relationships, heads of Roman institutions personalise moral truth in respect of the sanctity of life whilst “understanding” that others could take a different course, bishops who actually try to build up their dioceses rather than depressively presiding over their decline are targeted and removed, pontifical documents contradict those of their predecessors without regard for the principles upon which they were founded. Authority seems at times to be so inebriated with positivism that it seeks to manufacture truth rather than to serve it, reducing ecclesiastical discipline to merely yet another form of base political activity. We may very well, then, ask with Pilate: “What is truth?” And we may indeed share much more than a small dose of his cynicism. Yet, despite her current difficulties and wounds, through her Sacred Liturgy our Holy Mother the Church confronts the malaise with which we are surrounded, and by which we so often feel trapped, with the reality of the Resurrected Christ, who is not an idea or an opinion, let alone an interpretation or a comforting psychological construct, but a person—no less than the Son of God, Truth incarnate, definitively revealed once and for all for the salvation of all of mankind. And, as the Holy Gospel of this Mass teaches us, we are to be given—we have already been given through our Baptism and Confirmation—the gift of the Holy Spirit who will convict the world in which we live and who will—who does—guide us into the fulness of the truth through the Church’s liturgical tradition and through her doctrine faithfully taught and handed on from the apostles. My brothers and sisters, we are immersed in a sea of syncretism and relativism that seeks to drown the Spirit of Truth—the truth about God, that truth that every human person is made in His image and likeness, the truth about the devil, sin and evil, the truth about our just eternal destiny in heaven or in hell according to our free moral choices, the truth of God’s love and mercy for a sinner who repents and turns back to Him. Certainly, the dangers are real and there are many battles to be fought—beginning with the conversion of my own life—but let the Holy Gospel comfort us. Help—super-natural help—is at hand! The power of the Spirit of Truth is available to us if we believe in Jesus Christ, who offered Himself on the Cross for our salvation and who has risen from the dead and conform our lives to He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. As now we worship Him at His altar, let us beg the increase of faith that we so need to conform ourselves to the Truth. + + The Collect of this Mass prays that Almighty God, who brings back those in error to the right path by the light of His Truth, may grant that those who call themselves Christian may embrace all things that are in harmony with the Truth and reject all things that are inimical to it. This is an utterly realistic petition: it is the very stuff, the gritty daily matter of living and persevering in the Christian life in the world, and our Holy Mother the Church very wisely places this prayer upon our lips—even as we continue to rejoice in the light of Easter morning.
For we all know only too well that too much joy can inebriate us and can lead us to lose that concentration and recollection that is necessary successfully to navigate this life, with its many temptations and trials. Undoubtedly this is why the Church’s Sacred Liturgy addresses the stern words of St Peter to us in the Epistle of this Holy Mass: “I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that … they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.” This is not to say that we must become neurotically scrupulous or paranoid and live in a constant state of paralysing fear. But we must be realistic. Yes, in the light of Easter morning death is vanquished and the effects of sin are overcome once and for all by the infinite merits of the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. And yes, by virtue of our Baptism we share in that victory and in the life and hope that is of its essence. But each one of us—as St Peter knows only too well—is perfectly capable of giving into worldly, carnal desires which fight against (and can kill) the life of grace established in our souls by the gift of Baptism. Christ’s victory over sin and death is real, but we must each continue to open ourselves to the grace and life that it makes available, working assiduously to remove obstacles to its action that are present within us and to uproot vices that have sprung up, perhaps almost unnoticed, in us, or that try to return. This is indeed the daily ‘hard work’ of the Christian life. This is the ordinary meaning of perseverance—a regular examination of conscience, of turning once again to the graces won by Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross (most particularly in the sacrament of confession) and of moving forward in faith and in hope in the reality of the power of His grace working in us and through us. Yes, as Our Lord makes clear in the Holy Gospel, we “will weep and lament, [and] the world will rejoice … [we] will be sorrowful,” at the cost of faithful Christian discipleship in the world in the different circumstances of our particular vocations—for each one of us must take up our cross and follow the Lord to calvary (cf. Mt. 16:24). “But” Our Lord promises, “[our] sorrow will turn into joy.” For if we persevere in carrying our cross, if we join our self-offering to that of Christ on Calvary, we shall share in the power and the glory of His resurrection—nothing less! And in this daily perseverance we are not alone. Our Lord is continually with us in and through the sacraments and sacramentals of His Church. Blessed Ildephonse Schuster observes that: “This period after his resurrection, during which [Our Lord] shows himself to His followers, is symbolical of our own life—it is the history of the Church militant. The unbelieving world has not seen Him since the evening of Good Friday, but we who believe see Him every day in the Holy Eucharist; we converse with Him, and our life, as a brilliant noon-day, is illuminated by the rays which form His halo of glory. This joy, which comes from our nearness to Christ, cannot be taken from us, for it is purely an interior joy. It more than repays us for the suffering which the world inflicts on us as bearers of his name.” (The Sacramentary, II 347) So, whilst we must be prudent—the world, the flesh and the devil are realities and are a constant source of temptations that can destroy the life of grace in our souls—we must also be confident in the victory of Christ and in the power and grace that it makes available to us. We must take our stance firmly and resolutely in the light of the resurrection, in the sure and certain hope that it gives, regardless of the shadows that the world attempts to cast over us. And if, through our own fault, we walk away from this light to lurk in the shadows and indulge in their dark pleasures, we must not hesitate to imitate the humility of the Prodigal Son (cf. Lk 15) and arise and return to the Lord, confessing our sins in the hope of being restored to the light and life Christ has won for us. For, as we approach the altar so as to participate anew in His life-giving sacrifice, whatever our present sorrows, let us rejoice and draw great consolation and strength from the fact that the very incarnation of that hope and of joy is truly present here, and that no one can take Him from us if we persevere in daily fidelity to Him. + + Following an ancient tradition, on this second Sunday after Easter the Sacred Liturgy of our Holy Mother the Church places before us the powerful and striking image of Christ as the Good Shepherd who lays down His very life for His sheep.
This is a striking image. Given that we are very familiar with it, it does us good to realise that sheep are sheep, and that even given their value in the ancient world, it is more than understandable that a shepherd would not protect mere animals with his own life. And yet this is precisely that which Our Lord did for His sheep—for we who have followed our animalistic lusts into the byways of sin, risking the attacks of the wolves that lurk in the shadows of the world in which we so often seek to assuage our base appetites. By offering His life in sacrifice to the Father on the Cross, Our Blessed Lord has redeemed us. He has opened the path for us to come back to Him and to His flock. He has shone the light of Easter morning into the darkest corners of our hearts and souls so that we might see Him anew, respond to the call of His voice and return to the safety of His sheepfold. My brothers and sisters, let us contemplate this further in the coming days. The classical image of the Good Shepherd is that depicted in the fourth century statuette from the Catacombs of Domatilla in Rome held in the Vatican museums, depicting Christ with a sheep over His shoulders. It is a truly beautiful evocation of the teaching contained in the Parable of the Lost Sheep (cf. Mt 18) and it is crucial that the Church in our day—above all her Pastors—never forgets the solemn evangelical duty she has been given to search out and bring back those who are lost and have strayed from the sheepfold. Nevertheless, I submit that this is not the image of the Good Shepherd placed before us by the Church this morning. Today the Sacred Liturgy has us contemplate the Good Shepherd’s self-sacrifice. Today, rather than looking at a beautiful statuette, our eyes are directed towards the crucifix, where we begin to grasp just what laying down one’s life for one’s sheep means. Let each of us take some time in the coming days to contemplate this, before the crucifix: Jesus Christ, eternal Son of God, gave His life in sacrifice to the Father, so that we—errant, stupid, base sheep that we are or have been—could be rescued from the just punishments our sins deserve. Thus, the representation of the brutal execution of a first century Jew that is the crucifix becomes an icon of God’s love for us—a sign of hope and of light where darkness of sin and evil have reigned. (Hence the importance of having a beautiful crucifix in our homes, in our rooms and in other places—for we must never, ever allow ourselves to forget or despair of His love and all that His self-sacrifice has made possible for us, and we must witness this reality to others.) And of course, as St Gregory the Great taught us at Matins this morning, “the Good Shepherd laid down His life for His sheep that He might change His Body and Blood into our Sacrament and that He might satisfy with the nourishment of His own Flesh the sheep which He had redeemed.” For what are we receiving in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist other than the Flesh and Blood of the Good Shepherd laid down and offered in loving sacrifice that we might live? Again, let us put aside images of fluffy sheep and stay with the reality of the Good Shepherd’s sacrifice—a sacrifice that is renewed on each altar on which the Sacrifice of the Mass is validly offered; a sacrifice which immerses us (here, this very morning!) in the reality of God’s love of which it is the living sacrament; a sacrifice which is Hope and Life Himself offered for us, in which it is our utterly unmerited privilege to share. Thus, the Blessed Eucharist—the Host and the Precious Blood of Christ in the Chalice that we adore as they elevated before the crucifix in the Canon of the Mass—is the supreme, living icon of the Good Shepherd. If we belong to His sheepfold, we rightly take our place at its celebration at least each and every Sunday and Holy Day of obligation: for otherwise we run the risk of spiritual malnourishment, and of straying away from the fold once again. Dear friends, by God’s grace we find ourselves here in His sheepfold this morning. As we approach the altar let us give thanks for and rejoice in this blessing, praying all the time that through the merits of the Good Shepherd’s sacrifice on the Cross, and by our daily faithful witness to Christ, others too may heed His voice and come to live and rejoice as members of His flock. + + “Nisi videro in manibus ejus fixuram clavorum, et mittam digitum meum in locum clavorum, et mittam manum meam in locum clavorum, et mittam manum meam in latus ejus, non credam.” “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in His side, I will not believe.” Nisi…non credam. Unless…I will not believe.
These are hardly the words of an Apostle of Jesus Christ. They put conditions on faith, demanding evidence on his own terms, as it were, before he himself will deign to believe. They are words full of self-importance and self-will uttered in a frame of mind where Thomas himself is all that matters. “Unless…I will not…” How often do we use the word “unless” in precisely the same way—in matters both trivial and of great importance—inserting our own conditions on what we shall or shall not accept, on what we will or will not do. How often do we murmur the words “I will not…” before retreating into the supposedly safe space of our own desires and preconditions? Of course, the world is full of these words and of the self-will and conditional cooperation that they convey. We contract business in precisely this way: I will do this if I receive that in return. I will not agree to anything unless my preconditions are met and my own interests are advanced. In a sense, this is quite normal, and one can sympathise somewhat with St Thomas—particularly after what was probably the most traumatic week of his life thus far—in reverting to the use of the language of the world: Nisi…non credam. Unless…I will not believe. But let us be clear. This is the language of the world, not that of God. And as St John teaches us in the Epistle of this Holy Mass: “Whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” “This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.” Here we have the crux of the matter. For if I live according to the self-interested standards of the world, if “Unless…” and “…I will not,” are constantly on my lips, there is no room for God in my heart, mind and soul. A marriage where these words constantly echo in the minds of the spouses will quickly end in shipwreck. A young man or woman considering a vocation to the monastic, religious or priestly life who continually lays down their own conditions, stating what they will or will not accept, is in grave danger of falling into a narcissistic spiral of almost perpetual discernment which renders them unable to hear the still, small voice of the Lord’s call. (cf. I Kings 19:12) Those in formation or those who are professed or ordained who begin to seek comfort in these egoistical conditions are headed for ruin. For whether our vocation is to be married or to the monastic, religious, ordained or single life, “I” and my conditions are not the first concern. In fact, they matter very little. Quite often they merit the sharp rebuke given to St Peter by Our Lord: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.” (Mt. 16:23) For a vocation, any vocation, the Christian vocation that is ours by virtue of our baptism and the particular vocation given to each of us by Almighty God, is about my giving myself entirely to the service of God without condition. The words “Unless…I will not…” have no place on the lips of a Christian. Our Lord did not rebuke the worldly incredulity of St Thomas as he rebuked St Peter. Rather, he appeared to him and said, seemingly with great tenderness and affection: “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” Through the Sacred Liturgy of His Church, with the same love and affection, Our Lord says those same words to each one of us this morning: “Do not be faithless, but believing.” No matter how many times we have murmured and rebelled with self-serving attitudes and wilful conditions that refuse His plans for us, no matter how frequently we have refused to allow the reality of faith in Jesus Christ gloriously risen from the dead to transform our petty minds and selfish concerns, this morning He over whom death has no power looks at us, and loves us (cf. Mk 10:21 ) and says to us: “Do not be faithless, but believing.” These words transformed St Thomas into a great Apostle of Christ. As we now approach the altar to participate anew in the Supper of the Lamb (cf. Rev. 19:6-9) let us ask that these words take root in our hearts, minds and souls and transform us, thereby bearing much fruit in the particular vocation that is ours. + i + We have prayed, we have fasted and we have striven to perform works of charity for some forty days now. We have celebrated the Solemn Mass of the Lord’s Supper and with increasing intensity we have entered into the mystery of the Passion of the Lord culminating in our veneration of the Cross and the celebration of the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday.
“Haec nox est…!” the Exsultet repeatedly sings in the Paschal Vigil. “Haec dies quam fecit Dominus…!” the Gradual of Easter Day insists. This is the night.... This is the day which has been made by the Lord… This is the night for which we have prepared and for which we have longed; this is the day towards which we have persevered in our Lenten disciplines. My brothers and sisters, if there is one night, if there is one day, on which what it is to be a human person is made clear, it is this one. If there is one day which answers every question any man or woman has had, does have or ever can have about the meaning of their life, of the suffering that they must endure, of the death that will one day come to them, or of the path they must follow in this life, it is today. Why? What is this this night? What is this day? Let the Exsultet teach us: “This is the night that even now throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to His holy ones. This is the night when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld... The sanctifying power of this night dispels wickedness, washes faults away, restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners, drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.” But why, we might ask again? What power does Easter Day have? Let the Gospels teach us: “I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he[a] lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him,” the Angel tells the women who come to the Lord’s tomb at dawn. (Mass of the Easter Vigil) “Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.” (Mass of Easter Day) Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish prophet who was unjustly and cruelly executed by the Romans in Jerusalem at the instigation of His own religious authorities rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples. His disciples touched Him and ate with Him—He was no spirit or mere apparition; these encounters were no sentimental remembrances or mere experiences of His spirit somehow living on in the community of His disciples. No. The same body that was publicly humiliated, tortured and crucified walked free of the grave within a mere three days—glorified, certainly, but in every way the same body, the same flesh and blood that was crucified. This is why the Church sings so insistently about this night, about this day. For, my brothers and sisters, if Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, if He cast off the worst that this world can do to any man (to take away his life), then His claims to be the Messiah, the Christ of God, the Way, the Truth and the Life, the unique saviour of mankind are indisputably true. His insistence that He has the power to forgive sins has been substantiated. His moral teachings have been underlined by nothing other than power that is greater than death. And His promise of eternal life for those who persevere in following His teachings to the end is real. “O truly blessed night, when things of heaven are wed to those of earth, and divine to the human,” the Church’s liturgy sings. Let us rejoice in the very depths of our being to be able to share this blessing, rightly celebrating it as worthily as we are able with the liturgical riches that the Church has developed in her Sacred Tradition. And may so doing give us the graces of both perseverance as disciples of the resurrected Christ in the daily circumstances of our life, and of witnessing thereby to the joyful, saving Truth of which He is the Incarnation. For “This is the night [this is the day] when all who believe in Christ Are delivered from bondage to sin and are restored to life and immortality.” May we be worthy partakers in this, the greatest of realities. + + We have sung “Hosanna” to the Son of David. We have processed with Him, acclaiming Him as the Messiah, carrying olive branches. We have attended to the account of His Passion and Death. With due solemnity and recollection Holy Week has commenced.
A pious practice sees us keep the olive branches blessed on Palm Sunday as precious sacramentals with which we adorn the crucifixes in our monastic cells, our refectory, in our homes, etc. This juxtaposition of the olive branch—a symbol of peace, of life, of fruitfulness—with the wood of the cross on which Our Blessed Lord was brutally executed is powerful and it is instructive. Indeed, this juxtaposition was taken up by the artist who designed our monastery’s logo—the black Pax inter spinas depicted on the central panel of the altar, and elsewhere. Of his own initiative the artist added olive branches to the usual design—olive branches bearing fruit. For whilst the cross is real, whilst the crown of thorns shall be pressed down upon the Sacred Head of Our Blessed Lord, whilst we must in our turn carry the cross and feel the piercing pain of the thorns of the world, the flesh and the devil as we strive faithfully to persevere in our vocation, so too shall we experience that peace, that fruitful peace, that redemptive peace of which the branches we carry today are indeed a sacramental. As we carry them to our homes, as we look upon them mounted on the cross in the weeks and months to come, no matter what the weight of the crosses that press down upon us, no matter how sharp the thorns that wound us, let these branches serve as a testament that whilst, yes, the Passion is a reality in which we each must share, so too (and far greater) is the peace, fruitfulness and redemption which these branches betoken—if we but persevere in following Our Lord on the path upon which we have begun to accompany Him this morning. + + As we begin these two weeks of Passiontide the Church veils her images, taking away our customary comforts, in order that we might be all the more conscious of the realities into which her Sacred Liturgy plunges us—realities which are, as it were, increasingly unveiled before us day after day as we accompany the Lord to Jerusalem, to Gethsemane and to Calvary. If it is true that the Church’s liturgical books—in particular the missal and the breviary—are the Church’s primary prayer book and catechism, let us attend to them with even greater devotion in these days. Let them teach us anew in these austere days how to pray, indeed why we should pray.
Let us do more than this (for it is easy enough to study the contents of books and remain detached from the realities which they present). In the coming fortnight let us live the realities that the Sacred Liturgy makes present unto us anew in these privileged days. That is, of course, our primary vocation as monks—to immerse ourselves in the daily, the hourly, celebration of the Work of God for the glory of Almighty God and thereby to find the means of the conversion of our lives and to become the person whom, from all eternity, God has called us to be. Not everyone is called to our vocation, and the God-given duties of other vocations mean that not everyone can be present each morning at matins (!). Nevertheless, no matter whether we be called to the vocation of marriage, to one of the many forms of consecrated life, to the service of the secular clergy or to single life in the world, in these poignant and privileged days of Passiontide we can—we must—make an effort to live the Sacred Liturgy with the Church each day, most especially during the Sacred Triduum, the final days of Holy Week: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. How? Optimally, by being present and by participating in the liturgical offices: we can do no better—especially during the Sacred Triduum. But on days when this is impossible, we cannot fail if, with the help of a missal and a breviary, we make some time to ponder and to pray the texts of the Mass or Office of the day privately, according to what is possible in the light of the responsibilities of our particular vocation. Somehow, each day, we should find the means of keeping our finger on the pulse of the Sacred Liturgy, as it were. For if we do this—be we a monk or nun or a lay man or woman—we shall indeed learn anew how to pray and why we must do so. Of course, the Sacred Liturgy is a complex of rites, symbols and texts developed in the Church’s tradition and handed down to us from of old, and it can take time to become accustomed to the beauty of its riches. But let us take that time. For in so doing we shall indeed encounter Christ, Christ living and acting in and through the Liturgy of His Church, Christ offering Himself for us and to us, Christ calling us into the intimacy of his self-sacrificing love in which we too shall find life—life that cannot be extinguished by bodily death. This is why we must immerse ourselves in the rites of these most holy days: not so that we can witness a performance or a spectacle, but so that we ourselves may have life—life which shall transform our daily existence here on earth and which shall find its fulfilment in the unending joy which we shall glimpse on Easter morning. This is why we have (or should have) made substantial efforts in prayer, fasting and self-denial in Lent: to prepare ourselves for these most sacred days. This is why we should make a good confession: to ensure that our souls are purified and more open to receive the graces that this privileged time offers. For Our Lord Jesus Christ offered Himself for us and He offers Himself to us: we must do our part in being open to receiving all that He wishes to give us. Christ on the cross may well currently be veiled before our eyes, but He lives and acts in plain sight, as it were, in the Sacred Rites of His Church. Indeed, we need look no further than the Gospel of this Passion Sunday to find Him utter some of the most important words of the Holy Gospel—and as a wise mother, the Church addresses them to us this morning: Antequam Abraham fieret, ego sum. “Before Abraham was, I am.” It is difficult for us to comprehend the depth of the outage and blasphemy that these words occasioned in those who, as the Gospel recounts, were disputing His identity with Him. But that is not our task. Our task is to contemplate the Truth they announce. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of the Father, the Christ of God, the Saviour sent into the world to redeem us from sin and offer us life. Abraham was the greatest of Patriarchs, but before Abraham was, Jesus Christ is. As the Sacred Liturgy takes by the hand on the road to Jerusalem, to Gethsemane and to Calvary in these holy days, let the plain content of these words confront and console us: Antequam Abraham fieret, ego sum. “Before Abraham was, I am.” As we go now unto the Altar of God let them induce in us that humility and gratitude that shall enable us to worship Him purely, in spirit and in truth. (cf. Jn 4:24) + |
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