Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross - 14th September

At Vespers this evening we will sing: “This is Love’s great deed that death should die, when life itself was slain up the tree.”  Here we are faced with a paradox – a paradox which human nature has always found difficult to grasp – and which is even more difficult nowadays.  At Lauds we sang: “The holy Cross shines in splendour”; “The holy Cross shines upon us, in the Cross is victory, in the Cross is power.  By the Cross every sin is overcome.”  We may ask ourselves if we experience some of this victory and power in our daily lives. And if not why not?

The following passage from St Andrew of Crete which we read at Office of Readings is particularly beautiful:

We are celebrating the feast of the Cross, whereby darkness was dispelled and the light restored. We are celebrating the feast of the Cross and with the Crucified One we are raised up, leaving behind us the earth and sin so that we may possess what is above. How great the Cross! What blessings it holds! He who possesses it possesses a treasure.  More noble, more precious than anything on earth, in fact and in name, it is indeed a treasure, for in it and through it and for it all the riches of our salvation were stored away and restored to us.

The folly of the Cross is truly a great mystery!  At the very moment when Jesus is most helpless and vulnerable, nailed to the Cross immobile a great hollow space is dug out, as it were, in His heart for us; he reaches out to embrace sinful humanity, He speaks out both His and our ‘yes’ to the Father

as He commends His Spirit into the hands of the Father (Lk 23:46) He donates Him to us (Jn 19:30)

and from His fullness we have all received. 

 

The Cross has always been central to Dominican spirituality – we are all familiar with Fra Angelico’s beautiful frescos of Dominic at the foot of the Cross.  At the foot of the Cross Dominic learned from the ‘Book of Love’ the immense love of our Saviour which led Him to the Cross.  Contemplating the suffering, forsaken Jesus, Dominic’s compassionate heart was torn apart with compassion, firstly, for Jesus whose love was being rejected by the very ones for whom he died.  Paul Murray speaks of an ‘apostolic wound’ – ‘a contemplative wound’ which Dominic received - no doubt the fruit of his ‘special’ prayer when, as a Canon at Osma, he asked God “to grant him true charity, which would be effective in caring for and winning the salvation of all;  giving himself up entirely for the salvation of others. We can say that our Order was born at the foot of the Cross and it is there that each of us must draw our inspiration and zeal.  This too is the source from which renewal will spring. 

In his correspondence with Blessed Diana, Blessed Jordan exhorts her always to have before her eyes “the book of life, the book of the Lord’s perfect law which brings life back to souls”.  And he continues:

this law is charity: you see it when you gaze on your Saviour Jesus stretched out on the Cross, as though a parchment, his wounds the writing, his blood the illuminations. Where, I ask you, my beloved, could the lesson of love be learnt as it is learnt here?

And according to St Catherine of Siena, Dominic wanted his children to

stand at the table of the Cross – to seek only the glory and praise of God and the salvation of souls

As we take our place with Dominic and Mary at the foot of the Cross we begin to understand the meaning of our vocation.

The Cross and Veritas

There is a very close link between the Cross and Veritas (Truth) - the motto of our Order.  “The Cross verifies the truth about God and the truth about humankind”.

The truth about God: When we look at the Cross we are left in no doubt of God’s infinite love –This is how God loves.

The truth about humans:  the Cross reveals the dignity of every person – how precious we are in God’s sight that He should die for us!

But the Cross does not rob us of joy – the contrary is true as we sing in the liturgy: “through the Cross joy has come into the whole world” and with it freedom.  Jesus has taken the burden of our sin on Himself and has already achieved our eternal salvation.  Our task lies not in anxious striving to achieve our own perfection but in opening ourselves to receive the gift. “At the very moment when he identifies with our sin, ‘abandoned’ by the Father, Jesus ‘abandons’ himself into the hands of the Father”. We in our turn can abandon ourselves and those we carry in our hearts to the loving mercy of our God in the sure hope that “all will be well”.

The Transfiguration of the Lord

Gospel: Luke 9:28-36

Today's feast fills us with hope as we contemplate the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain in the presence of the three apostles, Peter, John and James. Luke tells us that as Jesus prayed "the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning." We may well ask if this was a regular occurrence during prayer time for Jesus? and on this occasion he let his disciples in on his secret? Perhaps this is the only time it happened! We know from Peter's comment that it was a wonderful experience for them! "Master it is wonderful for us to be here; so let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah". Peter would have liked Jesus to stay on the mountain and forget all that talk about suffering and dying and suggesting that those who follow should take up their cross daily (Lk 9:23-26)!! He had no desire to come down the mountain again and face reality!

Can we all identify with Peter in some way or other? We are all happy to be in the Lord's presence while we are experiencing good feelings of joy and peace and so escape the harsh realities surrounding us. Not so for Jesus. This experience was meant to strenghten him and his disciples to face the harsh reality ahead with courage and love in obedience to the Father's will.

Jesus was always tuned into his Father's will - "His food was to do the Will of his Father". The Father in turn bears witness to his Son - a voice comes from the cloud: "This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him" - Yes listen to him as he speaks to you about the Cross and suffering! and the need to deny ourselves and take up our cross daily!

All Christian prayer is prayer in Christ - through Baptism we are in Christ and share his relationship with his Father. When we pray in Him we too are transfigured (though it is hidden from our eyes) and the Father speaks to each of us as He addressed His Beloved Son: "You are my beloved son (or daughter)". True prayer is never escape from real life - rather it inserts us more deeply into the human situation and like Jesus, gives us the love, the strength and the courage work for the greater glory of God and to make this world a better place for our brothers and sisters while we wait in joyful hope for day when we shall behold the glorious face of our God.

O souls crated for these grandeurs and called thereto! What are you doing? Wherein do you occupy yourselves? O wretched blindness of the sons of Adam, who are blind to so great a light and deaf to so clear a voice.

(St John of the Cross: Spiritual Canticle)

Second Sunday of Lent

Mass Readings

1st Reading: Gen 15:5 - 12;17 - 18
Psalm 26
2nd Reading: Phil 3:17 – 4:1
Gospel Lk 9:28 – 36

Reflection 1

In the letter to the Ephesians, St Paul prays for all of us ‘that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, the length, the height and depth of the mystery of Christ Jesus, the Beloved Son’ ……….

In today’s Gospel what can we learn, experience in faith and in love about the Person of Jesus? St Luke in his account of the Transfiguration has a telling phrase ‘as He (Jesus) prayed ….the aspect of His face was changed and His clothing became brilliant as lightning.’ This is the one moment in His life that Jesus allowed His Divinity to show in His Person. The joy and celebration of that moment are signified by the white and dazzling garments which we will see again after the Resurrection on the Risen Christ.

The mysteries of Jesus are ours as much as they are His because we are one with Him through Baptism. God the Father chose us in Christ, St. Paul tells us. Each time the Father looks at Christ He sees and loves us as He loves Christ. Faith alone can receive this message as love alone has given it. Our gratitude and response of love are unbounded.

How does Jesus grace us in this particular mystery? Three times only in the Gospels does the heavenly Father cause His voice to be heard by the world and what does He say? ‘This is my Son the chosen one. Listen to Him’. From this declaration we can discern the wonderful graces granted to us in this mystery.

Our faith, the mysterious participation in the knowledge that God has of Himself, is strengthened. Jesus is declared God’s Son. Divinity shines powerfully through the veil of His humanity. The eternal glory of Jesus, our Master is fully revealed to the apostles and to us.

If by our baptism, we are one with Christ, we become the adopted children of the Father by grace. But to be transformed, like unto the Son, we must be conformed by following Him who is our Way, our Truth, our Life per crucem ad lucem. Here below by grace we are God’s children, ’but it has not yet appeared what we shall be.’ St Paul tells us in the second reading of today’s Mass: ‘The Lord Jesus Christ will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of His own glorious body’.

Jesus, we thank you for giving us the hope of seeing your glory in our true homeland of heaven and of sharing for all eternity in the very life of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our hope is firm and anchored deep in our hearts because of You and what You have done for us, sinners.
Thank you

Reflection 2

Last week’s liturgy presented us with a picture of Jesus alone in the desert struggling with Satan and overcoming very subtle temptations.

Today’s liturgy invites us to join Jesus and the three apostles, Peter, John and James as they go up the mountain to pray. We can only guess how awesome this experience must have been for the apostles. All three synoptic Gospels recount the incident. St Luke (whose Gospel we follow this year) tells us that as Jesus prayed “the aspect of His face was changed and His clothing became brilliant as lightning” – revealing Who He really was – the Eternal Son of the Father, become man for us and our salvation.

Christian prayer has its source in the fact that we are ‘in Christ’ through Baptism and share in Jesus’ relationship with His Father – able to cry ‘Abba, Father’! When we pray we believe that we too are changed as Jesus was on the mountain - although now this happens in the darkness of faith, yet it is a reality.

According to Luke Moses and Elijah speak to Jesus about “His passing (His Exodus i.e. Passion) which He is to accomplish in Jerusalem” – after the Resurrection, in Chapter 24 of his Gospel, Luke will have Jesus tell the disciples on the road to Emmaus that the Law (symbolised by Moses) and the Prophets (symbolised by Elijah) had foretold that He should suffer and so enter into His glory. (Lk 24: 25ff).

Peter misses the point of what is happening – he is so caught up with the sight of Jesus’ glory that he pays no attention to the conversation of Moses and Elijah. Then the cloud (symbol of God’s Presence) comes and covers them in shadow and from the cloud they hear the Father’s voice: “This is my Son, the chosen One. Listen to Him!” We can learn a lot from this scene – are we too inclined to seek after ‘good experiences’ in prayer? and feel that we are wasting our time when we experience the darkness – which is part and parcel of most of our prayer? It was in the cloud that the voice of the Father was heard. So let us be encouraged to persevere in the darkness of faith and listen for the voice of the Father and the voice of Jesus who speaks to our hearts if we allow all the other noises to be silenced.

I asked myself what could this ‘voice’ be saying to me today? What could it be saying to all of us Christians in today’s world - surrounded as we are by so much suffering (caused by men and women as well as natural disasters), violence, war, hatred, betrayal, sexual immorality, hurt, resentment, revenge, broken hearts and broken bodies ……the list is endless and there seems to be no solution. As I reflected on all this pain and suffering, I remembered Jesus’ words on the Cross “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing”.

How different our world would be if all of us could try to listen to these words of Jesus and act upon them – it would seem that many of us have forgotten that forgiveness and mercy are at the heart of the Christian Gospel. After all Jesus has told us that he came “to seek out and save those who were lost” (Lk 19:10).