Good Friday

"He said, 'It is finished.' And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit." - John 19:30

These words uttered by Christ during his final seconds have much value.  Even from the cross on his last breath, Jesus, the Son of God, teaches. 

The Latin for 'It is finished' is Consummatum est.  To "consumate" is to finish or to complete.  I learned that, in Roman times, if one had paid off a huge debt, he would receive a paper with the words Consummatum est written on the paper, showing that his debt was paid in full.  What debt did Christ owe?  He was no criminal.  The Suffering Servant paid the debt of our sins so that we may be free from bondage. 

Anyone in any sort of personal debt (student loan, credit card, mortgage, etc.) knows that debt is a huge restriction in your life.  A large sense of freedom is lost.  "I'm going to be paying this back for how long?"  But down the road, x amount of years later, when that final bill has been paid, the shackles have been removed.  Now let us imagine someone paying off that same monetary debt in full and removing you from the bondage.  With one swipe of the pen, that person took on all your debt and paid it in full.  Needless to say, you would be ecstatic and would never forget that person forever.  Perhaps we would ask, "How can I repay you?"  And what if the response was, "Do good and love one another"?  Easy orders to follow if someone paid off your house, right?

Now let us take a different approach - from an actual, historical event - and see how they compare.  Jesus of Nazareth, a man from Galilee, the Son of God, died for us because of our sins - the ultimate bondage - so that we might be free.  Where is our love for him?  Christ commanded us (his mandatum) to love one another as he loved us at his Last Supper before he paid our debts.  Do we follow this command, a command followed by a sacrifice of death?  Christ's death on the cross is the gift that keeps on giving, for from his pierced side on the cross is borne the Church, and through the Church we have the forgiveness of sins.  Yet where is our ecstasy?  Where is our constant urge of some sort of repayment to Christ?  When have we asked Christ, "How can I repay you?" after he hung on the cross, gasping for air, for the forgiveness of sins?  Sins are the bondage in which we willfully enslave ourselves.  They are the opposite of life; they are opposite of good; they are the opposite of what it means to be a human being, an image of God.  Yet we all sin - everyday of our lives, we commit some sort of sin.  We reject God.  Why, then, do we not run back to the Cross to seek grace and forgiveness? 

God the Father of mercies through the death and Resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to Himself.

Holy Thursday

Tonight we celebrate the first day of the sacred Triduum: the Mass of the Lord's Supper. 

Growing up as an altar boy, the Triduum was always my favorite - along with Christmas Midnight Mass - to serve.  First and foremost, it is a privilege and a blessing to serve on the altar as Christ's page.  But secondly, and more apparently, the difference in the liturgies add to the mystery already present during the celebration. 

The Mass of the Lord's Supper commemorates the institution of Christ's priesthood and the Holy Eucharist.  We are reminded in the Gospel of Luke that Christ desired to eat the Passover before he endured suffering (cf. 22:15).  In his sermon at the Cathedral of Saint John Lateran in Rome earlier today, Pope Benedict tells us that Jesus "approached that hour with eager desire."  Christ longed to give of himself more intimately than he ever had before: his very Body and Blood.  Pope Benedict goes on to say that "in this eager desire of Jesus we can recognize the desire of God himself - his expectant love for mankind, for his creation."  How true this is.  From that Supper, the world received the greatest gift yet: the Eucharist.  Christ was establishing his Church on earth, one of united worship and prayer.  The Eucharist is the center of our worship during the liturgy, and our liturgy is what identifies us as Catholics.  Therefore, the Eucharist is the source of unity in the Church.  As the Eucharist is the Body of Christ, so the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ.  As Saint Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians: "[W]e who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (10:16). 
And how can we forget our Lord's petition to the Father during his high priestly prayer?  Ut unum sint.  That they may all be one.  Our Lord repeats this over and over again during his priestly prayer at the Last Supper, making clear his foreknowledge of great division in the Church in all eras of Christianity (from early heresies to the Great Schism, from the Protestant Reformation to the sexual revolution of the '60s).  The Lord's petition to the Father that we may all be one is of central importance to the Church's ministry, for the Church is the bride of Christ and is submissive to his will.  This unity for which Christ prayed is achieved through, and only through, the Eucharist instituted at his Last Supper.  It was then that the perfect unity of man and God - the consuming of the very Body and Blood of Christ the Son of God - first happens on this earth (aside from the Incarnation, of course, when God became man, and the unity of mother and child: mankind being the Blessed Virgin and God being Jesus Christ). 

Another name we give today is Maundy Thursday.  This name comes from the Latin mandatum which is to "mandate" or "order" to do something.  This refers to our Lord's command in the Gospel of John: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you" (13:34).  To love is an action of the will, it is something we choose to do.  Pope Benedict says in his sermon that "faith requires love."  In other words, the act of the intellect must coexist with the act of the will.  We must live out our Faith at all times, and we do that best during the sacred liturgy.  And at the center of our faith is the Eucharist, confected during the sacred liturgy, initated at the Lord's Supper, the first Holy Thursday.

Indeed, tonight is a great feast we celebrate: when our Lord at a particular point in time offered his Body and Blood to us in sacramental form until the end of time.  There is much for which to rejoice during this Mass amidst the somber season of Lent and before the most somber of days in Good Friday.  But also, we look forward to the rejoicing of the Church when the unity our Lord desired is accomplished. 

If I never meet you, dear reader of this shabby literature, rest assured that I will see you in the Eucharist.

Random Thought: the Priesthood

If God used mankind to bring Christ to the world through the Incarnation, when Mary, conceived of the Holy Spirit, bore Christ, is it not even more possible (and, perhaps, requiring even less faith to believe) that God would use mankind to bring Christ to others through the Church, when men become priests infused with the Holy Spirit? 
The non-Catholic Christian believes that one of the basic tenets of Christianity is that God became man.  The impossible became possible, yet the non-Catholic Christian holds fast to this belief because it is central to Christianity.  Why, then, is it so outrageous to believe that God continues to bring Christ to others through the Church and the priesthood - something that, if we were to measure the amount of faith required, is "easier" to believe than the Incarnation?

The Great Sacrament of Reconciliation

I have written previously on the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) and its wonderful grace Christ gives to its recipients.  I would like to briefly expand on this Sacrament a little further, really just for my own personal growth in understanding this Sacrament even more. 

It may be easier to grasp the concept of Confession if we view our souls as figures of light.  When we sin, that light dims.  When we commit mortal sin - or grave sin - that light goes out and darkness abounds.  Another way of thinking about it is having black splotches splattered on our white souls, each splotch representing a sin, until mortal sin completely covers the soul in black.  If this visual helps, then fine. 
Now, God created the human soul in its purest form.  Original Sin was/is present from the very moment of conception, but God did not create Original Sin.  We inherit Original Sin from our first parents, Adam and Eve.  God created our souls a dazzling white but they are immediately tainted with Original Sin.  The life-saving waters of Baptism remove Original Sin and the soul achieves its highest state purity: the original plan God has for our souls.  In fact, should a person die the very moment after baptism, he would immediately enter heaven.

Here is where I form my opinions.  God knows us by reading our souls.  He, therefore, recognizes us the most when our souls are in their purest form.  Imagine you have painted a masterpiece, a painting unlike any other painting in the world.  Upon its completion, you know it is perfect and unique.  This painting belongs to you and you alone.  Now suppose this painting were to be marred and damaged: scratches, holes, other paint splatters - anything that would take away from the original creation.  When you were to look at it again, you wouldn't recognize it.  Of course you would know it is your painting, albeit with much damage, but you wouldn't recognize it.  It has been changed for the worse.  To me, this is how God views us when we sin.  When we tarnish our souls - the masterpiece painting of God - we make ourselves less recognizable to Him.
 
Consider the first fall of Adam and Eve.  The book of Genesis says that the man and woman disobeyed God, and their eyes were opened with shame.  "When they heard the sound of the Lord God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  The Lord God then called to the man and said, 'Where are you?'" (Gen. 3:8-9).
The all-knowing God asked His creature, "Where are you?"  Now, surely God knew where Adam was, for God knows everything.  But Genesis goes deeper than that.  Upon my own reflection, Genesis tells us that God did not recognize Adam because his soul changed due to sin.  Again, the soul is what our Lord God reads.  Adam's and Eve's souls became unrecognizable to their Creator because of sin, which is why the Lord asked, "Where are you?" 
Furthermore, we read in the Gospels that Christ was asked who would be saved.  "Someone asked him, 'Lord, will only a few people be saved?' He answered them, 'Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.  After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door, then you will stand outside knocking and saying, 'Lord, open the door for us.'  He will say to you in reply, 'I do not know where you are from.'  And you will say, 'We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.'  Then he will say to you, 'I do not know where you are from.  Depart from me, all you evildoers!'" (Luke 13:23-27).  Once again, we see the Master of the House - our Father in Heaven - does not know the sinners who knock on his door asking for entrance.  They try and show their faces to him, thinking that he would surely recognize them.  They dined with him and they listened to his teaching; surely they would be his friends.  Yet, he does not recognize them. 
Again, this is the same with our souls.  Our Father will not recognize us if we fall into mortal sin. 

We remove ourselves from God's presence when we choose sin.  Therefore, we must remedy this separation with the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  When we are in the state of mortal sin, our Father keeps calling out for us, "Where are you?  Where are you?" just like in the Garden of Eden.  In other words, the light of our souls has been darkened, and the Lord cannot see us.  Just as the sun provides light to us when it is risen, upon its setting we cannot see.  So it is with our Father.  After we confess our sins and receive absolution, our Father says, "There you are.  I know you, and have found you." 

We long for recognition.  In one way or another, we want to be known.  This recognition has different degrees for many people.  However, I have found that one common, universal joy one receives in recognition is simply when someone uses his name.  By the same token, how much more should we long for God, the Almighty Creator of the universe, to recognize us!  The Lord walks with us at all times.  When we sin, we turn away from the Lord, not He from us.  He stays on the narrow path, yet we run away from Him.  The farther away we get, the harder we are to see.  He calls our name, but we cannot hear Him because we have distanced ourselves from Him.  The best way to stick close with our Lord is frequent reception of the Sacrament of Confession and frequent reception of our Lord in the Eucharist. 
Is this an easy task?  No.  Carrying the Cross of Christ is never an easy task.  But if the Cross is the way I will be recognized by my Lord, then I will carry it with me all the days of my life.

Happy New Year!

A happy and blessed new year to everyone!

Looking back on 2010, it was a year of ups and downs.  It started off very grim with not having a job and ended with employment and good experience.  Trust and pray in the Lord and He will take care of you!

I am hoping that 2011 will be a year of great growth.  Though years are somewhat arbitrary (just a tool of measurement when you think about it), they do somewhat systematically put things into order and allow me to aim for goals in a specific timeframe.  What are my goals?  As of now, to be the best person I can be.  Sounds somewhat elementary, I know, but it encompasses a lot.  Currently, I am a son, a brother, an uncle, a godfather, a teacher, a colleague, and a friend.  All of these experiences form me in different ways and make me into the person I am.  Thus, to be the best person I can be means I must be the best son, brother, uncle, etc. every day. 
How does one become the best person?  Love.  A love of God, neighbor, and self.  But we must understand, first, what true love is.  True love is God, and God is all good.  Therefore, love is good (I'm not sure if that is a valid argument - I'm trying to recall my Intro to Philosophy days...).  But I think we can all assume safely that love is good.  But good (as a noun) in the general sense, in my opinion, as objective qualities, though each person has subjective needs.  Good, in the objective sense, is the Will of God in each person's life.  So to love one another, to want what is good for someone, is to help them achieve God's Will in his life.  This is what true love is. 
Many people confuse loving someone as making them "feel good" (good as an adverb, not a noun), and letting them make decisions that will "make them happy."  While in some cases this might not be a wrong thing to do, it cannot be the objective perspective of love.  To love is to actively be the image of God. 

You may be wondering where I'm going with this.  Well, to be honest, the things that come to mind are the "hot issues" of today's political/social realm.  Issues such as marriage and abortion come up the most when talking of love.  So, when I say that individuals with homosexual tendencies should lead chaste lives, I say that because I love them, not because I hate them.  I don't hate anybody - I love everybody.  I love every person because every person is an image of God, and I love God (again, sounds very elementary, but it is the clearest way to put things).  God's Will is for everyone to lead a chaste life.  Since chastity is a virtue, and since virtues are good, and since God is good, God wills that we all lead chaste lives.  A chaste life does not mean "sex-free."  It means leading a holy life of sexuality within the boundaries of holy matrimony between a man and a woman. 
Now, many who disagree with me then say that there are too many "rules" of the Catholic faith and that I would be infringing my "viewpoints" on their non-Catholic ways of life.  These viewpoints are not my viewpoints, per se, but the Church's, guided by God the Holy Spirit.  As for these rules that are "unfair" and "infringing like walls," I would respond with a quote by G.K. Chesterton: "Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground."

My goal that I share with you for 2011 is to be a better person by loving more intensely.  I want to understand the human person in different areas: the person in suffering; the person in discernment; the person in joy; the person in sorrow; the person in learning; the person in growth.  No matter what we as persons are experiencing, there is a portal to our lives that is objectively accessible through love.

O, Come, Let Us Adore Him!

Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst

Merry Christmas!

I could just leave it at that and be done with this post.  Or, I could say:

When we ponder what we actually celebrate at Christmas, it should dumbfound us.  God was born into this world.  God.  The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Himself manifest for the world to see.  He came into this world like we all do.  He was made man at His conception and was formed in the womb.  He was then born into the world as a baby, just like all of us.  God became a little baby; the baby was the King of the Universe. 

God entered into our frail human likeness and took His place into our world and into our history.  We cannot understand the mystery of this event, but we need to encounter a deep sense of awe and wonder.  Too often, people do not realize the magnitude of what happened.  Too often, people think of it as somewhat of a myth that happened so long ago in a fantasy land.  These people aren't necessarily non-believers of Jesus Christ, but they do not necessarily really contemplate the Nativity.

Jesus of Nazareth, truly man and truly God, the Savior of the world, was born in Bethlehem.  This happened.  When we understand this in a historical perspective, it really makes the mystery that much greater.  O Magnum Mysterium!  This event is not just a fantastical unreality that we think about during this time of year to make ourselves feel better.  No.  This really, actually happened at a specific place (Bethlehem) at a particular point in time (during the reign of Augustus, while Herod was king of Judea).  God became man and lifted up our humanity. 

Whatever Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did on earth, He perfected it.  When God became man, he perfected mankind.  When Jesus ate, he made food and eating a sacred action (hence, the Eucharist).  When Jesus walked and ran, He made walking and running an act of praise to God.  When Jesus slept to take rest, He perfected sleep.  When Jesus spoke and sang, He made the voice the instrument of ultimate praise.  When Jesus suffered, He gave suffering meaning.  When Jesus died on the cross, He perfected death as to use it as the gateway to eternal life.  When Jesus rose again, He showed us the glory of the human body in the New Jerusalem. 
Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, became man.  Do we really ever think about that, or do we just let it go in one ear and then out the other? 

God became Man.  God was born of a woman, in a stable where livestock lived.  God was then kept warm with swaddling clothes and laid in a manger (a trough for cattle feed).  Imagine the surroundings, the sights, the smells, the sounds.  God was born in the most humble of places among the lowly creatures of oxen, mules, and sheep. 

And then shepherds come to visit the stable.  Shepherds, men who lived very solitary lives, were watching their sheep just like every other night.  An angel comes to them saying that the savior has been born.  Glory to God in the highest!  The sign for them is that they will see an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  The shepherds find the infant Jesus and look upon Him.  There He is, the Savior of the world.  He is not what they expected, yet He came exactly how He willed.  Humble, innocent, dependent on His mother. 

I could go on and on about the Nativity of Jesus of Nazareth, but I fear it would last too long. 

I leave you with the Christmas Proclamation (below).  Merry Christmas!

Today, the twenty-fifth day of December,

unknown ages from the time when God created the heavens and the earth and then formed man and woman in his own image.

Several thousand years after the flood, when God made the rainbow shine forth as a sign of the covenant.

Twenty-one centuries from the time of Abraham and Sarah;

thirteen centuries after Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt.

Eleven hundred years from the time of Ruth and the Judges;

one thousand years from the anointing of David as king;

in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel.

In the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;

the seven hundred and fify-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome.

The forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;

the whole world being at peace,

Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,

desiring to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming,

being conceived by the Holy Spirit,

and nine months having passed since His conception,

was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary.

Today is the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

The Great O Antiphons

This is a rather short post, but something I hope you will find interesting and useful.

You may or may not know of the O Antiphons, a series of seven antiphons beginning on December 17 and ending on December 23 sung during Vespers before the Magnificat.  The exact origin is not known, but they are referenced by Boethius, a Christian philosopher from Rome, in the late 5th-early 6th century.  During Vespers throughout the year, not just Advent, an antiphon is sung before the Magnificat.  For the last seven days of Advent, the O Antiphons are used as the antiphon before the Marian hymn to God.  They are beautiful words that help us turn our hearts and focus to God as we await the birth of His Son. 

These titles are in reference to the prophecies made by Isaiah of the coming of the Messiah. 

The O Antiphons always begin with "O" and follow by a title of Jesus Christ our Lord, the Messiah.  They are in order: O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Iesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Dawn of the East), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations), O Emmanuel (O Emmanuel). 
Starting with the last Messianic title and ending with the first, take the first letter of each name and the Latin words ero cras are spelled out.  Ero cras means "I shall come tomorrow." 

The popular Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is a paraphrase of these Great Antiphons.  So, in fact, you have heard of the Great O Antiphons thanks to that beautiful hymn. 

For at least 1500 years, the Church has sung these antiphons only for seven days throughout the entire year, and each year we await the day, December 17, when we can pray them again.  They are a good reminder of how long the people of Israel waited  for Jesus to come.  It's interesting to think of this in perspective: we live in the time after Jesus.  What would it have been like to live before Christ?  People were normal, just like us, yet they were in a great state of anticipation.  Now, we today anticipate the second coming of Christ, but it will be the Christ we pray to, read about, and offer up at the Mass - it will be a familiar Christ, the same Christ.  But imagine living, say, 2500 years ago and awaiting this Messiah that the prophets told about.  We wouldn't know what he looked like (today, we have an idea of that), we wouldn't know the outcome of this life (which is the Church).  Before Christ was born, the world had no idea of what was to come: a boy who grew to a man, always God, and from Him came the Church, an institution that speaks for all mankind, Christian or non-Christian. 

To us, it is as familiar as our family; it's all that we know - the Church is here, we have the Pope, our local bishops, etc... It's all very normal.  But put things in perspective and think of a world before this all existed.  God the Son always existed, yes, but the God Man did not always exist in this time, in this world.  To me, it is incredibly interesting and humbling to live post-Nativitatem. 

A baby was born and He changed the world.  Of course He did: He is God.