Annointing of the Sick — Homily

Once more this Easter season, we meet the man born crippled who is brought to the Beautiful Gate in all his weakness to beg for alms. And the Lord Jesus comes to meet him in the representatives of his newborn Church, Peter and John. These two have neither silver nor gold, but what they do have, they give to the cripple: faith in the Name of Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of the Lord poured out at Pentecost. This is a marvelous exchange: weakness and need, faith and anointing. 

We, too, are witnessing a marvelous exchange. For our brothers are here with weakness of body or spirit or both, and they, too, have expectations. They are ready to receive the healing that Jesus will give. The rest of us, also, are weak in many ways; but like Peter and John, we give what we have, namely, our community prayer and the sacramental signs of the laying on of hands and anointing with holy oil. 

Who would think that such simple things as a human touch and a little oil could banish the pains of this world, and especially the one who has the power of death. We are a little like David against Goliath. With five smooth stones taken from the wadi and slipped into his shepherd’s pouch, David struck down the giant in the name of the Lord of hosts, and freed his people from their foe. We are doing something similar with this holy oil, striking the foe of the human race and restoring health and inner tranquility to our brothers.

When Peter healed the cripple, he said to the crowds, “Why should anyone be amazed at this as if this man were healed by our own power or piety? The same goes for us. The power is from Jesus. After he rose from the dead, he first received the Holy Spirit from his Father and then poured it out on us and on these holy oils. Exactly what type of healing will occur today is up to the Lord, but we know that a holy exchange is taking place today, each party bringing neither silver nor gold, only what they have: weakness, prayer, and trust in the name of Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God who has blessed this holy oil.

Advice on Spiritual Progress

I desire your progress, but it strikes me that enough has already been said and written for the attainment of everything you need. If anything is lacking it is not writing or speaking (for generally there is a surfeit of these anyway), but silence and work. Speaking distracts, whereas silence and work collect the powers and make us inwardly strong. When a person has understood any helpful advice that has been given him, he does not need to hear or say more, but rather to put it into practice with silence and care, in loving humility and self-contempt. He should not go seeking after new things which can only satisfy the desires in a superficial manner (and even here cannot satisfy fully) while leaving the spirit week and empty, without deep inner virtue.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS Letter VI

Horse and Rider He has Thrown Into the Sea

All our past sins, you see, which have been pressing on us, as it were, from behind, he has drowned and obliterated in Baptism. These dark things of ours were being ridden by unclean spirits as their mounts, and like horsemen they were riding them wherever they liked; and that's why the Apostle call them “rulers… of this present darkness” (Eph 6:12). We have been rid of all this through Baptism, as through the Red Sea, so-called because sanctified by the blood of the crucified Lord; let us not turn back to Egypt in our hearts, but with him as our protector and guide let us wend our way through the other trials and temptations of the desert toward the kingdom.

ST. AUGUSTINE Sermon

Homily — Easter Vigil

THESIS: The witness of the women in the gospel is an inspiration for us, even as monks, to announce the good news of the resurrection in our hidden life of prayer, our common life and our desire to be with Jesus. 

I have been thinking about a very simple, one line summary, of all we have been celebrating this night. It is given to us by the Church as both an exhortation and a mission. It is the dismissal, “Go and announce the gospel of the Lord.” All that we have heard and seen tonight is a foundation for that mission – Lumen Christi; “O happy fault”; passing through the Red Sea and the cloud; renewal with water and the Spirit; the angel’s word, “…He has been raised from the dead.” So many mysteries have been placed before us, we might be tempted to ask, “Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Well, the answer is, to us. To our community. To our friends and family. To the Church, and through her to all people. The mighty arm of the Lord has raised our crucified Lord from the dead. “He died for our sins, and has been raised up for our justification.” Let us turn to the holy women who first heard the gospel to learn more about how to welcome and announce this good news.

First, I am sure you notice who it is that keeps vigil beside the tomb of Jesus; who it is that works into the night preparing the perfumed ointments; who rises early to go to the tomb – it is the women. Even more, consider their boldness. While all the other disciples had stayed behind locked doors, they go out at dawn to care for the body of Jesus. Whatever fear they feel is overcome by their love and gratitude. Notice is was only when the women brought back their message of the resurrection that Peter and the Beloved Disciple ran to the tomb. They were the catalyst. They may not have had the strength to remove the stone before the tomb, but their witness to what they had seen and heard had its own authority. Even the fear they experienced in the presence of the angel God turned to their benefit. It led them directly into the path of Jesus, who told them not to be afraid. And they responded with a fully feminine response; “…they approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.”

We have to marvel at the zeal of these women. As monks our vocation urges us to make haste with “with all dignity and decorum” to arrive at vigils. When sleepiness slows us down, at least we can make up for it by heeding the example of others who are already there, like the holy women. We have to convey the good news of Jesus’ resurrection with a message similar to that given by Martha to her sister Mary: “The Lord is asking for you.” Better to be with a community that seeks the Lord day and night. That is our charism. The holy women help us to choose the better part which staying close to our risen Lord.

Brothers and sisters, let us immerse ourselves in this holy night. From the depths of the Most Holy Trinity, we are called to announce the gospel of the Lord, each of us according to our vocation. This is what the holy women did, because they loved much.

Homily — Good Friday

On this Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion, it is good to face, insofar as we are able, the inexpressible horror of Jesus’ passion. Not only the pain, the utter desolation, and the shattering of all expectations, but the tragedy of human sin. But at the same time, we want to turn our faces to the immeasurable mercy of God. The holy women standing at a distance from Jesus’ cross felt helpless in the face of the reality, bewildered perhaps, and maybe even stupefied at what had happened. This was the inexpressible horror that was difficult to face. On the other hand, we have the scene of Jesus’ mother and the beloved disciple at the cross. Even greater sorrow, but with Our Lady, an absolute acceptance of God’s will. I mention this because of one consolation that God gives to us in the face of all this: the prayers of the psalms, the divinely chosen prayers that enable us to pass through even the valley of darkness which is the Passion of Jesus.

The psalms feature prominently in our Holy Week Liturgies. Divinely inspired songs, they are – laments, thanksgivings, praises, curses – you name it, the whole gamut of human responses to the realities of our world, are summed up in the psalms, especially those used in the liturgy. They accompany us as we watch the mission of Jesus unfold. At each point in the liturgy, the Church sets before us psalms that correspond to the inner heart of Jesus.

Here are some examples. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This was the psalmist’s cry taken up by Jesus when he could not shield his face from buffets and spitting which he endured out of love for us unto death. Or again, from the Holy Thursday liturgy, “I will take up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,” which was literally fulfilled when Jesus took up the cup of Passover wine and changed it into the cup of his blood in the institution of the Eucharist. Or today, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” that is, the moment when Jesus experienced the ultimate abandonment by his Father and yet embraced the mystery of the Father’s will. There are many other examples we could bring forward, examples from our daily rounds of psalmody that carry us throughout our days as monks. How else could we carry out our mission of intercession for the world without the psalms? How else could we bear the alternation of joys and sorrows which are our lot in this life. The psalms give us hope that the last word will be God’s as Jesus showed us with his cry, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

The psalms give us hope that we can express the inexpressible – both the absolute horror of the cross and the evil that our human race is capable of, and the absolute love that God showed in raising Jesus from the dead and us from the death of sin. The psalms, especially as we hear them on the lips of Jesus, are the healing balm that the Father gives us in these holy days. Let us sing them in union with Jesus who alone is capable of expressing the inexpressible in his sufferings and his joys. 

The More Christian Person

The “greater,” more Christian person is the person who serves more deeply; like Jesus, who serves at the eucharistic table and washes the feet of his enemy, Judas.

HANS ERS VON BALTHASAR New Elucidations

Deification

Because God has become man, man can become God. He rises by divine steps corresponding to those by which God humbled himself out of love for men, taking on himself without any change in himself the worst of our condition.

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR Theological and Economic Chapters