St. Benedict-Joseph Labre —Mass Introduction

Today we greet St Benedict-Joseph Labre, the 18^th-century vagrant whom we celebrate as the first saint of this Paschal season. After trying out both the Trappist and the Carthusian way of life, he was led by an extreme sacrificial grace to squander his life with and for Christ on the roads of France and Italy. He appears as the very embodiment of St Paul’s affirmation that the folly of God is wiser than [the wisdom of] men (1 Cor 1:25). 

Now, if Benedict-Joseph could joyfully become a “fool for Christ” this was only because of his conviction that, for our sake, Christ had first become a “fool for God”. It is Christ who sets for all time the redeeming pattern of divine madness through his life of freely embraced humiliation, suffering, and an ignominious death. It takes a faith like St Paul’s to recognize in this disruptive pattern the uttermost revelation of God’s folly of love for humankind.

Benedict-Joseph’s life of freely chosen poverty and itinerancy witnessed to Jesus’ own self-emptying in order to give us new and everlasting life. The Christian must give all in order to gain all, both for himself and for the world. Like the Son of Man, Benedict-Joseph “had nowhere to lay his head” in this world (Mt 8:20) because his head’s only destination was the blissful lap of the Father, and he would accept no substitutes. 

This puzzling saint upsets all our categories of classification, by which we normally seek to make rational sense even out of the deepest mysteries of faith. It is not surprising that he is the patron saint of both the homeless and the mentally challenged. He subverts all our categories of “normalcy”, not intentionally but by his mere existence in uncompromising conformity with Christ. No ready formulary for his feast exists in the present Roman Missal, and one must scramble around for what prayers to use from the Common of the Saints. For us monks he is a supreme reminder and warning that all our monastic regularity and minute observances ought never to become their own end. They will surely become obstacles to our union with Christ if we allow a well-ordered monastic routine to extinguish the unruly fire of the Spirit’s divine folly within us. 

Let us, then, now repent of all our attempts to domesticate God and his creative foolishness in our lives, as we strive to allow God’s grace to have its unpredictable way with us.

Spiritual Progress

One day I saw three monks insulted and humiliated in the same way at the same moment. The first felt he had been cruelly hurt; he was distressed but managed not to say anything. The second was happy for himself but grieved for the one who had insulted him. The third fought only of the harm suffered by his neighbor, And wept with the most ardent compassion. The first was prompted by fear; the second was urged on by the hope of reward; the third was moved by love.

JOHN CLIMACUS The Ladder of Divine Perfection, 8th step

Why Does God Allow Temptation?

One can distinguish five reasons why God allows the devils to attack us: first, so that from attack and counter attack attack we may become practiced in discerning good from evil; second, so that our virtue may be maintained in the heat of the struggle and so be confirmed in an impregnable position; third, So that as we advanced in virtue we may avoid presumption and learn humility; fourth, to inspire in us in unreserved hatred for evil through the experience with us have of it; fifth, and above all, that we may attain inner freedom and remain convinced both of our own weakness and of the strength of him who has come to our aid.

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR Centuries on Charity

Anonymous Acts of Love

Jesus aligns himself with those who do simple, anonymous acts of love. Who can know precisely where in the wide world all the many such acts of self-giving take place? Where someone gives greater weight to his neighbor than to his own importance? Such things remain in the mystery of God.

HANS URS VON BALTHASAR Who is a Christian?

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

This Seed of Fire

‘God built humanity so that humanity might build for him’: churches, yes, but also societies, culture, the visible or invisible networks which sustain a ‘Eucharistic’ relationship between human beings and the earth. God comes near to us unendingly in the bread of life, the food of resurrection. Everything has to be built up around this seed of fire.

OLIVIER CLÉMENT The Roots of Christian Mysticism

Homily — Palm Sunday

When we began our Palm Sunday procession, we heard this passage from the gospel of Matthew: “And when (Jesus) entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken and asked, “Who is this?” Who is Jesus? This is the most important question for us this Holy Week. Everything revolves around it: “Who is this?” We will hear many answers to this question during Holy Week. What answer will we give? God is waiting.

The crowd following Jesus into Jerusalem gave this answer: “This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.” Why would they refer to Jesus as a prophet. The prophet Isaiah just gave us a list of the most prominent characteristics of a prophet. He speaks on behalf of God and interprets what God wants. He suffers for his prophetic mission, but he will not be deterred. This is what many saw in Jesus. He spoke with a well-trained tongue to rouse us from our torpor. He did not turn back or rebel against divine providence, even under persecution. Jesus’ determination is like a rock when it comes to completing his mission. The crowd could see these characteristics in Jesus. But eventually they could see that he was more than a prophet. He was the mysterious Servant of the Lord, the origin of all prophets. They have all been stamped with his image. No wonder the whole city was shaken. 

The early Church recorded its own answer in the Letter to the Philippians: Jesus is fully a man, but he is also equal to God. The hymn points to this identity: “Although he was in the form of God…” Bue even more, he shows his divinity by his willingness to empty himself of all the honors of God because of his love for his Father’s plan: “… (he) did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.”  Here we are immersed in the depths of the Holy Trinity. Jesus voluntarily unites our human nature with his divinity in perfect harmony with his Father’s will. He will overcome our revolt against the God by his obedience, something we could not do on our own. The Holy Spirit effects this emptying by bringing about the conception of Jesus in the womb of his virgin mother. He prepares a body in which Jesus can carry out the Father’s work, taking upon himself our guilt and removing it by his obedience. That is why God so highly exalted him. 

Finally, the gospel provides another answer to the all-important question of who Jesus is: He is a man like us with all the human emotions and affections that we feel but without sin. The scene in the garden of Gethsemane reveals this clearly. Jesus trembles at his approaching death. He longs for human companionship and support. In his deepest moments of anguish, he asks his three disciples to remain alert and watch with him, imploring their support as his friends. But they fall asleep. He bore this human disappointment, not once but three times, urging his friends to rouse themselves. He needed their love and support at this hour. This loss of human, and even paternal support, was crushing. In the end with human resignation, all he can say is, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Get up, let us go. Look, my betrayer is at hand.”

As we continue our journey through Holy Week, we will hear more answers to the question “Who is this?” Who is this prophet, this emptied one, this man whose heart felt the bitter disappointment of friends who could not watch with him one hour? The Church invites us to ponder all this today and give our answer to the question, “Who is this?” answer the question for ourselves. It is the most important question we face in life. 

The Will of God

The will of God often appears repulsive, but faith enables us to see it as it really is. If we live by faith we shall judge things very differently from the way people do who rely only on the evidence of their senses and so remain unaware of the priceless treasure hidden under appearances.

JEAN-PIERRE DE CAUSSADE Abandonment to Divine Providence

God's Fatherly Love

God's Fatherly love flows over a man as God created him. That is to say over a man that God created free, because for Him only a love freely given possesses worth. But because he is free, man is also fragile. It is this man that the Father in His love leads gradually across the scheme of time toward complete fulfillment. This is the whole mystery of divine teaching, of the progressive education of humanity. This man, that God created in order to heap him with His gifts, has closed himself to God in his thirst for independence. That is why he needs to be saved—that is, to be restored to his integrity.

JEAN DANIELOU God’s Life In Us 

The Gift of Self

There are souls who seek solitude merely in order to find themselves: there are others who seek it so that they may give themselves. Still, it remains to be lived! Happy those who know how to put their whole soul into all they do. Because they are giving themselves, they will be able to bear much suffering, but their happiness will exceed their suffering, since the gift of self is the source and condition of life, and therefore of spiritual growth and joy. Go on, then, giving yourself: go on suffering… seek your joy in that precious suffering that the gift of self entails. God who became man new no more excellent way than this when he was on earth.

AN ANONYMOUS CARTHUSIAN They Speak by Silences

God’s Better Gift

If God at times seems to be slow in responding, it is because he is preparing a better gift. He will not deny us. We well know that the long-awaited gift is all the more precious for the delay in it's being granted… Ask, seek, insist. Through this asking and seeking you will be better prepared to receive God's gift when it comes. God withholds what you are not yet ready for. He wants you to have a lively desire for his greatest gifts. All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart.

ST. AUGUSTINE

Prayer and Works of Charity

When I see people very anxious to know what sort of prayer they practice, covering their faces and afraid to move or think, unless they should lose any slight tenderness and devotion they feel, I know how little they understand how to attain union with God, since they think it consists in such things as these. No. Our Lord expects works from us! If you see someone sick whom you can relieve, never fear losing your devotion; have compassion on her; if she is in pain, feel it as if it were your own, and when there is need, fast so that she may eat, not so much for her sake as because you know your Lord asks it of you. This is the true union of our will with the will of God. If you possess fraternal charity, I assure you that you will attain the union I have described.

ST. TERESA OF JESUS

Love Gains Love

Have a great love for those who contradict and fail to love you, for in this way love is begotten in a heart that has no love. God so acts with us, for he loves us that we might love by means of the very love he bears toward us.

ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross

God’s Patience

God remains in history the beggar who waits at each person's gate with infinite patience, begging for love. His silence, with which we sometimes reproach him, only shows his consideration for us. The cross and the resurrection coexist. ‘Christ will be in agony to the very end of the world’, he will suffer, according to Origen, until all humanity has entered the Kingdom.

OLIVIER CLÉMENT The Roots of Christian Mysticism

The Breath of God

God has given to the earth the breath which feeds it. It is his breath that gives life to all things. And if he were to hold his breath, everything would be annihilated. His breath vibrates in yours, in your voice. It is the breath of God that you breathe—and you are unaware of it.

THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH Three Books to Autolycus

Someone Already Risen

Someone, I was told, at the sight of a very beautiful woman, felt impelled to glorify the Creator. The sight of her increased his love for God to the point of tears. Anyone who entertains such feelings in such circumstances is already risen…before the general resurrection.

JOHN CLIMACUS The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 15th Step 

Homily—Third Sunday of Lent, Year A

THE ABANDONED JUG

8 March 2026

(Ex 17:3-7; Rom 5:1-2,5-8; Jn 4:5-42)

The wonderful encounter on this Third Sunday of Lent  between the Lord Jesus and the Samaritan woman is surely one of the towering masterpieces of biblical narrative. In the most palpable way possible, it represents nothing less than the face-to-face encounter between the Incarnate Word and sinful humanity, so desperately in need of salvation. Jesus of Nazareth, who walks on the land of Israel with his feet of flesh and bone received from his blessed Mother, and who is himself thirsty and hungry after trudging all these miles from Jerusalem to Sychar—this same Jesus is the eternal Logos in whom and for whom everything was created in the beginning. And this remarkable woman of Samaria embodies the whole of humanity, the men and women of every historical moment and every geographical location. The passionate dialogue that follows between Jesus and the woman impacts us as a summary of the entire history of salvation. Each of us this morning should make the effort of imagination and will of becoming this Samaritan woman so that we, too, can encounter our Lord in the intimacy of our souls, and be saved by the encounter. 

Let’s not forget, in the first place, that God’s grace always precedes all our own feelings, thoughts and actions. God’s grace always comes to us, mysteriously, ahead of anything else, while we are still sinners, even before we become aware of our sinful condition and begin to desire forgiveness. This is the central theme that runs through all three readings today. On a certain blessed midday, a poor solitary woman went to Jacob’s well just outside the hamlet of Sychar in Samaria, to draw water; she went at that sun-scorched moment of the day to avoid the glances of others, who scorned her as a great public sinner. At that moment combining stress, shame and exhaustion, she could not have known that at that very same time, in total synchrony with her, the Son of God had already mapped out for himself a route through Samaria, with the intention of making his journey as the weary Savior of the world converge with the journey of the woman, who was so weary from both her sin and her ostracism. 

The Samaritan thought she was alone, isolated, abandoned; but that was not, in fact, true. All the while Jesus was already seeking her and loving her, without her knowing it! Her climax of disgrace and drudgery became a kairós of salvation with Jesus’ arrival on the scene. At the well, Jesus breaks into her awful solitude, so that it is two weary people who meet and gradually come to recognize each other through a dialogue of mutual attraction. From all eternity, the divine Word had already been making his way toward this woman, to take her as his mystical bride, as a figure of the Church and of each one of us! 

In the Book of Exodus, we see that the people are dying of thirst in the desert, and they mutter against Moses and, through him, against God himself. The Israelites do what is strictly forbidden by the first commandment: they protest against God’s plan and test the Lord. Two weeks ago in the desert, the devil tried to seduce Jesus with the same temptation. Moses cries out today to the Lord because he does not see a way out of the situation. But God carries on with his plan of salvation against all human opposition. He shows his mercy by responding favorably to the murmuring of his people, even though it was a great sin. How can the God of compassion not be magnanimous in the face of people dying of thirst? God answers them by bringing water out of the hardest and driest rock. This detail from Exodus then becomes the main theme of the story of salvation in the Gospel, the theme that contains everything else: namely, that God always brings the water of his life out of the hard rock of our hearts.  

In the second reading, from Romans, St Paul takes up the same theme in different language when he states that God has given us his grace without us deserving it in any way. Christ died for us not because we were “good” or “righteous”. Beyond all our understanding, Christ died for us while we were still sinners, rebels against God. Who would ever conceive of dying for an enemy? Only God! Already at that moment, he called us his “friends”, for whom he wanted to die in order to show us his love. We must believe what is truly incredible: that God imagined us as his friends when we were still his enemies! And yet we become his friends only by virtue of his Son’s death, when God’s love was poured into our hearts from Jesus’ pierced side, when he breathed his last on the cross and, by breathing his last, breathed his Holy Spirit into us.

These first two readings prepare us for Jesus’ extraordinary conversation with the woman at the well. It is the longest, most detailed and most profound dialogue Jesus has with anyone in all four Gospels. And it is not a parable: it is a lived historical narrative. In the course of this riveting dialogue, Jesus does three great things for the woman. First of all, he requests of the woman that she give him a drink. What a paradox! The Incarnate Word feels tired from walking so far in our flesh, and so he asks a fellow human being for help! He does not come to us as a triumphant king riding on a white stallion. Divine omnipotence, because it is all love, approaches us in the form of weakness: here the mystery of the cross already glimmers. When Jesus then says to the woman, Give me a drink, this burning thirst on the part of the Word anticipates the cry of Jesus crucified: I thirst. Yes, Jesus is always thirsty for our faith, for our love. Jacob’s well emerges here as a prefiguration of the Lord’s pierced side, from which blood and water will flow on Good Friday. In Jesus, God gives himself to us as a suffering man. Eternal life, which is his property, comes to us in him hidden deep within his human weakness. Of course, at this point the sinful woman does not understand this gift to her of Jesus’ weakness, but neither does she refuse his request.   

The second great grace Jesus gives the woman is his offer of living water to her, that is, the heavenly gift of eternal life, in ironical exchange for her gift to him of earthly water. The sinner understands this offer least of all! Only the third grace begins to penetrate her heart: it is the confession of sin that Jesus grants the woman from the depths of his own know-ledge of her. Only now is she ready to accept the word of the One she herself proclaims to be a “prophet”. At this stage of the dialogue, the theme becomes the worship of God. After the initial two steps, and still guided by Jesus’ word, the woman now catapults from the depths of sin to the heights of contemplation in her desire to worship in Spirit and Truth. She can now finally welcome Jesus into her heart as he reveals himself to her as the Messiah, the Christ of God.  

At the conclusion of the drama, the water of grace has penetrated to the depths of the sinful soul, has purified her, and has suddenly stimulated her to engage, surprisingly, in a truly apostolic action among her townspeople. Being now full of Christ’s grace, she casually abandons the jug of her original intention at the well’s edge, since she no longer needs to draw material water by her own effort. The abundant apostolic fruit of proclaiming the Gospel springs spontaneously out of the woman and demonstrates the authenticity of her conversion. Above all else, she now burns to share with the whole world the liberation she has received from Jesus. The woman instantly accepts Jesus’ accusation regarding her five so-called “husbands”; but her acceptance of the accusation and her repentance are almost a minor detail compared to the action of grace, which God has been pouring into her since the beginning of her existence. The grace of God given by Jesus, the grace of God that is Jesus, is the true protagonist of the story, and not the woman. Amazingly transformed from repentant sinner into ardent apostle in the course of one poignant conversation, she now hurries to her fellow citizens to announce the Gospel to them. She wants them, too, to believe and know the joy of salvation given to her by Jesus. 

Today, my brothers and sisters, the sacramental mystery of the Sacred Liturgy transforms Whitethorn into Sychar. Our little chapel here, lost in the backwoods of the Lost Coast, becomes the site of our Jacob’s well. We, make no mistake about it, are today that Samaritan woman. Today the long-suffering and weary Jesus has come to seek out and find us in our own weariness and despair, so that we might drink from the abundant water of eternal life from his pierced Heart—the water of his love and compassion, poured into our hearts along with his Body and Blood at this Eucharist. Let us rejoice and be glad!

The Progress of the World

The whole progress of the world points to there being a creator whose purpose is to bring about, by means of his creative powers, a free response from his creatures below, so that they may move toward him and finally be united with him in a marriage of love.

HANS URS VON BALTHASAR The Moment of Christian Witness, 76

The Eyes to See

Two men who wanted to see the sunrise would be very foolish to argue about the place where it will appear and their means of looking at it, then to let their argument degenerate into a quarrel, from that to come to blows and in the heat of the conflict to gouge out each other's eyes. There would no longer be any question then of contemplating the dawn…  

Let us who wish to contemplate God purify our hearts by faith and heal them by means of peace; for the effort we make to love one another is already a gift from him to whom we raise our eyes.

ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO Sermons 23,18

Our Spiritual Homeland

Purify yourself and you will see heaven in yourself. In yourself you will see angels and their brightness, and you will see their Master with them and in them… The spiritual homeland of the person whose soul has been purified is within. The sun that shines there is the light of the Trinity. The air breathed by the entering thoughts is the Holy Spirit the Comforter. 

ISAAC OF NINEVEH Ascetic Treatises, 24

Homily — Second Sunday of Lent

And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.

Last week, as we began to undertake our Lenten discipline the Church presented us with the mystery of the temptation of Jesus in the desert. Although, as God, he is without sin and unable to sin, he still humbled himself to undergo baptism, purification by fasting, and battled with the temptations of Satan in the desert. 

This Sunday, we have the mystery of the Transfiguration. On one level, the Church places the Gospel of the Transfiguration here in the opening weeks of Lent to give us encouragement and consolation. Our process of purification and participation in the Cross is to be seen in the light of the victory of Christ in the Resurrection. At a deeper level, because the Transfiguration belongs to the pedagogy of Christ himself, who uses the transfiguration to instruct his disciples about the nature of God and therefore their own and their discipleship.

In all three synoptic Gospels, the transfiguration is placed after Peter’s confession of faith, and Jesus’ first passion prediction.

Jesus is moving toward his Passion. He knows this but the disciples do not. He needs to bring them into a deeper understanding of himself and his mission if they are to follow him as he needs them to.

In his confession of faith, Peter has shown he is on the right path, he has opened himself enough to the light of Christ that he is able to witness before the Lord and the other disciples, with great confidence and conviction, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. He has attained a certain level of faith.

But when Jesus follows Peter’s confession with his first passion prediction, Peter responds with a rebuke: “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”

Jesus makes it quite clear that Peter has badly misunderstood him and the nature of his mission. He responds to Peter with a rebuke of his own, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me you are thinking not as God does but as human beings do.

It is not enough for the disciples to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ they must also align themselves with his mission. The two must line up. There is no other way. Peter’s standpoint is an obstacle, a stumbling block, he is blocking Jesus view of his Father, whose will, desire and plan is always before the eyes of Jesus; guiding him in every step.

Thinking of Peter here, I was reminded of the third century bishop, Clement of Alexanderia’s distinction between the Pistic and the Gnostic Christian. The “pistic” is one who lives by “pistis”, which, in Greek, means ‘faith’. For Clement, the ‘pistic’ signifies the ordinary faithful believer, one who trusts in God, accepts the tenets of revelation and the apostolic teaching as given, and is obedient to Christ. This person practices virtue, worships regularly, and lives a moral life in a straightforward way. Clement does not intend this term to be pejorative. He insists that the way of the pistic is good, holy, and salvific, but it is not yet a mature faith. In Peter’s case, although his life has been turned upside down by his encounter with Christ, has left all things to follow him, and has come so far as to make this bold confession of faith, his understanding remains very limited. Jesus has more in mind for Peter. In comparison with where Jesus needs Peter to be if he is to fulfill his role as Jesus has laid it out for him, his faith remains immature. Jesus needs him to become what Clement calls the ‘true gnostic’ (from gnosis, meaning knowledge), as opposed to the heretical Gnostics he was battling against as bishop. 

Clement describes the true Gnostic as “a mature Christian whose faith has blossomed into deep, contemplative understanding. One who has undergone intellectual, moral, and spiritual purification. Someone who reads Scripture with spiritual insight, who is capable of discerning its symbolic and mystical depths. 

For Clement, The life of the true Gnostic is marked by perfect charity, (that is, love, for Clement, is the highest knowledge), and has achieved ‘apatheia’, that is freedom from disordered passions. Clement was perhaps the first to apply “apatheia” to the spiritual life.  The true gnostic, in other words, is the pistic whose faith has reached its full flowering. 

Jesus wants to see this kind of growth in Peter. 

Jesus follows his passion prediction with a teaching about the conditions for discipleship: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

On the mountain Jesus’ primary intention is to show the disciples the truth of who he is: in his radiant splendor with all the theophanic signs that accompany him in the vision: the mountain, the shining face and garments, the present of Moses and Elijah, and the voice from the cloud - all point to his equality with God and his role as the one who is to come. 

What’s more, the saying of the voice from the cloud, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him”, refers to the prophecy of the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 42:1, as does the almost exact saying of the voice that came from heaven at the Jesus’ baptism. In chapter 12, Matthew provides the whole quote: “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I shall place my spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not contend or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope” (Mt 12:18-21).

Peter will become the true Gnostic when he is able to see the splendor of the transfigured Lord manifest in the servant of the Lord. He will be able to set up his tent and abide in the rapt ecstatic movement of being caught up in God that he knew on the mount when his heart abides in the Lord who has set up his tent among us, who has come among us in free self-emptying love, who has willingly taken upon himself all our sins, sorrows, trials and difficulties, in a simple, lowly, hidden life, and when he follows the Lord by conforming his own disposition and behavior to his. Passages in the Scriptures that had seemed obscure will light up and unveil their meaning for him. And although his journey will not be without its humiliations and failings, in the end he will follow his Lord to the Cross. 

Let us, too, put on the mind of Christ as we continue our Eucharistic celebration. 

The Abyss of Humility

We need to exercise our ourselves greatly, to lay upon ourselves many hidden labors after a life of negligence, in order that our spirit which resembles a greedy and irritable dog may obtain purity and vigilance through simplicity, gentleness and fervor. However, be of good heart. If the passions lord it over us and we are weak, let us with great confidence offer to Christ our spiritual weakness and our impotence; let us confess them before him. He will help us irrespective of what we deserve, on the sole condition that we descend continually to the bottom, into the abyss of humility.

JOHN CLIMACUS The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 1st Step

Mistakes at Prayer

What a mistake it is to be tormented and sad because you have no light or consolation in prayer, to strain your head seeking after sensible devotion at Holy Communion, and to neglect little faults, small observances, and occasions for mortifying your own will and desires, for conquering your human respect and for procuring your own humiliation before others! If we were reasonable, we should think only of these last and not make the slightest effort to succeed according to our own ideas; because, as a matter of fact, we never succeed better than when we humbly endure dryness and the privation of this false fervor that nature so loves and that the real love of God despises and even rejects as far as it is able.

ST. CLAUDE DE LA COLOMBIÈRE Letter 7