Passion Sunday
6
April 2014
“Amen,
amen, I say to you before Abraham came to be, I am.” Jn. 8:58
This Sunday is
called Passion Sunday because the Church begins on this day to make the
sufferings of Jesus, our Redeemer, the
main object of our thought as we approach the Paschal Mysteries of our Redemption. Dom Prosper Gueranger in The Liturgical Year, Vol. 5
reminds us: “Everything around us urges
to mourn. The images of the saints, the very crucifix on our altar, are veiled
from our sight. The Church is oppressed with grief. During the first four weeks
of Lent, she compassionated her Jesus fasting
in the desert; His coming sufferings and crucifixion and death are what
now fill her with anguish. We read in today’s Gospel, that the Jews threaten to
stone the Son of God as a blasphemer; but His hour is not yet come. He is obliged to flee and hide Himself. It is
to express deep humiliation, that the Church veils the cross. A God hiding Himself, that He may evade the
anger of men –what a mystery! Is it weakness?
Is it, that He fears death? No; we shall
soon see Him going out to meet His enemies; but at present He hides Himself
from them, because all that had been prophesied regarding Him has not been
fulfilled. Besides, His death is not to be
by stoning: He is to die upon a cross,
the tree of malediction, which from this
time forward, is to be the tree of life.” Gueranger, p. 106 On this day, and all days, we need to see how
much Jesus loves us and love Him in return. Let us open our hearts with a lively
hope for our salvation is in the Passion of Christ. In today’s Epistle to the Hebrews (9:11-15) St. Paul “presents to us the majestic figure of Christ, the Eternal High Priest,
who ‘by His Blood entered once into the
holies (that is, heaven) having obtained eternal redemption.’ (Heb. 9:12) The Passion of Jesus has redeemed us; it has
opened once again our Father’s house to us; it is then the motive of our hope.”
Fr. Gabriel, OCD, Divine Intimacy, p. 371-2
“...how much more will the blood
of Christ, who through the Holy Spirit offered himself unblemished unto God,
cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Heb. 9:
14 In today’s Epistle St. Paul
tells us why Christ’s sacrifice was so necessary. All the ancient sacrifices of the Old
Testament were of no avail to achieve man’s redemption. Only Jesus Christ, “as the Lamb of God, took on Himself men’s sins and bore them away; the
bond which stood against us He cancelled by fastening it to the cross: He broke
by His death the power of sin, and rescuing men from its slavery, made them
children of God and heirs of heaven.” Msgr. Patrick Boylan, The Sunday Epistles and Gospels, p.
219 Christ redeemed us by His own blood:
“nor
again by virtue of blood of goats and calves, but by virtue of his own blood,
into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption.” Heb. 9:12
How grateful we should be for so great a sacrifice as Msgr. Boylan tells
us: “No
adequate thanks can be offered by us for His sacrifice to our great High
Priest. But we can please Him by joining with Him in His self-oblation to the
Father. He has entered as a Victim into the most holy place of heaven, and He
shows perpetually the marks of His wounds to the Father. Let us join with Him
in asking the Father to accept for our sins the Blood of His Son. There is no
other like offering that we can make to God to counterbalance our debt of sin.”
Ibid,
p. 218
“Which of you can convict me of
sin? If I speak the truth, why do you
not believe me.” Jn. 8:46
In today’s
Gospel (Jn. 8:46-59), St. John shows the
continuing opposition of the Jewish leaders to Jesus. None of them can
challenge Him on His holy life, but yet
none of them will believe Him when He tells them that truth: “Which
of you can convict me of sin? If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me? Jn.
8:46 Jesus tells them the reason that
they do not believe in Him is because they are not of God: “He who is of God hears the words of God. The
reason why you do not hear is that you are not of God.” Jn. 8:47
The Jews cannot give any better argument than the “ad hominem” attack
which is the poorest of arguments; they cannot say anything better that to call
Jesus names: “Are we not right in saying
thou are a Samaritan, and hast a devil.” Jn. 8:48 The Jews hated the heretical Samaritans and
would not even talk to them; to call Jesus a devil is blasphemous. It was their way of retaliating for what
Jesus said of them: “The father from whom you are is the devil.” Jn. 8:44 When Jesus tells them solemnly, “Amen,
amen, I say to you, if anyone keep my word, he will never see death,”(Jn.
8:51) they attack Him:
“Art thou greater than our father Abraham who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Whom dost thou
make thyself?” Jn. 8:53. Jesus
then tells them that His Father will glorify Him and that Abraham rejoiced that
he would see His day: “Abraham
your father rejoiced that he was to see my day. He saw it and was glad.” Jn.
8:55 The Jews again fail to understand
Jesus as they see only the appearances and believe that Jesus is talking of the
present life: “Thou are not yet fifty years old, and has thou seen Abraham?” Jn. 8:57
It is here that Jesus, using the words of God to Moses, solemnly claims
His eternal generation as God: “Amen, amen, I say to you before Abraham came
to be I am.” Jn. 8:58 For them
this is too much and they take up stones to kill him, but Jesus hides Himself
as it is not His time to die. He will sacrifice Himself on His terms!
“Strange blindness” and
“hardness of heart”
Dom Gueranger
comments on the obstinacy of the Jews to the truth that Jesus reveals to
them: “Their obstinacy in refusing to acknowledge Jesus as the Messias, has
led these men to ignore the very God, whom they boast of honouring; for if they
knew the Father, they would not reject
His Son. Moses, and all the Psalms, and the Prophets, are a dead letter to
them; ...Strange blindness, that comes from pride and hardness of heart! The
feast of the Pasch is at hand; these men are going to eat, and with much parade
of religion the flesh of the figurative lamb; they know full well that this
lamb is the symbol, or figure, which is to have fulfilment. The true Lamb is to
be sacrificed by their hands, and they will not know Him. He will shed His
Blood for them, and it will not save them. How this reminds us of those
sinners, for whom this Easter promises to be as fruitless as those of the past
years!” Gueranger, p. 114-5
“The
Great Work of Christ”
In Mediator
Dei, (1940)Ven. Pope Pius XII also speaks of our debt to Christ: “The
great work of Christ was to reconcile man with God. This he did all his life by means of a complete offering of himself to the
Father. This sacrificial offering
continued all his life, to be consummated on Calvary. All his activity has no other purpose....
lifted up between heaven and earth, he offers the sacrifice of his life and,
from his pierced heart burst forth, in some way, the sacraments, which
distribute to souls treasures of the redemption. In doing all this he had as
his main purpose the glory of his Father and the greater sanctification of
men.” Let not our eyes be blind and
our hearts be hardened for all that Jesus Christ has done for us with His
sacrifice on the Cross by which he has merited for us our redemption and our
eternal salvation.
“Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle!
With completed victory rife:
And above the Cross’s trophy
Tell the triumph of the strife:
How the world’s Redeemer conquered
By offering of His life.”
(Hymn for Good
Friday)
“Could you
not, then, watch one hour with Me?” Mt. 26:40
We are now in
our second year of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from after Mass until
Benediction at 3:10 P. M. every day. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us how very
special the Holy Eucharist is: “O precious wonderful banquet that brings us
salvation and contains all sweetness......No other sacrament has greater
healing power; through it, sins are purged away, virtues are increased and the
soul is enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift.” “Could you not, then, watch one hour with
Me?” Mt. 26:40
How to
attend Holy Mass
“The Holy Mass is a prayer itself, even the
highest prayer that exists. It is the sacrifice, dedicated by our Redeemer at
the Cross, and repeated every day on the altar.
If you wish to hear Mass, as it should be heard, you must follow with
eye, heart, and mouth all that happens at the altar. Further, you must pray
with the Priest the holy words said by him in the Name of Christ and which
Christ says by him. You have to
associate your heart with the holy feelings which are contained in these words,
and in this manner you ought to follow all that happens at the altar. When acting in this way, you have prayed Holy Mass.” Pope St. Pius X
Why the Rosary is so Important.
“You must know that when
you ‘hail’ Mary, she immediately greets you! Don’t think that she is one of
those rude women of whom there are so many—on the contrary, she is utterly
courteous and pleasant. If you greet her, she will answer you right away and
converse with you!”
Saint Bernardine of Siena
Saint Bernardine of Siena
“Recite your Rosary with
faith, with humility, with confidence, and with perseverance.”
Saint Louis de Montfort
“The rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God…and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.” Pope Saint Pius X
Rosary is the most beautiful and the most
Saint Louis de Montfort
“The rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God…and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.” Pope Saint Pius X
Rosary is the most beautiful and the most
“Never will
anyone who says his Rosary every day become a formal heretic or be led astray
by the devil.” Saint
Louis de Montfort
“Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.” Saint Louis de Montfort
“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”
Sister Lucia dos Santos, Fatima seer.
“Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and will save your soul, if—and mark well what I say—if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.” Saint Louis de Montfort
“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.”
Sister Lucia dos Santos, Fatima seer.
“When you say your
Rosary, the angels rejoice, the Blessed Trinity delights in it, my Son finds
joy in it too, and I myself am happier than you can possibly guess. After the
Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there is nothing in the Church that I love as much
as the Rosary.”
Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche
“‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!’ No creature has ever said anything that was more pleasing to me, nor will anyone ever be able to find or say to me anything that pleases me more.” Our Lady to Saint Mechtilde
Our Lady to Blessed Alan de la Roche
“‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!’ No creature has ever said anything that was more pleasing to me, nor will anyone ever be able to find or say to me anything that pleases me more.” Our Lady to Saint Mechtilde
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