Ascensiontide, days of confidence

Ave Maria! These days of Ascensiontide are also ones of what Bl. Columba Marmion describes as "unshakeable confidence." In his marvelous book Christ in His Mysteries, he explains that "Above all, that confidence is based on the all-powerful standing Christ has with His Father, not only as invincible King inaugurating His triumph, but as Supreme High Priest interceding for us after having offered to His Father an oblation of infinite value."

Invincible King! The One who died upon on the cross could never be overcome by sin and death. With all-conquering love, He speaks to us, "Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever. I hold the keys to death and the netherworld" (Rev 1:17-18). The King of Love on Calvary is now and forever the great king over all the earth (Ps 47:2). He has established his throne in heaven. and his kingdom rules over all (Ps 103:19). How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders; his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures through all generations (Dan 3:100). The Lord of Hosts! The King of Glory! Who has "redeemed us at the cost of infinite love and charity" (Fr. Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet) and "has made us into a kingdom, priests for his God and Father" (Rev 1:6)! In Jesus our King, who lives and reigns for ever and ever, our confidence is secure.

But wait, there is more! Our King is also our Supreme High Priest! He who offered the sacrifice of Himself (Hebrews 9:26) now lives forever to make intercession for us (Heb 7:25), appearing in the presence of God on our behalf (Heb 9:24). Bl. Columba says that Christ, "High Priest who is always heard, repeats for us His priestly prayer at the Last Supper": "Father, I pray for them… They are in the world… Guard those you have given me… I pray for them, that they may have my joy made full in themselves… Father, I will that where I am, they also whom you have given me may be with me; so that they may behold my glory, which you have given me…so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them" (see Jn 17). Our confidence is founded upon the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God, whose offering "has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated" (Heb 10:14). "Souls of little faith, what is there for you to fear?" asks Bl. Columba. "What can you not hope for? Jesus prays for us, always!" He adds, "He is the beloved Son in whom the Father is well-pleased. How can he not be heard after having, by His Sacrifice, manifested such love to His Father?"

The Lord is our King and High Priest! What absolute confidence is ours! And so our hearts rejoice, our souls are glad (Ps 16:9). Dear ones, with confidence and joy, let us always sing:  Praised be Jesus Christ, now and for ever! Amen! Alleluia!

The Ascension of Our Lord

Now is the Son of man glorified,

and God is glorified in him.

~John 13:31

Yes, let us rejoice! Those who love Jesus experience a deep and intense joy in contemplating Him in the mystery of His ascension, in thanking the Father for having given such glory to His Son, and in felicitating Jesus at His being the object of it.

Let us rejoice, as well, that this triumph and glorification of Jesus is ours also.

"I ascend to my Father who is also your Father, to my God who is also your God" (John 20:17). Jesus simply precedes us: He does not separate Himself from us, He does not separate us from Himself. His entering into His glorious kingdom is so as to prepare a place for us there; "I go to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). He promises to return one day: "I am coming again, and I will take you to myself; that where I am, there also you may be" (John 14:3). And so we are already, by right, in the glory and felicity of Christ Jesus; we shall be there one day in reality. Has He not asked this of His Father? "Father, I will that where I am, they also whom you have given me may be with me" (John 17:24). What power there is in that prayer, and what sweetness in that promise!

Let our hearts be given wholly to this joy, this intimate and altogether spiritual joy. Nothing dilates our souls so much as this feeling, nothing makes us go more generously forward along the running-track of obedience to the Lord's precepts: "I have run the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart" (Psalm 118:32). During these holy days of Ascensiontide, let us repeat often to Christ Jesus the ardent aspirations of the hymn of the Feast: "Be our joy, O you who will one day be our reward; and may all our glory dwell in you, forever and ever" (Hymn of Vespers and Lauds, Monastic Breviary).

~Bl. Columba Marmion in Christ in His Mysteries

You will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence,

the delights at your right hand forever.  (Psalm 16:11)

O Lord, my God, for ever will I sing your praise!

Amen!  Alleluia!

Tuesday of Holy Week

Before the festival day of the pasch, Jesus knowing that his hour was come, that he should pass out of this world to the Father: having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them unto the end. ~John 13:1

The Passion marked the culminating point of the work He came to carry out here below. For Jesus, it was the hour when He consummated the sacrifice that was to give infinite glory to His Father, redeem humanity and re-open to mankind the wellsprings of eternal life. Therefore Our Lord, who was devoted wholly to doing the will of His Father, ardently desired from the first moment of his incarnation to see what He called "His" hour come: "His hour," (John 13:1), the hour par excellence. "I have a baptism" -- a baptism of blood -- "to be baptized with, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!" (Luke 12:50) Jesus longed for the hour to sound when He would be plunged in suffering and would undergo death in order to give us life.

He does not wish to bring that hour nearer, of course; Jesus is fully submissive to the will of His Father. St. John notes more than once that the Jews sought to take Him by surprise and put Him to death; but always our Lord escaped, even through a miracle, "because His Hour had not yet come." (John 7:30; 8:30).

But when the hour did sound, Christ delivered Himself up with the greatest ardor, though He knew in advance all the sufferings that were to overtake His body and His soul. "I have greatly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22:15) It had come at last, the hour so long awaited.

Let us contemplate Jesus at that hour. This mystery of the Passion is ineffable, and everything about it is great, to the smallest detail; as moreover are all things in the life of the God-man. Here especially we are at the doors of a sanctuary we cannot enter except with living faith and deep reverence.

~from Christ in His Mysteries by Blessed Columba Marmion

Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.  ~John 13:31

Behold the Lamb of God!

When he saw Jesus coming toward him John said: “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” ~John 1:29

No longer does he say: Prepare. That would be out of place now that at last he who was prepared for is seen, is before our very eyes. The nature of the case now calls for a different type of homily. An explanation is needed of who is present, and why he has come down to us from heaven.

So John says: Behold the Lamb of God, of whom the prophet Isaiah told us in the words: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and like a lamb before his shearer he opened not his mouth.
In past ages he was typified by the law of Moses, but because the law was merely a figure and a foreshadowing its salvation was only partial; its mercy did not reach out to embrace the whole world.

But now the true lamb, the victim without blemish obscurely prefigured in former times, is led to the slaughter for all to banish sin from the world, to overthrow the world’s destroyer, to abolish death by dying for the entire human race, and to release us from the curse: Dust you are and to dust you shall return.

He will become the second Adam who is not of earth but of heaven, and will be for us the source of every blessing. He will deliver us from the corruptibility foreign to our nature; he will secure eternal life for us, reconcile us with God, teach us to revere God and to live upright lives, and be our way to the kingdom of heaven.

One Lamb died for all to restore the whole flock on earth to God the Father; one died for all to make all subject to God; one died for all to gain all so that all might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to life for them.

Because our many sins had made us subject to death and corruption, the Father gave his son as our redemption, one for all, since all were in him and he was greater than all. One died for all so that all of us might live in him.

Death swallowed the Lamb who was sacrificed for all, and then disgorging him disgorged all of us in him and with him; for we were all in Christ who died and rose again for us.

Once sin had been destroyed how could death, which was caused by sin, fail to be wholly annihilated? With the root dead how could the branch survive? What power will death have over us now that sin has been blotted out?

And so, rejoicing in the sacrifice of the Lamb let us cry out: O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting? All wickedness shall hold its tongue, as the Psalmist sings somewhere.

Henceforth it will be unable to denounce sinners for their weakness, for God is the one who acquits us. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for our sake, so that we might escape the curse brought down on us by sin.

~ Commentary on Saint John’s Gospel 2: PG 73, 191-194) by Cyril of Alexandria

O Lamb of God,

may I always rejoice in Your sacrifice,

by which, in utter love,

You have forgiven our sins

and redeemed the world.

Amen! Alleluia!

Precious Particles

But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. ~1 Peter 4:13

My Jesus, I accept from your hand the particles you detach for me from your cross. I accept all the vexations, the contradictions, the pains, the sufferings you permit or which it pleases you to send me; I accept them as my share of expiation. Unite with your unspeakable sufferings that little which I do; for it is from your sufferings that mine draw all their merit. ~Blessed Columba Marmion in Christ In His Mysteries

Dear Jesus, my crucified Lord and Savior, may I neither disdain nor waste a single particle of Your holy cross! In Your goodness and mercy, You have picked each precious one just for me. They are Your gifts of glory to me, and, in gratitude, I will strive to treasure and love them all. Amen.

Solemnity of the Ascension

When you go to communion during these holy days of Ascensiontide, let your soul abandon itself to thoughts of joy and confidence.

By uniting yourself to Jesus Christ you incorporate yourself in Him; He is in you, and you in Him; and you are before the face of the Father. True, you do not see Him. Yet, by faith, you know yourselves to be in His presence, with Jesus who has taken you to Him. You are with Jesus in the heart's-embrace of the Father, in the sanctuary of Divinity. This is for us the deep grace of the Ascension -- sharing, by faith, the ineffable inner life that Jesus has with His Father in heaven.

~Blessed Columba Marmion in Christ in His Mysteries

And so my heart rejoices,
my soul is glad;
even my body shall rest in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead,
nor let your beloved know decay.
You will show me the path of life,
the fullness of joy in your presence,
at your right hand happiness for ever.
~Psalm 16:9-11

Dear Lord, in You, my joy is complete. Amen. ALLELUIA!

Jesus was tempted -- and so are we!

If Christ, the Incarnate Word, Son of God, willed to enter into combat with the evil spirit, shall we be surprised that the members of His mystical body have to do the same? So many people, even pious ones, think that temptation is a sign of being reproved by God. But, more often, it's just the opposite! Having become disciples of Jesus through baptism, we cannot be above our Divine Master (cf. Mt 10:24, Lk 6:40, Jn 13:16, Jn 15:20). "Because you were acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove you" (Tobit 12:13), put you to the test. It is God
Himself who tells us that.

~from Christ in His Mysteries by Blessed Columba Marmion

The Epiphany of the Lord

The Magi at Bethlehem represented the Gentiles in their vocation to the light of the Gospel. The way in which the Magi acted shows us the qualities that our faith ought to have. What is at first apparent is the generous fidelity of this faith…behold now a wondrous star appears to them. Its extraordinary brightness attracting their gaze, awakens their attention at the same time that an inward grace of illumination enlightens their souls. This grace prepared them to recognize the prerogatives of the One Whose Birth the star announced; it inspired them to set out to seek Him in order to offer Him their homage.

The Magi's fidelity to the inspiration of grace is wonderful. Doubt takes no hold upon their minds; without staying to reason, they immediately begin to carry out their design. Neither the indifference nor the skepticism of those who surround them, nor the disappearance of the star, nor the difficulties inherent to an expedition of this kind, nor the length and dangers of the way stop them. They obey the divine call without delay or hesitation. "We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage" (Mt 2:2).

In this the Magi are our models, whether it concerns the vocation to the faith, or whether it be a question of the call to perfection. There is indeed for every faithful soul a vocation to holiness: "Be holy because I am holy" (Lev 11:44). The apostle St. Paul assures us that from all eternity there exists for us a divine decree full of love containing this call: "He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him" (Eph 1:4).

And for those whom He calls to holiness God makes all things work together unto good (Rom 8:28). The manifestation of this vocation is for each of us his or her star. It takes different forms, according to God's designs, our character, the circumstances wherein we live, the events that befall us; but it shines in the soul of each one.

And what is the end and object of this call ? For us as for the Magi, it is to lead us to Jesus. The Heavenly Father causes the star to shine in us; for, says Christ Himself, "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him" (Jn 6:44).

If with fidelity we listen to the divine call, if we generously press onward with our gaze fixed upon the star, we shall come to Christ Who is the life of our souls. And whatever be our sins, our failings, our miseries, Jesus will welcome us with kindness. He has promised to do so: "Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me" (Jn 6:37).

Thus, whether it concerns the call to faith or holiness, we shall only find Christ and the life whereof He is the source on condition that we are attentive to grace and perseveringly faithful in seeking after divine union.

The Heavenly Father calls us to His Son by the inspiration of His grace. Like the Magi, as soon as the star shines in our hearts, we should instantly leave all: our sins, the occasions of sin, evil habits, infidelities, imperfections, attachment to creatures. Taking no account of criticism nor the opinion of men, nor the difficulties of the work to be done, we should set out at once to seek Jesus. He wills this whether we have lost Him by mortal sin, or whether, already possessing Him by sanctifying grace, He calls us to a closer and more intimate union with Himself.

Lord, I have seen Thy star, and I come to Thee: what wilt Thou have me to do ?

Dom Columba Marmion, O.S.B., "Epiphany," Christ In His Mysteries