Friday 29 March 2024
Good Friday
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Good Friday
From the Catecheses by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop
The power of Christ's blood
If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.
If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.
“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolised baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.
Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.
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Revelations of Divine Love
Julian of Norwich
6. On prayer (1)
“The Goodness of God is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need”
This Showing was made to teach our soul wisely to cleave to the Goodness of God.
And in that time the custom of our praying was brought to mind: how we use for lack of understanding and knowing of Love, to take many means whereby to beseech Him.
Then saw I truly that it is more worship to God, and more very delight, that we faithfully pray to Himself of His Goodness and cleave thereunto by His Grace, with true understanding, and steadfast by love, than if we took all the means that heart can think. For if we took all these means, it is too little, and not full worship to God: but in His Goodness is all the whole, and in it there faileth nought.
For this, as I shall tell, came to my mind in the same time:
We pray to God for the sake of His holy flesh and His precious blood, His holy Passion, His precious death and wounds: and all the blessed nature, the endless life that we have of all this, is His Goodness.
And we pray Him for the sake of His sweet Mother’s love that bore Him; and all the help we have of her is of His Goodness.
And we pray by His holy Cross that he died on; and all the virtue and the help that we have of the Cross, it is of His Goodness.
And in the same wise, all the help that we have of special saints and all the blessed Company of Heaven, the precious love and endless friendship that we have of them, it is of His Goodness.
For God of His Goodness hath ordained means to help us, full fair and many: of which the chief and principal mean is the blessed nature that He took of the Maid, with all the means that go afore and come after with regard to our redemption and to endless salvation. Wherefore it pleaseth Him that we seek Him and worship through means, yet understanding that He is the Goodness of all.
Continued…
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Good morning. It’s Maundy Thursday, the Triduum is upon us.
Have a great day friends
Thursday 28 March 2024
Maundy Thursday
Spiritual Reading
Your Second Reading from the Office of Readings:
Maundy Thursday
From an Easter homily by Saint Melito of Sardis, bishop
The Lamb that was slain has delivered us from death and given us life
There was much proclaimed by the prophets about the mystery of the Passover: that mystery is Christ, and to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
For the sake of suffering humanity he came down from heaven to earth, clothed himself in that humanity in the Virgin’s womb, and was born a man. Having then a body capable of suffering, he took the pain of fallen man upon himself; he triumphed over the diseases of soul and body that were its cause, and by his Spirit, which was incapable of dying, he dealt man’s destroyer, death, a fatal blow.
He was led forth like a lamb; he was slaughtered like a sheep. He ransomed us from our servitude to the world, as he had ransomed Israel from the hand of Egypt; he freed us from our slavery to the devil, as he had freed Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. He sealed our souls with his own Spirit, and the members of our body with his own blood.
He is the One who covered death with shame and cast the devil into mourning, as Moses cast Pharaoh into mourning. He is the One who smote sin and robbed iniquity of offspring, as Moses robbed the Egyptians of their offspring. He is the One who brought us out of slavery into freedom, out of darkness into light, out of death into life, out of tyranny into an eternal kingdom; who made us a new priesthood, a people chosen to be his own for ever. He is the Passover that is our salvation.
It is he who endured every kind of suffering in all those who foreshadowed him. In Abel he was slain, in Isaac bound, in Jacob exiled, in Joseph sold, in Moses exposed to die. He was sacrificed in the Passover lamb, persecuted in David, dishonoured in the prophets.
It is he who was made man of the Virgin, he who was hung on the tree; it is he who was buried in the earth, raised from the dead, and taken up to the heights of heaven. He is the mute lamb, the slain lamb, the lamb born of Mary, the fair ewe. He was seized from the flock, dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the evening, and buried at night. On the tree no bone of his was broken; in the earth his body knew no decay. He is the One who rose from the dead, and who raised man from the depths of the tomb.
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Revelations of Divine Love
Julian of Norwich
5. “A little thing like a hazel-nut”
“God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself;—only in Thee I have all”
In this same time our Lord showed me a spiritual sight of His homely loving.
I saw that He is to us everything that is good and comfortable for us: He is our clothing that for love wrappeth us, claspeth us, and all encloseth us for tender love, that He may never leave us; being to us all-thing that is good, as to mine understanding.
Also in this He showed me a little thing, the quantity of an hazel-nut, in the palm of my hand; and it was as round as a ball. I looked thereupon with eye of my understanding, and thought: What may this be? And it was answered generally thus: it is all that is made. I marvelled how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have fallen to naught, for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasteth, and ever shall, for God loveth it. And so All-thing hath the Being by the love of God.
In this Little Thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loveth it, the third, that God keepeth it. But what is to me verily the Maker, the Keeper, and the Lover, I cannot tell; for till I am in substance oned to (made one with) Him, I may never have full rest nor true bliss: that is to say, till I be so fastened to Him that there is right nought that is made betwixt my God and me.
We must have knowing of the littleness of creatures and hold as nought all-thing that is made, to love and have God, that is unmade. For this is the cause why we be not all in ease of heart and soul: that we seek here rest in those things that are so little, wherein is no rest; and know not our God that is All-mighty, All-wise, All-good. For He is the True Rest.
God willeth to be known, and it pleaseth Him that we rest in Him; for all that is beneath Him sufficeth not us. And this is the cause why that no soul is rested till it is made nought as to all things that are made. When it is willingly made nought, for love, to have Him that is all, then is it able to receive spiritual rest.
Also our Lord God showed that it is full great pleasance to Him that a helpless soul come to Him simply and plainly and homely. For, as by the understanding that I have in this Showing, this is the natural yearnings of the soul, by the touching of the Holy Ghost: God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself: for Thou art enough to me, and I may nothing ask that is less that may be full worship to Thee; and if I ask anything that is less, I am ever in want; but only in Thee I have all.
And these words are full lovely to the soul, and they touch full near the will of God and His Goodness. For His Goodness encompasseth all His creatures and all His blessed works, and surpasseth without end. For He is the endlessness, and He hath made us only to Himself, and restored us by His blessed Passion, and keepeth us in His blessed love; and all this of His Goodness.
“One” is one of Julian’s favourite verbs, as in “oneth”, “oneing”, and so on. We have kept it because it is so characteristic of her and a key to her thoughts. It means something close to “to make one”, “to unite”.
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