The Lord's descent into hell

 "What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.

Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam's son.

The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: 'My Lord be with you all.' And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.

‘I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.

‘I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.

‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.

‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.

'See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.

`I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.

‘But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.

"The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages."

A reading from an ancient homily for Holy Saturday

Sunday Homily - Keep Awake

Last evening I was chatting with come colleagues, and I noted that unlike any other important season in the liturgical year, Advent really does not have any important feast or event to mark its beginning. Christmas starts with Christmas Day and ends with the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  Lent starts with Ash Wednesday and ends with the Paschal Triduum.  Easter begins with Easter Sunday, and ends with Pentecost.  Advent though, advent just happens.  There's no important feast or event, it just happens, the First Sunday of Advent comes along with no fanfare, we just roll from Ordinary time right into Advent almost unnoticed.  It's probably the reason we add things to this day, the blessing and lighting of the Advent wreath, just to have some mark.  The fact that Advent just "happens" is, I think, very significant, and says something about the nature of the this season, and what we are looking forward to, since the word Advent means that something is coming.  As our scriptures point out to us today, we are looking forward to Christ's return in glory, but no one knows when it will take place, there will be no warning, it will just happen.  Some years back I began to wonder to myself, why it is that we have two occasions in the liturgical year when we focus on the Second Coming of Christ, after all, we just spent the last four weeks of Ordinary Time focused on Christ's return, and now we spend the first part of Advent doing the same thing.  It was only when I realized the slight shift that I understood the reason.  As our readings begin to unfold over the next days and weeks, it is clear that we are looking towards Christ's return, but unlike the end of Ordinary Time, we are not looking at the time leading up to His return, but to the time after.  We are looking forward to that time of glory and joy, the new creation when God will show us true love and majesty, and we will know joy unlike anything we have ever known or experienced here in this life.  I'm sure many have and will continue to use the prospect of Jesus' Second Coming as a reason for fear, for scrupulosity, trying to be perfect in the face of judgement.  But the invitation we are being given this day is to "keep awake", not in fear, but in anticipation.  We are invited to make ourselves ready, not in expectation of judgement, but eagerly awaiting the joy and glory of what will follow Christ's return, we prepare ourselves, because we want to be a part of it, we want to be there when it happens.  Therefore we are invited in this holy season and always to keep awake.

The Last Week of Advent - December 22nd

Today Mary proclaims her Magnificat in the gospel.  After receiving Elizabeth's greeting, Mary, filled with the Holy Spirit burst forth into this hymn, a hymn to humility.  The Incarnation itself is an act of utter humility, the Almighty and All-powerful God hiding his divinity, becoming a human being to dwell with us.  In every celebration of the Holy Mass, God engages in an even greater act of humility, hiding his divinity to come under the appearance of bread and wine.  These acts of humility are ultimately motivated by love, God's love for us.  God calls us to humility as well, as I said in another post, God does not ask much from us, but he does call us to be humble.  Pride seeks the self, pride is self-love in the extreme, humility is always focused on the other, putting the other before self, and it is always an act of love.  I once heard the definition of Joy as Jesus, Others, then You, in that order, true humility motivated out of love leads us to find true and lasting joy.  May we be humble, so that God might raise us up.

Sunday Homily - A Rose by any Other Name, Except Pink

The following is the text of my homily for this past Sunday, (the image is not of the chasuble I wore, but it makes the point):

"By now you would have probably noticed that I'm wearing a new vestment, one that you would not have seen before.  I acquired it over the summer, but I'm willing to venture a guess, that most of you here have never seen a priest wearing a vestment of this colour before.  Certainly we're aware of the candle for this Sunday in the Advent wreath, but rarely do we see a priest wearing a vestment in this colour.  That's likely because, following the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, this particular liturgical colour, which we only use two days a year (the third Sunday of Advent, and the fourth Sunday of Lent) became optional, and sadly, so often when things become optional, they tend to become obsolete.  If we take the principle, though, that in her liturgy, the Church never does anything without a reason and explanation behind it, we have to ask the question, why does the Church give us a liturgical colour that we only use on these two occasions, what is the significance behind it?  To answer that question, we need to first make a very fine, but very important distinction.

So often, when we see the third candle in the wreath, and on those rare occasions when we see the priest wearing vestments of this colour, we describe it with the word 'pink', but the Church says that the colour we may use today is not pink, but 'rose'.  So what's the difference?  Well I don't want to turn this into a lesson on colour theory, but how do you get the colour 'pink', you combine the colour 'red' with the colour 'white'.  How do you get the colour 'rose', you combine the colour 'violet' with the colour 'white', and there is the key distinction.  Two weeks ago we examined what the colour 'violet' means, that it is a colour associated with 'penance'.  What does the colour 'white' symbolize, to answer that, all we need to do is look to those occasions in our liturgical calendar when the colour is used, Christmas, Easter, the feast days of saints; the colour 'white' symbolizes 'joy'.  So in this rose colour, we have that combination of penance and joy.

You might be asking yourselves right now how can we combine these two seemingly opposite things, penance and joy.  However, so many of the important beliefs and truths of our faith are a combination of things which seem to be opposites, even contradictions.  All we need to do is look at the person of Jesus Christ himself, is he God, or is he a human being, well he's both.  How is that possible, that is the mystery of the Incarnation, but he is fully God, and fully a human being.  Is God one, or is God three, again he's both.  He's one God in three divine persons, how is that possible, that is the great mystery of the Holy Trinity.  What about the Holy Eucharist, is it a symbol, or is it the real presence of Christ?  Again, it is both, it is the real presence of Christ, body, blood, soul, and divinity, it is the sacrifice of the Cross made present to us on the altar, but all we see is bread and wine, a symbol pointing to the greater reality.  So how can we have this combination of penance and joy, two seemingly opposite and contradictory things, very easily, we just call it Hope!

If we think about it, Hope, by its very definition is something that is unfulfilled, something that we are waiting for, something that we are longing for, and we human beings really don't like to wait.  Particularly now in our fast paced, instant gratification culture, it so often seems that if we have to wait for something, it's almost not worth getting.  That can be a penance in itself, but if it is a spiritual reality that we are waiting for then we must prepare ourselves as well, and that preparation takes the form of prayer and penance.  As we wait though, we do not do so in fear and trepidation, we wait with joy, because what we await is the glorious return of our Lord, a day when, as our gospel tells us, 'the blind will see, the lame will walk, the deaf will hear, and the dead will be raised'.  Even more than that, we wait with joy, because our Lord has already come, and by his sacrifice on the Cross, he has already freed us from the power of sin and death.

We are called to be a people of Hope, which means that we need to have both of these elements.  If we eliminate the penance, the waiting, the longing, the preparation, then all we are doing is living for the moment.  It may seem good for a while, but ultimately we know that it will prove to be unfulfilling.  If we eliminate the joy, then all we have left is despair, we wait, but we do so with fear and trepidation, we don't look forward to a glorious reality.  Not only are we called to be people who live in hope, but we are called to proclaim that hope to a world so often filled with despair, sadness, and fear.  As the prophet Isaiah says in our first reading, 'Say to those who are of a fearful heart, "Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God."'  We are called to proclaim the hope we have to all those around us, the hope we have in Christ Jesus, and the glorious day of his return.

So why does the Church give us this colour, this rose colour, in the mid-point of this Advent season.  In the midst of this time of penance and preparation, as we wait for the coming Christmas celebrations, and as we wait for our Lord's glorious return, it is a reminder that we do so in a spirit of Hope.  What we await is a glorious day, when all things will be made new.  We look forward in joy, knowing that Christ has already freed us from the power of sin and death.  We proclaim that hope to all those we meet, in this world marked by fear and despair.  Above all, we proclaim our need to prepare ourselves worthily and well, to celebrate the glorious day of our Lord's return, so that we may be truly ready to greet him when he comes."