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When you have been insulted, cursed, or persecuted by someone, do not think of what has happened to you, but of what will come from it, and you will see that your insulter has become the cause of many benefits to you, not only in this age, but in that which is to come. (St. Mark the Ascetic, Homilies, 1.114)
''Remember that you too are an inhabitant of the earth and do good to all. Do not rebuke those who have need of prayer and soft (gentle) words; do not deprive them of comfort, lest they perish and their souls be required of you. But act like physicians, who heal chills with warmth and fevers with cold remedies."
-Saint Isaac the Syrian, Ascetical Homilies
The Sacrament of Confession Fr. Patricio Battaglia, OP, 2/17/16 As we said before, we are going to talk about confession. A few common lessons to confess well, to better know and love this sacrament. I have precisely just used the word “love”; the first commandment is to love: «I am the Lord, and you will love…” to love confession is part of fulfilling the first commandment. Confession is a privileged place of union with God —that’s what holiness is—, the place of holiness, of union with God. The privileged place of divine possession: God owns his creature in this sacrament. It is like a nuptial place: the bride finds the groom; the bride is the soul. It is saying to God “I love you”, a prayer that we must say always. “You know I love you” —St. Peter’s prayer— “you know everything, you know I love you”; shorter even, three words: “I love you.”. We must use affective language with God. And the one that goes to confession, from their very posture, kneeling there, is showing that they are loving, that they love God: “I love you; it is painful for me to offend you, because I love you”. The physical posture speaks of love.
All sacraments have matter and form. Very clear in Baptism: the matter is water; the form —like the soul of the thing in Latin, forma— the form is the magnificent formula of Baptism: “I immerse you in the Trinity, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit”. This sacrament also has matter and form. What is the matter, which is the water in this Baptism? The love of repentance of the creature. Everything speaks of love in this sacrament. The love of repentance, a very high form of love; contrition is thus the matter. The short list of sins that we draw up is of little importance; the true matter is the love of repentance, a very high love of God. It hurts to offend one’s Friend. And the form is the formula of absolution, very like that of Baptism, astonishingly so. It doesn’t say “I baptize thee, I immerse thee”, but “I absolve thee”: absolvo, I untie, I break the ties, the chains of death and of the enemy. And then follows the majestic name of the Trinity: “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
When I say the formula of absolution, as I am saying it, I see the power of these words: ego absolvo te ab omnibus peccatis.. in nomine patris… —What am I saying!? I tell myself— Et Filii et Spiritui… the dynamis of the Divine Love that enfolds that person. I say it slowly, because I cannot say it otherwise, so strong is the mystery of how the Creator enfolds his creature, how it takes over them. I confess, from a human, psychological standpoint: If one loves the penitents one has in front of oneself, how much must God love them! If one looks at them and cannot believe the love that springs in one’s heart —one being a humble minister, a non-entity, because Christ is the only Priest of the New Testament— how much more must God love them! And we are not very aware of this when we go to confession. It rather seems to us an examination, something unpleasant, shameful, to be put off. And yet it is about all these marvellous things! How much more must God love them! This is very like the Gospel: quanto magis… how much more, πόσῳ μᾶλλον Christ says several times —it is written in Greek— [] in Aramaic. «How much more your Heavenly Father…!».
Then, it is so, a place of the meeting of two: one, very, very small, like a grain of sand, the penitent; the other, enormous, God. Like a grain of sand in front of the constellations of the skies, and the comparison falls short because both belong to the material order. We must love confession. And we end today with this message: to love is also to remember. This is very biblical. Memory is an eminent form of love. [Hebrew], to remember, [Hebrew] the imperative: remember… [Hebrew] “Remember the Sabbath…” the memoriale, the sacramental memory of the Old Testament. To remember the last confession and yearn for the next one. This is a key to this sacrament, and it is worth it. I’m addressing first and foremost the scrupulous hearts that go with a cloud overhead: “oh, I have sinned, I’m stained, I’m unworthy”. A tactic of the enemy to cast down, to discourage Christ’s apostles. No, no! Remember your last confession and say: «no, it wasn’t the friar who absolved me; YOU —and speak to Christ— you raised your hand, Christ Jesus, and absolved me, you forgave all my sins: thank you. And here I go again —all my steps lead to confession. Even if it happens several days afterwards— I am on my way to the next, I promise.” And a door slam to the despair that the enemy wants to suggest, to slide in. It is not “saintliness”, perfection in the vulgar modern sense of the term that is asked of us, but holiness in the ancient, biblical sense, which is: a great desire that promises. An epithimia, an over-desire, hyperepithimia, over-over-desire of the next confession. I belong to confession, and it springs within me every day when I give thanks for the last and desire the next; just like matrimony, a sacrament that is daily renewed. May He grant us that we keep these truths in our hearts, and make this Lent fruitful.
beautiful and thank you.
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Homilies, or church sermons, formed an indispensable part of European medieval rhetoric, East and West. Throughout the millennial existence
“Rapid social and economic development in the past half century has not been accompanied by an equally fervent spiritual progress, as we witness what Pope Francis calls “globalized indifference.”
It is the result of giving in to the delusion that we are self-sufficient, that man is his own measure in a pervasive individualism. It is manifested in the fear of suffering in our societies, our closing our eyes and hearts to the poor and vulnerable, and, in a very despicable way, in how we discard the unborn and the elderly.
When he prophetically announced the Second Vatican Council in the Apostolic Constitution Humanae Salutis, Saint John XXIII remarked that the human community was in “turmoil” as it sought to establish a new world order where humanity relies entirely on technical and scientific solutions instead of God.
Today we are witnessing the next stage – and the consummation – of the efforts to build a utopian paradise on earth without God. It is the stage of denying sin and the fall altogether. But the death of God results in the burial of good, beauty, love and truth. Good becomes evil, beauty is ugly, love becomes the satisfaction of sexual primal instincts, and truths are all relative.
So all manner of immorality is not only accepted and tolerated today in advanced societies, but even promoted as a social good. The result is hostility to Christians, and, increasingly, religious persecution.
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“The future of the world and the Church passes through the family.” These prophetic words of Saint John Paul II show how the Church, in our time, must, above all, defend and promote the beauty of the Christian family in fidelity to God’s design. In his post-synodal Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Lætitia (“The Joy of Love”), Pope Francis states clearly: “In no way must the Church desist from proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its grandeur … proposing less than what Jesus offers to the human being.” This is why the Holy Father openly and vigorously defends Church teaching on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, the education of children and much more.
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The generous and responsible love of spouses, made visible through the self-giving of parents, who welcome and nurture children as a gift of God, makes love visible in our generation. It makes present the perfect charity of the Trinity. “If you see charity, you see the Trinity,” wrote Saint Augustine.
From the beginning of creation, God, who is a communion of persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three different Persons, yet one – has built a Trinitarian structure into our very nature. In the continent of my origin, Africa, we declare: “Man is nothing without woman, woman is nothing without man, and the two are nothing without a third element, which is the child.” The Triune God dwells within each of us and imbues our whole being: God’s own image and likeness.
Every human being, like the persons of the Trinity, has the capacity to be united with other persons in communion through the vinculum caritatis – the bond of charity – of the Holy Spirit. The family is a natural preparation and anticipation of the communion that is possible when we are united with God. The family, as it were, is a natural praeparatio evangelica – written into our nature.
This is why the devil is so intent on destroying the family. If the family is destroyed, we lose our God-given, anthropological foundations and so find it more difficult to welcome the saving Good News of Jesus Christ: self-giving, fruitful love.”
- Cardinal Robert Sarah
Ascension Sunday: What’s Christianity for Anyway? (Sunday Homily)
Ascension Sunday: What’s Christianity for Anyway? (Sunday Homily)
Readings for Ascension Sunday: Acts 1: 1-11; Ps. 47: 2-3, 6-9; Eph. 1: 17-23; Lk. 24: 48-53 http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/050913-ascension.cfm This is Ascension Sunday. For us Catholics, it used to be “Ascension Thursday.” It was a “holy day of obligation.” That phrase meant that Catholics were obliged to attend Mass on Thursday just as they were on Sunday. To miss Mass on such a day was to…
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