A blessed Easter to all. I remembered all my readers this evening at the Easter Vigil at St. Mary Majors.
This is a repost from several years ago.
Crucem Sanctam subiit
A military chant from the Knights Templars (the real ones) in honor of the Resurrection and Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem
He bore the holy cross
who shattered hell
He was girded with power
He rose on the third day. Alleluia!
Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades (Rev 1:17-18).
A Blessed Easter to all!
Christ mounted on a white horse, Cathedral of Auxerre, France
The following post is my homily from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday. It will be the one post I put up during the Paschal Triduum. It serves as a good introduction to the whole Triduum and in a way is a reflection on all three days.
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For I have given you an example that you also should do as I have done to you.
—Jn 13:15
These words of Our Lord at the Last Supper express the central truth of the sacred mysteries we celebrate during this holiest of times in the liturgical year. Our Lord gives us an example that we are to replicate in ourselves.
He gets down on His hands and knees and He does the dirty work of a slave by washing the feet of His disciples. He does this in the context of the first Mass in which He brings to fulfillment all that the Old Testament sacrifices represent, particularly the Passover sacrifice, which we hear about in the first reading. He is the Lamb that was slain. Yet He lives and He feeds us with His own flesh that death may have no more power over us.
Christ our Passover has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7). This is the Easter mystery, or the paschal mystery, meaning the Passover mystery. And it begins not on Easter Sunday, but today with the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. Continue reading
Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Easter
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Easter
Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter
This was the second reading today for the Office of Readings. Just thought I would share an extraordinary Homily from one of the most eloquent fathers of the Church:
Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it. Continue reading
Sermon at Farm Street Church, London Day with Mary
Crucem Sanctam subiit
A military chant from the Knights Templars (the real ones) in honor of the Resurrection and Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem
He bore the holy cross
who shattered hell
He was girded with power
He rose on the third day. Alleluia!
I waited expectantly for Spring,
I thought I saw it rounding
The corner of March to sing
An April Easter hymn of praise.
Magnolia blooms peaking from barky bunkers
And Daffodil patches of trumpet heads were raised.
But paradise portendings and painted
Skies of azure brilliance were wanting,
With foggy afternoons of glum and tainted
Mornings of frost, knifing at unbundled backs.
But so is Spring, at least of my earth,
Neurotic and New England fickle, cracks
Our perking senses poised for beauty. . .
But, ah! Beauty there is, still clothed in gray,
Bleeding and drooped beneath the moody
Clouds, shrieking: “It is finished!”
And howling winds give way
To silence with sudden change diminished.
I waited expectantly for Spring,
I thought I saw it rounding
The corner of March to sing
An April Easter hymn of praise.
I did see it,
And I wait.
Mary Victrix 