Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Easter 5 C - May 15, 2022
Sunday, May 15, 2022
Easter 5 C - May 15, 2022
Monday, May 9, 2022
Easter 4 C - May 8, 2022
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Aidan Owen, OHC
Easter 4 C - May 8, 2022
This fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Even though, in our three-year lectionary, it’s only in Year B, which we had last year, that Jesus actually says “I am the good shepherd,” the gospel lectionary for this Sunday always centers on the image of Jesus as the shepherd of the sheep. He knows his sheep; he calls them each by name; he lays down his life for them; and they—that is, we—follow that voice, leading us ever onward to our home in God.
I’ve always found the moniker “Good Shepherd” both puzzling and attractive. What does Jesus mean by calling himself the good shepherd? Remember, in Matthew he denies the adjective “good,” and reminds his followers that no one is good but God. Biblical scholars also remind us that his contemporaries might have seen Jesus as the foolish shepherd who leaves his entire flock to search for the one missing sheep—an act that would actually endanger the 99 left behind in the hopes of gaining one insignificant little ewe.
And what is this voice that we know, and that calls us each by name? How do we hear it?
I heard a sermon on Good Shepherd Sunday several years ago that pointed out that the word we translate into English as “good” carries in both Greek and Hebrew a double meaning. It means “good” as we understand it—meaning both desirable and morally sound. And it also means “beautiful,” as in pleasing, attractive, excellent.
Taken in these layers, the image refracts Jesus' image like a prism refracts light. Not only is Jesus good but he is also beautiful, lovely, attractive, captivating.
Now, it’s dangerous to talk about beauty in our contemporary context, obsessed as we so often are with the so-called beautiful, young things. So often we mix up beauty with glamor. Glamor distracts us. It’s always shiny, new, and seemingly flawless. Think of the gym-toned bodies the advertisers promise us if we’ll only buy this or eat that. Glamor is always rotten at the core, no matter how lovely it seems on the surface, because it is really ugliness papered over with a symmetry and order that speaks to our desire to fly away from these impoverished human bodies.
Beauty, by contrast, conveys us to ourselves.
John Galsworthy writes of beauty that, “Where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which, no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral.” (from The Forsyte Saga) Beauty often covers itself with seeming ugliness, disorder, or disarray, because it elevates the ordinary, the human, the flawed and draws out the line of holiness crouched therein.
The most beautiful face I ever saw was that of a very old woman at a museum. Her face was so wrinkled it folded in on itself in crags and valleys. Her skin was dappled with brown, like a forest with the light poring through. Her nose was a bit hooked, and her lips thin and drawn. But as I gazed on her, a deep knowing emerged from within, a knowing that drew me more fully into myself. I became more whole in the moment of my gazing.
Such is the power of beauty to convey us to ourselves. True beauty reveals itself to those who have the patience to wait and to watch. It requires something of us. And rather than inviting us to betray ourselves, as does glamor, beauty repays us with a deepening sense of the holy within and around us.
Perhaps you know the poem called “The Bright Field” by the Welsh poet and Anglican priest R.S. Thomas:
I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.
Perhaps, as so often happens, the wisdom of language precedes us. Maybe “goodness” and “beauty” are not two different meanings of one word. Maybe they’re shades of one another. Maybe Jesus’ goodness is his beauty, lying hidden in the field we pass on our morning walk. Perhaps his voice is the glint of the sunshine, whispering to us to slow down, to pay attention, to allow the radiance of our life to emerge around and within us.
Perhaps the shepherd who leaves the 99, foolish though he may be, understands that wholeness is worth the risk, that wholeness is worth everything, because that is where love lies.
If true beauty emerges in and through the contrast of the ordinary, human flotsam with the radiance of divinity, then of course Jesus—fully human and fully divine—is the icon of a beauty that is moral, good, and attractive to both body and soul. And in reconciling the human and the divine—or, rather, in showing that there is no contradiction between them, that, like light and darkness, the human and the divine illuminate and boundary one another—Jesus shows us the way to deeper wholeness and reconciliation in God.
We need this vision of a reconciling beauty now more than ever. Dostoevsky famously wrote in The Idiot that “beauty will save the world.” And how, we might wonder?
Well, look around. War, yes. Plague, yes. Devastation, yes. But also the crabapples in their peerless bounty, and the love of our families and friends, and these fragile precious eyes we have.
The light of Jesus’ resurrection does not banish totally and completely the darkness that fills our world. But it does provide us with the contrast to see that world more fully, to know its beauty and in that knowledge to be known as God’s hands and God’s feet and God’s beating, broken heart in this world.
In her book Hope in the Dark Rebecca Solnit writes that “someday all this may be ruins over which pelicans will fly, but for now it is a place where history is still unfolding. Today is also the day of creation.” (Hope in the Dark, p. 114) I would add that not only is today the day of creation. But it is also good, and it is beautiful. We may not be able to end the atrocities in Ukraine, or stop the resurgence of fascism throughout the world, or mend the broken hearts of those struck down by addiction and despair, but if we ourselves are more whole, then the world is, too. If we love more, then the world is that much more loving. If we can turn away from violence and death within us, then world is that much more alive.
Each time we hear the voice of our good and beautiful shepherd calling us by name and choose to turn homeward, Christ is risen within and around us, and Easter dawns once more.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Sunday, April 24, 2022
Easter 2 C - April 24, 2022
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC
Easter 2 C - April 24, 2022
Try to forget, for a moment, everything you thought you knew about Thomas. Forget that somewhere along the way you came to believe that Thomas’ primary attribute was doubt. Forget that you still think of him as a slightly inferior disciple who Jesus rebukes him for his lack of faith. Forget it all because the opposite is true. Nowhere in the Gospels is he described as a doubter. What Thomas asked for was exactly what all the other disciples got. When Jesus appeared to them, he showed them his hands and his side and only then, did they rejoice “because they saw the Lord” (20:20). We tend to forget that it was not only Judas who betrayed Jesus. Every one of the disciples abandoned him, apart from the women and John. Thomas was no worse than any of the others in that room behind locked doors. Jesus never accused Thomas of doubting. That’s how we have translated and interpreted the Greek. Rather, Jesus, says, “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” He could just have easily said that to the others. All of them were guilty. All went into hiding, afraid that they would also be accused and arrested. Traumatized, paralyzed by fear, grief, guilt, remorse, and despair, their brokenness had buried them alive. The locked room was their tomb.
Christ is risen, the tomb is empty, but the doors are locked. Resurrected life does not come easily. It’s not just the first disciples, however. I suspect we all know about locked doors. God opens the tomb, and sometimes we follow behind locking the door. God declares forgiveness and we continue to live behind the locked door of condemnation of self or others. God defeats death but we still live as if it is the final word. God offers new life, but we live in the past. God declares we are loved, and we lock ourselves out of that love. The locked doors of our lives are not so much about what is going on around us, but what is happening within us: fear, anger, guilt, hurt, grief, the refusal to change. The lock on the door of our life is always locked from the inside.
Resurrection is not just an event or an idea. It is a way of being and living. It is the lens through which we see the world, each other, and ourselves. Resurrection is the gift of God’s life and love. Living resurrection, however, is difficult. It is neither quick nor magical. For most of us it is a process, something we grow into over time. Resurrection does not undo our past, fix our problems, or change the circumstances of our lives. It changes us, offers a way through our problems, and creates a future. Christ’s resurrected life invites us to unlock our doors and sends us into the world.
One week after Easter, is our life different? Where are we living--- In the freedom and joy of resurrection or behind a locked door? What do we believe about Jesus’ resurrection? What door have we locked? If you want to know what you believe, look at your life and how you live. Our beliefs guide our life, and our life reveals our beliefs. Belief in Jesus’ resurrection is not a question of intellectual assent or agreement. It’s not about evidence or proof or getting the right answer. Belief is more about how we live than what we think. It encourages us to be real---to find as Thomas did---that when we admit our need, Christ will meet us where we are. The opposite of faith is not doubt but fear. Doubt is an essential ingredient of faith which can serve us, but fear imprisons us. We’re called to look squarely at our fear, and then step out knowing that Jesus walks beside us.
Resurrected people know that faith and life are messy. They ask hard questions rather than settling for easy answers. They don’t have to figure it all out before praying, forgiving, or loving. They trust that what God believes about them is more important than what they believe about God. They unlock the door even when they don’t know what’s on the other side. They believe even if they don’t understand. They may never see or touch Jesus, but they live trusting that they have been seen and touched by him. None of us crosses over this gap from death to new life by our own effort or perfection. Each of us is carried by grace. Death cannot win when we recognize that the thing which could destroy us is the very thing that could enlighten us.
Speaking over Thomas’ shoulder to the rest of us, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Jesus isn’t rebuking Thomas but blessing us. In fact, Thomas emerges as the model of how one becomes a disciple. Once he has encountered himself and Jesus, he makes the ultimate confession in John’s Gospel, acclaiming Jesus not only as “my Lord” --- but also “my God,” Like Thomas we all need to see and touch the mark of the nails. That sight frees us to see our own wounds and those of others compassionately, not fearfully. God transforms the human soul by using the very thing that would normally destroy us—the tragic, the sorrowful, the painful, the unjust deaths that lead us all to the bottom of our lives. Jesus’ death and resurrection is a statement of how reality works all the time and everywhere. He teaches us that there’s a different way to live with our pain, our sadness, and our suffering. We can feel sorry for ourselves, or we can say, as he did on Good Friday, “God is even in this.” God is the one who always turns death into life.
What happened to Thomas is exactly what John hopes will happen to each of us when we hear his story every year on this Sunday after Easter. After this scene John writes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (20:30-31).
+ Amen.
Saturday, April 16, 2022
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
The Rev. Janet Vincent
Good Friday - April 15, 2022
Sunday, April 10, 2022
Palm Sunday C - April 10, 2022
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Ephrem Arcement
Palm Sunday C - April 10, 2022
The Liturgy of the Palms:
The Liturgy of the Word:
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!
It has been said that the spiritual life is what one does with one’s fears, and I largely agree. Fear has a way of either making us cower and hide or, with some inspiration and faith, to stand up taller, fight harder and overcome. Ever since the ruddy, young David took down the towering Goliath, humankind loves a good underdog story.
As we know, the “greatest story ever told” is about such an underdog: how a young, simple Jewish man from Nazareth overcame the power of death and brought eternal life to all who desire it. It’s the story of the confrontation between the reign of a powerful and violent “Satan” and the reign of a hidden and unassuming God. And one of the greatest lessons followers of Jesus Christ have had to learn ever since Jesus called Peter “Satan” was that the reign of God is entered into riding on a donkey rather than a chariot.
As we find ourselves beginning our Holy Week liturgies commemorating the most pivotal and transforming events of human history, we find ourselves confronted with two primal realities: joy and sorrow. We know how the story ends…and this brings us great joy. But we also know that there is no way to resurrection joy but by way of the sorrow of the cross. We are, as St. Paul expressed, on a parabolic journey: we must descend before we ascend. Like the shape of a parabola, we move from the reign of the self to self-emptying to the reign of God, and this means that the sorrow and fear of the cross must be confronted before God can reign supreme in peace and joy over our lives.
In a previous monastic incarnation, I spent several years as a Roman Catholic Benedictine monk teaching courses on the Old and New Testaments to a group of young and often very biblically naive seminarians. One of my goals was to inspire my students to fall in love with the Sacred Scriptures while simultaneously helping them to be honest with the text. But for many young people today, being honest with the text is a direct challenge to their faith and stokes all kinds of fear…along with some stone throwing and accusations of heresy! One such occasion in fact occurred when I was teaching the Servant Songs of the Prophet Isaiah and tried to help my students get into the mind and heart of Christ who, I suggested, must have often used these Servant Songs for his own personal lectio divina. Just imagine, I offered, a young Jesus probably around their age, reading and internalizing these passages and coming to greater and greater realization of his destiny as the very Servant who was called to fulfill these prophecies.
The Lord God has opened my ear,and I was not rebellious,I did not turn backward.I gave my back to those who struck me,and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;I did not hide my facefrom insult and spitting.The Lord God helps me;therefore I have not been disgraced;therefore I have set my face like flint,and I know that I shall not be put to shame;he who vindicates me is near.
This was all too much for one student who raised his hand and said that the Church doesn’t allow us to believe that Jesus didn’t always know that he was the Messiah. I challenged him and told him he was mistaken and received an email the following day with a concession speech which he also sent to the whole class reassuring them, that after some research, Fr. Ephrem was, in fact, not a heretic after all!
I share this story because I continue to hold that our Lord did in fact come to terms with his identity and mission throughout the developing years of his life and that a significant catalyst for him was his own Sacred Scriptures, especially the Servant Songs of Isaiah, which our liturgies this week will feature in a prominent way.
This is important because it is crucial that we look to Jesus and his own parabolic journey to help us make our own. How did he face his fears? And how did he overcome them?
There was perhaps nothing clearer to Jesus, it seems to me, than the fact that his destiny of ushering in the reign of God was replete with suffering. If he did in fact see himself as the Suffering Servant of the prophet Isaiah, then Gethsemane and Golgotha came as no surprise. All four Gospels attest to the fact that Jesus knew that there was no way around the cross. So, what kind of weight he must have bourn from his first realization, probably already as a young man, that his life was to be cut short by the reign of terror and violence and that he was the one destined to be lead as a lamb to the slaughter! How did he have the grace to not cower in fear but to stand up taller and fight and overcome?
The young seminarian might reduce the answer to the fact that he was God. Yes, Jesus was fully divine but also fully human and the dread he experienced about his future was as real as yours and mine would be if we were in a similar situation. A better answer, I believe, is that he was fired with a vision of what his life was and what it meant and this vision gave him a power much greater than the power of fear. The cross became relativized in the light of his ultimate vocation and destiny. He knew that the way of the cross was somehow a part of the mysterious plan of “Abba” who would not, in the end, forsake him. And he became fully convinced that the sacrifice of his life would be the very catalyst for the final destruction of sin and death and pave the way for God’s reign of peace and justice. Every word he spoke, every lesson he taught, every miracle he performed, all poured forth from a heart fully owned by this vision.
Liturgically speaking, and, for some of us, perhaps existentially as well, we now find ourselves in Jerusalem, the city of destiny, awaiting the condemnation of Pilate and the scourge. The cross towers before us like a menacing Goliath and we hear our Lord ask, “will you follow me or will you forsake me?”
It is ultimately a question about what means the most to us: ourselves or our Lord. A question about fear or faith. Before we answer, let us not be like the impetuous Peter but let us soberly consider the stakes and the best way forward. Armed with humility, the knowledge of our own weakness, and the vision of our ultimate purpose and destiny in Christ, let us draw strength and inspiration from the pioneer and perfecter of our faith and continually watch and pray lest we too are brought to the trial. And even if we are and stumble along the way, we are assured that we have a faithful and merciful high priest who is ready to pick us up and egg us on in the fight.
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
Lent 5 C - April 3, 2022
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Sevenksy, OHC
Lent 5 C - April 3, 2022
What if the dream come true? What if, after all, the ointment was not wasted? What if the love was immoderate, even embarrassing, maybe even tragic? I am reminded of Mary Oliver’s question: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” No matter how old we may be, that question lives.
This has been a season of prodigals: the Lost Son, prodigal in his wastefulness, and his father, prodigal yet more in his loving forgiveness and welcome. There is the prodigal Mary of Bethany, whose wildly spontaneous generosity filled her house with fragrance, covering over the odor of her brother Lazarus’ death even while preparing the Lord for his own entombment. And of course, there is the greatest prodigal of all, our wildly generous Lord Jesus Christ who gives himself freely for us and for our sake and out of love for us and out of all proportion. With this anointing, he begins his journey to the cross and it is to that cross to that we now turn our faces. This is the same Lord who teaches his disciples and us that there is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.
O, brothers and sisters, what a Friend we have in Jesus. Amen.
Sunday, March 27, 2022
Lent 4 C - March 27, 2022
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Aidan Owen, OHC
Lent 4 C - March 27, 2022
Friday, March 25, 2022
Annunciation - March 25, 2022
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Luc Thuku, OHC
Annunciation - March 25, 2022
‘this worldly’ interpretation of the Bible which was intergral to the church becoming open to the other was intended to make concepts such as repentance, faith, justification, rebirth and sanctification, accessible to secular people; he was not suggesting that these concepts be discarded any more than he was jettisoning scripture. Even so, there are terms that speak from ‘faith to faith’ - that is, they make sense within the life of the Church where the language of faith is understood. By analogy, there is no reason why cricket-lovers should ditch words like goooly, maiden-over, or leg-before, just because the uninitiated do not understand them.They are code words essential to every lover of the game. The same would apply to doctrines like the Trinity, Virgin birth, etc,which should not be thrust on to the world in a take-it-or-leave-it manner but taught and celebrated in the life of the Church as mysteries of faith. In this way, prayer, worship, the sacraments, and the creed remain hidden at the heart of the church. That is why Bonhoeffer says that all Christian talk must arise out of prayer and be expressed by doing justice in the world. The church would then be known by its penultimate witness to the reign of God through its service to the world rather than by the disciplines and doctrines that sustain its life of faith, hope and love. And it is in that service to the world that the church shares in solidarity with people of other faiths and those of no faith at all.
I am, therefore, unfortunate enough to stand before you this morning to preach when we commemorate one of the major doctrines or mysteries of the Christian faith, that is the Incarnation, as we celebrate this feast of the Annunciation. Although it is crucial for us to understand how God came to be human, it is also confusing at times because rarely does God, the author of nature, contradict nature but usually works with nature to achieve God’s ends… but in this case he did. I will therefore disappoint some of us by not going into the depths of the mystery of the Incarnation. That I will leave to the realm of the terms that speak from ‘faith to faith’. Instead the Spirit leads me to speaks about the motivation behind the incarnation, which hopefully will qualify as a ‘this worldly’ interpretation.
Now, the motivation behind the incarnation was nothing but pure love! God loved us from the beginning and when we failed decided to come be born, live like us and redeem us like one of us. Our salvation became God’s project throughout the Old Testament times and the message of redemption became even more intense with the prophets especially Isaiah, the prophet of hope. In the passage we heard from the first reading this morning (Isaiah 7:10-14), Isaiah is preaching to King Ahaz of Jerusalem who was under an imminent threat of attack from Israel which had aligned itself with the ‘pagan’ kingdom of Aram. King Ahaz responded with unbelief to God and His prophet that God will deliver Judah. Isaiah asks Ahaz to ask God for a sign as proof but he refuses; not so much becuase he didn't want to tempt God(because he was an evil king), but because he was trying to align himself with the king of Assyria, another ‘pagan’ king for protection. This frustrates Isaiah and he tells Ahaz that despite his refusal, God is going to give a him a sign anyway! It is in this context that the promise of a savior is given a name for the very first time (the second time during the annunciation as we heard in the gospel passage)!…The young woman shall bear a son Immanuel. Although this did not happen in the time of king Ahaz, it at least assured him that Judah will have a future, a sign of the perpetuity of the nation.
We are celebrating this feast a few weeks before the Easter triduum, when we celebrate the mystery of Christ’s suffering and death and later resurrection. At times it impossible to not wonder whether these two mysteries we are celebrating within weeks of each other, one evoking sorrow and the other joy are conflicting. The truth, however, is that they compliment each other and are explicitly brought together in today’s second reading from the letter to the Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews put words in the mouth of Jesus… “see God, I have come to do your will” and in this statement both are shown as expressions of the perfect obedience Jesus gave to his father’s will.
The question however remains why all that was God’s will. Why should the eternal son of God lower himself so much to attaining our human nature with all its limitations? Why should he begin life dependent on his mother, then undergo the whole process of growing up which includes the discomforts and inconveniencies of life that we all go through, and worse in the household of a lowly laborer and not in the comforts of a palace? Why subject himself to tempatation, hostility, rejection and betrayal? Why at the conclusion of it all go willingly and knowingly to his passion, to suffer an unjust judgement, mockery, blows and spitting and the humiliation of being stripped naked, then agree to nails being drilled into his flesh and bones? Why hang on the cross for hours, have his heart torn open with a spear and eventually end up in a tomb? Why would a loving God will all that on anyone, least of all His beloved Son?
The answer to that can only be Mercy driven by Love. Jesus did that in order to raise us with him to God. It was the price for forgiveness, out-poured love, an assuarance that we have become sons and daughters, and heirs of divine glory. It means that we are not just adopted or co-opted. We are owned, we are bought at a price and the price was, and still is, the life and blood of God Himself!
The world however has not changed an inch despite this unwavering love. I am writing and preaching this sermon during an unnecessary war being fought in Europe out of pure aggression and “big boy” or bully mentality! Innocent children and adults who just want to live their daily lives have been uprooted from their homes and lost their livelihoods and will most likely be traumatized for the rest of their lives, that is, if they live to tell the story. This is coming from a nation that has a quasi state religion that lays claim to orthodoxy, and the largest at that, the Russian Orthodox church, whose patriarch is rumoured to be a friend of the ‘Russian big boy’ and I can't help wondering if he has tried to tell him what he is doing is wrong! Forget about the current war if you can and open any newspaper or television and what hits you on the face is a confirmation of the negative judgement found in Romans 1:29-30… “they are steeped in all sorts of injustice, rottenness, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, wrangling, treachery and spite; libellers, slanderers, enemies of God; rude, arrogant and boastful; enterprising in evil, rebellious to parents, without prudence, honor love or pity”
So, are we doomed as a species and the rest of creation with us? Have we tested God’s patience and endurance to its limits? The answer to this is no because we have an example still stemming from the incarnation event. In Mary, God’s love found an answering love. The obedience of Jesus to his father found a corresponding willingness in the maiden who was to be his mother. His goodness and purity of intention, generosity, selflessness, perserverance and humility found their reflection in Mary.
Mary, however, was not your naive or ignorant every day girl. At least she was aware that for a woman to give birth, she must have been with a man. “How can this be since I am a virgin” …she asks in Luke 1:34. She did not get involved in the project blindly. She engages the angel in dialogue and sought clarity. She knew God as the creator and author of nature and hence her question is not so much an expression of doubt but a surprise and an amazement at the extent God can go to communicate his love for us and for creation. Spiritual masters tell us that God’s love is for us as individuals and that if there was only one person living on earth, Jesus would have still come to die for the redemption of that individual. For Mary alone who said yes, God the Son would still have undertaken the incarnation and accepted his sacrificial death for the sake of her alone. Mary however represents the church as the bride of Christ whose profession of love is explicit in the responsorial Psalm for today which we did not read. I would recommend you read this Psalm 45, during your personal spiritual reading or Lectio. It is a love song that would be helpful to situate in the context of the love of God and God’s people the church.
Despite our struggles and despite the sinfulness of the individual members of the church, she still remains Holy, all beautiful, all pure and united in baptism all of us become worthy recipients of God’s enduring love and mercy. We also receive grace in abundance and the Lord is with us. This enables us to respond to the obedience and love of Christ with an answering obedience of our own.
We should therefore pray hard and always so that we may in obedience and love come to know the will of God for us, and the portion of the Letter to the Hebrews that we read this morning tells us that… “God’s will is for us to be made holy, by the offering of his body, made once and for all by Jesus Christ”. Hebrews10:10.
William R. Newell, a Bible teacher and a Commentator on the Book of Romans summarizes our life with the Incarnate Son of God with the following hymn that he composed one day in 1895 on his way to teach a Bible class….
Years I spent in vanity and pride Caring not my Lord was crucified Knowing not it was for me He died On Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! By God’s words at last my sin I learned Then I tremble at the law I’d spurned Till my guilty soul imploring turned To Calvary! O the Love that drew salvation’s plan O the grace that brought it down to man O the mighty gulf that God did span At Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! Now I’ve giv’n to Jesus everything Now I glady have Him as my King Now my raptured soul can only sing Of Calvary! Mercy there was great and grace was free Pardon there was multiplied to me There my burdened soul found liberty At Calvary! (William R. Newell, pub.1895)
Sunday, March 20, 2022
Lent 3 C - March 20, 2022
Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC
Lent 3 C - March 20, 2022
On a personal note, I am an adept of the doctrine of universal salvation. Universal salvation, or Christian universalism, is the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of divine love and mercy—will ultimately be reconciled to God.
I imagine that our triune Godhead, through the living experience of Jesus, has a deeply human yet divinely infinite mercy and love.
In the end, I believe, we will be judged and found lacking, but God’s mercy will prevail. Jesus will be our advocate. He will show how we availed ourselves of his help in our life. He will point out the good fruit we bore. And he will ask for forbearance for our shortcomings.
When I was growing up as a little Roman Catholic boy, I was taught about Purgatory. I do not believe in a purgatory, where the souls of sinners suffer in expiation of their sin.
But I imagine something like remedial classes in loving like God loves. I imagine that being in the presence of the all-loving God will be enough to make us regret our sins and finally fully turn towards God; call it ultimate conversion, ultimate metanoia.
I hope, for the benefit of obdurate sinners, that God will give us our last chance at conversion even beyond death. Those who, even at that stage, will adamantly want to further reject God’s abundant and free love will indeed be removed from the presence of God. And an eternity of that will be hell indeed.
But the biblical record is mixed on this issue of salvation and there is also plenty in the bible to support the idea of damnation of some, or even many. So conversion in our lifetime could be a prudent choice. Don’t you think?
But even more compellingly for me, we should tread the path of conversion out of sheer love for the God who showers us with his grace and mercy in this life and beyond.
So I enjoin you, repent and turn towards the God who loves you beyond all human knowing while you still have your living. It will give you a full and abundant life, even now. Amen.
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