Through Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ
Doxology
Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever. Amen
These words from the Liturgy bring to mind a passage from the Letter to the Romans, where Paul writes: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Or who has given him anything that he may be repaid? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom 11:33-36)
All the works of the Lord are amazing, it is inconceivable that the whole Trinity is committed to the salvation of man. Perhaps these are the most appropriate terms for God's works - incomprehensible and astonishing.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola recommends for The Spiritual Exercises participants to meditate on the mystery that he calls "the council of the Holy Trinity." He asks to imagine the conversation of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit about the way of human redemption. Jesus Christ fulfills the plan of salvation - it is His Father who sends him to fulfill the will of the Triune God. Everything what He does is the fulfillment of the eternal intentions of the Creator. In Christ, God's dream was fulfilled that humanity should regain their lost life. Therefore, through him, with him and in him, we give honor and glory to the Almighty Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. In concluding this part of the Mass, which is called the Eucharistic Liturgy, we “summarize” with a cry of admiration the works of God in which we have participated in by celebrating the Lord's Memorial. Now is the immediate preparation for receiving Holy Communion.
Our Father ….
The final stage in the Holy Mass is the rite of Communion. But everyone who wants to receive the Body of the Lord Jesus must properly prepare for it. In the next few reflections, we will see what strings of our heart are touched by the liturgy in order to open us directly to the encounter with the Lord in his sacramental presence.
First, we are called to the greatest prayer of Christians, which is the Our Father. This prayer says a lot about the attitude with which we should approach the table where we will receive the Eucharist. At the beginning we say the words: "Our Father", we do not say "my Father", but together as His children, siblings, we cry out with love to our Father. The Lord Jesus reminds us that through communion he wants to unite us with himself, he wants us to form one body, his body. He wants to breathe his life, his Presence, into this particular community which gathers in the Church. It is as in Ezekiel's prophecy when the dry bones are clothed with flesh and made alive with the spirit. Jesus covers us who consume Communion with His Divine Body so that we may become one Organism.
People join hands during this prayer to help each other understand and feel that they are together as a family. However, the condition for true unity is to recognize God as the most important to us. As Christians, what unites us is to prioritize God himself and his desires. That is why we say, "Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done."
Together, we also believe that his love will take care of our daily needs, we enjoy his tender protection, asking for " bread" for each day.
But realizing how much we are actually divided by mutual offenses, the evil we have done to ourselves, we ask the Father to heal the wounded unity by forgiving one another: " And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
We come to communion not only on our own, but as a community to strengthen our unity in the Lord. Our Father prayer helps us in this attitude.
Daily Gospel Reflections – Mt 14: 22-36
Jesus came to His disciples simply to save them from the sea storm. This way, he gave us a signal that his love for us is truly all-powerful and not even limited by the laws of nature. He can and wants to come to help each of us always, also in humanly hopeless situations. However, there is still an extremely important symbolic dimension in Jesus' walking on the sea.
In the Old Testament, standing waterssymbolize death, just as flowing waters symbolize life. For example, the waters of death were the waters of the flood. In Noah's day, people flooded the earth with their sins, and almost all of them were drowned in their sins. The flood waters only revealed the death of these people who had brought it upon themselves.
The waters of death from which God saved his people were also the waters of the Red Sea. The prophet Jonah was cast into the waters of death. And to make this symbolism of death even more pronounced, we read in the Book of Jonah that the prophet was not only thrown into the water, but also swallowed by some sea monster. But it turns out - and this is the main message of the story of Jonah's throwing into the waters of death - that there is no such oppression from which God cannot save us.
The symbolic message of Jesus walking on the waters of death goes even deeper. It is like a prophetic announcement of what would happen at Calvary. Behold, the Son of God himself came to the earth which we have flooded with our sins. Humanly speaking, it was impossible for anyone to save himself from the death of sin: for sin floods the whole earth. To be protected from the death of sin was as impossible as for a man to walk on water.
It turned out, however, that the Son of God not only did not drown in human sins, but also walked through these waters of sin with a dry foot. Even during this monstrous attack that the forces of evil took against him on Calvary, Jesus remained himself, he remained filled with a whole-person and purest love for his Father and for all people, even for his murderers.
Moreover, the Son of God came to our earth precisely to free us all from the waters of death, and even to enable us to walk through them with a dry foot. This is the meaning of the episode related to Peter. If anyone is close to the Lord Jesus, even if he finds himself in the midst of some evil storm, he will not perish in it, but will save his soul. And even if at any moment we feel doubt and begin to sink, we only need to cry out in faith: "Lord, save me!" And we will be saved.
It is a great consolation for us sinners that even if sometimes our weakness turns out to be greater than our faith - even then Jesus does not despise us, but wants to give us his hand and save us. If only we try to be close to Him.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george