St. Augustine commentary on the Passion of Christ

The Passion of the Whole Body of Christ

From the commentary on the Psalms 

by Saint Augustine, bishop

Lord, I have cried to you, hear me. This is a prayer we can all say.  This is not my prayer, but that of the whole Christ.  Rather, it is said in the name of His Body.

Christ's Agony in the Garden

When Christ was on earth He prayed in His human nature, and prayed to the Father in the name of His Body, and when He prayed drops of blood flowed from His whole body.  So it is written in the Gospel: Jesus prayed with earnest prayer, and sweated blood.  What is this blood streaming from His whole body but the martyrdom of the whole Church?

Lord, I have cried to you, hear me; listen to the sound of my prayer, when I call upon you.

Did you imagine that crying was over when you said: I have cried to you? You have cried out, but do not as yet feel free from care.  

If anguish is at an end, crying is at an end; 

but if the Church, the Body of Christ, 

must suffer anguish until the end of time, 

it must not say only: 

I have cried to you, hear me; 

it must also say: 

Listen to the sound of my prayer, when I call upon You.

Prayer rises to heaven as incense

Let my prayer rise 

like incense in your sight; 

let the raising of my hands 

be an evening sacrifice.

This is generally understood of Christ, the head, as every Christian acknowledges.  When day was fading into evening, the Lord laid down His life on the cross, to take it up again; He did not lose His life against His Will.  

Here, too, we are symbolized.  What part of Him hung on the cross if not the part He had received from us?  

How could God the Father ever cast off and abandon His only Son, Who is indeed one God with Him?  

Yet Christ, nailing our weakness to the cross (where, as the Apostle says: Our old nature was nailed to the cross with Him), cried out with the very voice of our humanity: humanity: My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?

The evening sacrifice is then the passion of the Lord, the cross of the Lord, the oblation of the victim that brings salvation, the holocaust acceptable to God.  In His resurrection He made this evening sacrifice a morning sacrifice.  

Prayer offered 

in holiness 

from a 

faithful heart 

rises 

like incense 

from a holy altar.  

Nothing is more fragrant 

than the fragrance of the Lord.  

May all who believe share in this fragrance.

Therefore, our old nature, in the words of the Apostle, was nailed to the cross with Him, in order, as he says, to destroy our sinful body, so that we may be slaves to sin no longer.

Taken from the Liturgy of the Hours Tuesday, 2nd Week of Lent

 

St. Augustine,  354 –  430 AD

St. Peter, the Rock given Authority

St. Peter receiving the Keys to the Kingdom of God

From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope

The Church of Christ rises on the firm foundation of Peter’s Faith

Out of the whole world one man, Peter, is chosen to preside at the calling of all nations, and to be set over the apostles and all the fathers of the Church.  Though there are in God’s people many bishops and many shepherds, Peter is thus appointed to rule in his own person those whom Christ also rules as the original ruler.  Beloved, how great and wonderful is the sharing in his power that God in his goodness has given to this man.  Whatever Christ has willed to be shared in common by Peter and the other leaders of the Church, it is only through Peter that he has given to others what he has not refused to bestow on them.

The Lord now asks the apostles as a whole what men think of him.  As long as they are recounting the uncertainty born of human ignorance, their reply is always the same.

But when he presses the disciples to say what they think themselves, the first to confess his faith in the Lord is the one who is first in rank among the apostles.

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood
 has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

Peter says: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus replies: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. You are blessed, He means, because My Father has taught you.  You have not been deceived by earthly opinion, but have been enlightened by inspiration from heaven.

He continues: And I say to you. In other words, as my Father has revealed to you my godhead, so I in my turn make known to you your pre-eminence.  You are Peter: though I am the inviolable rock, the cornerstone that makes both one, the foundation apart from which no one can lay any other, yet you also are a rock, for you are given solidity by my strength, so that which is my very own because of my power is common between us through your participation.

And upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  On this strong foundation, he says I will build an everlasting temple.  The great height of my Church, which is to penetrate the heavens, shall rise on the firm foundation of this faith.

The gates of hell shall not silence this confession of faith; the chains of death shall not bind it.  Its’ words are the words of life.  As they lift up to heaven those who profess them, so they send down to hell those who contradict them.

Blessed Peter is therefore told: To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.  Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven.

The authority vested in this power passed also to the other apostles, and the institution established by this decree has been continued in all the leaders of the Church.  But it is not without good reason that what is bestowed on all is entrusted to one.  For Peter received it separately in trust because he is the prototype set before all the rulers of the Church.

Prayer - Desire of the Heart

Prayer is the Desires of the Heart 

The Desire of Your Heart 

Constitutes Your Prayer

From a discourse on the psalms by Saint Augustine, bishop

In the anguish of my heart I groaned aloud. There is a hidden anguish which is inaudible to men.  Yet when a man’s heart is so taken up with some particular concern that the hurt inside finds vocal expression, one looks for the reason.  And one will say to oneself: perhaps this is what causes his anguish, or perhaps such and such has happened to him.  

                 But who can be certain of the cause except God, 

                        who hears and sees his anguish?  

Therefore the psalmist says: In the anguish of my heart I groaned aloud. For if men hear at all, they usually hear only bodily groaning and know nothing of the anguish of the heart from which it issues.

Who then knows the cause of man’s groaning? All my desire is before you.  No, it is not open before other men, for they cannot understand the heart; but before you is all my desire. 

If your desire lies open to Him who is your Father 

and Who sees in secret, He will answer you.

For the desire of your heart is itself your prayer.

And if the desire is constant, so is your prayer.  The Apostle Paul had a purpose in saying: Pray without ceasing.  Are we then ceaselessly to bend our knees, to lie prostrate, or to lift up our hands?  Is this what is meant in saying: Pray without ceasing? Even if we admit that we pray in this fashion, I do not believe that we can do so all the time.

Yet there is another, interior kind of prayer without ceasing, namely, the desire of the heart. 

Whatever else you may be doing, 

if you but fix your desire on God’s Sabbath rest, 

your prayer will be ceaseless.

 

Therefore, if you wish to pray without ceasing, 

do not cease to desire.

The constancy of your desire will itself be the ceaseless voice of your prayer.  And that voice of your prayer will be silent only when your love ceases.  For who is silent?  Those of whom it is said: Because evil has abounded, the love of many will grow cold.

St. Augustine of Hippo

The chilling of love means that the heart is silent; while burning love is the outcry of the heart.  

If your love is without ceasing, you are crying out always; if you always cry out, you are always desiring; and if you desire, you are calling to mind your eternal rest in the Lord.

And all my desire is before you. What if the desire of our heart is before him, but not our groaning?  But how is that possible since the groaning is the voice of our desire?  And therefore it is said: My groaning is not concealed from you. It may be concealed from men, but it is not concealed from you.  Sometimes God’s servant seems to be saying in his humility: My anguish is not concealed from you.  At other times he seems to be laughing.  Does that mean that the desire of his heart has died within him?  If the desire is there, then the groaning is there as well.  Even if men fail to hear it, it never ceases to sound in the hearing of God.

“We are Christ’s pilgrim people, 

journeying until we reach our homeland, 

singing on the way as we eagerly 

expect the fulfillment of our hope. 

For if one hopes, even though his tongue is still, 

he is singing always in his heart.

But the man who has no hope, 

no matter what clamors and shouts 

he makes to be heard by men, 

is speechless in the presence of God.”

God's pilgrim on the journey

Excerpt from the Liturgy of the Hours Friday, 3rd Week of Advent

You are the Salt of the Earth - What that Means

Salt of the Earth &

Light of the World

Homily by St. John Chrysostom

Early Church Father and Doctor of the Church

You are the salt of the earth. It is not for your own sake, he says, but for the world’s sake that the word is entrusted to you. I am not sending you only into two cities only or ten to twenty, not to a single nation, as I sent the prophets of old, but across land and sea, to the whole world. And that world is in a miserable state. For when he says: 

You are the salt of the earth, 

he is indicating that all mankind had lost its savor 

and had been corrupted by sin. 

Therefore, he requires of these men those virtues which are especially useful and even necessary if they are to bear the burdens of many. For the man who is kindly, modest, merciful and just will not keep his good works to himself but will see to it that these admirable fountains send out their streams for the good of others. Again, the man who is clean of heart, a peacemaker and ardent for truth will order his life so as to contribute to the common good.

St. John Chrysostom

Do not think, he says, that you are destined for easy struggles or unimportant tasks. 

You are the salt of the earth. 

What do these words imply? Did the disciples restore what had already turned rotten? Not at all. Salt cannot help what is already corrupted. That is not what they did. But what had first been renewed and freed from corruption and then turned over to them, they salted and preserved in the newness the Lord had bestowed. It took the power of Christ to free men from the corruption caused by sin; it was the task of the apostles through strenuous labor to keep that corruption from returning.

Have you noticed how, bit by bit, Christ shows them to be superior to the prophets? He says they are to be teachers not simply for Palestine but for the whole world. Do not be surprised, then, he says, that I address you apart from the others and involve you in such a dangerous enterprise. Consider the numerous and extensive cities, peoples and nations I will be sending you to govern. For this reason I would have you make others prudent, as well as being prudent yourselves. For unless you can do that, you will not be able to sustain even yourselves.

If others lose their savor, then your ministry will help them regain it. But if you yourselves suffer that loss, you will drag others down with you. Therefore, the greater the undertakings put into your hands, the more zealous you must be. For this reason he says: But if the salt becomes tasteless, how can its flavor be restored? It is good for nothing now, but to be thrown out and trampled by men’s feet.

When they hear the words: When they curse you and persecute you and accuse you of every evil, They may be afraid to come forward. Therefore he says: “Unless you are prepared for that sort of thing, it is in vain that I have chosen you. Curses shall necessarily be your lot but they shall not harm you and will simply be a testimony to your constancy. If through fear, however, you fail to show the forcefulness your mission demands, your lot will be much worse, for all will speak evil of you and despise you. That is what being trampled by men’s feet means”.

Then he passes on to a more exalted comparison: You are the light of the world. Once again, “of the world”: not of one nation or twenty cities, but of the whole world. The light he means is an intelligible light, far superior to the rays of the sun we see, just as the salt is a spiritual salt. First salt, then light, so that you may learn how profitable sharp words may be and how useful serious doctrine. Such teaching holds in check and prevents dissipation; it leads to virtue and sharpens the mind’s eye. 

A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 

nor do men light a lamp and put it under a basket. 

Here again he is urging them to a careful manner of life and teaching them to be watchful, for they live under the eyes of all and have the whole world for the arena of their struggles.

Pope John Paul II's Homily Divine Mercy Sunday, 2001.

Pope John Paul II's Homily

On the first universal celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday April 22, 2001

Divine Mercy: The Easter Gift

"Fear not, I am the first and the last, 
and the living one; I died, 
and behold I am alive for evermore"  
(Rev 1:17-18).

We heard these comforting words in the Second Reading taken from the Book of Revelation. They invite us to turn our gaze to Christ, to experience His reassuring presence. To each person, whatever his condition, even if it were the most complicated and dramatic, the Risen One repeats: "Fear not!; I died on the Cross but now I am alive for evermore"; "I am the first and the last, and the living one."

"The first," that is, the source of every being and the first-fruits of the new creation; "the last," the definitive end of  history; "the living one," the inexhaustible source of life that triumphed over death forever.

In the Messiah, crucified and risen, we recognize the features of the Lamb sacrificed on Golgotha, who implores forgiveness for His torturers and opens the gates of heaven to repentant sinners; we glimpse the face of the immortal King who now has "the keys of Death and Hades" (Rev 1:18).

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endures forever! (Ps 117:1). Let us make our own the Psalmist's exclamation which we sang in the Responsorial Psalm: "The Lord's mercy endures forever!" In order to understand thoroughly the truth of these words, let us be led by the liturgy to the heart of the event of salvation, which unites Christ's Death and Resurrection with our lives and with the world's history. This miracle of mercy has radically changed humanity's destiny. It is a miracle in which is unfolded the fullness of the love of the Father who, for our redemption, does not even draw back before the sacrifice of His Only-begotten Son.

In the humiliated and suffering Christ, believers and non-believers can admire a surprising solidarity, which binds Him to our human condition beyond all imaginable measure. The Cross, even after the Resurrection of the Son of God, "speaks and never ceases to speak of God the Father, who is absolutely faithful to His eternal love for man. ... Believing in this love means believing in mercy" (Rich in Mercy, 7).

Blessed Pope John Paul II and Divine Mercy

Let us thank the Lord for His love, which is stronger than death and sin. It is revealed and put into practice as mercy in our daily lives, and prompts every person in turn to have "mercy" towards the Crucified One. Is not loving God and loving one's neighbor and even one's "enemies," after Jesus' example, the program of life of every baptized person and of the whole Church?

A great joy

With these sentiments, we are celebrating the Second Sunday of Easter, which since last year, the year of the Great jubilee, is also called "Divine Mercy Sunday." It is a great joy for me to be able to join all of you, dear pilgrims and faithful who have come from various nations to commemorate, after one year, the canonization of Sister Faustina Kowalska, witness and messenger of the Lord's merciful love.

The elevation to the honors of the altar of this humble religious, a daughter of my land, is not only a gift for Poland but for all humanity. Indeed the message she brought is the appropriate and incisive answer that God wanted to offer to the questions and expectations of human beings in our time, marked by terrible tragedies. Jesus said to Sister Faustina one day: "Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy" (Diary, 300). Divine Mercy! This is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity at the dawn of the third millennium.

The Gospel, which has just been proclaimed, helps us to grasp the full sense and value of this gift. The Evangelist John makes us share in the emotion felt by the Apostles in their meeting with Christ after His Resurrection. Our attention focuses on the gesture of the Master, who transmits to the fearful, astounded disciples the mission of being ministers of Divine Mercy. He shows them His hands and His side, which bear the marks of the Passion, and tells them: "As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you" (John 20:21.)

Immediately afterwards, "He breathed on them, and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained' " (John 20:22-23). Jesus entrusted to them the gift of "forgiving sins," a gift that flows from the wounds in His hands, His feet, and especially from His pierced side. From there a wave of mercy is poured out over all humanity.

Let us relive this moment with great spiritual intensity. Today the Lord also shows us His glorious wounds and His Heart, an inexhaustible source of light and truth, of love and forgiveness.

Sacred Heart of Jesus

The Heart of Christ!

His "Sacred Heart" has given men everything: redemption, salvation, sanctification. Saint Faustina Kowalska saw coming from this Heart that was overflowing with generous love, two rays of light which illuminated the world.

The two rays, [according to what Jesus Himself told her], denote blood and water (Diary, 299). The blood recalls the sacrifice of Golgotha and the mystery of the Eucharist; the water, according to the rich symbolism of the Evangelist John, makes us think of Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Spirit (See John 3:5; 4:14).

Through the mystery of this wounded Heart, the restorative tide of God's merciful love continues to spread over the men and women of our time. Here alone can those who long for true and lasting happiness find its secret.

"Jesus, I trust in You!"

This prayer, dear to so many of the devout, clearly expresses the attitude with which we too would like to abandon ourselves trustfully in Your hands, O Lord, our only Savior.

You are burning with the desire to be loved and those in tune with the sentiments of Your Heart learn how to build the new civilization of love. A simple act of abandonment is enough to overcome the barriers of darkness and sorrow, of doubt and desperation. The rays of Your Divine Mercy restore hope, in a special way, to those-who feel overwhelmed by the burden of sin.

Mary, Mother of Mercy, help us always to have this trust in your Son, our Redeemer. Help us too, St. Faustina, whom we remember today with special affection. Fixing our weak gaze on the Divine Savior's face, we would like to repeat with you: "Jesus, I trust in You!" Now and for ever. Amen.

Tertullian Story of his life

Tertullian Story of his life

(QUINTUS SEPTIMIUS FLORENS TERTULLIANUS).

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 Ecclesiastical writer in the second and third centuries, b. probably about 160 at Carthage, being the son of a centurion in the proconsular service.  He was evidently by profession an advocate in the law-courts, and he shows a close acquaintance with the procedure and terms of Roman law, though it is doubtful whether he is to be identified with a jurist Tertullian who is cited in the Pandects.  He knew Greek as well as Latin, and wrote works in Greek which have not come down to us.  A pagan until middle life, he had shared the pagan prejudices against Christianity, and had indulged like others in shameful pleasures.  His conversion was not later than the year 197, and may have been earlier.  He embraced the Faith with all the ardour of his impetuous nature.  He became a priest, no doubt of the Church of Carthage.  Monceaux, followed by d'Ales, considers that his earlier writings were composed while he was yet a layman, and if this be so, then his ordination was about 200.  His extant writings range in date from the apologetics of 197 to the attack on a bishop who is probably Pope Callistus (after 218).  It was after the year 206 that he joined the Montanist sect, and he seems to have definitively separated from the Church about 211 (Harnack) or 213 (Monceaux).  After writing more virulently against the Church than even against heathen and persecutors, he separated from the Montanists and founded a sect of his own.  The remnant of the Tertullianists was reconciled to the Church by St. Augustine.  A number of the works of Tertullian are on special points of belief or discipline.  According to St. Jerome he lived to extreme old age.

The year 197 saw the publication of a short address by Tertullian, "To the Martyrs", and of his great apologetic works, the "Ad nationes" and the "Apologeticus". The former has been considered a finished sketch for the latter; but it is more true to say that the second work has a different purpose, though a great deal of the same matter occurs in both, the same arguments being displayed in the same manner, with the same examples and even the same phrases. The appeal to the nations suffers from its transmission in a single codex, in which omissions of a word or several words or whole lines are to be deplored. Tertullian's style is difficult enough without such super added causes of obscurity. But the text of the "Ad nationes" must have been always rougher than that of the "Apologeticus", which is a more careful as well as a more perfect work, and contains more matter because of its better arrangement; for it is just the same length as the two books "Ad nationes".

The "Ad nationes" has for its entire object the refutation of calumnies against Christians. In the first place they are proved to repose on unreasoning hatred only; the procedure of trial is illogical; the offence is nothing but the name of Christian, which ought rather to be a title of honour; no proof is forthcoming of any crimes, only rumour; the first persecutor was Nero, the worst of emperors.  Secondly, the individual charges are met; Tertullian challenges the reader to believe in anything so contrary to nature as the accusations of infanticide and incest. Christians are not the causes of earthquakes and floods and famine, for these happened long before Christianity. The pagans despise their own gods, banish them, forbid their worship, mock them on the stage; the poets tell horrid stories of them; they were in reality only men, and bad men. You say we worship an ass's head, he goes on, but you worship all kinds of animals; your gods are images made on a cross framework, so you worship crosses. You say we worship the sun; so do you.  A certain Jew hawked about a caricature of a creature half ass, half goat, as our god; but you actually adore half-animals.  As for infanticide, you expose your own children and kill the unborn.  Your promiscuous lust causes you to be in danger of the incest of which you accuse us.  We do not swear by the genius of Caesar, but we are loyal, for we pray for him, whereas you revolt.  Caesar does not want to be a god; he prefers to be alive. You say it is through obstinacy that we despise death; but of old such contempt of death was esteemed heroic virtue.  Many among you brave death for gain or wagers; but we, because we believe in judgment.  Finally, do us justice; examine our case, and change your minds. The second book consists entirely in an attack on the gods of the pagans; they are marshaled in classes after Varro.  It was not, urges the apologist, owing to these multitudinous gods that the empire grew.

Out of this fierce appeal and indictment was developed the grander "Apologeticus", addressed to the rulers of the empire and the administrators of justice. The former work attacked popular prejudices; the new one is an imitation of the Greek Apologies, and was intended as an attempt to secure amelioration in the treatment of Christians by alteration of the law or its administration. Tertullian cannot restrain his invective; yet he wishes to be conciliating, and it breaks out in spite of his argument, instead of being its essence as before. He begins again by an appeal to reason.  There are no witnesses, he urges, to prove our crimes; Trajan ordered Pliny not to seek us out, but yet to punish us if we were known; — what a paralogism! The actual procedure is yet more strange.  Instead of being tortured until we confess, we are tortured until we deny... 

To some extent, how great we cannot tell, he must have invented a theological idiom and have coined new expressions. He is the first witness to the existence of a Latin Bible, though he seems frequently to have translated from the Greek Bible as he wrote. Zahn has denied that he possessed any Latin translation, but this opinion is commonly rejected, and St. Perpetua certainly had one at Carthage in 203…

Read more about this great saint… you will be amazed at the entire story.

Excerpts taken from Catholic Encyclopedia -- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14520c.htm