From my youth, O Christ, I have rejected Thy commandments. I have passed my whole life without caring or thinking as a slave of my passions. Therefore, O Saviour, I cry to Thee: At least in the end save me.
In old age even, O Saviour, do not cast me out empty to hell as I lie prostrate before Thy gates. But before my end in Thy love for men grant me release from my falls.
I have squandered in profligacy my substance, O Saviour, and I am barren of virtues and piety; but famished I cry: O Father of mercies, forestall and have compassion on me.
I am the one by my thoughts who fell among robbers, and now I am all wounded by them, full of sores. But stand by me, O Christ my Saviour, and heal me.
The priest saw me first and passed by on the other side. Then the Levite took a look at my sufferings and disdained my nakedness. But stand by me, O Jesus Who didst dawn out of Mary, and have compassion on me. — Troparia from Ode 1, Wednesday of the First Week of Lent
Peter said to him in reply,
—Though all may have their faith in you shaken,
mine will never be.—
We make empty promises and we have empty arms. As humans our longing far outweighs the world’s ability to fulfill those longings.
Look at Peter. All his marvelous statements, all his strength and bravery, all the grand pronouncements. Certainly they came from a deep down longing. He wanted to love, but couldn’t quite get it right.
The result: Telling Jesus what he could and could not do:
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
And Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.”
But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men.”
Telling Jesus he would be loyal – and the result:
Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, “I do not know the man.” And immediately the cock crowed.
And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.”
Afterward Peter wept bitterly – and don’t we all weep bitterly after our unkept promises, after our empty arms.
We stand alone with our great sayings and gestures. We long, yearn, and are even willing to suffer and die for love, but still find it slightly out-of-reach.
Simone Weil said: —To say to Christ: ‘I will never deny you’ was to deny him already, for it was to suppose the source of faithfulness to be in himself and not in grace…. Peter did not deny Christ when he broke his promise, but when he made it.—
The problem with empty arms and empty promises is that they exist apart from the love of God. As Christians we are called to love the way God loves, to promise the way God promises, to put our faith in His grace and His path. We have to let God take hold of us and put our complete trust, our complete faith in Him. We have to trust in God’s ways regardless of what the world, what our friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers think.
The women who stood off at a distance, Joseph from Arimathea, they worked in accord with God’s will. They were loyal, they stayed close to Jesus to the last, without regard for their personal desires. They desired what the Father desired: serve My Son, follow My Son, bury My Son.
Brothers and sisters,
God made a promise – and He came among us to fulfill it:
Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
He showed us His empty arms – and in their emptiness, fastened to the cross, He showed us love beyond measure, the love of God for His people.
Our arms and our promises will be full, and love with envelop us completely. Invite Jesus to take hold of you. Come Lord Jesus, take my arms, my promises, my will, and make them in accord with Yours.
Amen.
Christ was tempted, the devil was tempting Him, showing Him stones to be turned into bread; and he led Him up a mountain to see all the kingdoms of the world in a flash. Dread, my soul, the scene; watch and pray at every hour to God.
The desert-loving dove, the lamp of Christ, the Voice crying in the wilderness sounded, preaching repentance; while Herod sinned with Herodias. See, my soul, that you are not caught in the toils of sin, but embrace repentance.
The Forerunner of grace dwelt in the desert and all Judea and Samaria ran to hear him; and they confessed their sins, and eagerly received baptism. But you, my soul, have not imitated them.
Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled, for Christ earlier blessed both, eating in His flesh at the marriage in Cana and changing water into wine, and showing His first miracle so that you, my soul, might be changed.
Christ braced the paralytic and he carried his bed; He raised up the dead young man, the son of the widow, and the Centurion’s servant; and by revealing Himself to the Samaritan woman, He traced in advance for you, my soul, how to worship in spirit.
The Lord healed the woman with hemorrhage by the touch of His hem, cleansed lepers, gave sight to the blind, and cured cripples; the deaf and the dumb and the woman bent earthward he healed with His word, that you, wretched soul, might be saved. — Troparia from Ode 9, Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.
This will be a time for you to bear testimony.
Two recent events point to the fact that Jesus’ words ring true even in “democratic” countries that proclaim religious freedom.
From LifeSiteNews via Catholic Online: UK Catholic Bishop Brought Before Parliament for insisting on orthodoxy in Catholic Schools
LONDON (LifeSiteNews) – The Catholic Bishop of Lancaster UK today gave a spirited response to accusations by secularist MPs in a Commons Committee who accused him of trying to establish religious “fundamentalism” in his schools.
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue told the Committee that schools in his diocese should see it as their prime duty to teach the Catholic faith and to evangelise and that this constituted neither “proselytism” nor “fundamentalism”.
Crucifixes in every classroom, “sex-education” based on the principles of chastity and the sanctity of marriage, no school fundraising for anti-life groups and religious education based firmly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: it sounds like the dream world of most Catholic parents.
But the scenario is one that was ordered last year by the Bishop O’Donoghue in a 66-page document, “Fit for Mission? – Schools”. The document was circulated to all teachers, staff, governors and parents in the diocese.
But the document that received high praise from parents, Catholic lay organizations and the Vatican, has drawn the ire of the increasingly aggressive secularist wing of the British government.
Earlier this year, the Labour MP for Huddersfield, Barry Sheerman, told the media that this new document was a worrying sign of a new “fundamentalist” direction on the part of the Church. Sheerman, the chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, called Bishop O’Donoghue to explain his intentions…
Of course there is the recent dust-up over Barak Obama’s Pastor. For example, from the NY Times: Obama Denounces Statements of His Pastor as ‘Inflammatory’.
The best line from the article was this one:
“If you’re black, it’s hard to say what you truly think and not upset white people,— said James Cone, a professor at Union Theological Seminary and the father of black liberation theology, who has known Mr. Wright since he was a seminary student.
Something easily said of Christianity ‘If you’re Christian, it’s hard to say what you truly think and not upset people.’
Opposing, and speaking against, racism, inequality, wars and insane foreign policies – spending billions per month while people starve, roads and bridges collapse, treating human beings as less than human… The sins are many – and good on Pastor Wright for speaking in witness against those sins.
—We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards,— he said. —America’s chickens are coming home to roost.— — Pastor Wright
Yes, we are guilty in our sins of commission and omission when our planes, guns, cluster bombs, and bulldozers are used against women, children, and innocent bystanders.
Thank you to the Young Fogey for some of the links in this post.
Having emulated Uzziah, my soul, you have his leprosy in you doubled. For you think disgusting thoughts and do outrageous things. Let go of what you are holding and run to repentance.
Have you heard, my soul, of the Ninevites, who repented before God in sackcloth and ashes? You have not imitated them, but appear to be more crooked than all who have sinned before and after the law.
You have heard of Jeremiah in the mud pit, my soul, how he cried out with lamentations against the City of Zion, and was seeking tears. Imitate his life of lamentation and you will be saved.
Jonah fled to Tarshish, foreseeing the conversion of the Ninevites; for, being a Prophet, he was aware of God’s compassion, and was anxious that his prophesy should not prove false.
You have heard, my soul, of Daniel in the lion’s den. and how he shut the beasts’ mouths. You know how the Children who were with Azariah extinguished the flames of the burning furnace by faith.
I have reviewed all the people of the Old Testament as examples for you, my soul. Imitate the God-loving deeds of the righteous and shun the sins of the wicked. — Troparia from Ode 8, Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
When the Ark was being carried on a wagon, and when one of the oxen slipped, Uzzah only touched it and experienced the wrath of God. But avoid, my soul, his presumption and truly reverence divine things.
You have heard of Absalom, how he rose against nature. You know his accursed deeds and how he insulted the bed of his father David. But you have imitated his passionate and pleasure-loving cravings.
You have enslaved your free dignity to your body, my soul, for you have found in satan another Ahitophel and have consented to his counsels. But Christ Himself scattered them, that you may at all events be saved.
Wonderful Solomon, who was full of the grace of wisdom, at one time did evil in God’s sight and fell away from Him. And you, my soul, have resembled him by your accursed life.
Carried away by the pleasure of his passions, he defiled himself. Alas, the lover of wisdom is a lover of loose women and estranged from God! And you, my soul, have in mind imitated him by your shameful pleasures.
You, my soul, have rivalled Rehoboam who would not listen to his father’s advisors, and that vicious slave Jeroboam the apostate of old. But shun such mimicry and cry to God: I have sinned, have compassion on me. — Troparia from Ode 7, Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Per Reuters (and others) the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho has been found.
MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – A Chaldean Catholic archbishop who was kidnapped in Iraq last month was found dead on Thursday, his body half-buried in an empty lot in the northern city of Mosul, police said.
Paulos Faraj Rahho, the archbishop of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, was abducted on February 29 after gunmen attacked his car and killed his driver and two guards…
From the Litany for the Dead:
All you holy Martyrs, Pray for the souls of the faithful departed.
All you Bishops and Confessors, Pray for the souls of the faithful departed.
That Thou would be pleased to receive him into the company of the Blessed, We beseech Thee, Hear Us!
Merciful Lord Jesus grant him everlasting rest. Amen.
Lord have mercy on us for what we have wrought in Iraq.
The waves of my sins, O Saviour, as in the Red Sea recoiled and covered me unawares, like the Egyptians of old and their charioteers.
Like Israel of old, my soul, you have had a foolish affection. For like a brute you have preferred to divine manna the pleasure-loving gluttony of the passions.
The wells of Canaanite thoughts, my soul, you have prized above the Rock with the cleft from which the river of wisdom like a chalice pours forth streams of theology.
Swine’s flesh and hotpots and Egyptian food you, my soul, have preferred to heavenly manna, as of old the senseless people in the wilderness.
When Thy servant Moses struck the rock with his staff, he mystically typified Thy life-giving side, O Saviour, from which we all draw the water of life.
Explore and spy out the Land of Promise like Joshua the Son of Nun, my soul, and see what it is like, and settle in it by observing the laws. — Troparia from Ode 6, Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
You have heard, my soul, of Moses’ ark of old, borne on the waters and waves of the river as in a shrine, which escaped the bitter tragedy of Pharaoh’s edict.
If you have heard of the midwives, wretched soul, who of old killed in infancy the manly issue and practice of chastity, then like the great Moses, suck wisdom.
You, wretched soul, have not struck and killed your Egyptian mind, like great Moses. Say, then, how will you dwell in that desert solitude where the passions desert you through repentance?
Great Moses dwelt in the wilds, my soul. So go and imitate his life, that you too may attain by contemplation to the vision of God in the bush.
Imagine Moses’ staff striking the sea and fixing the deep as a type of the divine Cross, by which you too, my soul, can accomplish great things.
Aaron offered to God the fire pure and undefiled; but Hophni and Phinehas, like you, my soul, offered to God a foul and rebellious life. — Troparia from Ode 5, Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Watch, my soul! Be courageous like the great Patriarchs, that you may acquire activity and awareness, and be a mind that sees God, and may reach in contemplation the innermost darkness, and be a great trader.
The great Patriarch, by begetting the twelve Patriarchs, mystically set up for you, my soul, a ladder of active ascent, having wisely offered his children as rungs, and his steps as ascents.
You have emulated the hated Esau, my soul, and have given up your birthright of pristine beauty to your supplanter, and you have lost your father’s blessing, and have been tripped up twice in action and knowledge. Therefore, O wretch, repent now.
Esau was called Edom for his extreme passion of madness for women. For ever burning with incontinence and stained with pleasures, he was named Edom which means a red-hot sin-loving soul.
Have you heard of Job who was made holy on a dunghill, O my soul? You have not emulated his courage, nor had his firmness of purpose in all you have learned or known, or in your temptations, but you have proved unpersevering.
He who was formerly on a throne is now naked on a dunghill and covered with sores. He who had many children and was much admired is suddenly childless and homeless. Yet he regarded the dunghill as a palace and his sores as pearls. — Troparia from Ode 4, Tuesday of the First Week of Lent