Church of The Holy Cross Dallas

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

In today’s Collect we prayed “Let your mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord…”

We stand with the witness of Scripture in our estimation of the Church. St. Paul said that the Church of the living God “is the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim. 3.15), and we also affirm the Apocalyptic vision, given even here and now, of the Church whom St. John saw “coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21.2).

It can therefore be a disconcerting experience to look around and find our ecclesial world rocked by dispute and the alienation of people (who claim to be brothers and sisters) from one another.  One recalls the words of the great hymn that “with a scornful wonder / men see her sore distressed / by schisms rent asunder / by heresies distressed.”  How can this be?  How is it that we find it necessary to beg the Lord to “cleanse and defend”, to “help, protect and govern” the Church – as we ask him to do in today’s collect?

Part of the answer lies within ourselves.  When we take an honest look within ourselves and find lust and hypocrisy and acquisitiveness and revenge and hatred, when we find our own failures to inhabit the free gift of peace and reconciliation in Christ, it can hardly surprise us that the visible society of his Body, the Church, whose members we are – it can hardly surprise us that the Church is likewise rent asunder by schisms, by heresies distressed.  After all, WE are the heretics and the schismatics. We are the ones doing the rending and the distressing.

When we are presented with the Church’s teaching, the divine and incarnate narrative of salvation, we are presented with a decision:  will I become a disciple?  Will I leave everything and follow Jesus?  And though we’ve been told at the outset that this will mean being crucified, that it will mean suffering and alienation, yet when push comes to shove – when we are confronted with the horrible, tedious minutiae of the suffering to which we are called individually, it can cause us to have second thoughts and to lose our nerve. We should remember the Lord’s words to the young man, “‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’ At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions,” (Matthew 19.21-22).

The Lord was not joking when he said that whoever would come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. We should always be mindful of what it means to follow him. It means the “via dolorosa,” the road up the hillside to Calvary; it means being stripped and beaten and pierced. And the question that should confront every believer afresh, every day is: Am I willing to be led by Jesus up that hillside? Can I forsake all in order to hold onto him.

The prophet Nehemiah said that the people of Israel found such questions hard to answer with integrity. After God led them through the Red Sea, yet they “acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey [his] commandments.” Because after God delivered them from the slavery of Egypt, they found that he had led them into the wilderness.

You and I also have been led through the Red Sea of Baptism and delivered from our bondage and servitude to sin – but what happens when we too find that God has led us into a wilderness? What happens when there’s no water? Our temptation becomes that of our forebears who: “railed against God and said, * ‘Can God set a table in the wilderness? * True, he struck the rock, the waters gushed out, and the gullies overflowed; * but is he able to give bread or to provide meat for his people?’” (Psalm 78.19 passim).

The Fathers of the Church noticed the time and place of the miracle of today’s Gospel lesson: in the wilderness, as the sun is setting. In such situations, when you have no food, and the darkness is setting in, there’s always a temptation to return to the fleshpots of Egypt, or to invent new gods, new doctrines, golden calves commensurate with our circumstances – anything we can control and understand. But the Lord of heaven and earth calls us to something different. FROM the cross, he calls us TO the cross: “Follow me.”

The miracle in today’s Gospel lesson is the feeding with five loaves and two fishes, of “five thousand men, besides women and children.” Notice that, contrary to what we are apt to think, Jesus does not feed the crowds. The Apostles feed them. Jesus said to the Apostles: “YOU give them something to eat.” “Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass…” He tells the crowds to dispose themselves to receive what is about to be given to them BY THE APOSTLES. “…And taking the five loaves and the two fish [Jesus] looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and GAVE THE LOAVES TO THE DISCIPLES, AND THE DISCIPLES GAVE THEM TO THE CROWDS.”

Here is a picture of the economy of the Church – an icon of the fact that when it comes to the content and the object of our faith, we do not make it up as we go along, because that’s idolatry. We are nourished by the teaching of the Apostles.  We affirm what we have received, and our task is to guard it carefully and faithfully. As St. John was instructed to write to the Angel of the Church of Sardis, in the Apocalypse: “Remember then what you received and heard; keep that, and repent” (Rev. 3.3). That is our task: we are called to remembrance, custodianship, and repentance.

Its no coincidence that in today’s Gospel reading, this image of unity in the Truth, unity in the Apostolic teaching of the Catholic Church, is an image of being nourished by bread.   And we dare not forget that the night before he suffered, the Lord prayed that his disciples might be consecrated in the truth, that they might become perfectly one, with him, with the Father, and with one another; and then once again he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, and said “Do this in REMEMBRANCE of me.”

In the story of the bread, we see an icon of our deliverance and our unity in the truth. In one of his homilies, St. Augustine of Hippo wrote about the Eucharistic bread:

[At communion, the priest says to you,] “The Body of Christ”… and you answer “Amen”. Be members then of the Body of Christ that your “Amen” may be true. Why is this mystery accomplished with bread? We shall say nothing of our own about it, rather let us hear the Apostle, who speaking of this sacrament says: “We being many are one body, one bread.” Understand and rejoice. Unity, devotion, charity! One bread: and what is this one bread? One body made up of many. Consider that the bread is not made of one grain alone, but of many. [When you were being prepared for Baptism]… you were, so to say, in the mill. At baptism you were wetted with water. Then the Holy Spirit came into you like the fire which bakes the dough. Be then what you see and receive what you are.  (Sermons 272 & 234)

And we can see in the fire that bakes the dough an image of the suffering and the purification we must endure as we come to perfection in Christ, as members of his Body.

The fact is that we, who were far off from God, are brought near to him through the Body of his Son, which is the Catholic Church, as there we are renewed by the waters of baptism, nourished by the bread that comes down from heaven, by the life-giving self-disclosure of God, which comes to us from the Apostles. Here, in this Sacrament of the Catholic Church, we discover ourselves in the Bread, brought together in the one loaf, reconciled to God and to one another.

One of the prayers I pray silently at every mass, as I break the host (the communion bread) takes up this image of our unity in the Church, the Body of Christ, the Bread that came down from heaven:

“As grain, once scattered on the hillsides, was in this broken bread made one, so from all lands may your Church be gathered into your kingdom by your Son.”

Our job is to stand aside as individuals, and to allow ourselves to be gathered, like sheep… to be harvested like grain, and to give way to being renewed – refashioned, reCREATED – in the grace of our baptism, and to give in to the purgative power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, which becomes an engine, driving the work at our hands of the expansion of God’s capacious dwelling-place within the contexts of our life-circumstances and relationships, so that at the last, we pray, we all may be gathered into his Kingdom by his Son, Jesus.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.

So speaks Jesus in today’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew. And then, handily for the preacher, Jesus himself tells us what it means. But before we look at how Jesus expounds his own parable, we should note that in the symbolism of the parable, Jesus is himself the sower. A number of ancient commentators notice that in the parable Jesus says, “A sower WENT OUT to sow.” And as we have seen many, many times, Jesus is the one who “goes out” from his Father, into the world of men. The incarnation is, as Meister Eckhart said, a “boiling-over” of God’s love. We know God’s love because Jesus, the Sower, has gone out to sow.

And what does he sow? He sows seed, which is, as he himself puts it, “the word of the kingdom” (Mat. 13.19). Jesus comes into the world proclaiming the victory of God over violence and suffering and malice and death. With the coming of Jesus, our death-bound humanity is set free.

Jesus says, “When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path.” What can we deduce from what Jesus says here? Firstly, it should be noted that the proclamation of the Kingdom is for ALL PEOPLE, regardless of their station in life, their faith background, their skin color, their life-choices, or anything else. St. Paul says, “in Christ God was reconciling THE WORLD to himself,” (2 Cor. 5.19). The Sower sows his seed indiscriminately. St. Jerome commented on today’s Gospel reading, where it says that Jesus “went out of the house and sat beside the sea.” Jerome said that this verse refers to the incarnation of Christ, that it means that the Lord, “in mercy to [us] departed out of the house and sat near the sea of this world, so that great numbers might be gathered to Him…”

But Jesus says that it is necessary for us to receive the word of the Kingdom WITH UNDERSTANDING. “When any one hears the word of the kingdom AND DOES NOT UNDERSTAND IT, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path…” We must receive the word of the Kingdom with understanding. We must have eyes to see and ears to hear. Notice that Jesus says nothing about the Sower ploughing the soil. Perhaps that is because ploughing the soil is OUR JOB. It is the work of prayer. We have to crack open our hearts by means of prayer, so that the word of the Kingdom can enter into it, and take root, grow, and bear fruit. Otherwise, as Jesus says, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown.

Amazingly, it is possible to come to church, to come to mass, Sunday by Sunday, or even day by day, year in and year out, and to draw absolutely no benefit from it. Why? Because if we do not CULTIVATE our hearts, as though our hearts were hard soil that needs ploughing, then all of the graces that come from the sacraments of the church just lie on the surface of our heart and, in the words of Jesus, get snatched away by the evil one – like seeds scattered along the hard, packed earth of a pathway.

Receiving the word of the Kingdom with understanding means receiving it deep down into our hearts, and we can only do this if we have cultivated soft, supple hearts – hearts that have been broken open so that God’s grace – the “word of the Kingdom” – may sink deep down, take root, grow, and bear fruit.

As I have said, this cultivation, this PREPARATION, of the heart is the work of PRAYER. There’s a widespread interest in “spirituality” and so forth in our time. But prayer is not really something that is meant to be talked about – let alone is it something about which we are meant to drone on endlessly and irrationally. Prayer is, rather, primarily something to be DONE. I am absolutely convinced (and I am not alone in this), that it is less important HOW you pray than THAT you pray. Every Christian should have a disciplined, DAILY habit of prayer. If we want to have a relationship with God, then we have to TALK TO HIM, and (even more importantly) we have to LISTEN to what God is saying to us. That’s prayer.

Fr. Sean Finnegan wrote:

…prayer is not the acquisition of a technique. Prayer is above all an exercise of the will: one intends to pray; one is praying already. The justly famous Dom John Chapman of Downside Abbey had a tag: ‘pray as you can, and not as you can’t’. It seems an obvious comment to make, and yet how many devout people feel that they aren’t really praying until they have reached some form of transforming union or ecstasy?

Or how many of us have given up the work of prayer because it doesn’t make us FEEL any differently. We have grown too accustomed to quick fixes and instant gratification. But the truth is, the word of the Kingdom operates like water in the course of a river, slowly, but unimaginably powerfully, pulverizing whatever stands in between its source and the wide sea. I am absolutely convinced that prayer transforms us. Or more accurately, when we pray, the word of the Kingdom enters into our hearts and transforms us. But we have to pray in a disciplined way, every day, and the watchwords of our prayer must be SIMPLICITY and HONESTY. “Pray as you can, and not as you can’t.” And it may well be best to toss out our books about the “techniques” of “spirituality”.

What other dangers does Jesus warn us about in this parable? There are primarily two: shallowness or superficiality, and the cares of the world. We can avoid superficiality by shunning emotionalism. Emotions are a part of the soul, and they can be helpful. God can console us or convict us of sin by touching our emotions. But emotional-ISM is a threat. And by emotionalism I mean allowing our emotions to guide our decisions and our actions. Again, Fr. Finnegan writes:

The spirit… has three powers: will, memory, and understanding, or intelligence – the ability to organize and analyse information which is in the memory. It is with these faculties that we relate to God, because it is the soul which bears the closest resemblance to God. If this is true, it is clear that questions of enjoyment  of prayer, as such, are largely irrelevant. Enjoyment may help prayer along, and encourage one to do it more often, but [it] must not be confused with the thing itself. We pray simply because God is God, and to relate to God is the highest function, glory and ultimate destiny of the human being….

If we pray to God every day, in a disciplined, simple, and honest way, we will avoid superficiality. We will cultivate a heart that is able to receive the word of the Kingdom in such a way that it may put down roots deep inside of us.

Lastly, Jesus warns us about the cares of the world. These are the thorns that choke out the seed when it begins to sprout. These are things like money, sex, and power. The solution here is that the soil must be cleared before it can be ploughed. We have to separate ourselves from the DESIRE for the things of the world – because the things of the world are not bad in themselves – just as soil must first be cleared, even before it can be ploughed up. So too, we have to purify our desires, so that we can devote ourselves to what truly matters. And what is it that truly matters? Jesus said: “seek first [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness…” It is God that matters. And the quest for God is the most important undertaking of any human life. It is, in fact, what it means to be human.

So, if we would fulfill our destiny, find true joy, attain salvation, and at last become real, authentic human beings – we have to get our attention off of money, sex, power, and every other worldly thing. We must then focus our attention fixedly on the Kingdom of God, crack open our hearts by means of disciplined, simple, honest prayer; and allow the word of the Kingdom to enter in, where it “bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today is the third of July, which makes tomorrow the fourth of July, Independence Day, the anniversary of the day on which, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, it became necessary for our people, “to dissolve the political bands which [had] connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle[d] them…” I therefore thought it would be appropriate to reflect on how Christians ought to think about our citizenship in the nation.

Across the secular political spectrum, pundits have felt free to comment, sometimes very loudly, on how people of faith ought to regard and to inhabit the responsibilities and privileges of their citizenship. And conversely, sometimes, more detrimentally, the pundits have presumed to comment on how citizens ought to practice their faith.

I have noticed on the right side of our secular political spectrum an insistence on America as a “Christian nation,” frequently with reference to “our founding principles” – or to the fact that many of our “founding fathers” were fairly pious Christians, in keeping with the norms of their times and circumstances. (And I would just note, in passing, that most of them were Episcopalians.)

I have noticed on the left side of our secular political spectrum a deep appreciation for the “establishment clause” of the first amendment of our nation’s constitution (“…congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”), together with an often tendentious and free-form exposition of its significance. The worst form of commentary from this direction would make the practice of religion in America something entirely private, to be exercised only within the home, or within the walls of the church, or (perhaps best of all), strictly within the boundaries of the practitioner’s own skull.

I don’t want to get embroiled in controversializing, but I would like to make a few observations that may be pertinent to how we think of ourselves with respect to the civil authority.

Firstly, it is incumbent upon us to think of ourselves FIRST as children of God, and citizens of his kingdom. And only secondary to THAT citizenship, are we citizens of any earthly nation or kingdom. Indeed every human relationship is subordinate to THAT relationship. Hence, whatever an earthly authority calls us to do, we may not regard ourselves as free to do it if it would mean a renunciation of our citizenship in God’s kingdom. And so, if the civil law requires us to sin, God’s law requires us to disobey the civil law. Many Christians down through the centuries, and throughout the world, have gone happily to their deaths in obedience to this principle – as for example when, during classical antiquity, all citizens were required to participate, even if only symbolically, in the civic religion, acknowledging the emperor to be divine. Christians could not, in good conscience, do that. Hence, many were killed. When the Roman Proconsul told St. Polycarp of Smyrna to denounce Christ and swear by the fortunes of Caesar, so that he could set Polycarp free, the old man replied, “Eighty-six years have I served [Jesus], and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” And for that he was burned at the stake.

On the other hand, Christians have always prayed for those who bear the authority of civil government, both in private and within the context of the mass. One of the earliest Christian apologists, an adult convert named Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, who was born around the middle of the second century, wrote that Christians “offer prayer without ceasing for all our emperors. We pray for long life; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest, whatever… an emperor could wish…” Indeed the benevolent Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in a letter to the Roman Senate, credited the prayers of Christians in his army with saving him from a tight spot in a battle against barbarian hordes. He wrote that the Christians…

“…began the battle, not by preparing weapons, nor arms, nor bugles; for such preparation is hateful to them, on account of the God they bear about in their conscience…. [And] having cast themselves on the ground, they prayed not only for me, but also for the whole army as it stood, that they might be delivered…”

And indeed this has remained the practice of Christians from the earliest times right down to the present. At every mass here – and hence just about every day – we pray “For our nation, our president, for the state of Texas, and the city of Dallas, and for all in civil authority,” as well as “for those who serve in our armed forces,” and “for their spouses and families.” And the content of our prayer is that the Lord would “have mercy.” This is not only in our own interest – because when our nation prospers, we prosper with her – but also out of obedience to our Lord’s command that we should pray to God on behalf of ALL men, and that we should even pray for God’s blessing on those who intentionally do us harm.

Even apart from our obligation to pray for everybody, the question of what attitude Christians ought to have toward the civil authorities in particular is taken up by St. Paul in Romans (13.1ff), where he says:

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment…. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.”

We should note that St. Paul wrote this of the pagan authorities of his time – indeed the very government that had crucified Jesus, and who would eventually have Paul himself beheaded. How much more ought we, therefore, who are governed comparatively justly and for the most part by fellow Christians – how much more ought we therefore pray for them, that they may be led to wise decisions and right actions for the welfare and peace of this nation and of the world?

Which leads us to a second consideration with respect to the engagement of our civil situation. Considering that God is the author of all good, that every good thing we experience comes from him, we ought to consider all the very many and very good things that do come to us in virtue of our being citizens of this nation; and having considered them, we ought then to give thanks to God for them. And not least among them is the freedom to practice our faith openly and without fear of being molested by the government, or anyone else. Not only this, but we are citizens of the most powerful, the freest, and the most prosperous nation in the history of the world, and from the vantage point of eternity, there are no accidents. God’s providence has orchestrated this happy circumstance. And we should give him heartfelt thanks for these, and for every other benefit that has accrued to us from the riches of his grace.

Lastly – and I will close with this reflection – we should consider that notwithstanding all of the greatness of our nation, nevertheless it, like everything else and like the world itself, will one day pass away. There will come a time when America is no more. Like every other great nation and empire, America is provisional. One day this nation will be conquered, or it will crumble from within, or the whole world will come to an end. But our vocation as Christians is to perdure through the end of America, whenever and however it may come about. But in this and every circumstance we are to remain faithful citizens of the Kingdom of God.

In his second epistle, St. Peter writes to remind his hearers to comport themselves always with justice and in fidelity to their heavenly King, mindful of the provisional character of every earthly circumstance and of the earth itself:

“…The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of persons ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fire! But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore, beloved, since you wait for these, be zealous to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.” (2 Peter 3.10-14)

So let us give thanks to God for our nation and for our earthly citizenship, and for every good thing. Let us pray from the heart for the peace and prosperity of the United States, as well as for her rulers and her armies. Let us live at peace with one another and with our fellow citizens, let us obey the laws of the land, and pay our taxes. But in all things, let us always remember to whom we ultimately belong, and let us remain faithful to him in every circumstance whatsoever; let us remain conspicuous witnesses to the righteousness and peace of our heavenly King, knowing that unlike every earthly rule and authority, the his Kingdom will last forever, and that our citizenship in it is priceless and eternal.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Preached at the Church of the Holy Cross, as well as at the Church of the Advent, Boston.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

…I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ (1 Corinthians 11.23ff)

You may have heard the mass described as “the source and summit of our faith,” and so it is. And its no coincidence that this feast, Corpus Christi, inaugurates the march of the Church militant through the “tempus per annum” – the long season of the Church’s “ordinary time”. But what does this feast disclose to us? What are we meant to see – what are we meant to come to know – by keeping it?

It is, of course, the feast of the Body of Christ, and this term – “the Body of Christ” – evokes several overlapping and interrelated realities: firstly the physical body of Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, nailed to the cross, now sitting at the right hand of Power; and secondly the “mystical body of Christ” – the Catholic Church, dispersed throughout the world and across time, into which we have been incorporated by baptism.

And thirdly, the Body of Christ that we receive in the Eucharist is the bridge connecting these realities, which are all in the end, one and the same mystical contiguity – because by baptism and faith in the Name of Jesus, we are gathered up into one Body, reconciled to God and to one another, “in one Body through the cross…” (Ephesians 2.16) – just “as grain once scattered on the hillsides is in this broken bread made one” (cf. the Didache 9.8).

“In one body, through the cross…” Its important to note where this reconciliation, this ending of all hostility, occurs. It occurs on Golgotha, on the cross. It is there and only there, at the center of the universe, on this hillside, outside the walls of Jerusalem, the axis mundi, that mankind fulfills his vocation as Son of God and comes to know what the Father had planned for us from the beginning: a divine peace that transcends discourse and passes all understanding.

St. Mark’s Gospel says that on the cross, “Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last,” (Mark 15.37). Its in this place of desolation, as the Savior’s anguished cry recedes into silence, with his Mother and the disciple whom he loved – it is HERE on Golgotha that we discover the transfixed peace of God – the peace of God “manifested in the flesh… preached among the nations, believed on in the world,” (1 Tim. 3.16). Here on Calvary, the highest, thinnest pinnacle of creation, the words of the Psalm are fulfilled: “now I say to you, ‘You are gods, * and all of you children of the Most High……. Nevertheless you shall die like mortals, * and fall like any prince,’” (Psalm 82).

Jesus said, “WHEN I AM LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH, [I] will draw all men to myself,” (John 12.32). “When I am lifted up from the earth…” The elevated Body of Christ is what calls together all people of good will, from every nation under heaven, and from every epoch of human history, past, present, and future: everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, who have cultivated an open heart, a heart after God’s own heart, a heart willing to suffer for the sake of love. And by means of Christ’s Body, using the sacred host as though it were a lens, we are able to “..to plunge [our] vision into the Father’s…” to see this sinful, broken humanity from the vantage point of eternity, “contemplating with [the Father] His… children just as He sees them, all illuminated with Christ’s glory, fruits of His Suffering, clothed by the gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to establish communion…” and to re-create this humanity in his own image and likeness. (cf. “The Spiritual Testament” of Dom Christian Marie de Chergé.)

Pope Piux XII wrote about the possibility of this transcendent vision, this dynamic reconciliation refracted in the blessed sacrament. He said that in the Eucharist…

…in this act of Sacrifice through the hands of the priest, by whose word alone the Immaculate Lamb is present on the altar, the faithful themselves, united with him in prayer and desire, offer to the Eternal Father a most acceptable victim of praise and propitiation… And as the Divine Redeemer, when dying on the Cross, offered Himself to the Eternal Father as Head of the whole human race, so “in this clean oblation”[Malachi 1.11] He offers to the heavenly Father not only Himself as Head of the Church, but in Himself [he offers] His mystical members also, since He holds them all… in His most loving Heart. (Mystici Corporis Christi, 82)

In the Eucharist, the Lord draws mankind together, he creates his Church, and he presents it acceptably to the Father. And this creative action whereby we are drawn into the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is the same thing as our salvation. And here we can see why it is that “outside the Church there is no salvation.” Georges Florovsky said that “All the categorical strength and point of this aphorism lies in its tautology.” One and the same motion, one and the same action, brings us into communion with God, and into communion with one another. Blessed John Henry Newman wrote that…

…the Catholic Church allows no image of any sort, material or immaterial, no dogmatic symbol, no rite, no sacrament, no Saint, not even the Blessed Virgin herself, to come between the soul and its Creator. It is face to face, “solus cum solo,” [alone with the One who is alone] in all matters between man and his God. He alone creates; He alone has redeemed; before His awful eyes we go in death; in the vision of Him is our eternal beatitude. (from his Apologia Pro Vita Sua)

Thus when we find ourselves “Solus cum Solo” – alone with the One who is alone – we find ourselves at last safe and at home, close to the heart of God – who, in the fullness of time, sent Jesus to be born of a Virgin. In Jesus this mystery, hidden since the foundation of the world, is made known: that God’s object in creating and renewing the face of the earth was the enlargement of his dominion of love – an outpouring of the divine communion. Because what we find in contemplating the face of Jesus is the eternally-beloved of God, God’s only-begotten Son. And so we discover in Christ the mystery of God not merely as the transcendent – and therefore supremely distant – otherness with whom men yet have ritual dealings; but also, and more importantly, we discover an eternal communion of love, mutuality, and generosity. And we find, uniquely among all the religions of the world, that God does not demand retribution for our offenses, but that he has pursued us down through the ages, down through the history of each of our lives, in mercy – and that his unforeseen, unknown, and unknowable plan from before the ages, was to UNITE US TO HIMSELF, to pour out his own inner life on the lives of men.

There is an irony in this solitude with the One who is alone, and it lies in its super-abundance, for it is a communion so intimate that it cannot remain self-contained. It is ecstatic. Alone with the One who is alone, we find ourselves also to be “alone with the ones who are alone with the One who is alone,” (solus cum solis cum solo).

On Golgotha, at the place of this most public secrecy, and to the degree that we keep our focus – our love – fixed on Jesus, we begin to sense the presence of others, alone together with Him. Our love begins to overflow with the super-abundance of his love – first encompassing his weeping Mother, and then the disciple whom he loved; but gradually, as we are consumed by his mercy, reaching out to a creation filled with saints, angels, and penitent thieves of every description.

According to St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ last words before his ascension were: “lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age,” (Matthew 28.20). The Blessed Sacrament is the primary means by which Jesus fulfills this promise to remain with us. “For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. DO THIS in remembrance of me.’”

“DO THIS in remembrance of me.” Dom Gregory Dix said that “one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have DONE THIS, and not tell a hundredth part of them. [But] best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have DONE THIS just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God,” (from The Shape of the Liturgy).

Jesus is tabernacled here with us today, on the altar. Very shortly we will follow him in procession. He is here to be perceived with the eyes of faith. He is here to be worshiped and obeyed, but mostly he is here prolonging the ecstasy of Golgotha, knocking at the doors of our hearts. He has come in compassion to this place, to this moment in history, looking for you. He is here to be RECEIVED. To the desire of every longing heart Jesus speaks: “Take, eat.”

St. Paul said, “I received from the Lord… I delivered to you…” Jesus offers himself to us. He offers himself as the way to an authentic and integral life of communion (togetherness), of reconciliation and peace. And so on this day, “We give… thanks, [to the] Holy Father, for [his] holy name, which [He] has made to tabernacle in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which [He] has made known unto us through [His] Son Jesus…” (from the Didache).

In the name of the Father, and of the On, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Church sets aside this day to remember what has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ: that we worship one God in unity of being and trinity of persons. Gallons of ink have been spilt by theologians down the centuries explicating the doctrine of the Trinity, and I won’t attempt to recapitulate that project here this morning.

What I would like to do, rather, is to try and say something about what the doctrine of the Trinity means for us, why its important, and how it affects the life of faith.

The Bible is, essentially, the story of God’s relationship with man. It doesn’t take long – about two chapters into Genesis – for us to blow it. Mankind turned away from God almost at the very outset. We became estranged from him. Like prodigal sons and daughters, we squandered our inheritance, and left the house of the Father, wandering far in a strange land. And we almost forgot the house of the Father. Sin is essentially a turning away from God, a turning toward the self, or towards anything other than God for the sake of the self. To sin is to allow ourselves to be taken-in by the beguiling serpent who whispers in our ear that we do not need God; that in order to be free, we must throw off the restraints with which God has tyrannously burdened us.

And that is precisely what mankind did at the beginning, and it is what we have gone on doing ever since, both as individuals and as societies. But to turn away from God is to forget who we are – that we were created by him and for him, that his will was that we should be heirs of his estate, lovers and rulers of creation, that we should find ease and fulfillment in his presence. If any of you have read the Lord of the Rings, or seen the movies, you will remember the character Gollum, who through murder and exile, hid himself in a cave, where he became a monster. About his exile Gollum says, “We forgot the taste of bread, the sound of trees, the softness of the wind. We even forgot our own name.”

The story of salvation recorded in the Bible is the story of our feckless flight from God, and of his lovingly and determinedly pursuing us. In the Old Testament, God chooses a people, from among all the nations of the earth, to be his special possession. He cultivates a relationship with them and they come to know him not merely as a god among all the gods of the nations, but as a benevolent and merciful Father, who keeps them in his care, who guides them, and who vindicates them in the presence of those who would enthrall them.

But throughout the history of God’s provident care for Israel, there was in the background God’s promise to Abraham: that God was indeed not merely one national god among many, but that his purposes extended to blessing the whole creation through the seed of Abraham, that there should “come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and [that] a branch [should] grow out of his roots.” Uniquely among the religions of the world was the idea among the Hebrews that the objective of the God who dwelt in Zion, was the sanctification of ALL people, and the renewal of the face of the whole earth.

And so in the fullness of time, Jesus was born of a Virgin, and in him a mystery hidden since the foundation of the world was made known: that God’s object in renewing the face of the earth was the enlargement of God’s dominion of LOVE. For what we find in the face of Jesus is the eternally beloved of God, his only-begotten Son. And so we discover in Christ the mystery of God not merely as the transcendent – and therefore supremely distant – otherness with whom men yet have ritual dealings; but also, and more importantly, we discover an eternal communion of love, mutuality, and self-gift. And we find, uniquely among all the religions of the world, that God does not demand propitiation for our offenses, but that he has pursued us in mercy, and that his unforeseen, unknown, and unknowable plan from before the ages, was to UNITE US TO HIMSELF, to pour out his own inner life on the world of men, a world which had turned away from him, toward death, because of man’s pride.

And so the third term of the Godhead – the Holy Spirit – was made known through the coming of the eternal Son. The Holy Spirit, being the very mutuality of Father and Son, the very communion of love in which Father and Son abide with one another in a single essence from all eternity; this Holy Spirit was poured out on the world at the consummation of the Son’s ministry in the flesh. For through the cross, human nature is inextricably bound to divine nature in the one flesh of Jesus Christ: WHO WE ARE is eternally knit together with WHO GOD IS.

Because our nature has been brought into the communion of the Godhead, the term of that communion has been unleashed, as it were, on mankind. We have “gained access” to the love that God is, through the blood of the cross. As Paul says: “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2.18).

Because of the coming of the Son in the flesh and the reconciliation he wrought on the cross, God has been fully disclosed, and this full disclosure is the mystery of Pentecost, the pouring out of His Spirit “on all flesh”. So we now live in the dispensation of the Spirit, and have “received power” from on high – to do what was never really possible for men: to do good, to forgive one another, and to die such that we live. Thanks to grace, the knowledge of God is possible. And through the power of the Spirit, we have been given power from on high, to transcend the domination of the world, the flesh and the devil, and find life abundant in the communion of the triune God…

…to whom be endless glory: Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.