SUNDAY, FIFTH WEEK OF LENT, YEAR II, Origen, The murmuring of Miriam and Aaron against Moses

Orchid flower gift in Lady Cloister-
The orchid is a flower of magnificence
that brings a universal message of love,
beauty, wisdom, and thoughtfulness. 

Patristic Lectionary, Night Office, 

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF NUMBERS   

(The murmuring of Miriam and Aaron against Moses: Numbers 12:1-15)

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman; and they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth. And suddenly the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out. And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud, and stood at the door of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forward. And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. 8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in dark speech; and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”

And the anger of the LORD was kindled against them, and he departed; and when the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. And Aaron turned towards Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned. Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.” And Moses cried to the LORD, “Heal her, O God, I beseech thee.” But the LORD said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut up outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.” So Miriam was shut up outside the camp seven days; and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again. 

FIFTH WEEK OF LENT

SUNDAY       

Year II

First Reading Numbers 12:1-15

Responsory           Heb 3:5-6; Sir 45:1.4

Moses was faithful in God's house as a servant; + but Christ was faith­ful as a son set over God's house, and we are that house.

V. Moses was loved by God and man; his memory is blessed. The Lord sanctified him for his faithfulness and gentleness. + But Christ was ...

Second Reading From a homily by Origen of Alexandria (In Num., Horn. 7, 1-2: se 29,133-136)

The glory of Moses

According to Saint Paul, everything that happened to the Israelites was symbolic, and was recorded as a warning to us. If this is so we should try to learn what we can from the story of Aaron and Miriam, who were rebuked by God for speaking against their brother Moses. Miriam received the additional punishment of leprosy. The chosen people took this chastise­ment so much to heart that they discontinued their journey to the promised land, and the Tent of the Presence stood still, until Miriam had completed her seven days' exclusion from the camp. What we are given here, in the first place, is a use­ful and necessary lesson not to speak ill of our neighbors, and not to make derogatory remarks about good and holy people, or indeed about anyone at all, when we see the anger and vengeance of God that result. Those who do so may be asked to speak against Moses. Because of this they become spiritual lepers; their unclean hearts exclude them from the camp which is the Church of God.

Now whether speaking against Moses means that these peo­ple are heretics, or whether they are members of the Church who slander their brothers and sisters and speak ill of their neighbors, there is no doubt that all who practice this vice are lepers at heart. In the case of Miriam, this leprosy was healed on the seventh day, thanks to the intervention of Aaron the high priest; but as for us, if we allow ourselves to indulge our cruel habit of speaking ill of people and our souls are punished with leprosy, we shall continue in our spiritual uncleanness until the last day of all, that is until the day of resurrection, unless we change our ways while there is still time for us to repent and turn to the Lord Jesus, asking him to help us to do penance and be purified.

And now let us hear the account of what happened after­ward, and how the Holy Spirit paid tribute to Moses. SCripture tells us that the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the door of the Tent of the Presence. Aaron and Miriam were summoned, and they both came forward. The Lord said to them: Listen to my words. If anyone of you is a prophet, I make myself known to him in visions, and speak to him in dreams. It is not so, however, with my servant Moses; he alone is faithful of all my household. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not by means of symbols or parables, and he has seen the glory of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Scripture goes on to say that the Lord's anger struck them, and he dismissed them from his presence. When the cloud departed from the tent, there stood Miriam, white as snow with leprosy.

You see what punishment those envious tongues brought on themselves, and in contrast what honors they earned for the brother they had abused. He was honored, they were dis­graced; he was covered with glory, they were covered with leprosy; he was praised, they were blamed.

The hidden meaning of the symbolic events of the Old Testament was explained by Saint Paul when he wrote: We know that our ancestors were all guided by the cloud, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate and drank the same spiritual food and drink, since they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. You see how Paul opens up the significance of the Old Testament symbols, and teaches us about the realities which these symbols represented. For Moses, the rock was one such symbol, whereas for us, now that God speaks face to face through the Old Testament, the reality signified is clearly revealed: the rock is Christ. In former times baptism was veiled in the symbols of the cloud and of the sea; but now the full reality of our rebirth is revealed in water and the Holy Spirit In those days manna was the symbolic food of the people, but now the true food prefigured by the manna is clearly declared to be the flesh of the Word of God., even as he himself tells us: My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

Responsory

1 Corinihians 10:10-11.6

Do not complain as some of our ancestors did and were killed by the destroyer.

+All these things that happened to them were symbolic and were written down for our instruction.

They are warnings for us not to desire evil as they did. + All these things ...

Lent 4th Week. St. Cyril of Alexandria, ‘The fiery cloud’

Patristic Lectionary, from 1982 and 2001 Editions

Window through ...

FRIDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT, YEAR II

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF NUMBERS

(The Cloud upon the Tabernacle and the silver trumpets: Numbers 9:15 – 10:10, 33-36)

On the day that the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony; and at evening it was over the tabernacle like the appearance of fire until morning. So it was continually; the cloud covered it by day, and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tent, after that the people of Israel set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the people of Israel encamped. At the command of the LORD the people of Israel set out, and at the command of the LORD they encamped; as long as the cloud rested over the tabernacle, ...

A Reading from the Adoration and Worship of God in Spirit and in Truth by St Cyril of Alexandria

Cyril of Alexandria  (444). Nestorius was condemned in 431 by the Council of Ephesus at which Cyril presided, and Mary’s title, Mother of God, was solemnly recognized. The Incarnation is central to Cyril’s theology. Only if Christ is consubstantial with the Father and with us can he save us, for the meeting ground between God and ourselves is the flesh of Christ. Through our kinship with Christ, the Word made flesh; we become children of God, and share in the filial relation of the Son with the Father.

The fiery cloud

The glory of Christ filled the true Tabernacle, which is the Church, from the very moment it was set up on earth. This, surely, is what is signified by the cloud that covered the first Tabernacle. Christ has filled the Church with his glory, and now like a fire, he shines forth to give light to those who live in the darkness of ignorance and error. He shades and protects those already enlightened by the dawn of his day in their hearts. He refreshes them with the heavenly dew of his consolations sent down from above through the Spirit. This is what we should understand by the saying that by night he appeared in the form of fire, and by day in the form of cloud. Those who were as yet uninstructed in the teaching of Christ required spiritual enlighten­ment to bring them to a knowledge of God; but the more advanced, whose minds had been illumined by faith, were in need of protection from the scorching heat of the day, and of courage to bear the burdens of this present life. For all who desire to live a godly life in Christ will suffer persecution.

Whenever the cloud moved forward, the Tabernacle went with it; when the cloud settled, the Tabernacle came to rest with it and the Israelites broke their journey. Now the meaning of this for us is that wherever Christ leads, the Church, the holy multi­tude of believers, follows him. The faithful are never separated from the Saviour who calls them to himself. We may not be able to find any special meaning in the constant halts and new departures throughout our spiritual journey under Christ's guidance. It is the whole journey, following the cloud whether it moves forward or settles, that symbolizes our desire to be with God.

Nevertheless, if we would have a more subtle interpretation, we could perhaps say that our first departure is from unbelief to faith, from ignorance to knowledge, and from having no perception of the true God to clear recognition of the Creator and Lord of the universe. The second stage, and an essential one, is conversion from sin and licentiousness to a desire for amendment both in thought and deed. But the best and most glorious is the third part of the journey, because in it we leave behind what is deficient and move onward toward what is perfect both in our actions and in our belief.

So, little by little, we advance toward the ideal we see in Christ, to become the perfect man, sharing in the perfection of Christ himself. This surely is what Saint Paul means by saying: Forgetting what lies behind me and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the goal, the heavenly reward to which God calls me in Christ Jesus.

St Cyril of Alexandria, The Adoration and Worship of God in Spirit and in Truth, (Lib. 5: PG 68:393-396);  Word in Season II, 1^st ed.

Comment: Blog 'The Father's witness to Jesus'

Teresa's bouquet in the cloister

Fw: [Blog] The Father's witness to Jesus.

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014, ...

Anne Marie..> wrote:

The flowers are beautiful a perfect reflection

Of where they are 

Sent from my iPhone

Lent 4th Week, From the writings of Henri de Lubac, SJ

Vigil Lectionary Readings, 

Lent II Fourth Week Thursday.

Thursday

First Reading        Numbers 3:1-13: 8:5-11.

Responsory          Heb 10:22-23; Mk 16:16

With our hearts cleansed and freed from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with clean water, let us stand firm in the profession of our hope, + for he who made the promise is faithful.

V Everyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. +For he who ...

         

Alternative Reading

From the writings of Henri de Lubac, SJ (Catholicisme, 206-207)

The thoughts of a Christian way follow various attractions, but they are always drawn back, as by the force of gravity, to the contemplation of the cross. The whole mystery of Christ is at once a mystery of resurrection and a mystery of death. Neither is complete without the other, and one word express­es both: the paschal mystery, that is to say, the Passover. It is the transmutation of the whole being implying a total separa­tion from self which no one can hope to escape. The individ­ual must renounce all natural values insofar as they are pure­ly natural, even those which have made it possible to rise above one's personal limitations.

However authentic and pure the vision of unity that inspires and directs a person's activity, before it can become a reality it must be eclipsed. The mighty shadow of the cross must envelop it. Humanity must cease to regard itself as its own final end if it is to become one, for God is essentially a God who admits of no sharing, a God who must be loved without rival or not at all.

Nor is it possible to pass effortlessly from a natural to a supernatural love. To lose oneself is the condition for finding oneself. The rigor of this spiritual logic applies to humanity as a whole as well as to the individual, to my love of the human family and of particular people as well as to my self-love. The law of exodus is the law of ecstasy. We cannot avoid being part of the human race, but the human race as a whole must die to itself in everyone of its members, so as to live trans­formed in God. The only perfect fellowship is a fellowship united in a common adoration. "The glory of God is a human being fully alive," but only by giving all the glory to God can the individual have access to life in total solidarity with others; in no other way can society be complete. Such is the uni­versal Passover which lays the foundations of the city of God.

Christ sustains the whole of humanity in his own person.

Through his death on the cross that humanity renounces self­love and dies. But the mystery is deeper yet. He who bore all within himself was abandoned by all; the universal Man died alone. Such was the climax of the kenosis and the completion of the sacrifice. This abandonment, even to apparent deser­tion by the Father, was necessary to effect reunion, Here we have the mystery of loneliness, of rending apart, becoming the one efficacious sign of gathering together into unity; a sacred sword reaching to the separation of soul and spirit only so that universal life may flow in.

“O you who are alone among the lonely, you who are all in all!”

To conclude in the words of Saint Irenaeus: "Through the wood of the cross the work of God's Word has become manifest to all; his arms are there extended to gather the whole human race together – two hands outstretched, since there are two peoples scattered over the whole earth. And because there is one only God above all and through all and in all, we see in the centre of the cross one single head."

Responsory          Jn 4:23-24

Those who worship the Father must worship him in spirit and in truth. + The Father seeks such worshipers as these.

v. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. + The Father seeks ...

Comment: Benediction photograsph

In Choir

 

Fw: Benediction photograph. 

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014,  Bob ...> wrote:

Dear Father Donald,

 

I have just logged on to your blog.

May I say the picture of Father Nivard is beautiful! 

Another one for my Nunraw collection. 

O how I wish a web cam was installed in the Church. 

I follow the Benedictines in County Down on their web cam Divine Office and Mass. It works well.

I hope you received my card. 

Please pray for me and I for you keep up the great work.

God Bless. 

 Robert.

Lent Mass, Fr. Nivard

 Fw: The Father's witness to Jesus

 

On Wednesday, 2 April 2014,    > wrote: 

Daily Read & Med Don Schwager © 2014 Servants of the Word

4 Thur April  Adapted  Jn 5 31_47

The Father's witness to Jesus

God reveals himself to the lowly of heart.
   Scripture tells us that God reveals himself to the lowly, to those who trust not in themselves, but who place their faith in God.

   The lowly of heart listen to God's word with an eagerness to learn and to obey. The Lord Jesus reveals to us the very mind and heart of God.

   Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, he opens our ears so that we may hear his voice. He fills our hearts and minds with the love and knowledge of God.     

  

Do you believe that God's word has power to set you free from sin and ignorance and to transform you to be like him?

  

Father, fill us with your Holy Spirit that we may listen to your word and obey it with joy, through Christ our Lord.

Lent 4th Week Wednesday. Origen, In Lev. 16:1-3

Patristic Reading, 

Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Lent Year II

Reading from the Homilies on Leviticus byOrigen

The omnipotent God, who lays down for men the contest of observing his Law in this world, lists what ought to be done and not done, announces suitably at the end of the book of Leviticus where each individual observance is established, what reward he who fulfils them bears and what punishment he who does not observe them undergoes.

But if the Law, according to what the Jews maintain, is not spiritual but carnal, there is no doubt that he grants carnally observed blessings also to those who observe them carnally. But if, as it seems to the Apostle Paul, the Law is spiritual then it must be observed spiritually and there is a spiritual reward of the blessings for which they hope. For it is by a perfect logic that the spiritual Law gives spiritual blessings and by a no less perfect logic that the curses and condemnations of the spiritual Law are not physical. So that what we say may not be doubted, let us hear the voice of the Apostle Paul himself writing about spiritual blessings to the Ephesians: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heaven.

 And you will eat your bread in abundance. I do not take that to be a physical blessing, as if he who keeps the Law of God obtains this ordinary bread in abundance. Why? Do not the impious and wicked eat bread not only in abundance but even in delight? Therefore, if we turn our attention more to him who said, I am the living bread which descended from heaven, and whoever eats this bread will live forever, and if we consider that he who said this was the Word by which souls are nourished, then we will understand about which bread it was said, And you will eat your bread in abundance. In Proverbs, Solomon also proclaims similar things about the just man when he says, When the just man eats, he will fill his soul; but the souls of the impious will be in extreme poverty. If you take it according to the literal sense, it appears false. For the souls of the impious take food with eagerness and strive after satiety; but the just meanwhile are hungry. Paul was just and he said, Up to this hour we are hungry, and thirsty, and naked, and we are beaten with fists. But if you consider how the just man always and without interruption eats from the living bread and fills his soul with the heavenly food which is the Word of God and his Wisdom, you will find how the just man eats his bread in abundance from the blessing of God.

And you will dwell secure upon your land. The unjust man is never secure but is always moved and wavers and is carried about by every wind of doctrine. But the just man who keeps the Law of God dwells secure upon his land. For his understanding is made firm by saying to God, Confirm me, O Lord, in your words. Therefore, he lives upon his land grounded in the faith because his building is not placed upon sand, and his root is not ‘upon a rock’, but indeed his house was founded upon the earth, but his plant took root in the depth of the earth, that is, in the interior of his soul. Therefore, it is rightly said to a soul of this kind in the blessings, You will dwell secure upon your land; and I will give peace upon your land.

Origen, In Lev. 16:1-3, 4-5; Fathers of the Church 83 (1990) tr. G.W. Buckley

Comment; Lent Laetare

Fw: [Dom Donald's Blog] Lent Laetare Sunday ...

On Sunday, 30 March 2014, 

Anne Marie ...> wrote:

The pictures are lovely today.  Very good

Start to the clocks going forward.  

Happy Lent

Sent from my iPhone  

Mid-Lent Laetare Sunday - Spring walks

Lent 4th Week Tuesday. Leo's concern here is with the positive aspect of Lenten observance... help the poor

Patristic Reading, Night Office,

   

FIRST READING
From the book of Leviticus
19:1-18, 31-37
Right conduct toward one’s neighbors
The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. Revere your mother and father, and keep my sabbaths. I, the Lord, am your God.
“Do not turn aside to idols, nor make molten gods for yourselves. I, the Lord, am your God.
............

RESPONSORY
Galatians 5:14, 13; John 13:34
All God’s commands are summed up in one:
love your neighbor as yourself.
– Love one another as I have loved you.
I give you a new commandment:
– Love one another as I have loved you.

SECOND READING

From a sermon by Saint Leo the Great, pope
(Sermo 10 in Quadragesima, 3-5: PL 54, 299-301)

The virtue of charity

In the gospel of John the Lord says: In this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other. In a letter of the same apostle we read:Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God; he who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

The faithful should therefore enter into themselves and make a true judgment on their attitudes of mind and heart. If they find some store of love’s fruit in their hearts, they must not doubt God’s presence within them. If they would increase their capacity to receive so great a guest, they should practice greater generosity in doing good, with persevering charity.

If God is love, charity should know no limit, for God cannot be confined.

Any time is the right time for works of charity, but these days of Lent provide a special encouragement. Those who want to be present at the Lord’s Passover in holiness of mind and body should seek above all to win this grace, for charity contains all other virtues and covers a multitude of sins.

As we prepare to celebrate that greatest of all mysteries, by which the blood of Jesus Christ did away with our sins, let us first of all make ready the sacrificial offerings of works of mercy. In this way we shall give to those who have sinned against us what God in his goodness has already given us.

Let us now extend to the poor and those afflicted in different ways a more open-handed generosity, so that God may be thanked through many voices and the relief of the needy supported by our fasting. No act of devotion on the part of the faithful gives God more pleasure than that which is lavished on his poor. Where he finds charity with its loving concern, there he recognizes the reflection of his own fatherly care.

In these acts of giving do not fear a lack of means. A generous spirit is itself great wealth. There can be no shortage of material for generosity where it is Christ who feeds and Christ who is fed. In all this activity there is present the hand of him who multiplies the bread by breaking it, and increasing it by giving it away.

The giver of alms should be free from anxiety and full of joy. His gain will be greatest when he keeps back least for himself. The holy apostle Paul tells us: He who provides seed for the sower will also provide bread for eating; he will provide you with more seed, and will increase the harvest of your goodness, in Christ Jesus our Lord, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

COMMENT: April

Fw: [Blog] Blessed Sacrament

On Tuesday, 1 April 2014,  William J....> wrote:

Fathers,

A picture of Adoration and Devotion, in body, mind, and spirit.

A photograph I will treasure. 

Thank you.

William

Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament after Vespers

Month Dedicated April to the Blessed Sacrament

Lent: April 1st

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament after Vespers

 Month Dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament 

POPE FRANCIS' PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR JANUARY 2014

visnews-en.blogspot.com/.../pope-francis-prayer-intentions-for_30.html‎

30 Dec 2013 - POPE FRANCIS' PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR JANUARY 2014. Vatican City, 30 ... 2014 (300). ▻ March (97) .... April (99). ▻ 30 Apr (4).  

PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR APRIL




Vatican City, 31 March 2014 (VIS) – Pope Francis' universal prayer intention for April is: “That governments may foster the protection of creation and the just distribution of natural resources”.




His intention for evangelisation is: “That the Risen Lord may fill with hope the hearts of those who are being tested by pain and sickness”.

Lent 4th Week Monday. Blessed Columba Marmion, 'We are the sacrifice'

Night Office Readings, 

 I was interested in the yellow bush outside the Church. Fr. M. was able to identify the FORSTHIA, picture.

[Forsythia Bushes - Colourful Shrubs for Border Plantings].  

FOURTH WEEK OF LENT

MONDAY  Year II

First Reading Leviticus 16:1-28

Responsory                  Heb 9:11.12.24

Christ came as the high priest of the good things to come. Not  with the blood of goats or calves, but with his own blood t he entered the holy place once for all, and won our eternal salvation.

Y. He did not enter a holy place fashioned by man: he entered heav­en itself. + He entered the ...

Second Reading 

 From the writings of Blessed Columba Marmion, O.S. B. (Le Christ, vie de l'ame, 337-339)

We are the sacrifice

We are called to be united with Christ in his sacrifice, and with him to offer ourselves. If we are willing, he takes us with him, immolates us with himself and lifts us into the Father's presence as an oblation of fragrant sweetness. It is our very selves that we must offer with Jesus. If the faithful share through baptism in Christ's priesthood, Saint Peter tells us, it is in order that they may offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So true is this that in a prayer between the offertory and consecration the Church refers explicitly to the union between our sacrifice and that of the bridegroom: Lord our God, make these gifts holy, and through them make us a perfect offering to you. 

If we are to be thus accepted by God, we must make our self-offering one with the oblation that Christ made of himself on the cross and renews on the altar. Our Lord substituted himself for us in his sacrifice; he took the place of us all. That is why the blow that fell on him has morally slain us too: If one died for all, then all have died. We shall, however, effectively die with him only by uniting ourselves to his eucharistic sacrifice; and how can we be identified with him in his character as vic­tim? By handing ourselves over, as he did, in unreserved obe­dience to God's good pleasure. 

The victim offered to God must be fully at God's disposal. We must, therefore, live in this basic attitude of giving every­thing, absolutely everything, to God. Out of love, for him we must carry out our acts of renunciation and self-denial, and accept daily sufferings, trials and pain, to such a point that we can say, as Jesus said at the hour of his passion: I act like this so that the world may realize that I love the Father. This is what self­offering with Jesus implies. We give God the most acceptable homage he can receive from us when we offer the divine Son to his eternal Father, and when we offer ourselves with this holy and perfect sacrifice in the same dispositions that filled the sacred heart of Christ on the cross: an intense love for the Father and for our brothers and sisters, a burning desire for

the salvation of all, and a total abandonment to the divine will in all things, especially when it goes against the grain and is hard for us. We find in this the surest means of transformation into Christ, particularly if we unite ourselves to him in communion, which is the most fruitful way of sharing in the sacrifice of the altar. When Christ finds us thus united with him he immolates us with himself, makes us pleasing to his Father and transforms us more and more into his own likeness. 

Responsory Gal 2:19-20

With Christ I have been nailed to the cross, t and I live now no longer my own life, but the life of Christ who lives in me.

V. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave up his life for me. + And I live ... +

Lent Laetare Sunday Homily by Fr. Raymond

Mid-Lent Laetare Sunday - Spring walks

Lent Sun 4a, Homily by F. Raymond 

St Paul gives us a very consoling teaching when he tells us that all things work together unto good for those who love the Lord. Whatever happens to us in life works for our good in the end, no matter how tragic it may seem to us at the time. But the acceptance of that truth demands a great deal of courage as well as a great deal of faith from us.

In today's Gospel story about the man born blind Jesus gives us the very same teaching. When his disciples asked him whether it was his own sins or the sins of his parents that caused the man to be born blind He answered that it was neither his own sins nor the sins of his parents that caused him to be born blind, it was in order that the works of God might be displayed in him. This seems to be a very hard teaching to accept. And so it is indeed. But if we can't accept it then what explanation have we left for it. Are we just to accept things as though they were from a blind, senseless Fate? Or, worse, are we to accept them as the work of the devil himself?

Hard as it seems, there is no other explanation possible to those who believe in God's all pervading Providence; a Providence that is omnipotent, all powerful, and at the same time loving and caring and working for our good; A Providence that "Reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things wisely and sweetly" as the Scriptures so beautifully put it.

In the event-, Jesus-does in-fact he I this man. But, of course, he doesn't heal every blind man, and of course the heart of the lesson of this Gospel is not for those who may be healed by him but for the thousands, for the millions, who won't be healed by him. In the plans of God's loving Providence there may be no healing for any particular one of our bodily ailments, but in those same plans there is, every time, a loving plan and purpose for the healing and the strengthening of our souls; for the building of us up into the perfect Body of Christ.

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mothering Sunday, sometimes known as Mother's Day, is held on the fourth Sunday of Lent. It is exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday and usually falls in the second half of March or the beginning of April.

Traditionally, people visited the church where they were baptized. Mothering Sunday is now a celebration of motherhood. People visit and take gifts to their mothers and grandmothers.

http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/uk/mothering-sunday

Lent Laetare Sunday. Cyril, theme emphasizing that Christ is both priest and sacrifice, and ... of the whole world.

Patristic Reading, Night Office.  Picture, through a window in the Church 

 

Monastic Lectionary for the Divine Office

Edited by

Friends of Henry Ashworth

Exordium Books 1982

Sunday of the Fourth Week in Lent Year II

A READING FROM THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS

(Consecration of the priests: Leviticus 8:1-17; 9:22-24)

The LORD said to Moses, “Take Aaron and his sons with him, and the garments, and the anointing oil, ...

A reading from THE commentary on
St john’s Gospel by St Cyril of Alexandria

The commentary was written before the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy in 429. The author of Hebrews contrasts the mediation of Moses with that of Christ. Cyril enlarges on this theme emphasizing that Christ is both priest and sacrifice, and that his sacrifice was offered for the sins of the whole world.

As a man the Mediator between God and man intercedes on our behalf, and because he is our very great and most holy High Priest who offers himself as a sacrifice for us, his prayers appease the anger of his Father. Christ is himself both sacrifice and priest, mediator and victim without blemish, the true lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

The mediation of Moses in ancient times was a clear type and symbol of the mediation of Christ as manifested in the last days, and the high priest of the Law was a figure of the High Priest who is above the Law. Indeed, all that relates to the Law is a fore­shadowing of the truth. The saintly Moses, and with him the celebrated Aaron, always stood between God and the people of Israel. They placated God’s anger at the people’s sins, calling on heaven to be merciful to their weakness; they invoked blessings on them and offered the sacrifice and gifts ordained by the Law for sins, or as thank-offerings for the blessings God had given them.

But Christ, who appeared in the last days to supersede the types and symbols of the Law, is both High Priest and Mediator. As a man he intercedes for us, but as God he is one with God the Father in bestowing blessings upon those who are worthy of them. Paul’s saying, Grace and peace be with you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ, teaches us this quite clearly. Christ prays for us as a man, but as God he also gives. For being a High Priest who is holy, innocent, and undefiled, he did not offer himself in sacrifice for his own frailty as did those to whom it fell to offer sacrifice according to the Law. No, it was for the salvation of our souls and on account of our sin that he made this offering, and made it once for all. He undertook to plead on our behalf and he is himself the sacrifice for our sins, and not for our sins only but also for the sins of the whole world, for the sins of every nation and race that is called to attain righteousness and holiness through faith.

 St Cyril of Alexandria, On John 11.8 (PG 74:505-508); from Word in Season II, 1^st ed.