Fifth Week of Lent Stanislaus Lyonnet, S.J. (Writings) Once you were darkness, now you are light

Sin Redemption and Sacrifice:
A Biblical and Patristic Study by
Stanislas Lyonnet (Jun 1971)

Night Office.   

The Second Reading from Stanislaus Lyonnet SJ is from A WORD IN SEASON Readings for the Liturgy of New Edition  AUGUSTINIAN PRESS 2001 

SATURDAY Year I

First Reading Hebrews 13:1-25

Responsory                                  Heb 13:13-14; 1 Chr 29:15

Let us go to Jesus outside the camp and share the insult that was heaped on him. + Here we have no permanent city, but we seek the city that is to come.

V. We are pilgrims in your sight, O Lord; our life on earth is like a shadow. + Here we have ...

Alternative Reading

From the writings of Stanislaus Lyonnet, S.J. (Writings)

Once you were darkness, now you are light

• The mystery of the cross is a mystery of obedience and of love, of which the glorious resurrection is the outcome rather than the recompense. A theme of the entire New Testament is that the death of Christ is an expression of love. It is the life given as a ransom for the lives of many. Paul tells us: Order your lives in charity, upon the model of that charity which Christ showed to us, when he gave himself up on our behalf.
• As the victim of the holocaust, changed into the immateri­al smoke, rose toward God, so Christ, by this act of love and obedience in his voluntary death, returns effectively to his Father. For Paul, then, the redemptive mystery is truly a sacrifice. But the sacrifice of Christ is unique in that he offers himself. His sacrifice is identical with his return to the Father, and in him we all return to the Father. He gave himself less in place of humanity than on our behalf, for our sakes; he performed the greatest act of love that a human being can accomplish  not to dispense us from loving, but to permit us to love. Saint Paul's whole doctrine of the redemption can be summed up by saying that he united the idea of Christ's giving himself to free us from sin to that of our reunion with God.
• Christ's return to God and humanity's return in Christ cannot be conceived apart from his glorification, which includes both his resurrection and his ascension. It is because Jesus was raised from the dead that he has delivered us from the wrath to come. If Christ has not risen, vain is your faith, for you are still in your sins. It is through the resurrection that Christ has become "the life-giving spirit," giving life to humanity.
• Christ communicates this new life to all who participate in his act of obedience and love through faith and baptism. Through baptism, the configuration to the death and resurrection of Christ, we attain a state of justice. Since it is the work of Christ, that state is final in itself. In it we are united to Christ in his death and in his risen life. If we do not fall again into the grips of sin, we will someday attain life in all its fullness.
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