Cyril of Alexandria's theology. 'Only if Christ is consubstantial with the Father and with us can he save us,'

Friday, 16 March 2012

Friday of the Third week of Lent 

Community Mass:

The Principal Celebrant (Fr. Raymond) said,

The Night Office Reading speaks how the Holy Spirit lives the bond of Christ and the Father, and how theHoly Spirit sanctifies and how we share in the divine nature. ...

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 12:28b-34.

One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?"

Jesus replied, "The first is this: 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! 

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' ....

..

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA (d444) succeeded his uncle TheophiIus as patriarch in 412. Until 428 the pen of this brilliant theologian was employed in exegesis and polemics against the Arians; after that date it was devoted almost entirely to refuting the Nestorian heresy. The teaching of 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.

Night Office

First Reading

From the book of Exodus (35:30 - 36:1; 37:1-9)

Second Reading

From the commentary on Saint John's gospel by Saint Cyril of Alexandria

(Lib. 11, 10: PG 74, 544-545)

• In this work, written before the outbreak of the Nestorian controversy in 429, Cyril seeks to bring out the dogmatic meaning of the gospel and to refute heresy. He teaches in this passage that by offering himself as a sacrificial victim, Christ reconciled the world with the Father and so made it possible for us to receive the Holy Spirit, through whom we are sanctified and given a share in the divine nature.
• Christ said: For their sake I sanctify myself. In terms of the law, any offering made to God was said to be sanctified. Such for example was the offering the Israelites made of all their first born children. Sanctify to me all the firstborn, God commanded his saintly Moses. In other words, consecrate and offer them, set them apart as sacred.
• Since sanctification, then, was regarded as the equivalent of consecration and setting apart, we may say that in this sense the Son of God sanctified himself for our sake; for he offered himself as a victim, a holy sacrifice to God the Father, and by so doing he reconciled the world with the Father and restored the fallen human race to his friendship. For he, Scripture says, is our peace.
• We must realize, however, that our return to God is not accomplished by Christ our Saviour except through the Spirit in which he causes us to share and by which we are sanctified, for it is the Spirit that binds us to God and in a real way makes us one with him. By receiving the Spirit through the Son we become sharers in the divine nature and, in the Son, we receive the Father also.
• Concerning Christ John in his wisdom wrote to us: We know that we are in him and he is in us because he allows us to share his own Spirit. And what does Paul say? The proof that you are his children is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, the Spirit that cries out, "Abba, Father." If we had remained without a share in the Spirit, we should have had no experience of God's presence within us; nor could we ever have become the children of God had we not been enriched by the Spirit to whom we owe that title. How indeed could we have been adopted as children and enabled to share in the divine nature if God did not dwell within us, and if we had not been united to him by being called to receive a share in the Spirit?
• Now, however, we are sharers in the supreme Being and have become temples of God. For God's only Son sanctified himself on account of our sins; in other words, he consecrated and offered himself as a holy and fragrant sacrifice to God the Father, thus removing the barrier of sin that separated us from God. Henceforward there was nothing to hinder us from having access to him and adhering to him in close communion through participation in the Holy Spirit, who restores to us our original righteousness and holiness.
• If sin separates us from God, righteousness will surely be a bond of union with him and a means of setting us at his side with no division between us. We have been justified, Scripture declares, by our faith in Christ, who was delivered up for our sins and raised for our justification. In him, as the firstfruits of the human race, our whole nature was restored to newness of life, and returning as it were to its beginning, was formed anew in order to be sanctified.

Responsory

1 Corinthians 3:17; 6:19-20

Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that God's spirit lives in you?

- God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

You do not belong to yourselves; you were brought for a price. So use your body for the glory of God.

- God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.  

Laetare Sunday

WDTPRS – Laetare Sunday (2002MR)
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/04/wdtprs-laetare-sunday-2002mr/

Posted on 2 April 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The nickname Laetare originated from the first word of the Introit chant for the today’s Mass, “Rejoice!”

On Laetare Sunday there is a slight relaxation of Lent’s penitential spirit, because today we have a glimpse of the joy that is coming at Easter, now near at hand.
As WDTPRS has explained before, the custom of rose vestments is tied to the Station churches in Rome. The Station for Laetare Sunday is the Basilica of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem where the relics of Cross and Passion brought from the Holy Land by St. Helena (+c. 329), mother of the Emperor Constantine (+337), were deposited. It was the custom on this day for Popes to bless roses made of gold, some amazingly elaborate and bejeweled, which were to be sent to Catholic kings, queens and other notables. The biblical reference is Christ as the “flower” sprung forth from the root of Jesse (Is 11:1 – in the Vulgate flos “flower” and RSV “branch”). Thus Laetare was also called Dominica de rosa…. Sunday of the Rose. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to develop rose colored vestments from this. Remember, the color of the vestments is called rosacea, not pink. This Roman custom spread by means of the Roman Missal to the whole of the world.

Our Collect is a new composition for the 1970MR and subsequent editions of the Novus Ordo based on a prayer in the Gelasian Sacramentary and a section of a sermon by St. Pope Leo I, the Great (+461). There is some similarity between this Collect with those of Advent. On the 2nd Sunday of Advent, we heard: in tui occursum Filii festinantes… “those hurrying to meet your Son.” On the 3rd Sunday (this Sunday’s fraternal twin Gaudete, the only other day for rose vestments) we heard: votis sollemnibus alacri laetitia celebrare…”, to celebrate…with eager jubilation by means of solemn offerings.” There is rosy anticipation in today’s Collect just as there was in Advent. Without further delay, here is the beautiful Latin followed immediately by the atrocious but happily lame-duck ICEL version.

COLLECT - LATIN TEXT (2002MR):
Deus, qui per Verbum tuum
humani generis reconciliationem mirabiliter operaris,
praesta, quaesumus, ut populus christianus
prompta devotione et alacri fide
ad ventura sollemnia valeat festinare.

Sollemnia is the neuter plural of the adjective sollemnis meaning “yearly”, that which is established to be done each year. In religious contexts, it comes out as “religious, festive”. As a substantive, it is “a religious or solemn rite, ceremony, feast, sacrifice, solemn games, a festival, solemnity”. Sollemne, the neuter noun, is also, “usage, custom, practice”. In legal contexts, it can be “formality”. In later, Christian Latin words related to sollemnis came to indicate the celebration of the Eucharist. Alacer is “lively, brisk, quick, eager, active; glad, happy, cheerful”. Promptus, a, um is from the verb promo. Promptus indicates, “brought to light, exposed to view” and by extension “at hand, i. e. prepared, ready, quick, prompt, inclined or disposed to or for any thing.”

WDTPRS LITERAL RENDERING:
O God, who by Your Word
wondrously effect the reconciliation of the human race,
grant, we beg, that the Christian people
may be able to hasten toward the upcoming solemnities
with ready devotion and eager faith.

NEW CORRECTED ICEL TRANSLATION:
O God, who through your Word
reconcile the human race to yourself in a wonderful way,
grant, we pray,
that with prompt devotion and eager faith
the Christian people may hasten
toward the solemn celebrations to come.

Note the marvelous parings of alacer fides and prompta devotio … “eager faith” and “ready devotion”. We know that fides “faith” can refer to the supernatural virtue which is given to us in baptism and also to the content of what we believe. This content must be understood as both the things we can learn and memorize with love, but more importantly the divine Person whom we must learn and contemplate with love. There is a faith by which we believe, the virtue God gives us, and a faith in which we believe, the content of the Faith. On the other hand, whereas fides is a supernatural virtue, devotio is an “active” virtue according to St. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica. The Angelic Doctor wrote: “The intrinsic or human cause of devotion is contemplation or meditation. Devotion is an act of the will by which a man promptly gives himself to the service of God. Every act of the will proceeds from some consideration of the intellect, since the object of the will is a known good; or as Augustine says, willing proceeds from understanding. Consequently, meditation is the cause of devotion since through meditation man conceives the idea of giving himself to the service of God” (STh II-II 82, 3). The Jesuit preacher Louis Bourdaloue (1632-1704) underscored devotion as especially “a devotion to duty”. What we do, including our “devotions”, must help us keep the commandments of God and stick to the duties of one’s state in life before all else. There is an interplay between our devotions and our devotion.

Each of us has a state in life, a God-given vocation we are duty bound to follow.

We must be devoted to that state in life, and the duties that come with it, as they are in the here and now. That “here and now” is important. We must not focus on the state we had once upon a time, or wish we had, or should have had, or might have someday: those are unreal and misleading fantasies that distract us from reality and God’s will. If we are truly devoted and devout (in the sense of the active virtue) to fulfilling the duties of our state as it truly is here and now, then God will give us every actual grace we need to fulfill our vocation. Why can we boldly depend on God to help us? If we are fulfilling the duties of our state of life, then we are also fulfilling our proper roles in His great plan, His design from before the creation of the universe. God is therefore sure to help us. And if we are devoted to our state as it truly is, then God can also guide us to a new vocation when and if that is His will for us. Faithful in what we must do here and now, we will be open to something God wants us to do later.

This attachment to reality and sense of dutiful obedience through the active virtue devotio is a necessary part of religion in keeping with the biblical principle in 1 John 2:3-5:

“And by this we may be sure that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says ‘I know Him’ but disobeys His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps his word, in him truly love for God is perfected. By this we may be sure that we are in Him: he who says he bides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.”

LAME-DUCK ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Father of peace,
we are joyful in your Word,
your Son Jesus Christ,
who reconciles us to you.
Let us hasten toward Easter
with the eagerness of faith and love.
This makes you want to pound your head against the table.
What would happen if we translated the ICELese back into Latin? If the ICEL were accurate, you might expect some similarities, right?
WARNING: Do not attempt this at home. Spiritual harm and damage to property can be caused by thinking about these ICEL versions. Leave this sort of thing to trained professionals and people with tough foreheads.
LATIN REVERSION of the LAME-DUCK ICEL:
Pater pacis,
in tuo Verbo, Iesu Christo filio tuo,
qui nos tibi reconciliat, laetamur.
Fidei studio et amoris
ad diem Paschalis festinemus.
Let’s see the
GOOGLE TRANSLATOR MACHINE VERSION:
O God, who by your word
reconciliation of the human race dost wonderfully,
grant, we beseech Thee, that the Christian people
with ready devotion and eager faith
the formalities to come to the be able to hurry up.
Oookaayyy… ‘nuf said about that, I think.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)

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3rd Sunday of Lent “Do you wish your prayer to fly toward God? Make for it two wings: fasting and almsgiving” (En. ps. 42, 8).

WDTPRS 3rd Sunday of Lent (2001MR): “Do you wish your prayer to fly toward God?”

Posted on 10 March 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

We can become weary in the midst of our Lenten discipline and the enemy is tirelessly working for our defeat.
In the Ordinary Form Collect for the 3rd Sunday of Lent we beg God to pick us up, and help us stay upright for the rest of the hard Lenten march.  Do not forget the military imagery of exercises and discipline we had in previous weeks.
Deus, omnium misericordiarum et totius bonitatis auctor,
qui peccatorum remedia
in ieiuniis, orationibus et eleemosynis demonstrasti,
hanc humilitatis nostrae confessionem propitius intuere,
ut, qui inclinamur conscientia nostra,
tua semper misericordia sublevemur.
St Augustine (d 430) uses the example of Jesus and woman caught in adultery (John 8) to teach about the mercy of God.  He said in a sermon (as if Jesus were talking): “Those others were restrained by conscience (conscientia) from punishing, mercy moves (inclinat misericordia) me to help you” (s. 13.5).   Even though in the Collect inclino is paired with conscientia rather than misericordia as it is in the sermon, the vocabulary suggests that this sermon may have been a partial inspiration for this ancient Collect, found in the Gelasian Sacramentary.
Misericordia means “mercy”, though its plural refers to works of mercy.  We have both a plural and a singular in today’s prayer.  Inclino is, “to cause to lean” and by extension, “to humble”.  Sublevo literally means “to lift up from beneath, support” and therefore “assist, console”.  Sublevo is in the beautiful 10th century Mozarabic Lenten hymn Attende, Domine:

“Give heed, O Lord, and be merciful, for we have sinned against you.
To you, O high King, Redeemer of all,
we raise up (sublevamus) our eyes weeping:
hear, O Christ, the prayers of those bent down begging.”

Confessio, in the Latin Vulgate (Heb 3:1) and St Gregory the Great (d 604 – ep. 7,5) is “a creed, avowal of belief” in the sense of an acknowledgment of Christ.  For St Augustine confessio has three major meanings: profession of faith in God, praise of God, and admission to God of sins.
Our Collect reminds us of the remedies for sin identified by Jesus Himself: prayer, fasting (cf. Matthew 9:14), and almsgiving or works of mercy (cf Matthew 6:1; Luke 12:33).  When Jesus cures the epileptic demoniac, He says that that sort of demon is driven out only by both prayer and fasting (Mark 9:27 Vulgate).  In Acts 10 an angel tells the centurion Cornelius that his prayers and alms have been seen favorably by God (literally, they ascended as a memorial before God in the manner of a sacrifice).
Augustine said:

“Do you wish your prayer to fly toward God? Make for it two wings: fasting and almsgiving” (En. ps. 42, 8).

Conscientia signifies in the first place, “a knowing of a thing together with another person”.  Note the unity, of knowledge in the prefix con-.  It also means, “conscientiousness” in the sense of knowledge or feelings about a thing.  It also has a moral meaning also as, “a consciousness of right or wrong, the moral sense”.
LITERAL TRANSLATION:
O God, author of all acts of mercy and all goodness,
who in fasts, prayers, and acts of almsgiving indicated the remedies of sins,
look propitiously on this confession of our humility,
so that we who are being humbled in our conscience
may always be consoled by your mercy.
NEW CORRECTED ICEL (2011):
O God, author of every mercy and of all goodness,
who in fasting, prayer and almsgiving
have shown us a remedy for sin,
look graciously on this confession of our lowliness,
that we, who are bowed down by our conscience,
may always be lifted up by your mercy.
OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):
Father,
you have taught us to overcome our sins
by prayer, fasting and works of mercy.
When we are discouraged by our weakness,
give us confidence in your love.
An examination of conscience is a humbling experience.
We often find through our examen things which frighten and discourage us.  If we are weak in our habits and our faith, that inveterate enemy of ours souls, the Devil, “father of lies”, will rub us raw with our ugliness and tempt us to lose hope about the possibility of living a moral life or, in extreme cases, about our salvation.
On a less dramatic plane, falling down in our Lenten resolve on one day can cause a collapse of our will so that we will “flag” and give up.
This is why the Lenten discipline is so important.
By discipline, sticking to a plan even though it is hard, we learn to govern our appetites, examine our consciences, do penance, and learn the habits which are virtues.
Together with discipline, the recognition of sins and failures will “incline” us to call with humble confidence upon the mercy of Christ who paid the price for our salvation.

A Response:pm125 says:

10 March 2012 at 1:07 pm

Nunraw Abbey - Fr. Gabriel Sherry ocso

Yes, if only … steadfastness is so elusive and when it fails, it seems as though weeping becomes wailing. Weeping v. wailing, i think, makes a difference in the flight of a prayer. Am struck by the words in 
‘Attende, Domine’ above and how they could be sung during the Eighth Station of the Cross when Jesus said to the women of Jerusalem following with the crowd after He fell the second time, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” (Luke 23:27-28) Sublevamus our eyes weeping reminds us as He did at that Station the way to seek Mercy.

Tertullian. "We, with unveiled faces, contemplate the glory of God . . . "

TERTULUAN (c. 160-225), a native of Carthage, was born of pagan parents, He gained a reputation at Rome as an expert in law, but after becoming a Christian in 195 he returned to Carthage and became a priest. After Augustine he is the most important and original early Latin theologian Tertullian has been called the creator of ecclesiastical Latin, because many of the new terms he coined found a permanent place in theological vocabulary. His rigorist views led him to become a Montanist in 207. 

THIRD WEEK OF LENT

Thursday Year 11

First Reading

From the book of Exodus (34:10-29)

Resonsory: Jn1:17, 18, 2 Cor:18  

We, with unveiledSecond Reading

From the treatise On Prayer by Tertullian (De oratione, 28-29: CCL 1, 273-274)

Prayer is the spiritual offering

In this extract from a work addressed to catechumens between 198 and 220 A.D., Tertullian speaks of the interior and exterior discipline of liturgical prayer, which is a spiritual sacrifice of great power and efficacy.

Prayer is the spiritual offering that has replaced the ancient sacrifices. What good do I receive from the multiplicity of your sacrifices? asks God. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and I do not want the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls and goats. Who has asked for these from your hands? What God has asked for we learn from the gospel. The hour will come, it says, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is spirit, and so he looks for worshipers who are like himself.

We are the true worshipers and the true priests. Praying in spirit we offer prayer to God as a sacrifice. Prayer is an appropriate and an acceptable sacrifice to God. It is the offering he has asked for and the offering he expects.

We must make this offering with our whole heart. We must fatten it on faith, prepare it by truth, keep it unblemished by innocence, spotless by chastity, and we must crown it with love. We must escort it to the altar of God in a procession of good works to the sound of psalms and hymns. Then it will gain for us all that we ask of God. What can God refuse to prayer offered in

spirit and in truth, when he himself asks for such prayer? How many proofs of its efficacy we read about, hear of, and believe!

Of old prayer brought deliverance from fire and beasts and hunger even before it received its pattern from Christ. How much greater then is the power of Christian prayer! It does not bring an angel of comfort to the heart of a fiery furnace, or shut the mouths of lions, or transport to the hungry food from the fields. The grace it wins does not remove all sense of pain. but it does endow those who suffer with the capacity to endure and the faith to know what the Lord will give those who suffer for the name of God.

In the past prayer caused plagues, routed armies, withheld the blessing of rain. Now the prayer of good people turns aside the anger of God, keeps vigil for their enemies, pleads for their persecutors. If prayer once had the power to call down fire from heaven. is it any wonder that it can call down from heaven the waters of grace? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil: all the power he has given it is for good.

Its only skill is to call people back from the gates of death, give strength to the weak, heal the sick, exorcise the possessed, open prison doors, free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin. drives away temptations, stamps out persecu­tions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travellers safely home, calms the waves, bemuses robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen. supports the faltering, sustains those who stand firm.

All the angels pray. Every creature prays. Cattle and wild beasts pray and bend the knee. As they come from their barns and caves they look up to heaven and call out, lifting up their spirit in their own fashion. The birds too rise and lift themselves up to heaven: they open out their wings, instead of hands, in the form of a cross, and give voice to what seems to be a prayer.

What more need be said about the duty of prayer? Even the Lord himself prayed. To him be honour and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Winzen, Damasus (1901-1971) 'Moses veiled his face' 2Cor 3:13

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Winzen, Damasus (1901-1971), professed in 1923 as a monk of the German abbey of Marialaach, one of the first centres for Catholic liturgical renewal, came to the United States before World War II to escape Nazi persecution. In 1951 he founded Mount Saviour Monastery near Elmira, New York, where he lived until his death.

•

THIRD WEEK OF LENT WEDNESDAY  Year II

WEDNESDAY  Year II

First Reading Exodus 33:7-11.18-23; 34:5-9.29-35

Responsory                                         2 Cor 3:13.18.15

Moses veiled his face to hide it from the people of Israel + but we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces and grow ever more radiant, as we are transformed into his likeness by the Lord who is Spirit.

V. To this day that same veil lies over their minds. + But we behold ...

Night Office Reading

From the writings of Damasus Winzen, O.S.B. (Pathways in the Holy Scripture 110)

Moses was a type of the Saviour

• While God is showing Moses on the top of the mountain the glorious gifts which his love is going to bestow upon his people, the latter get impatient over his absence and make a visible and therefore more "reliable" god, the molten calf. The covenant is broken before it has been put into effect. The sin of the people, however, is used by God to manifest his love still more gloriously. Moses shows himself in all his greatness as the true mediator between God and the people. He does not try to excuse the Israelites, but he appeals to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the God who has pledged everlasting love to his chosen people. In this he succeeds.
• The lack of stability and faithfulness in the hearts of the Israelites causes God to disclose the "rock" of his everlasting love. The rock upon which Moses has to stand to see the "backparts" of the Lord is a symbol of this covenant love. The backparts also mean, not the unveiled glory, but the mercy which was made flesh in Christ Jesus. Standing on the rock of his faith in God's charity Moses hears the name of God pro­claimed: Jahwe, Jahwe, Elohim, merciful and gracious, patient and of much compassion and true. It is like a reflection of this divine love in Moses, the mediator, if he offers to be blotted out of the book of life rather than to see his people condemned. In this same love Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world, and Saint Paul wished himself to be accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his brothers, his natural kin­dred, and Saint Peter, the "rock" on which the Church is built laid down his life for his sheep.
• Moved by Moses' entreaties, God lets mercy triumph over justice, and instead of sending an angel he himself goes with his people. The Book of Exodus ends with the description of the glory of God descending upon the tabernacle and filling it with the cloud of the presence. Likewise the Passover of Christ ended with the dedication of the Church on Pentecost when the strong wind and the fiery tongues of the Spirit descended upon the apostles. Since then the Christians are a temple of the Lord. The Greek term used here by Saint Paul does not mean "temple" only but "Holy of Holies." Thus the "sign" of the tabernacle is "fulfilled": every Christian is a Holy of Holies.

BIBLE COMMENT 2. 'Drinking the Calf' Exodus 32:20

MIDRASHIC MUSINGS

OVERARCHING PHILOSOPHICAL THEMES IN THE TORAH AND MIDRASH

26 FEBRUARY 2011

Drinking the Golden Calf

And it came to pass, as soon as he came near to the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands, and broke them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and scattered it upon the water, and made the people of Israel drink of it. [Ex 32:19-20]

Why does Moshe make the people drink the ground-up golden calf (Egel)?

It is a most peculiar punishment. After all, the people are punished anyway for this great sin through much more conventional ways – by sword and plague. Why does Moshe make them drink the calf as well?

The possibility exists that drinking the calf was not a punishment at all!

Consider that the calf came into this world in an almost-unique way: Aharon says that he put the gold in the fire, and it emerged, fully formed and finished.

There is only one other thing in the Torah that is made by throwing gold into a fire, and having the product come out, perfect and complete. The Midrash tells us that Moshe was unable to make the Menorah correctly, and Hashem told him to throw it into the fire, and it would be completed. And so it was.

This, of course, speaks to Moshe’s very high level of spiritualism. His spiritual fire was able to interact with that of the physical fire, to shape the Menorah merely through his desire that it be created.

The Egel was made in the same way! Aharon threw in the gold, but the desire to create the Egel came from the passion of the nation of Israel. While the end-result was wrong, there is no denying the desire of the nation of Israel to create something in the flame. In that act, they had invested their own spiritual energies into the Egel. As misguided as it was, the creation of the Egel remained an act of singular national greatness, a feat that has never yet been reproduced by the Jewish people.

And so when the Egel was destroyed, Moshe recognized the great energies that had been invested in it. Rather than simply destroy the calf, he grinds it up, and returns it to its makers. They are then able to tap that energy for equally spiritual – but hopefully more positive – ends.

BIBLE COMMENT 'Drinking the Calf' Exodus 32:20

And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. 20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. -Exodus 32:20

When I first read this passage, I thought –”what is this about?” It doesn’t make any sense to make the people who made the idol drink water with the idol, ground up, in it? Was this just designed to make the water bitter, or bad tasting? Was this meant to cause the Israelites to pass the idol through their bodies, so they would see the total worthlessness of this calf? What is the point?

To really understand, we must couple this passage with another idea found throughout the Tanakh, and then apply a particular piece of the Levitical Law to the puzzle.

For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. With their idols they have committed adultery, and they have even offered up to them for food the children whom they had borne to me. Moreover, this they have done to me: they have defiled my sanctuary on the same day and profaned my Sabbaths. For when they had slaughtered their children in sacrifice to their idols, on the same day they came into my sanctuary to profane it. And behold, this is what they did in my house. -Ezekiel 23:37-39

  In the language of the Tanakh, idolatry is often equated with adultery. When Israel worships another god, God says there worship is a form of adultery towards God. So the first point to note is that when Israel worshiped the unholy calf in the desert, they committed adultery in God’s eyes.

We all know what the punishment for adultery is —stoning. But what you might not remember is that there is also a test for adultery described in the Mosaic Law.

Speak to the people of Israel, If any man’s wife goes astray and breaks faith with him, if a man lies with her sexually, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she is undetected though she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her… the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD and unbind the hair of the woman’s head and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. And in his hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse. …then’ (let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman) ‘the LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the LORD makes your thigh fall away and your body swell. May this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’ “Then the priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the water of bitterness. And he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain. -Numbers 5:12-13, 17-18, 21-24

The priest mixes water with dust, and makes the woman suspected of adultery drink the water. If she has really committed adultery, then she contracts some sort of disease from the water, resulting in a sort of “personal plague.”

Moses is acting out this very law in the midst of Israel. He is forcing Israel to drink the water of bitterness, so that if they have committed adultery against God by worshiping the unholy calf, resulting in a plague. The plague among Israel is actually mentioned at the end of the story surrounding the unholy calf.

Then the LORD sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made. -Exodus 32:35

The text doesn’t say this plague is specifically the result of drinking the bitter water of the calf mixed with the water from the rock, but the parallels with the Mosaic Law on the test for an unfaithful wife is certainly suggestive.

Bernard THIRD WEEK OF LENT Year 11 Tuesday

First Reading

From the book of Exodus (32:1-6.15-34)

Second Reading

From the sermon on the Song of Songs by Saint Bernard (Sermo 61, 3-5: Opera omnia 2,150-151)

Although he died before completing them, Bernard's sermons on the Song of Songs from his most important single work. In them he penetrates the mystery of God's love revealed in the incarnation of his Son and in our redemption This extract affirms that members of Christ can never say their sins are too great to be pardoned, for they can claim Christ's merits as their own.

Where can the weak find a place of perfect security and peace except in the wounds of the Savior? There the measure of my security is his power to save. The world rages, the body weighs me down, the devil lays snares for me, but I do not fall because my feet are planted on firm rock I may have sinned gravely. My conscience would be troubled but I would not despair for I would call to mind the wounds of the Lord. He was wounded for our iniquities. What sin is so deadly that it cannot be pardoned by the death of Christ? If I remember this powerful and effective remedy the malignancy of sin can no longer terrify me.

Surely the man was wrong who said: My sin is too great to be pardoned. He was speaking as though he were not a member of Christ and had no share in his merits. A member of Christ can claim Christ's merits as his own, just as a member of the body can claim what belongs to the head. As for me, I confidently take all I lack from the heart of the Lord, for that heart overflows with mercy. It does not lack openings through which mercy may pour out, for they pierced his hands and feet and opened his side with a spear. Through these clefts I may suck honey from the rock and oil from the hardest stone. In other words, I may taste and see that the Lord is sweet.

He was thinking thoughts of peace and I did not know it, for who knows the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? But the piercing nail has become a key to unlock the door so that I may see the Lord's will And what can I see as I look through the hole? Both the nail and the wound cry out that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The sword pierced his soul and came close to his heart so that he might be able to feel compassion for me in my weakness.

Through these sacred wounds the secret of his heart lies open, the great mystery of love is revealed, the tender mercy of our God which caused the Dayspring from on high to visit us is manifested Where have your love, your mercy, your compassion shone out more luminously than in your wounds, sweet, gentle Lord of mercy? More mercy than this no one has than to lay down his life for those doomed to death.

My merit comes from his mercy, for I do not lack merit so long as he does not lack pity. And if the Lord's mercies are many, then I am rich in merits. What if I am aware of many sins? Where sin abounded grace abounded all the more. And if the Lord's mercies are eternal, then I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever. Will I not sing of my own righteousness? No, Lord, I will be mindful only of yours, for it is mine as well. God has made you my righteousness.