Resurrexit sicut dixit!

Today is Pascha Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord!
Dominica Paschae in Resurrectione Domini


We spent the evening at our 4-hour Easter Vigil liturgy where we were privileged to join our parish community in welcoming 14 catechumens into the Church through the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Communion. I could not help but recall my own reception into the church in 1997. The mystery of Christ's Church on Earth always moves me. The backdrop of human sin in the world and even in the Church cannot destroy us and cannot destroy our hope because we who seek Him belong to Him. The power and the glory of His suffering, death, and resurrection and Our Lord's victory over sin and death confirms that. How awesome that is! How awesome Christ is!

Last night's liturgy was awesome. Of course, every mass is inherently awesome. Our pastor preached a powerful sermon, touching on many points concerning baptism and justification, confirmation, and of course, the most intimate communion we share in the Holy Eucharist. What we share and live out in the sacraments is nothing less than God's own divine life at work in us. Peter assures us of this fact (2 Pet 1:3,4):

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.

And, in response, I can only echo Paul's assertion to the Galatians (Gal 2:20):

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Peace be with you.

Good Friday in Houston

Good Friday at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Houston

The photo above is provided courtesy of Fr. Joseph Huneycutt. We are fortunate this year in that the dates of Catholic and Orthodox Easter from both calendars coincide.

A reading from St. John Chrysostom from today's Office of Readings:

If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. Sacrifice a lamb without blemish, commanded Moses, and sprinkle its blood on your doors. If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.

If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.

There flowed from his side water and blood. Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized baptism and the holy eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit, and from the holy eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh! As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.

Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.