“Death is swallowed up in victory.” But death is not simply eliminated. There is a constant temptation in the Christian life to believe that since we love God and pray for things to go well, that we will somehow be spared from suffering. We tend to grow accustomed to this life, the many blessings we’ve received, all the projects and work we have to do, the planning needed etc. We can forget that Baptism is a sacrament that also represents death. Jeremiah the prophet was plunged into a cistern where he was sure to die, then lifted back out again. That’s what happens with baptism: being plunged into the waters in which we were certain to drown and perish, only to be brought back out again. Jesus talks about the baptism with which he longs to be baptised – He is referring to His Passion and Death. He does not long for suffering because He somehow enjoys it though – it is the joy of eternal life that draws Him through death.
Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
AMBROSE:
In their ministry of the forgiveness of sin, pastors do not exercise the right of some independent power. For not in their own name but in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit do they forgive sins. They ask, the Godhead forgives. The service is enabled by humans, but the gift comes from the Power on high.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA:
The physician’s art, according to Democritus, heals the diseases of the body; wisdom frees the soul from its obsessions. But the good Instructor, Wisdom, who is the Word of the Father who assumed human flesh, cares for the whole nature of his creature. The all-sufficient Physician of humanity, the Savior, heals both body and soul conjointly. “Stand up,” he commanded the paralytic; “take the bed on which you lie, and go home”; and immediately the paralytic received strength.
Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time
JEROME:
Can you imagine Jesus standing before your bed and you continue sleeping? It is absurd that you would remain in bed in his presence. Where is Jesus? He is already here offering himself to us. “In the middle,” he says, “among you he stands, whom you do not recognize.” “The kingdom of God is in your midst.” Faith beholds Jesus among us.
PHOTIUS:
Human beings had been afraid of death because they are held in slavery. The slavery of death means to be a subject of sin. “The sting of death is sin.” Now, by his death Christ destroyed “the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,” the inventor and the leader of sin. Sin became a disease. However, as we have been released from the oppression of that slavery, so we have been also delivered from the fear of death. And that is evident from the following illustrations. Before we feared and tried to avoid death as the supreme and invincible evil, but now we perceive it as prelude transition into the superior life and accept it joyously from those who persecute us for the sake of Christ and his commandments.