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Easter Tuesday

AUGUSTINE:

Mary calls her Lord’s inanimate body her Lord, meaning a part for the whole. It is the same as when all of us acknowledge that Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, our Lord, who of course is at once both the Word and soul and flesh, was nevertheless crucified and buried, while it was only his flesh that was laid in the sepulcher.

JEROME:

Was he one person when he was not known and another when he was known? He was surely one and the same. Whether, therefore, they knew him or not depended on their sight. It did not depend on him who was seen. And yet, it did depend on him in this sense, that he held their eyes so that they might not know him. And finally, in order that you may see that the mistake that held them was not to be attributed to the Lord’s body but to the fact that their eyes were closed, we are told, “Their eyes were opened, and they knew him.” This is why, as long as Mary Magdalene did not recognize Jesus and sought the living among the dead, she thought he was the gardener. Afterward she recognized him, and then she called him Lord. read more

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Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

“The joy of the Lord must be your strength.”  The fourth week of Lent is marked by the importance of joy in the lives of the faithful.  Today’s Gospel bears witness to Jesus’ unique ability to transform sorrow into joy.  He does this by healing – not just the physically ill, but those who are afflicted in spirit.  Joy returns to the heart when wholeness is restored.  Most of us suffer brokenness that goes much deeper than what can be seen on the surface of our lives.  It is a hidden brokenness, and we are unsure to whom we ought to expose it.  If by exposing it we can receive healing, we can have the courage to do so.  If we lose hope in the possibility of being healed, we carry around that brokenness as bitterness. read more

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Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year A)

CHRYSOSTOM:

Here again is another difficulty if [it is true that] it was not possible that the glory of God should be shown without this man’s punishment. Certainly it was not impossible, for it was possible. But it happened so “that [God’s glory] might be made evident even in this man.” One might ask, however, Did he suffer wrong for the glory of God? Tell me what he did wrong. For what if God had never willed to make him at all? But I assert that he even received benefit from his blindness. Because he recovered the sight of the eyes within. What were the Jews profited by their eyes? They incurred the heavier punishment, being blinded even while they saw. And what injury did this man have because of his blindness? For through his blindness he recovered his sight. As, then, the evils of the present life are not evils, so neither are the good things good. Sin alone is an evil, but blindness is not an evil. And he who had brought this man from not being into being also had power to leave him as he was. read more