Tag: Jesus

Saint Hugh

Bishop of Grenoble
(1053-1132)

It was the good fortune of Saint Hugh to receive, from his cradle, strong impressions of piety through the example and solicitude of his illustrious and holy parents. He was born at Chateauneuf in Dauphiné, France, in 1053. His father, Odilo, who served his country in an honorable post in the army, labored by all means in his power to make his soldiers faithful servants of their Creator, and by severe punishments, to restrain vice. By the advice of his son, Saint Hugh, in his later years he became a Carthusian monk, and died at the age of one hundred, having received Extreme Unction and Viaticum from the hands of his son. Under his direction, his mother had served God in her own house for many years by prayer, fasting, and abundant almsgiving; and Saint Hugh also assisted her in her last hours. Continue reading →

Meditations for Each Day of Lent by St. Thomas Aquinas

Passion Tuesday

The Burial of Christ

She hath wrought a good work upon Me. She in pouring this ointment upon Me hath done it for my burial.–Matt. xxvi. 10-12.

It was right that Christ should be buried.

1. It proved that He had really died. No one is placed in the grave unless he is undeniably dead. And, as we read in St. Mark (ch. xv), Pilate, before he gave leave for Christ to be buried, made careful enquiry to assure himself that Christ was dead.

2. The very fact that Christ rose again from the grave gives a hope of rising again through Him to all others who lie in their graves. As it says in the gospel, All that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God. And they that hear shall live (John v. 28, 25).

3. It was an example for those who by the death of Christ are spiritually dead to sin, for those, that is, who are hidden away from the turmoil of human affairs. So St. Paul says, You are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God (Col. iii. 3). So, too, those who are baptised, since by the death of Christ they die to sin, are as it were buried with Christ in their immersion, as St. Paul again says, We are buried together with Christ by baptism unto death (Rom. vi. 4).

As the death of Christ efficiently wrought our salvation, so too is His burial effective for us. St. Jerome, for example, says, “By the burial of Christ we all rise again,” and explaining the words of Isaias (liii. 9), He shall give the ungodly for His burial, the Gloss says, “This means He shall give to God and the Father the nations lacking in filial devotion: for through His death and burial He has obtained possession of them.”

The Psalm (Ps. Ixxxvii. 6) says, I am become as a man without help, free among the dead. Christ by being buried showed Himself free among the dead indeed, for His being enclosed in the tomb was not allowed to hinder His coming forth in the Resurrection.

MANNER OF HEARING MASS AT HOME
by Rev. Leonard Goffine

For those who on account of sickness, old age, or for other proper reasons cannot assist at holy Mass, especially on Sundays and Holidays.
PREFATORY REMARKS.
Bear in mind, O Christian soul, that those who would with pleasure be present at the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, if it were possible, such as the sick, the infirm, the aged, fathers and mothers who must remain at home with the little children, and for other reasons, are all included in the holy Sacrifice, that is, take part in the prayers of the Church, in the blessings and merits of the Sacrifice, if they have a sincere desire for it, and, include themselves in the holy Sacrifice. Continue reading →

Saint John Climacus

Abbot
(525-605)

Saint John, whose national origin remains unknown, was called Climacus because of a treatise he wrote called The Ladder (Climax) of Paradise. He made such progress in learning as a disciple of Saint Gregory Nazianzen that while still young, he was called the Scholastic. At the age of sixteen he turned from the brilliant future which lay before him, and retired to Mount Sinai, where he was placed under the direction of a holy monk named Martyrius. Once that religious journeyed to Antioch and took the young John with him; they visited Saint Anastasius, a future Patriarch of Antioch, and the Saint asked Martyrius who it was who had given the habit to this novice? Hearing that it was Martyrius himself, he replied, And who would have said that you gave the habit to an Abbot of Mount Sinai? Another religious, a solitary, made the same prediction on a similar visit, and washed the feet of the one who would some day be Abbot of Mount Sinai. Continue reading →

Meditations for Each Day of Lent by St. Thomas Aquinas

Passion Monday

The Passion of Christ is a Remedy Against Sin

We find in the Passion of Christ a remedy against all the evils that we incur through sin. Now these evils are five in number. (i) We ourselves become unclean. When a man commits any sin he soils his soul, for just as virtue is the beauty of the soul, so sin is a stain upon it. How happeneih it, O Israel, that thou art in thy enemies land? Thou art grown old in a strange country, thou art defiled with the dead (Baruch iii. 10, 11). Continue reading →