2nd Sunday after Easter: Every Christian’s Vocation
We have to conclude that our suffering – our suffering in a Christian, Christ-like way of suffering, will in turn be exemplary to others.
We have to conclude that our suffering – our suffering in a Christian, Christ-like way of suffering, will in turn be exemplary to others.
Another feature is that our reading includes the famous “Johannine Comma” in v. 8.
Our task this year is to look at the first reading of Holy Mass in the Vetus Ordo, usually from one of the Epistles and most commonly from a Pauline Epistle. For Easter Sunday we have a brief reading – not surprising after the last few super-charged liturgical marathon days – from the Apostle to…
God made us for this end, that we could be joined to Him in a love freely willed and freely enjoyed, a vision of Him who is our Sovereign Lord, our divine Spouse. God created man in order to divinize him.
Having a foretaste of divine glory and knowing what sublime purity is necessary in order to share it worthily, the soul longs to be made pure.
In the ancient Roman Church, before the establishment of what we now call Lent, we would have begun today, now called 1st Passion Sunday, a more intense fortnight fast leading to Easter morning. It is important for us to keep in mind that another source for teasing forth the themes of the seasons and feasts…
In Hell, on the contrary, there is no society—only individuals. It is the triumph of individualism. They stand in disarray, like an abstract painting, formless and void of meaning; they feel no sympathy, they receive no compassion.
The Missale Romanum is one of the principle means by which Holy Church gave two great gifts to the entire human race across the globe through centuries: art and saints.
As St. Thomas Aquinas says, “Let our thoughts. . .dwell on retribution, imitating the holy King Hezekiah: ‘I said, in the midst of my days I shall go to the gates of hell’ (Is 38:10). A mind which goes down to hell often in life will not easily go down there in death.”
Peter denied the Lord, James fled, and only John returned to be at the foot of the Cross. Let us not get puffed up about how tough we are in view of the Enemy of the soul’s relentless grinder.
How many times do we hear today from leftists and modernists, German theologians and Jesuits activists, that “that was maybe true back then, but this is now; that teaching was culturally conditioned and doesn’t apply to us anymore!”?