He is Risen

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by Neo in Easter, Faith, St Luke's Gospel, St Mark's Gospel, St Peter

Tags

Apostles, Christianity, church, Faith, Grace, history, Jesus, Salvation, sin

Well after Nicholas’s kind words yesterday, maybe I should share this. This is my traditional Easter Sunday post, although I edited it for today, it remains very much as it was.

That’s the importance of the day. Jesus the Christ is risen from the dead. This is the most important day for Christians.

Let’s speak a bit on the history. You may know that Easter is an Anglophone term for what nearly everybody else calls some form of Pasch. There’s a myth about that, which The Clerk of Oxford does a fine job of debunking.

How was Easter celebrated in Anglo-Saxon England? There’s a popular answer to that question, which goes like this: ‘the Anglo-Saxons worshipped a goddess called Eostre, who was associated with spring and fertility, and whose symbols were eggs and hares. Around this time of year they had a festival in her honour, which the Christians came over and stole to use for their own feast, and that’s why we now have Easter’.

Yeah, not so much, Eostre was mentioned in two sentences by St Bede, the rest is mostly 19th-century fabrication.

The women and the angel at the tomb, from the Benedictional of St Æthelwold
(BL Additional 49598, f. 51v)

The reenactment of this scene – the women and the angel at the empty tomb – forms one of the best-known elements of the early medieval Easter liturgy, famous because it is often said to be one of the oldest examples of liturgical drama. To quote from Regularis Concordia, as translated in this excellent blogpost at For the Wynn:

When the third reading [of Nocturns] is being read, let four brothers clothe themselves, one of whom, clothed in white and as if about to do something else, should go in and secretly be at the burial place, with his hand holding a palm, and let him sit quietly. And while the third responsory is being sung, let the remaining three follow: all clothed with cloaks, carrying censers with incense in their hands, and with footsteps in the likeness of someone seeking something, let them come before the burial place. And let these things be done in imitation of the angel sitting on the tomb and of the women coming with spices, so that they might anoint the body of Jesus.

And when the one remaining has seen the three, wandering and seeking something, approach him, let him begin, with a moderate voice, to sing sweetly: ‘Whom are you seeking?’ When this has been sung to the end, let the three respond with one voice: ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. To whom he should say: ‘He is not here. He has risen, as he said before. Go, announce it, because he has risen from the dead.’ With this command, let those three turn around to the choir, saying, “Alleluia, the Lord has risen.’ When this has been said, let the one sitting turned back, as if calling them back, say this antiphon: ‘Come and see the place’.

Saying these things, let him rise and lift up the veil and show them the place devoid of the cross, but with the linens placed there which with the cross had been wrapped. When they have seen this, let them set down the censers which they were carrying in the same tomb, and let them take the linen and spread it out in front of the clergy, and, as if showing that the Lord has risen and is not wrapped in it, let them sing this antiphon, ‘The Lord has risen from the tomb’, and let them lay the linen upon the altar.

This is a dramatic replaying of the crucial moment in the Easter story, bringing it to life through the voices and bodies of the monks. Although presumably the primary audience for this liturgical play was the monastic community itself, it may also have been witnessed by lay people. That appears to be the implication of a miracle-story told by Eadmer, describing something which he saw take place as the ritual was being performed in Canterbury Cathedral in c.1066:

There is quite a lot more at her post which is linked above and recommended highly.

We have often spoken about Jesus the leader, and his unflinching dedication to the death to his mission. On Easter, this mission is revealed. It finally becomes obvious that His mission (at this time, anyway) is not of the Earth and it’s princelings. It is instead a Kingdom of souls.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

And so we come to the crux of the matter. The triumph over original sin and death itself. For if you believe in the Christ and his message you will have eternal life. This is what sets Christianity apart, the doctrine of grace. For if you truly repent of your sins, and attempt to live properly, you will be saved. Not by your works, especially not by your wars and killing on behalf of your faith, valid and just though they may be, but by your faith and your faith alone. For you serve the King of Kings.

And as we know, the Christ is still leading the mission to save the souls of all God‘s children. It is up to us to follow the greatest leader in history or not as we choose. We would do well to remember that our God is a fearsome God but, he is also a just God. We shall be judged entirely on our merits as earthly things fall away from us. But our God is also a merciful God. So be of good cheer for the Father never burdens his people with burdens they cannot, with his help, bear.

As we celebrate the first sunrise after the defeat of darkness, Hail the King Triumphant for this is the day of His victory.

He is Risen indeed!

And hath appeared unto Simon!

Even Simon, the coward disciple who denied him thrice

“Christ is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon!”

to Simon Peter the favoured Apostle, on whom the Church is built

Crossposted from Nebraska Energy Observer.

The feast of SS Peter and Paul

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by John Charmley in Catholic Tradition, Faith, St Peter

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Catholic Church, Catholicism, Christianity, St Paul, St Peter

One of the greatest of our Popes was St Leo I, and this passage, from a sermon of his for the occasion of the feast of SS Peter and Paul, is a powerful reminder of what we owe to the two men who, in the power of the Holy Spirit, did so much to spread the Good News in the post-resurrection period.

The whole world, dearly-beloved, does indeed take part in all holy anniversaries, and loyalty to the one Faith demands that whatever is recorded as done for all men’s salvation should be everywhere celebrated with common rejoicings. But, besides that reverence which today’s festival has gained from all the world, it is to be honoured with special and peculiar exultation in our city, that there may be a predominance of gladness on the day of their martyrdom in the place where the chief of the Apostles met their glorious end.

For these are the men, through whom the light of Christ’s gospel shone on you, O Rome, and through whom you, who wast the teacher of error, wast made the disciple of Truth. These are your holy Fathers and true shepherds, who gave you claims to be numbered among the heavenly kingdoms, and built you under much better and happier auspices than they, by whose zeal the first foundations of your walls were laid: and of whom the one that gave you your name defiled you with his brother’s blood.

These are they who promoted you to such glory, that being made a holy nation, a chosen people, and royal state 1 Peter 2:9, and the head of the world through the blessed Peter’s holy See you attained a wider sway by the worship of God than by earthly government. For although you were increased by many victories, and extended your rule on land and sea, yet what your toils in war subdued is less than what the peace of Christ has conquered.

Leo the Great, Sermon 82

Mark’s Gospel & St Peter

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by John Charmley in Bible, Faith, St Mark's Gospel, St Peter

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Apostles, Catholic Church, Catholicism, Christianity, history, St Peter

At the beginning of the liturgical year I offered some comments on Mark’s Gospel as a source for patristic commentaries – mainly to the effect that there were not a great many of them. But that did not mean that the early Church did not value the Gospel, indeed it received it as the best extant record of what St Peter thought and, indeed, as effectively his memoir. As Eusebius of Caesarea (c.262-c.339) – who had access to the best library in Palestine and the traditions recorded therein, wrote:

Mark writes thus, and Peter through him bears witness about himself. For the whole of Mark’s Gospel is said to be the record of Peter’s teaching. Surely, then, men who refused (to record) what seemed to them to spread their good fame, and handed down in writing slanders against themselves to unforgetting ages, and accusations of sins, which no one in after years would ever have known of unless he had heard it from their own voice, by thus placarding themselves, may justly be considered to have been void of all egoism and false speaking, and to have given plain and clear proof of their truth-loving disposition. And as for such people who think they invented and lied, and try to slander them as deceivers, ought they not to become a laughing-stock, being convicted as friends of envy and malice, and foes of truth itself, who take men that have exhibited in their own words good proof of their integrity, and their really straightforward and sincere character, and suggest that they are rascals and clever sophists, who invent what never took place, and ascribe gratuitously to their own Master what He never did?

He concluded, and this was the consensus of the Fathers, that Mark was ‘a written monument of the doctrine which had been [by Peter] orally communicated to them.’ We know that from the earliest days it was read at the Divine Liturgy. We see this tradition at Rome, in Antioch, in Alexandria and Constantinople, and they seem, as far as we can reconstruct them, to be independent of each other – that is to say that everywhere it was known that Mark was Peter’s interpreter and what he wrote was Peter’s, not his own. As Athanasius the Apostolic put it: ‘Mark, the Gospel writer … uses the same voice [as Peter did in his confession of Christ as Messiah], speaking in harmony with the Blessed Peter’ [Sermon on the Nativity of Christ, 28]

That most learned translator and scholar, St Jerome, wrote, in his Lives of Illustrious Men [chapter 8]:

Mark the disciple and interpreter of Peter wrote a short gospel at the request of the brethren at Rome embodying what he had heard Peter tell. When Peter had heard this, he approved it and published it to thechurches to be read by his authority as Clemens in the sixth book of his Hypotyposes and Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, record. Peter also mentions this Mark in his first epistle, figuratively indicating Rome under the name of Babylon She who is in Babylon elect together with you salutes you and so does Mark my son. So, taking the gospel which he himself composed, he went to Egypt and first preaching Christ at Alexandria he formed a church so admirable in doctrine and continence of living that he constrained all followers of Christto his example. Philo most learned of the Jews seeing the first church at Alexandria still Jewish in a degree, wrote a book on their manner of life as something creditable to his nation telling how, as Luke says, the believers had all things in common at Jerusalem, so he recorded that he saw was done at Alexandria, under the learned Mark. He died in the eighth year of Nero and was buried at Alexandria, Annianus succeeding him.

Jerome concluded that, in effect, Mark’s Gospel was the testimony of St Peter himself.

Soon we shall bid farewell to Mark’s Gospel as the subject of the Sunday patristic commentaries, but, for all the occasional frustrations at the slim pickings it offers from that point of view, it has been a privilege to follow it through the year and to walk in the footsteps of St Peter himself.

Gospel truth

20 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by John Charmley in Bible, Early Church, Faith, St Mark's Gospel, St Peter

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Apostles, Catholic Church, Catholicism

As we have only a few weeks left now of Liturgical Year B and I am coming to the end of the commentaries on St Mark, I am preparing a piece to commemorate that, but in so doing, I have had occasion to re-read Eusebius of Ceasarea’s The Proofs of the Gospel, which dates from around A.D. 314 (with thanks to the indefatigable Roger Pearse), and was much struck by the comments he has to make on that Gospel.

Eusebius, still writing in a world where it was dangerous to be a Christian, engages with critics of the Gospel, and points out that it is implausible to think that the Apostles and earliest disciples all conspired not only lie about Jesus, but to maintain the very same lie (the shameful crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension). This is especially true, he argues, given the number of embarrassing (to Christians) things Mark records about the ignorance and weakness of the disciples. No one, he argues, would put such things in their sacred book unless they were true. That being so, we have to assume that Jesus taught his disciples the value of the truth so well that they included even things which reflected badly on them. That being so, it is absurd, he thinks, to argue that the disciples would have lied about the miracles of Jesus or the words he spoke.

Eusebius points out that had the disciples omitted all the embarrassing things, and ironed out what some saw as inconsistencies between the Gospel accounts, then by his own time, no one would have known that had happened, and the life of the apologist would have been much easier. But that did not happen, and it did not happen because the Gospel writers were men bound to tell the truth as it had been revealed to them, and they did so, regardless of what men thought.

Written as it was seventeen hundred years ago, this still seems to me one of the best pieces of apologetics on the subject. I can think of no other sacred text where the authors present themselves in such a poor light, or where they so obviously leave themselves open to being contradicted by their own words.

We might add to these considerations one which seems to me overwhelming. On Good Friday we see a defeated and firightened bunch of men slink away to lick their wounds. Only the young John is there with the women at the foot of the Cross. Yet, a few days later this same demoralised crew is up and out there and proclaiming what must have seemed arrant nonsense – that the crucified Jesus had risen. It is not simply that the Roman were unable to produce the body (although we know from the Gospels that they claimed it had been stolen away), it is the actions of the disciples themselves. Men who had robbed a tomb and were hiding the rotting body of their dead Master would not have had the courage or nerve to go out and risk, and accept, martyrdom for that. No, something happened that third day after the crucifixion, and it changed their lives, as it changes our lives. He is Risen!

Gospel for the feast of SS Peter and Paul

28 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by John Charmley in Commentaries, Early Church, Faith, St Peter

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Catholic Church, Catholicism, Christianity

The feast day of SS Peter and Paul is one of the most important in the calendar of the Church. The tradition of the Church tells us that both men were executed in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Nero; both were buried and honoured there. The early Church Fathers found the verses from Matthew which are the subject of this Sunday’s Gospel reading on which to comment extensively.

Matthew 16:13-19

St John Chrysostom (349-407) points out, in his homily on the Gospel, that the Lord takes the disciples outside the borders of Judea into the territory of the Gentiles where ‘being free from all alarm, they might speak with boldness all that was in their mind.’ Epiphanius the Latin (late fifth, early sixth century), takes up this theme in his ownInterpretation of the Gospels. It was here, in the lands of the Gentiles, that the Father revealed to Peter what flesh and blood had revealed to no man. This foreshadows the fact that it would be the Gentiles who, through faith, would come to acknowledge Christ as the Son of God, where so many of his own people in Judea, would not recognise that. Theodore of Heraclea (d. 355), whose works survive only in small fragments, of which the commentary on this passage is part, notes the didactic purpose in what Jesus does. He asks the question in order to discover what opinions about him were current among the Jews. His use of the term ‘Son of Man’, highlights the fact that Jesus is unchangeably man without ceasing to be God. Chrysostom takes this further, showing how Jesus leads his followers into a dialogue which will draw them into a ‘more sublime notion’ of who he really is. The dialogue comes after Jesus had performed many miracles and given many proofs of his divinity and his union with the Father, but even these had not lifted the veil of incomprehension from the eyes of his disciples. Only the Divine will could lift that veil, and here we see this truth. Theodore of Mopsuestia (350-428), one of the founders of the exegetical school in Antioch, writes that at this stage his disciples were not all clear who he was, with some thinking he might be John the Baptist risen (as Herod did) or Elijah returned, or even Jeremiah.

St Cyril of Alexandria (c.376 – 444 -whose feast day we celebrated yesterday, 27 June) points out that Peter did not say ‘you are a Christ’ or ‘a son of God’, for many are they who have, by Grace, become these things by adoption; but there is only one who is by nature the Son of God. Peter indicates that Jesus is the one with power over life and death and in whom all authority lies.

Jesus says that Peter’s confession is the rock, and that on this rock he will build his church. This, according to Theodore of Mopsuestia, means that Jesus builds his church on this same confession of faith. For this reason, Jesus changes the name of the Apostle from Simon to ‘Peter’, which in the Aramaic means ‘rock’, to signify his authority. To him and the church are given the keys to the kingdom. He who is a member of the church has access to the kingdom; he who is not, does not.

Christ, Epiphanius, writes, is the rock which is never worn away of can be destroyed. Peter gladly receives his new name to signify the established and unshaken faith of the Church. The devil will forever seek to undermine the church, but he will fail because it is based on unshakable foundations.

Pope St Leo the Great (440-461) notes that in saying that the Father has revealed to Peter the truth of his identity, Jesus goes on to to invest Peter with authority. Of course Jesus is the cornerstone and the rock, but he now says to Peter: “you also are rock because you are made firm with my strength. What properly belongs to me, you share with my by participation”. This confession will not be restrained even by the very gates of hell, for it is a declaration of life. It lifts up to heaven those who confess it, and those who deny it sink into hell. The right to bind and loose is given to all the Apostles, but it is entrusted in a unique way to the one whose name is changed to signify he is the rock chosen by Jesus.

1 Peter 2

07 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by John Charmley in Bible, Commentaries, Faith, Petrine Epistles, St Peter

≈ Comments Off on 1 Peter 2

Tags

Christianity, Petrine Epistles, St Peter

1 Peter 2

2 who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

We are sometimes told that the idea of the Trinity was a late addition to Christianity, well, here we have a Trinitarian description of how Christian people are called and redeemed.
We are chosen in the foreknowledge of God the Father. All that happens is part of His eternal plan (Acts 2:23, Peter’s own speech). This, too, St. Paul tells us in hisEpistle to the Ephesians 1:3-10.

The calling takes place through sanctification by the Spirit. If we are sanctified we are made holy, we are set apart for God. In 1:15 Peter will call them to live a life which imitates that of God who is holy, but he makes it clear here that our holiness is grounded in the sanctification which has come to us through the Holy Spirit.

We are called to obedience and sprinkling with His blood. The whole Epistle is a call to obedience to God (1:14, 22; 3:6), but we should pause to try to explain ‘sprinkling with the blood’.

Hebrews 9:13-14 speaks of the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus in the New Covenant for the forgiveness of sins. This would have taken the listeners to the Exodus 24:1-8 where Moses sprinkled the children of Israel with the blood of the lamb which sealed the covenant between God and His chosen people; now we, the new chosen people, are also sprinkled, but with the blood of the Lamb, for the forgiveness of our sins.

The listeners might also have been reminded, as we are, of our being cleansed from sin by the blood of Christ through baptism. We are obedient to the Gospel and members through it of a new covenant.

Peter concludes his greeting with a prayer. In the Greek culture of the day it was common to offer grace (charis) as a form of greeting. But, in the New Covenant, ‘grace’ takes on a new significance because of the work of Christ; Peter will make it a key theme of this epistle. The offer of ‘peace’ was a typical Jewish greeting. It is significant that even at this early date, Christians combine the two in a greeting of ‘grace and peace’. This is a common marriage of terms in Paul’s epistles (Rom. 1-7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1-3; Eph 1:2).

The opening blessing, which marks the next stage, is one of the most inspiring passages of the New Testament and will take more time than I have now, but, God willing, I shall be able to return to it soon.