Verbum
Jesus’ Death is part of the mystery of God’s unfolding plan. The Salvation the Lord offers us isn’t always realized in the situations of this life; sometimes our deliverance from the forces that oppose and oppress us occurs in the Resurrection. Nonetheless, this prayer helps us to find meaning in our suffering, to have confidence in our trials, and to re-affirm our faith when things don’t go our way by remembering that God is in ultimate control. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we end by asking that we not be led into temptation and that we be delivered from evil. The temptation we most want to avoid is that of believing that God has abandoned us, God hates us, or that God doesn’t care about us. When we pray to be delivered from evil, we are not praying to be preserved from it (that is unrealistic in a world infected by sin) but that we will not be overcome by it; that means we pray for perseverance, deliverance, vindication, and salvation from the evil situations we endure.
Come Follow Me: Discipleship Reflections on the Sunday Gospel Readings for Liturgical Year
What a heady beginning to the Passover festivities this day seemed to be for the apostles. It started out with this unexpected triumphant moment, when all their secret ambitions of glory and fame seemed to be coming true. Jesus rode into Jerusalem amidst the acclamation and praise of the people, the crowds going wild. Though the apostles had listened to the teaching of the Master about humility and the last place, the roots of ambitious excitement die hard. In fact, just listening to Jesus’ teaching wasn’t enough. Their ambitions would only die with his own death, when they would be hiding together in a dark closet somewhere, hoping to escape with their lives… In the journey we fall and are forgiven, fall again and are forgiven again. In the journey we discover that the cross does not have the last word, and never will. We are not people of the cross, but people of the resurrection!
Lenten Grace: Daily Gospel Reflections
What God would not permit His Scriptures to pass over in silence, we too may not pass over in silence. And you shall listen to it. Our Lord’s passion, as we know, happened but once; Christ died once, the just for the unjust. And we know, we possess it as certain and hold with unshakable faith, that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, and death shall no more have dominion over Him. These are the Apostle’s words. Yet, for fear we should forget what occurred but once, it is re-enacted every year for us to remember. Does Christ die as often as the celebration of Easter comes round? No; the yearly remembrance brings before our eyes, in a way, what once happened long ago and stirs in us the same emotions as if we beheld our Lord hanging upon the cross; not in mockery, of course, but as believers. For as He hung on the tree He was mocked; seated in heaven He is worshiped. Or rather, is He not still being mocked, though now our anger is not directed against the Jews, who at any rate derided Him as He was dying, not when He was reigning? And who is there that even today derides Christ? Would there were but one, would there were but two, would they could be numbered! All the chaff of His own threshing floor mocks Him, and the wheat groans to witness its Lord insulted. I would groan over it with you; indeed, it is the season for mourning. We are celebrating our Lord’s passion; it is the season for sighing and weeping, the season for making confession and supplication. Yet who among us is capable of shedding tears in proportion to such immense sorrow?
St. Augustine on the Psalms, Vol. 1
