As was
mentioned yesterday, Holy Week is a symbol of our earthly lives, which is often
a sharing in the Passion of our Lord, which we are so intimately focused on
this week, and the words of today’s Entrance Antiphon tell us the attitude we
must have in suffering – we must allow the Lord to be our defender and help in
it.
Notice especially that this antiphon does not ask the Lord to fight with us, but to fight for us. Nor do these lines beg for the
Lord to fight offensively, but they instead request a defense. We may draw a
comparison, for today’s meditation, to the prayer of our Lord in the Garden of
Gethsemane, “Not my will, but thine, be done (Luke 22:42).” Within these
prayers, we submit ourselves to the Lord and trust in His merciful love for us.
However, to
pray these prayers of submission to the Divine Will requires the theological
virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Through faith, we believe what God has told us. Through hope, we expect the reward and fulfillment He has promised us. And through charity, we attain that reward and rest in Him; we are united with Him in the bonds of love. Through charity, we are conformed to the Divine likeness. Through charity, the Lord is able to fight for us and defend us, for He will fight through us, and defend us by His presence.
Now these three virtues were first given to us in our Baptism, when we entered into the Divine Life through participation in the Paschal Mystery; they were strengthened in us in Confirmation, and they are renewed in us through every reception of Holy Communion. We of course see here the three Sacraments of Initiation - the Sacraments the Elect will receive in five days time! Yet they are not alone in these Sacraments, for while we will not be Baptized again, yet we shall renew our Baptismal Promises, the promises through which we committed ourselves to the Christian Life so that we could be living vessels of faith, hope, and charity.
In this renewal we shall again have the opportunity to have the virtues of faith, hope, and charity increase in our souls, for we shall make the formal re-commitment to the Christian life, the life we have been working to strengthen throughout this Lenten season. Yet we have hopefully, through our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, seen that without the grace of God we cannot fulfill our desires. While we may attain to natural virtue, this is not sufficient for our sanctification, for that can only come about through the grace God bestows upon the soul.
Indeed, we see this in the Passion of Christ. In the Garden of Gethsemane, as He prays to the Father, He says, "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done (Luke 22:42)." The soul of Christ is full of fortitude; it is perfect in all ways. Nonetheless, it shirks from the bitter agonies it is about to undergo; so great is the suffering that our Lord sweats blood (Luke 22:44)! Nonetheless, as He has placed Himself in the hands of His Father, He is given strength from on high, through the coming of an angel (Luke 22:43), and thus He is able to accomplish all the works of the Passion and fulfill all that was prophesied concerning Him (John 19:30).
May we, then, like our Lord, submit ourselves entirely to God. Perhaps our works of self-denial this Lent have been rigorous; if so, we will need all the more the grace of God to persevere in the fruit they have gained. If we have been slothful, we are in need of the grace of God to convert back to Him and be renewed in our fervor. If we have neglected up to now the season of grace given to us for conversion of heart, let us turn to Him immediately, for, "Now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2)." If we will rededicate ourselves to God this Easter, we must be converted, we must have the Lord God as our strength.
Let us recall the words of Christ, for He teaches that the demon, once cast out, will return with seven more to reconquer the soul, and if he succeeds, the last state is worse than the first (Matthew 12:43-45)! We must, then, give ourselves entirely to the Lord, we must be as obedient to the Father's will as Christ was. Then, He shall contend against the enemies of our soul for us; He shall be our defense and will never allow the fortresses of our souls to fall to the enemy!
Now these three virtues were first given to us in our Baptism, when we entered into the Divine Life through participation in the Paschal Mystery; they were strengthened in us in Confirmation, and they are renewed in us through every reception of Holy Communion. We of course see here the three Sacraments of Initiation - the Sacraments the Elect will receive in five days time! Yet they are not alone in these Sacraments, for while we will not be Baptized again, yet we shall renew our Baptismal Promises, the promises through which we committed ourselves to the Christian Life so that we could be living vessels of faith, hope, and charity.
In this renewal we shall again have the opportunity to have the virtues of faith, hope, and charity increase in our souls, for we shall make the formal re-commitment to the Christian life, the life we have been working to strengthen throughout this Lenten season. Yet we have hopefully, through our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, seen that without the grace of God we cannot fulfill our desires. While we may attain to natural virtue, this is not sufficient for our sanctification, for that can only come about through the grace God bestows upon the soul.
Indeed, we see this in the Passion of Christ. In the Garden of Gethsemane, as He prays to the Father, He says, "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done (Luke 22:42)." The soul of Christ is full of fortitude; it is perfect in all ways. Nonetheless, it shirks from the bitter agonies it is about to undergo; so great is the suffering that our Lord sweats blood (Luke 22:44)! Nonetheless, as He has placed Himself in the hands of His Father, He is given strength from on high, through the coming of an angel (Luke 22:43), and thus He is able to accomplish all the works of the Passion and fulfill all that was prophesied concerning Him (John 19:30).
May we, then, like our Lord, submit ourselves entirely to God. Perhaps our works of self-denial this Lent have been rigorous; if so, we will need all the more the grace of God to persevere in the fruit they have gained. If we have been slothful, we are in need of the grace of God to convert back to Him and be renewed in our fervor. If we have neglected up to now the season of grace given to us for conversion of heart, let us turn to Him immediately, for, "Now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2)." If we will rededicate ourselves to God this Easter, we must be converted, we must have the Lord God as our strength.
Let us recall the words of Christ, for He teaches that the demon, once cast out, will return with seven more to reconquer the soul, and if he succeeds, the last state is worse than the first (Matthew 12:43-45)! We must, then, give ourselves entirely to the Lord, we must be as obedient to the Father's will as Christ was. Then, He shall contend against the enemies of our soul for us; He shall be our defense and will never allow the fortresses of our souls to fall to the enemy!
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