Saint Peter Chrysologus Waxes on God’s Awesome Grace and Mercy

Have you failed at certain things in your life and done so miserably? Do you wonder how God could ever love the likes of you? Do you worry about your eternal destiny because you realize that nothing unholy can ever live in God’s holy Presence and that all human beings, because of our sin-sickness, can never be holy by our own power or doing? Are you afraid of God because you have failed to live faithfully as his image-bearer and therefore failed to please him? You should fear God because God created you and has the power to destroy you forever.

But take heart and hope. God’s love and justice for you have given you a second chance and reason not to fear him with knee-knocking terror. God has dealt with our sins on the cross and assured us that this forgiveness is real by raising Christ from the dead. Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop and doctor of the Church, testifies powerfully to the Father’s great love, mercy, and grace toward us in the sermon below by teaching how the Father’s love is illustrated in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15.11-32). Read it, reflect on it, savor it, and most importantly act upon it in ways that demonstrate you have given your life to Christ so that you too may experience the Father’s great love for you made known in Jesus Christ our Lord’s life, Death, and Resurrection. Christ is our only hope. There is no other way, no other hope, no other chance for us to enjoy life, health, and wholeness with God, either in this world or in the new creation to come. All are invited. Are you wise enough to accept the invitation?

For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

“I will break away and return to my father.” The prodigal who spoke these words was lying prostrate on the ground. He has pondered his fall, taken stock of his ruin, found himself mired in sin, and so he exclaims: “I will break away and return to my father.” What is the basis for such hope, such assurance, and such confidence on his part? The very fact that it is his father to whom he will return. “‘I have forfeited my sonship,”’ he tells himself, ‘‘but he has not forfeited his fatherhood. There is no need for a stranger to intercede with a father: it is the father’s own affection which intervenes and supplicates in the depths of his heart. His paternal instinct yearns to beget his child anew through forgiveness. Therefore, guilty though I am, J will return to my father.” And the father, on sighting his son, immediately covers over his sin, He prefers his role as father to his role as judge. At once, he transforms the sentence into pardon, for he desires his son’s return, not his ruin. He “threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.’’ This is how the father judges and corrects: he gives a kiss in place of a beating. The power of love takes no account of sin; that is why the Father pardons his child’s guilt with a kiss and covers it over with an embrace. The father does not reveal his child’s sin, neither does he stigmatize his son; he nurses his wounds in such a way that they leave no scar or dishonor whatever. “Happy is the one whose fault is taken away.”

If the past behavior of this youngster has filled us with disgust and if the prodigal’s escapade has shocked us, we must ourselves be careful not to become estranged from such a Father. The sight alone of the Father suffices to put sin to flight, to keep transgression away, and to repel every kind of evil and temptation. But if we have drifted away from the Father, if we have squandered all his goods by a dissolute life, if we have happened to commit some sin or misdeed, if we have fallen into the bottomless pit of impiety and into absolute ruin, we must finally arise and return to such a Father, encouraged by such an example.

“His father caught sight of him and was deeply moved. He ran out to meet him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.’’ Now I ask what place there is here for despair, what occasion for an excuse or for any kind of fear. Unless perhaps we dread meeting the Father and his kiss makes us afraid; unless perhaps we believe that it is only to get hold of him and take revenge rather than to welcome and forgive him that the Father comes and takes his son by the hand, that he presses him to his heart and embraces him.

But this life-destroying thought, this enemy of our salvation, is completely disarmed by the words that follow: ‘The father said to his servants: ‘Quick! bring out the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. Take the fatted calf and kill it. Let us eat and celebrate because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life. He was lost and is found.’ ”’ After hearing this, can we still put off our own return to the Father?

Sermons 2-3; PL 52, 188-189, 192

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Grazie Pozo Christie (FT): Safe Havens for Abandoned Infants

Abortion/infanticide is a serious problem in this nation and a national disgrace. Here is a beautiful Christian response. May God have mercy on us and cause a great wave of repentance that will bring an end to this evil. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

What to do with a newborn whose very existence presents a crisis? That question has troubled humans for as long as they have been fruitful and multiplying. It’s one that is particularly close to my heart: My fifth daughter is adopted. She was found abandoned on a wintry sidewalk soon after birth, her umbilical cord still attached, and survived the exposure by a series of miracles. Now, she is a happy teenager in a large, loving family.

Baby hatches, installed at fire stations, hospitals, and other safe locations, present an answer. Just two days ago, a newborn was surrendered at a Safe Haven Baby Box in Woodburn, Indiana, where the nonprofit was founded. There are currently 142 Safe Haven boxes across the country. Mothers can remain anonymous, and the boxes are temperature-controlled to ensure the comfort of the infant. A silent alarm is triggered when a baby is placed inside the box. 

The hatches are an update of a long-existing concept. Ancient “foundling wheels” were built into the walls of medieval convents, monasteries, and churches throughout Europe. These wheels had a bell, which was rung after the bundled newborn was placed in the receptacle and the wheel had been turned. The infant would travel from the cold and inhospitable outdoors to the warm interior of a religious house in seconds, to be collected by the sleepy nun awoken by the bell. The surrender was anonymous, sparing the baby’s family from the shame of being driven to this extremity by poverty, illegitimacy, or some other calamity. The child would later be baptized and given a last name like “Esposito,” which means “exposed” or “abandoned.” Sometimes the child’s own mother would offer herself as a wet nurse, and thus preserve the happiness of nursing her baby even if she was too poor to raise the child. 

Read it all and consider making a donation to Safe Haven.

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Rebecca Mclaughlin: Richard Hays Thinks God Changed His Mind About Same-Sex Sex. Is He Right? (GC)

I am always distressed when brilliant scholars like Hays (or anyone for that matter) get swallowed up by the spirit of the age, and thereby set themselves up for eternal destruction. Shame on him for deceiving God’s people, especially in light of his brilliant career of helping God’s people by upholding orthodoxy. May God call them to repentance so that God might have mercy their souls. I am also grateful for scholars like Mclaughlin for holding the line and exposing the vacuous thinking of heretics for what it is—destructive lies. The stakes are enormous and we dare not be deceived. Lord have mercy.

For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

For decades, Christians seeking to uphold the Bible’s “no” to same-sex sexual relationships have quoted Richard Hays’s treatment of this topic in his Moral Vision of the New Testament. But Hays (emeritus professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School) has coauthored a new book, The Widening of God’s Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story, arguing for “the full inclusion of LGBT+ people in Christian communities.”

Readers might expect to find that Hays has changed his mind about the meaning of the verses that apparently prohibit same-sex sex. But he hasn’t. Instead, he and his son, Christopher (an Old Testament professor at Fuller Theological Seminary), suggest God has changed his mind. If we read the Bible carefully, they argue, we’ll find that “God repeatedly changes his mind in ways that expand the sphere of his love” (2). In light of this, the Hayses “conclude that many religious conservatives, however well-intentioned, are wrong about the most essential point of theology: the character of God” (2).

My conclusions are profoundly different. But we agree on one point. What’s at stake here isn’t theological loose change, as if we can dispense with saying no to same-sex sex and keep the bigger-ticket items. What’s at stake is our understanding of who God is and how we can discern his will.

Read it all.

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Joshua Mitchell: The Age of Incomplete Religions (First Things)

A sobering analysis. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

Second, conservatives have been unwilling to abandon terms for the enemy that have brought coherence to the conservative movement since the 1950s. The terms “cultural Marxism” and “progressivism” are hopelessly out of date and analytically inadequate to the current crisis, yet they are invoked at every like-minded gathering or convention. We are engaged in a monstrous twenty-first-century struggle. The Cold War is over. We must jettison terms that were fitting seventy years ago. 

Regarding cultural Marxism, the “long slow march through the institutions” never happened. Instead, we have witnessed the breathtakingly rapid sprint of identity politics through our institutions. Bernie Sanders is a Marxist; his thinking has been thrown into the dustbin of history by the identitarians who now rule the left. What about progressivism—the belief that the “expert competence” of elites who have been trained in our best universities can redeem the American regime from the founders’ illusions that citizen competence is enough? That movement has been terminated by the left itself. Today, our best colleges and universities do not teach “expert competence.” Students there are taught identity politics instead. They are taught to think in terms of innocent victimhood and transgressive stain. Why do conservatives acquiesce to the “progressive” self-description coming from the left today, which seeks to link a new and destructive movement to a tradition of thought that, even if mistaken, sought to strengthen America? The left today is not progressive; it is identitarian. It does not want experts to rule; it wants innocent victims to rule. It does not wish to strengthen America; it wishes to destroy it.

Conservatives dare to raise questions about church and state because identity politics has so completely overrun our institutions that they now wonder if the constitutional regime set up by the founders was either faulty from the beginning, or is unfixable now even if initially well-established—hence the emergence of serious thinking about Christian nationalism, a post-liberal order, and pre-modern integralism. Conservatives dare think down these paths because they intimate that America is on the verge of a regime change—the new regime being based on innocent victimhood rather than citizen competence, as the one established by the founders was. We should be under no illusion: that is the project of the left today. 

Read and reflect on it all.

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Pentecost 2024: An Ancient Account of how Pentecost was Celebrated

From here.

But on the fiftieth day, that is, the Lord’s Day, when the people have a very great deal to go through, everything that is customary is done from the first cockcrow onwards; vigil is kept in the Anastasis, and the bishop reads the passage from the Gospel that is always read on the Lord’s Day, namely, the account of the Lord’s Resurrection, and afterwards everything customary is done in the Anastasis [the cross], just as throughout the whole year. But when morning is come, all the people proceed to the great church, that is, to the martyrium [the church], and all things usual are done there; the priests preach and then the bishop, and all things that are prescribed are done, the oblation being made, as is customary on the Lord’s Day, only the same dismissal in the martyrium is hastened, in order that it may be made before the third hour [9am].

And when the dismissal has been made at the martyrium, all the people, to a man, escort the bishop with hymns to Sion, [so that] they are in Sion when the third hour is fully come. And on their arrival there the passage from the Acts of the Apostles is read where the Spirit came down so that all tongues [were heard and all men] understood the things that were being spoken, and the dismissal takes place afterwards in due course For the priests read there from the Acts of the Apostles concerning the selfsame thing, because that is the place in Sion—there is another church there now—where once, after the Lord’s Passion, the multitude was gathered together with the Apostles, and where this was done, as we have said above. Afterwards the dismissal takes place in due course, and the oblation is made there. Then, that the people may be dismissed, the archdeacon raises his voice, and says: “Let us all be ready to day in Eleona, in the Imbomon [place of the Ascension], directly after the sixth hour [noon].”

So all the people return, each to his house, to rest themselves, and immediately after breakfast they ascend the Mount of Olives, that is, to Eleona, each as he can, so that there is no Christian left in the city who does not go. When, therefore, they have gone up the Mount of Olives, that is, to Eleona, they first enter the Imbomon, that is, the place whence the Lord ascended into heaven, and the bishops and the priests take their seat there, and likewise all the people. Lessons are read there with hymns interspersed, antiphons too are said suitable to the day and the place, also the prayers which are interspersed have likewise similar references. The passage from the Gospel is also read where it speaks of the Lord’s Ascension, also that from the Acts of the Apostles which tells of the Ascension of the Lord into heaven after His Resurrection. And when this is over, the catechumens and then the faithful are blessed, and they come down thence, it being already the ninth hour [3pm], and go with hymns to that church which is in Eleona, wherein is the cave where the Lord was wont to sit and teach His Apostles. And as it is already past the tenth hour [4pm] when they arrive, lucernare takes place there; prayer is made, and the catechumens and likewise the faithful are blessed.

And then all the people to a man descend thence with the bishop, saying hymns and antiphons suitable to that day, and so come very slowly to the martyrium. It is already night when they reach the gate of the city, and about two hundred church candles are provided for the use of the people. And as it is agood distance from the gate to the great church, that is, the martyrium, they arrive about the second hour of the night, for they go the whole way very slowly lest the people should be weary from being afoot. And when the great gates are opened, which face towards the market-place, all the people enter the martyrium with hymns and with the bishop. And when they have entered the church, hymns are said, prayer is made, the catechumens and also the faithful are blessed; after which they go again with hymns to the Anastasis, where on their arrival hymns and antiphons are said, prayer is made, the catechumens and also the faithful are blessed; this is likewise done at the Cross. Lastly, all the Christian people to a man escort the bishop with hymns to Sion, and when they are come there, suitable lessons are read, psalrns and antiphons are said, prayer is made, the catechumens and the faithful are blessed, and the dismissal takes place. And after the dismissal all approach the bishop’s hand, and then every one returns to his house about midnight. Thus very great fatigue is endured on that day, for vigil is kept at the Anastasis from the first cockcrow, and there is no pause from that time onward throughout the whole day, but the whole celebration (of the Feast) lasts so long that it is midnight when every one returns home after the dismissal has taken place at Sion.

—Egeria, Abbess (late 4th century), The Pilgrimage of Egeria85-90

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Feast of the Ascension 2024: N.T. Wright on the Ascension of Jesus

The idea of the human Jesus now being in heaven, in his thoroughly embodied risen state, comes as a shock to many people, including many Christians. Sometimes this is because many people think that Jesus, having been divine, stopped being divine and became human, and then, having been human for a while, stopped being human and went back to being divine (at least, that’s what many people think Christians are supposed to believe). More often it’s because our culture is so used to the Platonic idea that heaven is, by definition, a place of “spiritual,” nonmaterial reality so that the idea of a solid body being not only present but also thoroughly at home there seems like a category mistake. The ascension invites us to rethink all this; and, after all, why did we suppose we knew what heaven was? Only because our culture has suggested things to us. Part of Christian belief is to find out what’s true about Jesus and let that challenge our culture.

This applies in particular to the idea of Jesus being in charge not only in heaven but also on earth, not only in some ultimate future but also in the present. Many will snort the obvious objection: it certainly doesn’t look as though he’s in charge, or if he is, he’s making a proper mess of it. But that misses the point. The early Christians knew the world was still a mess. But they announced, like messengers going off on behalf of a global company, that a new CEO had taken charge.

What happens when you downplay or ignore the ascension? The answer is that the church expands to fill the vacuum. If Jesus is more or less identical with the church—if, that is, talk about Jesus can be reduced to talk about his presence within his people rather than his standing over against them and addressing them from elsewhere as their Lord, then we have created a high road to the worst kind of triumphalism.

Only when we grasp firmly that the church is not Jesus and Jesus is not the church—when we grasp, in other words, the truth of the ascension, that the one who is indeed present with us by the Spirit is also the Lord who is strangely absent, strangely other, strangely different from us and over against us, the one who tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him—only then are we rescued from both hollow triumphalism and shallow despair.

Conversely, only when we grasp and celebrate the fact that Jesus has gone on ahead of us into God’s space, God’s new world, and is both already ruling the rebellious present world as its rightful Lord and also interceding for us at the Father’s right hand—when we grasp and celebrate, in other words, what the ascension tells us about Jesus’s continuing human work in the present—are we rescued from a wrong view of world history and equipped for the task of justice in the present. Get the ascension right, and your view of the church, of the sacraments, and of the mother of Jesus can get back into focus.

— N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope.

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Feast of the Ascension 2024: Pope Leo the Great on the Ascension of Jesus

With all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father. And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit.

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Martin Davie: Accompanying Them with Singing: a Christian Reflection on the Theology and Practice of Funerals

One of the best reflections on the importance of Christian funerals and the theology behind them that I have read, and quite appropriate for Eastertide!

[What] it not often realised is that the Christian tradition of honouring the bodies of the dead was strongly countercultural when it first began back in the days of the Early Church. As the American theologian Thomas Long comments in his book on Christian funerals, Accompany them with singing, drawing on the earlier work of Margaret Miles, one of the most bizarre forms of early Christian activity in the eyes of their Roman neighbours was:

‘… the Christian practice of burying the dead – not just their own dead, but the poor as well. In Roman society, the bodies of poor people, if left unattended, were dumped in a common pit, a paupers’ grave. Respectable Romans were horrified by the inhumanity of this, and some of them even formed burial societies to ensure that no person would go without a proper burial. However, despite the lofty rhetoric of these charitable organisations, nobody actually wanted to do the dirty work of burial, of handling a dead body – except the Christians. Not only did they volunteer to bury the dead, Miles says, they ‘insisted on gathering the bones of those who have been executed full refusal to renounce the Christian sect. They put these bones in a place of honour and described them as capable or possessing the sanctity of the living holy person.’ Educated secular Romans were convinced that all of this concern among Christians for bodies could only be the product of ignorance. One well-placed Roman, Miles reports, speculated that the Christians who were willing to bury the dead as an act of service were surely ‘fleeing from the light,’ in short, ignoring the enlightened wisdom but only minds and souls were spiritual more bodies were corrupt ‘bags of dung’ and worth nothing except to be despised. In other words. Christian attitudes toward the body were as counter cultural in antiquity as they are today, if not more so.’

If we ask why the early Christians adopted this countercultural attitude to the bodies of the dead and the practices that went with it, the answer is, Long says, that they based it on ‘their theology of creation and their experience of Jesus Christ.’ Their theology of creation told them that God had created human bodies and that like everything else created by God they were ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31). Their experience of Jesus Christ told them that the bodies of the Christian dead have eternal value because, like the body of Jesus, they will one day be raised to share life with God forever.

To put it another way, Christians have seen, and continue to see the embodiment of human beings as a gift from God that should be celebrated not only during life, but also at the point of death. As Long argues, this means that a Christian funeral is, or should be, a piece of liturgical drama that has certain specific characteristics that link the funeral service to baptism:

Read and reflect on it all.

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Eastertide 2024: An Ancient Commentator Muses on the Eucharist and Resurrection

If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. As the Apostle says: “In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven.”

We are his members and we are nourished by creation, which is his gift to us, for it is he who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall, He declared that the chalice, which comes from his creation, was his blood, and he makes it the nourishment of our blood. He affirmed that the bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that “we are members of his body,” of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of person, “for spirits do not have flesh and bones.” He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body.

The slip of a vine planted in the ground bears fruit at the proper time. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays only to be raised up again and multiplied by the Spirit of God who sustains all things. The Wisdom of God places these things at the service of human beings and when they receive God’s word they become the eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time, for the Word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father. Then the Father will clothe our mortal nature in immortality and freely endow our corruptible nature with incorruptibility, for God’s power is shown most perfectly in weakness.

Against Heresies 5, 2, 2-3: SC 153, 30-38

Saint Irenaeus, a late second-century Christian commentator and apologist, was bishop of Lyons and a spiritual grandson of the Apostles, having studied under Polycarp who in turn had studied under the Apostle John, one of the original twelve Apostles of Christ. So we can have great confidence that he received the real teachings of the Lord. Here he speaks of the relationship between Holy Eucharist and the Resurrection of the body that Christ’s Resurrection signals.

Resurrection, as Saint Irenaeus reminds us, is about new bodily existence, not living forever as a spirit without a body. His logic above is straightforward: The Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ after it has been consecrated, signals a new created order in which our mortal bodies are raised from the dead and reanimated by the Holy Spirit to live forever in God’s direct presence (1 Corinthians 15.35-50; Revelation 21.1-7). If the Eucharist consists of created elements (bread and wine) that are Christ’s body and blood after they are consecrated, it makes no sense that they would point to a state of existence (eternal life) that is spiritual rather than physical in nature. Just as consecrated bread and wine signal a new creation, Resurrection signals a new created order, one that is entirely consistent with God’s original good intentions for his creation. We get to live in that new order only by having a relationship with the crucified and risen Lord Jesus because only Christ’s Death can cleanse us of the sin and filth that prevent us from living in the Presence of a Holy God. Every time we come to Christ’s Holy Table to feed on his body and blood, we are strengthened in our living relationship with Christ and reminded of our glorious future because of his great love and sacrifice for us. What could possibly be better and more hopeful?

If you are a Christian, the next time you are beaten down by the news and events of today (they are legion) and start to lose hope, do as Saint Irenaeus and countless other Christians have done: Remember what Christ has done for you in his saving Death and the future awaiting you that his Resurrection proclaims. If you are not a Christian, consider how much better this hope and future is than the one of your own making, and choose to follow Christ.

Listen and understand if you have ears to hear.

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Eastertide 2024: Dr. Ben Witherington: Will Our Heavenly Bodies be Immaterial?

A very good lesson on the Resurrection—specifically what Saint Paul meant by “spiritual bodies” (1 Corinthians 15.44)—and quite appropriate for Eastertide since the Resurrection is all about new bodies! By all means be refreshed and strengthened by your Resurrection hope, but by all means also know what that hope really is all about!

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Good Friday 2024: An Account of How Good Friday was Observed in 4th-Century Jerusalem

[On Good Friday] following the dismissal from the Cross, which occurs before sunrise, everyone now stirred up goes immediately to Sion to pray at the pillar where the Lord was whipped. Returning from there then, all rest for a short time in their own houses, and soon all are ready. A throne is set up for the bishop on Golgotha behind the Cross, which now stands there. The bishop sits on the throne, a table covered with a linen cloth is set before the bishop, and the deacons stand around the table. The gilded silver casket containing the sacred wood of the cross is brought and opened. Both the wood of the cross and the inscription are taken out and placed on the table. As soon as they have been placed on the table, the bishop, remaining seated, grips the ends of the sacred wood, while the deacons, who are standing about, keep watch over it. There is a reason why it is guarded in this manner. It is the practice here for all the people to come forth one by one, the faithful as well as the catechumens, to bow down before the table, kiss the holy wood, and then move on. It is said that someone (I do not know when) took a bite and stole a piece of the holy cross. Therefore, it is now guarded by the deacons standing around, lest there be anyone who would dare come and do that again.

All the people pass through one by one; all of them bow down, touching the cross and the inscription, first with their foreheads, then with their eyes; and, after kissing the cross, they move on. No one, however, puts out a hand to touch the cross. As soon as they have kissed the cross and passed on through, a deacon, who is standing, holds out the ring of Solomon and the phial with which the kings were anointed. They kiss the phial and venerate the ring from more or less the second hour [8am]; and thus until the sixth hour [noon] all the people pass through, entering through one door, exiting through another. All this occurs in the place where the day before, on Thursday, the sacrifice was offered.

When the sixth hour is at hand, everyone goes before the Cross, regardless of whether it is raining or whether it is hot. This place has no roof, for it is a sort of very large and beautiful courtyard lying between the Cross and the Anastasis [the Lord’s tomb]. The people are so clustered together there that it is impossible for anything to be opened. A chair is placed for the bishop before the Cross, and from the sixth to the ninth hours [noon-3pm] nothing else is done except the reading of passages from Scripture.

First, whichever Psalms speak of the Passion are read. Next, there are readings from the apostles, either from the Epistles of the apostles or the Acts, wherever they speak of the Passion of the Lord. Next, the texts of the Passion from the Gospels are read. Then there are readings from the prophets, where they said that the Lord would suffer; and then they read from the Gospels, where He foretells the Passion. And so, from the sixth to the ninth hour, passages from Scripture are continuously read and hymns are sung, to show the people that whatever the prophets had said would come to pass concerning the Passion of the Lord can be shown, both through the Gospels and the writings of the apostles, to have taken place. And so, during those three hours, all the people are taught that nothing happened which was not first prophesied, and that nothing was prophesied which was not completely fulfilled. Prayers are continually interspersed, and the prayers themselves are proper to the day. At each reading and at every prayer, it is astonishing how much emotion and groaning there is from all the people. There is no one, young or old, who on this day does not sob more than can be imagined for the whole three hours, because the Lord suffered all this for us. After this, when the ninth hour is at hand, the passage is read from the Gospel according to Saint John where Christ gave up His spirit. After this reading, a prayer is said and the dismissal is given.

As soon as the dismissal has been given from before the Cross, everyone gathers together in the major church, the Martyrium, and there everything which they have been doing regularly throughout this week from the ninth hour when they came together at the Martyrium, until evening, is then done. After the dismissal from the Martyrium, everyone comes to the Anastasis, and, after they have arrived there, the passage from the Gospel is read where Joseph seeks from Pilate the body of the Lord and places it in a new tomb. After this reading a prayer is said, the catechumens are blessed, and the faithful as well; then the dismissal is given.

On this day no one raises a voice to say the vigil will be continued at the Anastasis, because it is known that the people are tired. However, it is the custom that the vigil be held there. And so, those among the people who wish, or rather those who are able, to keep the vigil, do so until dawn; whereas those who are not able to do so, do not keep watch there. But those of the clergy who are either strong enough or young enough, keep watch there, and hymns and antiphons are sung there all through the night until morning. The greater part of the people keep watch, some from evening on, others from midnight, all doing what they can.

—Egeria, Abbess and Pilgrim, Pilgrimage 17

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Palm Sunday 2024: A Fourth-Century Account of How Palm Sunday was Celebrated

The following day, Sunday, marks the beginning of Holy Week, which they call here the Great Week. On this [Palm] Sunday morning, at the completion of those rites which are customarily celebrated at the Anastasis [the Lord’s tomb] or the Cross from the first cockcrow until dawn, everyone assembles for the liturgy according to custom in the major church, called the Martyrium. It is called the Martyrium because it is on Golgotha, behind the Cross, where the Lord suffered His Passion, and is therefore a shrine of martyrdom. As soon as everything has been celebrated in the major church as usual, but before the dismissal is given, the archdeacon raises his voice and first says: “Throughout this whole week, beginning tomorrow at the ninth hour [3pm], let us all gather in the Martyrium, in the major church.” Then he raises his voice a second time, saying: “Today let us all be ready to assemble at the seventh hour [1pm] at the Eleona.” When the dismissal has been given in the Martyrium or major church, the bishop is led to the accompaniment of hymns to the Anastasis, and there all ceremonies are accomplished which customarily take place every Sunday at the Anastasis [Church of the Holy Sepulcher] following the dismissal from the Martyrium. Then everyone retires home to eat hastily, so that at the beginning of the seventh hour everyone will be ready to assemble in the church on the Eleona, by which I mean the Mount of Olives, where the grotto in which the Lord taught is located.

At the seventh hour all the people go up to the church on the Mount of Olives, that is, to the Eleona. The bishop sits down, hymns and antiphons appropriate to the day and place are sung, and there are likewise readings from the Scriptures. As the ninth hour approaches, they move up, chanting hymns, to the Imbomon, that is, to the place from which the Lord ascended into heaven; and everyone sits down there. When the bishop is present, the people are always commanded to be seated, so that only the deacons remain standing. And there hymns and antiphons proper to the day and place are sung, interspersed with appropriate readings from the Scriptures and prayers.

As the eleventh hour [5pm] draws near, that particular passage from Scripture is read in which the children bearing palms and branches came forth to meet the Lord, saying: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” The bishop and all the people rise immediately, and then everyone walks down from the top of the Mount of Olives, with the people preceding the bishop and responding continually with “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” to the hymns and antiphons. All the children who are present here, including those who are not yet able to walk because they are too young and therefore are carried on their parents’ shoulders, all of them bear branches, some carrying palms, others olive branches. And the bishop is led in the same manner as the Lord once was led. From the top of the mountain as far as the city, and from there through the entire city as far as the Anastasis, everyone accompanies the bishop the whole way on foot, and this includes distinguished ladies and men of consequence, reciting the responses all the while; and they move very slowly so that the people will not tire. By the time they arrive at the Anastasis, it is already evening. Once they have arrived there, even though it is evening, vespers is celebrated; then a prayer is said at the Cross and the people are dismissed.

—Egeria, Abbess, Pilgrimage

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