The Cross of Christ gives life to the human race - a defense of the resurrection of Jesus Christ

From a sermon by Saint Ephrem, deacon
The cross of Christ gives life to the human race

Death trampled our Lord underfoot, but he in his turn treated death as a highroad for his own feet. He submitted to it, enduring it willingly, because by this means he would be able to destroy death in spite of itself. Death had its own way when our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when by a loud cry from that cross he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it.

Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural human life, but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man.

Death could not devour our Lord unless he possessed a body, neither could hell swallow him up unless he bore our flesh; and so he came in search of a chariot in which to ride to the underworld. This chariot was the body which he received from the Virgin; in it he invaded death’s fortress, broke open its strongroom and scattered all its treasure.

At length he came upon Eve, the mother of all the living. She was that vineyard whose enclosure her own hands had enabled death to violate, so that she could taste its fruit; thus the mother of all the living became the source of death for every living creature. But in her stead Mary grew up, a new vine in place of the old. Christ, the new life, dwelt within her. When death, with its customary impudence, came foraging for her mortal fruit, it encountered its own destruction in the hidden life that fruit contained. All unsuspecting, it swallowed him up, and in so doing released life itself and set free a multitude of men.

He who was also the carpenter’s glorious son set up his cross above death’s all-consuming jaws, and led the human race into the dwelling place of life. Since a tree had brought about the downfall of mankind, it was upon a tree that mankind crossed over to the realm of life. Bitter was the branch that had once been grafted upon that ancient tree, but sweet the young shoot that has now been grafted in, the shoot in which we are meant to recognize the Lord whom no creature can resist.

We give glory to you, Lord, who raised up your cross to span the jaws of death like a bridge by which souls might pass from the region of the dead to the land of the living. We give glory to you who put on the body of a single mortal man and made it the source of life for every other mortal man. You are incontestably alive. Your murderers sowed your living body in the earth as farmers sow grain, but it sprang up and yielded an abundant harvest of men raised from the dead.

Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us offer our Lord the great and all-embracing sacrifice of our love, pouring out our treasury of hymns and prayers before him who offered his cross in sacrifice to God for the enrichment of us all.

RESPONSORY 1 Corinthians 15:55-56, 57; 2 Corinthians 4:13, 14

Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? It is sin that gives death its sting.
— But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, alleluia.

We have the spirit of faith by which we believe that he who raised Jesus to life will also raise us up with Jesus.
— But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, alleluia.

Office of Readings - Divine Office - April 15, 2016

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St. Ephrem - Ephraim - lived in the 5th Century. He wrote many hymns expounding true doctrine in order to combat serious heresies that were being spread by teachers. 

He saw that those who denied the resurrection were using hymns in order to spread their lies. He countered by writing hymns that contained orthodox teachings. 

According to tradition, Ephrem began to write hymns in order to counteract the heresies that were rampant at that time. For those who think of hymns simply as the song at the end of Mass that keeps us from leaving the church early, it may come as a surprise that Ephrem and others recognized and developed the power of music to get their points across. Tradition tells us that Ephrem heard the heretical ideas put into song first and in order to counteract them made up his own hymns. In the one below, his target is a Syrian heretic Bardesan who denied the truth of the Resurrection:
"How he blasphemes justice, And grace her fellow-worker. For if the body was not raised, This is a great insult against grace, To say grace created the body for decay; And this is slander against justice, to say justice sends the body to destruction."

- St. Ephrem - Saints & Angels  

St. Irenaeus - The Eucharist - Pledge of our Resurrection

From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop

The eucharist, pledge of our 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 man, 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 man 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.

RESPONSORY John 6:48-52

I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate manna in the desert, and they died.
— This is the bread that comes down from heaven; anyone who eats this bread will never die, alleluia.

I am the living bread come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live for ever.
— This is the bread that comes down from heaven; anyone who eats this bread will never die, alleluia.
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Here are some of my thoughts on this. Check out what I say and compare it to official Catholic sources. Some years ago I began to read the Church fathers. Not long ago it dawned on me that they were my favorite theologians and that they were all Catholic.

Here is Irenaeus giving a very Catholic explanation of the Eucharist way back in the 2nd Century. I am not a scholar. I am not an apologist. I am not an academic. I am just a person who loves God and His Word and now the Catholic Church. So, I post things by Catholic scholars, apologists, academics, and saints that I find to be helpful. My own comments may or may not be helpful.  I hope they are.

This St. Irenaeus quote is evidence to the idea that the Catholic Church’s teaching on the Eucharist is the true and most ancient Christian teaching about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The blood is the blood of Christ and the bread is the body of Christ at the Word of God. It is also a piece of evidence to support the Catholic Church’s claim that she has not changed key dogmas. 

Notice how Irenaeus relates the Eucharist to the Incarnation. Protestants get criticized for denying the Real Presence - Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity - in the elements. Protestants have a problem with both Scripture and the earliest teachings of the Church when they make the claim that the bread and the wine are merely symbolic. In Protestant teaching, Christ is present spiritually, but not physically in the bread and the wine.

There is plenty of evidence to support the Catholic teaching - both Scriptural and traditional.

Irenaeus dates from the early 2nd century, long before Emperor Constantine. In fact, as a young man, he had heard St. Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John. [1.]

Why is that significant?  We are taught in Protestantism that the Church became corrupted when Constantine declared Christianity to be the official religion of the Empire. That corruption - which allegedly began to be corrected over 1,000 years later by the Reformers - included what most Reformers believe to be the idolatrous meaning of the Eucharist as practiced by Catholics.

So, who changed the Eucharist? The Reformers did. I am not an academic scholar, of course. So please look into this for yourself.

It is interesting to note that Eastern Orthodox Churches have basically the same theology as Catholics - with very few differences. They are in agreement about the meaning of the Eucharist - the Real Presence of Christ.

The Reformers would have to say that the Holy Spirit allowed the Church to be in error for over 1,000 years before He corrected the teaching on the Eucharist through men like Luther and Calvin. That is highly unlikely if the Holy Spirit really had been poured out on the Church at Pentecost. [See Acts 1 & 2]

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead His people into all truth. Why would it take Him so long to correct such an error if it really were an error?  [2.]

No Church council had ever tried to change or “correct” the understanding of the Eucharist that Irenaeus clearly portrays. So why did the Reformers take it upon themselves to corrupt the clear meaning of Jesus’ words. [See John 6:48-52]

It is an offense to the Holy Spirit to say that He allowed the Church to be led into error for a long, long time instead of into all truth. 

This is from today’s Office of Readings. [3.]
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[1.] Entry about St. Irenaeus from The New Advent
[2.] John 16:13Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

[3.] April 14, 2016 - DivineOffice.org - Office of Readings for Thursday in the 3rd week of Easter

Quotes from Pope St. Gregory the Great - Gregory I

• “Have confidence in the compassion of our Creator. Reflect well on what you are now doing, and keep before you the things you have done. Lift up your eyes to the overflowing compassion of heaven, and while He waits for you, draw near in tears to our merciful Judge.”
• “No one does more harm in the Church than he who has the title or rank of holiness and acts perversely.”
• "If we knew at what time we were to depart from this world, we would be able to select a season for pleasure and another for repentance. But God, who has promised pardon to every repentant sinner, has not promised us tomorrow. Therefore we must always dread the final day, which we can never foresee. This very day is a day of truce, a day for conversion.”
• "The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.”

- Pope St. Gregory the Great, Gregory I (Pope from September 3, 590 - March 12, 604 A.D.

                                                                 Died: March 12, 604 A.D.)

He Descended into Hell

He descended into Hell.
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What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled.

Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow-prisoner Eve from their pains, he who is God, and Adam's son.

The Lord goes into them holding his victorious weapon, his cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: "My Lord be with you all." And Christ in reply says to Adam: "And with your spirit." And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying:

"Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.

I am your God, who for your sake became your son, who for you and your descendants now speak and command with authority those in prison: Come forth, and those in darkness: Have light, and those who sleep: Rise.

I command you: Awake, sleeper, I have not made you to be held a prisoner in the underworld. Arise from the dead; I am the life of the dead. Arise, O man, work of my hands, arise, you who were fashioned in my image. Rise, let us go hence; for you in me and I in you, together we are one undivided person.

For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.

Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.

See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.

But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven. I denied you the tree of life, which was a figure, but now I myself am united to you, I who am life. I posted the cherubim to guard you as they would slaves; now I make the cherubim worship you as they would God.

The cherubim throne has been prepared, the bearers are ready and waiting, the bridal chamber is in order, the food is provided, the everlasting houses and rooms are in readiness; the treasures of good things have been opened; the kingdom of heaven has been prepared before the ages.”

- From an ancient homily by an anonymous source and shared by Bishop Robert Barron

The Gardener Who Sows Wildly - Lent Day 38 - Bishop Robert Barron

Why does God create? Is it out of need? No. God creates because he is diffusivum sui, diffusive of himself, bubbling over with joy and fecundity. He creates, as Vatican I says, in order to manifest his glory. He is effervescent, exuberant, over the top, playful and creative love. God is the gardener of being who sows, plants, and prunes.

- Bishop Robert Barron

The above quote is from Bishop Barron’s lenten reflection about the Parable of the Sower. 

I love the phrase about God being “diffusive of Himself”.  He is Creator, and He creates. He does so joyfully and even wildly, as seen in the Parable of the Sower and as Bishop Barron has pointed out. 

If the ground is the least bit receptive, then the seed will take root and grow. That is the good ground that the good seed of the Word falls on. Choose to be that good ground. Ask God to make it so, to make you good ground where the Word can produce fruit. Choose Him choosing you, as the saying goes. 

Matthew 13New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

The Parable of the Sower

13 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2 Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5 Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6 But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8 Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 Let anyone with ears[a] listen!”

Holy Saturday

Today a great silence reigns on earth, a great silence and a great stillness. A great silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began... He has gone to search for Adam, our first father, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow Adam in his bonds and Eve, captive with him — He who is both their God and the son of Eve... "I am your God, who for your sake have become your son... I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.

-Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday

Definition of Abortion

“Abortion does not mean the gentle exercise of some abstraction called ‘choice’. Abortion means the brutal execution of a living human being.”

Babies in the Womb Exist

One of the tragedies of the abortion culture is that life in the womb has been so heartbreakingly devalued. To embrace the arguments of the “pro-choice” crowd one must conclude that the child in the womb doesn't exist, isn't there, has no being. 
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Excellent pro-life argument.  The baby in the womb does exist, and his or her existence is is different from that of the mother. 

In order to kill the child, his existence must be denied. It must be redefined as just a blob of tissue. 


In Him we live and move and have our being.
 (Acts 17:28). 

That fact is just as true for the unborn child as it is for the mother. 

See 40 Days for Life Campaign

Gleaned from Comments at Old Life

 Person 1: I feel as though I know so little, have so much to learn, and have made so many mistakes, so many missteps in my life. The term ‘life-long learner’ is a good fit for me

Person 2: Ariel, if so serious then require repentance over apology. The latter is cheap, the former more difficult. Another option is to let offense go so it can rest on the head of your accuser. But in blogdom it’s all about the drama.

Person 3: ... we all have ‘blind spots’ (I fear I have the most), so yours was an excellent point and reminder.”>>>
Response from Person 4: Well isn’t that a fine attitude to take. ;-) Bless your heart sir :) Of course, this side of the resurrection, we will all live and die with some blind spots.
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So, I am  lifelong learner with the Word of God, Sacred Tradition, and the Teaching Magisterium of the Catholic Church, - led by the Holy Spirit - to be my guides. I am not left all on my own to try to figure it all out by myself. Christ put me in His body. There I am hidden with Christ in God who is above all and through all and in all. 

Let all else go, and be joyous!

Ephesians 4New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)

Unity in the Body of Christ

4 I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

Whatever our spiritual need - Christ meets it

Here is a quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Some groups emphasize that we are dead in our trespasses and sins, which is true. However, the Bible also has other descriptions of our spiritual state without grace. Notice all the things we needed and how each and every need is met by Christ. 
When I get time, I will show where Scripture supports each point St. Gregory of Nyssa makes. Many accuse Catholics of not caring about Scripture, only tradition. That is true of all kinds of Christians, but it should not be that way. 
There is a movement within Catholicism to study Scripture and know what our faith teaches. 
Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?71

St. Gregory of Nyssa, Orat. catech 15: PG 45, 48B.

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