Christians joyfully celebrate this Sunday as the first before the solemn beginning of the quadragesima, "a season of preparation by fasting and prayer, to imitate the example of Christ (Matthew 4)" that starts with Wednesday of Ash to the celebration of Easter, which marks the end of the triduum, the commemoration of our Lord's passion, death, and resurrection.
Mater Ekklesia is preparing her children for conversion, for the preparation of our hearts in this holiest time of the Christian liturgical year. In the preface of Dom Gueranger's work on the Liturgical Year, it says "prayer is man's boon. It is his light, his nourishment, and his very life, for it brings him into communication with God, who is light, nourishment, and life." And, this prayer finds its exact form in the Eucharistic sacrifice, as the late John Paul the Great said in his encyclical Ekklesia de Eucharistia, "it is the summit of Christian life". However, the Church should not cease Her fervent prayer directed the Trinity because "though the divine mysteries whereby our Saviour wrought our redemption have been consummated, yet are we still sinners: and where there is sin, there must be expiation". We are constantly called to convert and be forgiven.
The Liturgy of the Word opens with the words from the prophet Zephaniah, a seer who is particularly known as the watchman of the Lord. He lived and began to preach in the second half of the seventh century before Christ. To give a little background, He descended from the tribe of Simeon and grew up in the land of Sarabatha. A contemporary of another great prophet Jeremias and King Josias, Zephanja (in Hebrew which means "God conceals", in a certain sense, also means God protects) prophesied the punishment that would come to Israel first and then to the gentiles, the coming of the Messiah, and the conversion of the pagans and the blindness of the chosen people, which in the end of time, they were to be converted.
The reading is taken from the second to the third chapters, which are an exhortation of repentance. Here we read Yahweh rendering "judgment of the Philistines, of the Moabites, of the Ammonites, of the Ethiopians and Assyrians", but with Israel he has given hope, though themselves have been swallowed by their own transgressions. In these verses, the Church underlines the importance of being humble before the Lord. It is even said that the meek and the just are His reasons of his judgment.
The 146th Psalm opens with the words of joy, a praise to the Almighty. He lifts the meek but brings the wicked down to their fall. In Latin, it is particularly obvious with the opening words: Laudate Dominum, quoniam bonus est psalmus, that the Psalmist offers his thanksgiving to the goodness of the Lord, which is made manifest more clearly to those who fear and hope in Him.
St. Paul of Tarsus wrote an epistle to the Corinthians in which the Apostle to the Gentiles reproved the dissensions about their teachers, that the world was to be saved by preaching of the cross, and not by human wisdom and eloquence. The indefatigable Apostle reminded the young Church in Corinth in his day and to us of today that the "But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise: and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong".
The Matthean gospel takes us to a hill overlooking Lake Tiberias, as recounted in the fifth chapter. Here Jesus gathered the multitudes and taught what Christianity has come to know as The Eight Beatitudes or popularly known as The Sermon on the Mount. It is traditionally known that Jesus climbed the hill of Karn Hattin or Kurun Hattin, which is not far from His hometown Nazareth, from Capharnaum where much of his ministry was centered, from Cana where he showed his first miracle, and Mt. Tabor where He showed His glory to the three Apostles. The word Beatitudes is a term coined from the word beatitudo in Latin, which means happiness, but is more tranditionally translated into English as blessed. In Greek, it is μακαριος (makarios), which literally translated to English as "possessing an inward contentedness and joy that is not affected by the physical circumstances". There have been a number of differing opinions about the exact number of the Beatitudes. St. Augustine of Hippo said it is seven because of the significance of the number in scripture and Israel, and the contemporary scholars would say four: the poor, the mourner, the hungry, and those seeking after righteousness. It is said that the other four are just additionals and commentaries to the original four.
Some thinkers in the past had been critical to the Beatitudes. Friedrich Nietzsche saw it as picture of "slave morality of Christianity", while others, like James Joyce, William Blake, and Theodore Dreiser, "condemned it as advocating life without striving".
But for us Christians, let us heed the words of St. Augustine, who in his opening words on his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount said: "If any one will piously and soberly consider the sermon which our Lord Jesus Christ spoke on the mount ... he will find in it ... a perfect standard of the Christian life ... For the sermon itself is brought to a close in such a way, that it is clear there are in it all the precepts which go to mould the life." Brothers and sisters, Rise, let us go now. Let us go the Lord and behold the hour is at hand.
Mater Ekklesia is preparing her children for conversion, for the preparation of our hearts in this holiest time of the Christian liturgical year. In the preface of Dom Gueranger's work on the Liturgical Year, it says "prayer is man's boon. It is his light, his nourishment, and his very life, for it brings him into communication with God, who is light, nourishment, and life." And, this prayer finds its exact form in the Eucharistic sacrifice, as the late John Paul the Great said in his encyclical Ekklesia de Eucharistia, "it is the summit of Christian life". However, the Church should not cease Her fervent prayer directed the Trinity because "though the divine mysteries whereby our Saviour wrought our redemption have been consummated, yet are we still sinners: and where there is sin, there must be expiation". We are constantly called to convert and be forgiven.
The Liturgy of the Word opens with the words from the prophet Zephaniah, a seer who is particularly known as the watchman of the Lord. He lived and began to preach in the second half of the seventh century before Christ. To give a little background, He descended from the tribe of Simeon and grew up in the land of Sarabatha. A contemporary of another great prophet Jeremias and King Josias, Zephanja (in Hebrew which means "God conceals", in a certain sense, also means God protects) prophesied the punishment that would come to Israel first and then to the gentiles, the coming of the Messiah, and the conversion of the pagans and the blindness of the chosen people, which in the end of time, they were to be converted.
The reading is taken from the second to the third chapters, which are an exhortation of repentance. Here we read Yahweh rendering "judgment of the Philistines, of the Moabites, of the Ammonites, of the Ethiopians and Assyrians", but with Israel he has given hope, though themselves have been swallowed by their own transgressions. In these verses, the Church underlines the importance of being humble before the Lord. It is even said that the meek and the just are His reasons of his judgment.
The 146th Psalm opens with the words of joy, a praise to the Almighty. He lifts the meek but brings the wicked down to their fall. In Latin, it is particularly obvious with the opening words: Laudate Dominum, quoniam bonus est psalmus, that the Psalmist offers his thanksgiving to the goodness of the Lord, which is made manifest more clearly to those who fear and hope in Him.
St. Paul of Tarsus wrote an epistle to the Corinthians in which the Apostle to the Gentiles reproved the dissensions about their teachers, that the world was to be saved by preaching of the cross, and not by human wisdom and eloquence. The indefatigable Apostle reminded the young Church in Corinth in his day and to us of today that the "But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise: and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong".
The Matthean gospel takes us to a hill overlooking Lake Tiberias, as recounted in the fifth chapter. Here Jesus gathered the multitudes and taught what Christianity has come to know as The Eight Beatitudes or popularly known as The Sermon on the Mount. It is traditionally known that Jesus climbed the hill of Karn Hattin or Kurun Hattin, which is not far from His hometown Nazareth, from Capharnaum where much of his ministry was centered, from Cana where he showed his first miracle, and Mt. Tabor where He showed His glory to the three Apostles. The word Beatitudes is a term coined from the word beatitudo in Latin, which means happiness, but is more tranditionally translated into English as blessed. In Greek, it is μακαριος (makarios), which literally translated to English as "possessing an inward contentedness and joy that is not affected by the physical circumstances". There have been a number of differing opinions about the exact number of the Beatitudes. St. Augustine of Hippo said it is seven because of the significance of the number in scripture and Israel, and the contemporary scholars would say four: the poor, the mourner, the hungry, and those seeking after righteousness. It is said that the other four are just additionals and commentaries to the original four.
Some thinkers in the past had been critical to the Beatitudes. Friedrich Nietzsche saw it as picture of "slave morality of Christianity", while others, like James Joyce, William Blake, and Theodore Dreiser, "condemned it as advocating life without striving".
But for us Christians, let us heed the words of St. Augustine, who in his opening words on his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount said: "If any one will piously and soberly consider the sermon which our Lord Jesus Christ spoke on the mount ... he will find in it ... a perfect standard of the Christian life ... For the sermon itself is brought to a close in such a way, that it is clear there are in it all the precepts which go to mould the life." Brothers and sisters, Rise, let us go now. Let us go the Lord and behold the hour is at hand.