5th Sunday of Lent - 1st Sunday of Passiontide In The Traditional Liturgical Calendar
In the traditional liturgical calendar today is the 1st Sunday of Passiontide. Not so in the newfangled calendar. Does it matter?
Yes. Traditionally, church's covered their statues in purple beginning today. It helped us enter more deeply into Our Lord's Passion, which will culminate on Good Friday. Of course, we can and should do that anyway if our particular parish has embraced the newfangled and no longer covers their statues.
Entering into Jesus' Passion isn't simply a way to experience sorrow over His suffering. He suffered and died not simply to generate our sympathy. He did it so we could be saved from our sins. But the saving grace that poured out with the blood of our crucified Lord isn't just some cold objective fact that we memorize and say, "Gee, thanks a lot Jesus." If you're familiar with and have devotion to His Sacred Heart, You know He wants us to love Him just as He loves us. Repeat: He wants us to love Him just as He loves us.
While we may never fully understand just how much He loves us as long as we remain in this Vale of Tears, we can do our best to try. And if we do try, we'll inevitably deepen our relationship with Him.
Indeed, any real progress in our spiritual life entails a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. It's not so much about us, as it is about Him.
So when I came across these thoughts of Archbishop Alban Goodier, it seemed appropriate to include them in today's post. It gives us specifics about what our relationship with Jesus means.
“How near God must be to me since He reads my inmost thoughts! I sit alone, I live in my own mind, not another creature in the whole world can enter into it, no matter how I wish they could do so. Without a word, or any external sign, without any effort of one’s own, that secret, invisible mind forms an idea, an aspiration, a desire, and even as it is formed God reads it, and responds to it, as near to it as I am myself. Nay, he is nearer to it than I am myself; for though it is formed in me, and is expressed in my thoughts which are part of me, still I may wonder whether I read it aright, whether I am deluded; I cannot see it through and through. But He sees it and is not deluded; He is so near that he both reads it and sees through it; he knows its full worth. He is so near to me that He knows me far better than I know myself. I live, now not I, but He lives in me…
Consequently I can trust Him far better than I can trust myself. Between us there is more mutual understanding than there can be with any human being, for there is no fleshly screen between us that conceals so much; between us there is love, stirring love, with a certainty that only transparent love can give. And all this in spite of my nothingness, my weakness, my sinfulness; in spite of my self-indulgence and human frailty; in spite of the many clouds and barriers raised up entirely by myself to keep Him out. He stands at the door and watches; there is no remissness on His part. He does not turn away because I am a sorry case; no matter what I am or what I do, no matter what I fail to do, He waits, and gives, bearing with me, pitying me, pouring Himself into me wherever I allow Him an entrance.” (Archbishop Alban Goodier, S.J.)
Notice that we already have this relationship. He knows us better than we know ourselves. We can trust Him more than we can trust ourselves. Between us there is love. Knowing this, perhaps it will encourage us to seek to do our part. Jesus has already done His.
We adore Thee O Christ and we bless Thee
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