Archive for the ‘By occasion’ Category
Why is the door narrow and why is the path so broad?
Whoever enters must have, among everything, an upright and uncorrupted faith. Second, he must have a spotless morality, in which there is no possibility of blame, according to the measure of human righteousness…Nevertheless those who live in a holy manner cannot do so without labor. For constantly, so to speak, the pathway that leads to virtue is rugged and steep, and is difficult for most men to walk on. For labors spring before us and we need strength, patience, and good conduct…[The broad path] means an unrestrained tendancy to carnal lusts; a base and pleasure loving life; luxurious feasts, parties and banquets; and unrestrained inclinations to everything which is condemned by the law and displeasing to God…Those who enter by the narrow gate must withdraw from all these things in order to be with Christ and feast with Him.
Originally posted 2006-04-17 22:25:11.
What is the wedding garment? (Matt 22:1-14)
Put off, I beg you, fornication and uncleanness, and put on the brightest robe of chastity. This charge I give you, before Jesus the Bridegroom of souls, come in and see their fashions. You have been allowed a long notice; you have forty days for repentance. You have had a full opportunity to both put off and wash; and to put on and enter. But if you persist in an evil purpose, the speaker is blameless. But you must not look for the grace; for the water will receive, but the Spirit will not accept you. If any one is conscious of His wound, let him take the salve; if any has fallen, let him arise. Let there be no Simon among you, no hypocrisy, no idle curiosity about the matter.
Originally posted 2006-04-18 19:44:12.
28 Thomas answered Him, and saith unto Him, My Lord and my God.
He that had shortly before been slack in the duty of faith was now eager to profess it. and in a short time his fault was wholly cured. For after an interval of only eight days the hindrances to his faith were removed by Christ, Who showed unto him the print of the nails and His wounded Side. But, perhaps, someone will ask the question: “Tell me why did the minds of the holy disciples carry out so rigid an inquiry, and so careful a scrutiny? For would not the sight of the Lord’s Body, the features of His Face, and the measure of His Stature, have sufficed to prove that He had indeed risen from the dead, and to secure His recognition?” What do we reply? The inspired disciples were not free from doubt, although they had seen the Lord.
Originally posted 2006-04-29 17:45:25.
The washing of the feet, repentance and baptism
He who has been washed has need still to wash his feet…[for] in holy baptism a man has all of him washed, not everything but his feet, but every part. But after living in ths human state, he cannot fail to tread on the ground with his feet, Thus our human feelings themselves, which are inseparable from our mortal life on earth, are like feet with which we come into sensible contact with human affairs…
Therefore, every day He who intercedes for us is washing our feet. We, too have a daily need to be washing our feet, that is ordering aright the path of our spriritual footsteps, we acknowledge even in the Lord's prayer, when we say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we also forgive those who trespass against us." For "If we confess out sins," then truly He who washed His disciples' feet is "faithful and just to forgive us our sings, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
Accordingly the Church, which Christ cleanses with the washing of water in the word, is without spot and wrinkle, not only in the case of those who are taken away immediately after the washing of regeneration from the contagious influence of this life, and tread not the earth so aso to make necessary the washing of their feet, but in those also who have experienced such mercy from the Lord as to be enabled to quit this present life even with feet that have been washed.
But although the Church is also clean in respect of those who tarry on earth, because they live righteously; they still need to be washing their feet, because they assuredly are not without sin. This is why it is said in the Song of Songs, "I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" For one so speaks when he is constrained to come to Christ, and in coming has to bring his feet into contact with the ground.
Originally posted 2006-04-19 22:49:13.
John 20:1-9 Now on the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, while it was yet dark, unto the tomb, and seeth the stone taken away from the tomb. She runneth, therefore, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we know not where they have laid Him. Peter therefore went forth, and the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. And they ran both together: and the other disciple outran Peter, and came first to the tomb; and stooping and looking in, he seeth the linen cloths lying; yet entered he not in. Simon Peter therefore cometh, following him, and entered into the tomb; and he beholdeth the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon His Head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. Then entered in therefore the other disciple also, which came first to the tomb, and he saw and believed. For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.
This excellent and pious woman would never have endured to remain at home and leave the sepulchre, had not her fear of the law for the Sabbath, and the penalty which impended upon those who transgressed it, curbed the vehemence of her zeal, and had she not, allowing ancient custom to prevail, thought she ought to withdraw her thoughts from the object of her most earnest longings. But, when the Sabbath was already past, and the dawn of the next day was appearing, she hurried back to the spot, and then, when she saw the stone rolled away from the mouth of the tomb, well-grounded suspicions seized her mind, and, calling to mind the ceaseless hatred of the Jews, she thought that Jesus had been carried away, accusing them of this crime in addition to their other misdeeds. While she was thus engaged, and revolving in her mind the probabilities of the case, the woman returned to the men who loved the Lord, anxious to obtain the co-operation of the most intimate of His disciples in her quest. And so deep-rooted and impregnable was her faith that she was not induced to esteem Christ less highly because of His death upon the cross, but even when He was dead called Him Lord, as she had been wont to do, thereby showing a truly God-loving spirit. When these men (I mean Peter, and John the writer of this book, for he gives himself the name of the other disciple) heard these tidings from the woman's mouth, they ran with all the speed they could, and came to the sepulchre in haste, and saw the marvel with their own eyes, being in themselves competent to testify to the event, for they were two in number, as the Law enjoined. As yet they did not meet Christ risen from the dead, but infer His Resurrection from the bundle of linen clothes, and henceforth believed that He had burst asunder the bonds of death, as Holy Writ had long ago proclaimed that He would do. When, therefore, they looked at the issues of events in the light of the prophecies which turned out true, their faith was henceforth rooted on a firm basis.
Originally posted 2006-04-27 10:39:03.
Christ is Risen! O the marvel! the forbearance! the immeasurable meekness! The Untouched is felt; the Master is held by a servant, And He reveals His wounds to one of His inner circle. Seeing these wounds, the whole Creation was shaken at the time. Thomas, when he was considered worthy of such gifts, Lifted up a prayer to the One Who deemed him worthy, Saying, “Bear my rashness with patience, Have pity on my unworthiness and lighten the burden Of my lack of faith, so that I may sing and cry, `Thou art our Lord and God.’
Originally posted 2006-04-29 17:31:59.
The Virgins: Is this story only to those who live a life of virginity? (Matt 25:1-13)
The whole church consists of virgins, and boys, and married men and married women, which is referred to by one name called a Virgin. How can we prove this? Hear the Apostle saying, not to the religious women only but to the whole church together; "I have betrothed you to One Husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." (2 Cor. 11:2) And because the devil, the corrupter of this virginity, is to be guarded against, the Apostle connected this verse with, "But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." (2 Cor. 11:3) Few have virginity in the body; in the heart all should have it.
Originally posted 2006-04-18 19:51:05.
He rides on a donkey and a young colt; not a chariot. You have a unique sign of the King who came. Jesus was the only king Who sat upon an unyoked foal, entering into Jerusalem with acclamations as a king. And when this king comes, what does He do??He sits upon a foal to give us a sign, where the King that enters shall stand. And He gives this sign not far from the city, that it may not be unknown to us. He gave a sign plain before our eyes, so that even if we are in the city, we may behold the place of the King. And the prophet again makes answer saying: ?And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives which faces Jerusalem on the east?? (Zech. 14:4) Does any one standing within the city fail to behold the place?
Originally posted 2006-04-17 20:01:29.
'And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit' (Acts 2:3-4).
They partook of fire, not of burning but of saving fire; of fire which consumes the thorns of sins, but gives luster to the soul. This is now coming upon you also, and that to strip away and consume your sins which are like thorns, and to brighten yet more that precious possession of your souls, and to give you grace; for He gave it then to the Apostles. And He sat upon them in the form of fiery tongues, that they might crown themselves with new and spiritual diadems by fiery tongues upon their heads. A fiery sword barred of old the gates of Paradise; a fiery tongue which brought salvation restored the gift.
Originally posted 2006-06-11 08:25:29.
Why didn't He defend Himself? Why was He silent?
The Lord became the defender of truth, and came in silence before Pilate, on behalf of truth which had been oppressed (John 18:37-38). Others gain victory through making defenses, but our Lord gained victory through His silence, because the recompense of His death through divine silence was the victory of true teaching. He spoke inorder to teach, but kept silent in the tribunal. He was not silent over that which was exalting us, but He did not stuggle against those who were provoking Him. The worlds of His accusers, like a crown on His head, were a source of redemption. He kept silent so that His silence would make them shout even louder, and so that His crown would be made more beautiful through all his clamor.
Originally posted 2006-04-20 18:38:40.
Why the upper room for the Passover? (Mark 14:12-16)
It seems to me that this [Upper] room symbolizes the spiritual law which, emerges from the restrains of the written record, receives the Savior in a lofty place. Pauls says that what he formerly counted as gain, he now despised as loss and refuse, that he might prepare a worthy guest chamber for the Lord.
Originally posted 2006-04-19 22:16:36.
John 20:17 – Jesus saith to her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto My Father.
The meaning of this saying is not easily understood by the vulgar, for a mystery underlies it; but we must probe it for our advantage. For the Lord will vouchsafe unto us the knowledge of His own Words. For He repulses the woman as she was running up to Him, and though she longed to embrace His Feet, He suffered her not; and, in explanation of His reason for so doing, said: For I am not yet ascended unto My Father.
Originally posted 2006-04-27 10:47:22.
He became a servant on earth; He was Lord on high. Inheritor of the height and depth, Who became a stranger. But the One Who was judged wrongly will judge in truth, and He in Whose face they spat, breathed the spirit into the face. He Who held a weak reed was the scepter for the world that grows old and leans on Him. He Who stood [and] served His servants, sitting, will be worshipped. He Whom the Scribes scorned — the Seraphim sang "holy" before Him.
Originally posted 2006-12-12 17:36:14.
We shall be raised therefore, all with our bodies eternal, but not all with bodies alike: for if a man is righteous, he will receive a heavenly body, that he may be able worthily to hold converse with angels; but if a man is a sinner, he shall receive an eternal body, fitted to endure the penalties of sins, that he may burn eternally in fire, nor ever be consumed. And righteously will God assign this portion to either company; for we do nothing without the body. We blaspheme with the mouth, and with the mouth we pray. With the body we commit fornication, and with the body we keep chastity. With the hands we rob, and by the hand we bestow alms; and the rest in like manner. Since then the body has been our minister in all things, it shall also share with us in the future the fruits of the past.
Originally posted 2006-04-23 10:32:59.
Today the Angels leap with joy and all of the Heavenly Powers rejoice, elated because of the salvation of mankind. If because of the repentance of a single person there is joy in Heaven and earth, more so is this true because of the salivation of the world. Today did Christ liberate the nature of man from the tyranny of the devil and restored it to its previous nobility.
Were there not the Resurrection, then how could the truth of God have been preserved, when so many evil people flourish and so many good ones suffer and end their lives in suffering? Where do all of these people receive their just reward, if there is no Resurrection?
Originally posted 2006-04-23 10:30:00.