BY ONE DEATH AND RESURRECTION THE WORLD WAS SAVED

SCRUTATIO SCRIPTURAE

 

Scrutatio 

 for 

HOLY TUESDAY

From Basil, the great Metropolitan Bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor, from June 14, 370 to his death on January 1 or 2, 379 A.D., and one of the Cappadocian Fathers, taken from an excerpt on his book On the Holy Spirit:

BY ONE DEATH AND RESURRECTION THE WORLD WAS SAVED

When mankind was estranged from him by disobedience, God our Savior made a plan for raising us from our fall and restoring us to friendship with himself. According to this plan Christ came in the flesh, he showed us the gospel way of life, he suffered, died on the cross, was buried and rose from the dead. He did this so that we could be saved by imitation of him, and recover our original status as sons of God by adoption.

To attain holiness, then, we must not only pattern our lives on Christ’s by being gentle, humble and patient, we must also imitate him in his death. Taking Christ for his model, Paul said that he wanted to become like him in his death in the hope that he too would be raised from death to life.

We imitate Christ’s death by being buried with him in baptism. If we ask what this kind of burial means and what benefit we may hope to derive from it, it means first of all making a complete break with our former way of life, and our Lord himself said that this cannot be done unless a man is born again. In other words, we have to begin a new life, and we cannot do so until our previous life has been brought to an end. When runners reach the turning point on a racecourse, they have to pause briefly before they can go back in the opposite direction. So also when we wish to reverse the direction of our lives there must be a pause, or a death, to mark the end of one life and the beginning of another.

Our descent into hell takes place when we imitate the burial of Christ by our baptism. The bodies of the baptized are in a sense buried in the water as a symbol of their renunciation of the sins of their unregenerate nature. As the Apostle says: The circumcision you have undergone is not an operation performed by human hands, but the complete stripping away of your unregenerate nature. This is the circumcision that Christ gave us, and it is accomplished by our burial with him in baptism. Baptism cleanses the soul from the pollution of worldly thoughts and inclinations: You will wash me, says the psalmist, and I shall be whiter than snow. We receive this saving baptism only once because there was only one death and one resurrection for the salvation of the world, and baptism is its symbol.

LET US TOO GLORY IN THE CROSS OF THE LORD

SCRUTATIO SCRIPTURAE

Scrutatio 

 for 

HOLY MONDAY

From the passage of a sermon written by the former prodigal son of the saintly woman named  Monica, the Cassanova of Thagaste, transformed by GOD'S GRACE to be HIS Valiant Bishop of Hippo Regius and Doctor of HIS Holy Church, Aurelius Augustinus, entitled:

LET US TOO GLORY IN THE CROSS OF THE LORD

The passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the hope of glory and a lesson in patience.

What may not the hearts of believers promise themselves as the gift of God’s grace, when for their sake God’s only Son, co-eternal with the Father, was not content only to be born as man from human stock but even died at the hands of the men he had created?

It is a great thing that we are promised by the Lord, but far greater is what has already been done for us, and which we now commemorate. Where were the sinners, what were they, when Christ died for them? When Christ has already given us the gift of his death, who is to doubt that he will give the saints the gift of his own life? Why does our human frailty hesitate to believe that mankind will one day live with God?

Who is Christ if not the Word of God: in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God? This Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us. He had no power of himself to die for us: he had to take from us our mortal flesh. This was the way in which, though immortal, he was able to die; the way in which he chose to give life to mortal men: he would first share with us, and then enable us to share with him. Of ourselves we had no power to live, nor did he of himself have the power to die.

Accordingly, he effected a wonderful exchange with us, through mutual sharing: we gave him the power to die, he will give us the power to live.

The death of the Lord our God should not be a cause of shame for us; rather, it should be our greatest hope, our greatest glory. In taking upon himself the death that he found in us, he has most faithfully promised to give us life in him, such as we cannot have of ourselves.

He loved us so much that, sinless himself, he suffered for us sinners the punishment we deserved for our sins. How then can he fail to give us the reward we deserve for our righteousness, for he is the source of righteousness? How can he, whose promises are true, fail to reward the saints when he bore the punishment of sinners, though without sin himself?

Brethren, let us then fearlessly acknowledge, and even openly proclaim, that Christ was crucified for us; let us confess it, not in fear but in joy, not in shame but in glory. The apostle Paul saw Christ, and extolled his claim to glory. He had many great and inspired things to say about Christ, but he did not say that he boasted in Christ’s wonderful works: in creating the world, since he was God with the Father, or in ruling the world, though he was also a man like us. Rather, he said: Let me not boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. BLESSED IS THE KING OF ISRAEL

SCRUTATIO SCRIPTURAE

Scrutatio 

 for 

PALM SUNDAY

Readings from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer
Isaiah 45:21-25 or 52:13-53:12 / Psalm 22:1-21 / Philippians 2:5-11 /  Mark 11:1-10

Readings for the Pauline/Vatican II Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

Isaiah 50:4-7 / Psalm 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20 and 23-24 / Philippians 2:6-11 / Mark 14:1 – 15:47

Readings for the Tridentine Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

Introit: Psalm 22:19 and 21

Epistle: Philippians 2:5-11

Gradual: Psalm 73:23-24 and 1-2

 Tract: Psalm 22:1-8, 18, 21, 23, and 30-31

Gospel 

Matthew 26:1-75-27:1-66

Offertory: 

Psalm 69:20-21

Communion Antiphon: Matthew 26:42

For todays Scrutatio, let us meditate with the help of this 8th Century A.D. homily written by the Metropolitan Bishop of Γόρτυνα-Gortyna, Andrew of Crete, entitled:

BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. BLESSED IS THE KING OF ISRAEL

Let us go together to meet Christ on the Mount of Olives. Today he returns from Bethany and proceeds of his own free will toward his holy and blessed passion, to consummate the mystery of our salvation. He who came down from heaven to raise us from the depths of sin, to raise us with himself, we are told in Scripture, above every sovereignty, authority, and power, and every other name that can be named, now comes of his own free will to make his journey to Jerusalem. He comes without pomp or ostentation. As the psalmist says: He will not dispute or raise his voice to make it heard in the streets. He will be meek and humble, and he will make his entry in simplicity.

Let us run to accompany him as he hastens toward Jerusalem, and imitate those who met him then, not by covering his path with garments, olive branches or palms, but by doing all we can to prostrate ourselves before him by being humble and by trying to live as he would wish. Then we shall be able to receive the Word at his coming, and God, whom no limits can contain, will be within us.

In his humility Christ entered the dark regions of our fallen world and he is glad that he became so humble for our sake, glad that he came and lived among us and shared in our nature in order to raise us up again to himself. And even though we are told that he has now ascended above the highest heavens—the proof, surely, of his power and godhead—his love for man will never rest until he has raised our earthbound nature from glory to glory, and made it one with his own in heaven.

So let us spread before his feet, not garments or soulless olive branches, which delight the eye for a few hours and then wither, but ourselves, clothed in his grace, or rather, clothed completely in him. We who have been baptized into Christ must ourselves be the garments that we spread before him. Now that the crimson stains of our sins have been washed away in the saving waters of baptism and we have become white as pure wool, let us present the conqueror of death, not with mere branches of palms but with the real rewards of his victory. Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches as we join today in the children’s holy song: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel.

THE MYSTERY OF MAN'S RECONCILIATION WITH GOD

SCRUTATIO SCRIPTURAE

Scrutatio 

 for the 

FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE ARCHANGEL GABRIEL 

TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY ABOUT THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR

JESUS CHRIST

(March 25, 2015. Wednesday)

Readings from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer
Isaiah 7:10-14 / Psalm 40:1-11 / Hebrews 10:5-10 / Luke 1:26-38

Readings for the Pauline/Vatican II Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass
Isaiah 7:10-14 and 8:10 / Psalm 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 11 / Hebrews 10:4-10 / Luke 1:26-38

Readings for the Tridentine Rite of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

Introit: Psalm 45:13-16 and 2 

Lesson: Isaiah 7:10-15 

Gradual: Psalm 45:3 and 5

Tract: Psalm 45:11-13, 10, and 15-16

Gospel 

Luke 1:26-38

Offertory: 

Luke 1:28 and 42

Communion Antiphon: Isaiah 7:14

Let us meditate on this homily for this GREAT FEAST from Pope Leo the Great, the 5th Century A.D. Bishop of Rome entitled:

THE MYSTERY OF MAN'S RECONCILIATION WITH GOD

Lowliness is assured by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.

He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man, whole in his own nature, whole in ours. By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning, and took to himself in order to restore it.

For in the Savior there was no trace of what the deceiver introduced and man, being misled, allowed to enter. It does not follow that because he submitted to sharing in our human weakness he therefore shared in our sins.

He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself invisible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.

Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world. He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father's glory. He is born in a new condition, by a new birth.

He was born in a new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death.

He who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the preeminence of God coexist in mutual relationship.

As God does not change by his condescension, so man is not swallowed up by being exalted. Each nature exercises its own activity, in communion with the other. The Word does what is proper to the Word, the flesh fulfills what is proper to the flesh.

One nature is resplendent with miracles, the other falls victim to injuries. As the Word does not lose equality with the Father's glory, so the flesh does not leave behind the nature of our race.

One and the same person - this must be said over and over again - is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man. He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

ANGELIC SALUTATION IN FILIPINO