Jesus is Alive
#12thandMass April 18, 2023 Happy Easter! The celebration continues—for an octave, for a season, for ever. Indeed, the mystery of the Resurrection is inexhaustible. Allow me to share with you an excerpt from a sermon preached many, many years ago, by Saint Quodvultdeus, Bishop of Carthage in what is now Tunisia. He was a spiritual student and correspondent with Saint Augustine of Hippo, forced into exile near Naples by the Arian King Geneseric, where he died in 450. Yours in our Risen Lord, Dominique Brother-in-Christ Corruption will no longer have dominion over us, as we live in immortality and dwell with Eternal Life Himself. Nor will we need clothing, for there we will be dressed in immortality; nor will we lack food when we have the Living Bread that came all the way from heaven to earth for us. For He will satisfy our souls with His presence. Nor, with the Fountain of Life present, will we lack drink. For He will satiate us with the abundance of His house, and He will provide water for our hearts with the torrents of His delights. We will not suffer from heat there, for our refreshment is there, the One who sheltered and shelters us under the shadow of His wings. We will not suffer from the cold there, for there is where the Sun of Justice is. He it is who warms our hearts with His love, and who give sight to our eyes with the rays of divinity, so that we will see the divinity and equality of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We will not get tired there, for our Strength will be with us, the One to whom we say, I love you, Lord, my strength (Psalm 18:2). We will not sleep there, for there is no darkness there that can blot out everlasting day. No commerce, no labor will be there. And what are we going to do there? Perhaps what it is written: Be still and see that I am the Lord (Psalm 46: 11). This leisure of contemplation itself will constitute our activity, so that we delight to contemplate and contemplate to see with delight. To see what? The good things of the Lord (Psalm 27:13). What good things? We will be able to express what neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor arises in the heart of man (Isaiah 64: 3.; I Corinthians 2:9). We will be able to explain how God will be all in all (I Corinthians 15:28).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
THE REV. DOMINIQUE PERIDANS
Rector Archives
June 2023
Categories |