Thoughts on a Friday, of Week 22

Jesus ChristFirst Friday of the Month, Friday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time, Friday of Week 2 in The Breviary… What’s in a name? Or a number?

Today, because I’ve been meaning to do this for quite some time, and, because I know that people often look up Priests’s weblogs expecting far more than beginnings in photography, I’m posting my daily Homily.

Despite it’s written length, it’s redacted in the actual giving of it. Mass is over in 20-25 minutes.

… I pray it may inspire someone to holiness. …

The readings today speak to the beginning of time, and the wonders of all creation.

No, really. They do.

Paul’s introduction to the community at Collosse gives a pretty high Christological discourse in just a few sentences.

We know that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the logos. The logos could be several things, and can be seen as an animating principal, bringing forth from the realm of the invisible, the realm of thought, the realm of the mind and of the heart, into the physical world. In the purely natural realm, you could think of your own ideas and thoughts on life. You ponder upon them and form them properly in your interior person, then you speak these thoughts, and work to bring them into fulfillment in the physical world.

The late John Paul considered that ‘the human body, and it alone, is capable of bringing forth into the visible world, that which is invisible.’ (I paraphrase from his discourses in the Theology of the Body.)

So, we have Jesus Christ, a person of God in the Trinity, who is the divine logos – through Him all things were made. And this is what Paul is addressing here in his introduction to the letter. All things are created through Jesus Christ, all that is good and holy comes from him, all the angels, the entire world and cosmos come through Jesus Christ, and thus Jesus Christ is at the head of all things. He is the ‘prime mover’ as Thomas Aquinas might say – the first cause. He is the beginning, and ultimately the end.
Fallen Angels - Dore
St. Athanasius, I believe, wrote that the beautiful world God had created had been overtaken, as it were, by a ‘band of brigands.’ The fallen angels and their hordes flew into action and set up shop over humanity, overlords of death, misery and destruction, even setting up the chief of the fallen as the Prince of the world. (This is very true simply looking about the world at times.)

Jesus even spoke about this at times in parables, such as the one about the Good King who comes to find his lands o’ertaken; or the one about the son of the king who is sent and murdered, et cetera.

And it’s in this spiritually oppressive atmosphere that humanity dwelt, held captive by a marauding, malevolent spirituality for generations. We were held ransom, in darkness and slavery, without even knowing it. All we knew was the darkness.

God did ransom us from sin and slavery through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We were bought with the price of His blood.

So, the Gospel speaks of the ‘old wine’ and a wedding Feast. Jesus is the old wine, ever ancient, ever new, which is the preferred wine. He is the groom at the wedding feast, creating a new covenant with the people of God, and in whose presence the people will no doubt rejoice with great gladness of heart.

Made new in spirit, made whole and healed, seeing the face of God in Jesus Christ, experiencing the rebirth and salvation of humanity — how could the apostles and disciples not rejoice, and feel great gladness?

Friday is a penitential day within the universal Church. We recall Christ’s Passion, we examine our lives and prepare ourselves spiritually as the week ends, so that on Sunday we may be in a state of grace when we arrive once again at the foot of Christ’s altar.
Triumph of Jesus Christ
We ponder anew the ancient wine, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made. We consider that we are made new in Him, and as ‘new wine’, we pray for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that we too might grow in wisdom and character conformed to Jesus Christ.

Amen.

The Rev. Kenneth Allen