Author: Paul Zalonski

Sunday of the Paralytic Man 2024

In speaking about the liturgical contours of today’s commemoration, Fr David Petras uses St. John Chrysostom to draw our attention deeper into the mystery we are presented in the Gosepl. Chrysostom “tells us that if an unbeliever enters a church during a baptism, all he sees is people being washed. But a believer sees people being reborn in the Spirit. The unbeliever sees only with the eyes of the body, the believer sees with the inner eyes of the soul. When we are baptized all our body sees and feels is water, but by the Spirit our sins are washed away and we become children of God.”

Why Chrysostom identifies for us applies to all of the spiritual life and the sacraments of the Church. For example, when we receive Holy Communion, if we only see and taste with the eyes and mouth bread and wine but not with the eyes of the Holy Spirit we will miss on the fact of the Lord’s love, forgiveness of sins and and healing and the deepest reality of salvation. The Mystery of the bread of life is more than a social pact or a sense of social respectability. Receiving the Eucharistic Lord is communion with the God and with one another as it is the divine pledge of eternal life: new life.

The Sunday of the Paralytic Man teaches us that the water of Bethesda is meaningless if we neglect the fact the word given by Jesus is full of power and energy to transform thus identifying the presence of God. Jesus speaks the word and gives the man the strength to walk.
The water of the Bethseda pool is a type of Baptism. The waters of Baptism not only wash and make us adopted children of God. The waters of Baptism heals us spiritually and physically. One aspect of today’s Gospel is that illness is “a lesser manifestation of death. Here Jesus’s word exercises power over the man’s illness pointing our attention once again to his own power over death.

What do we learn on this 3rd Sunday after Pascha? What is the take-away lesson? First, we don’t make ourselves. Everything we have and are is given and sustained by God. Second, our identity as Christians is based not on a theory or a vague theological idea but on the person of Jesus the Christ. Third, we learn that by ourselves we cannot forgive, heal or love or be saved. Human nature can’t forgive without the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

On Wednesday, April 24, we are mid-way to Pentecost. The Gospels we read at the Divine Liturgy bring our focus of faith into greater clarity as we approach the solemn feast of Pentecost.

Christ is risen!

Thomas J. Kelly, priest, RIP

In Christian charity please remember the repose of the soul of Fr. Thomas J. Kelly, who died earlier today. Thom was a priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford, and the Magistral Chaplain for the Eastern Connecticut Area of the Order of Malta. A longtime friend and collaborator, Thom, served the Lord well in his Church. His sudden and unexpected death is very much a surprise. His presence will be felt.

Fr. Kelly’s funeral will be next week at the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Motherhouse in Hamden, CT.

May Fr. Kelly’s memory be eternal.

Blessed Gerard, pray for Thom and for us.

Pope once again the Patriarch of the West

It seems the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, is once again the Patriarch of the West, according to the Annuario Pontificio 2024. It was removed from the list of papal titles by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. An act that was unfathomable to me.

The Annuario has on the front page the Pope with his original title: “Francis, Bishop of Rome”.

The current list of titles that the Roman Pontiff claims for himself:

Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Pontifex Maximus of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Province of Rome, Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God”. And now, add Patriarch of the West.

Each title has a history and has a place in our ecclesiology. Titles as they are make certain claims in light of service (diakonia) and faith.

There was no shortage of irritation among the churches of the East by the change effected by Benedict since it was among the appropriate titles because it affirms a basic ministry of the Roman Pontiff. The title, also allows us to understand our place among the communion of churches viz. the gift of headship and fatherhood.

The power of Christ’s blood

God’s Friday is a remarkable day to deeply ponder the fact of Jesus death on the cross and his shedding his blood for us. Christians believe that what is called Good Friday is the day of our salvation. The Byzantine tradition calls it “Holy and Great Friday,” but “Good” Friday is an appropriate name for it. It is a day of sorrow, however, and it is a holy day.

For, despite the pain and suffering of our Lord, this sacrifice was “good” for the salvation of all. There are many layers of meaning to this feast.

As Fr. David Petras reminds: “Jesus replaces the Passover Lamb, he becomes our food and drink. He establishes a spiritual kingdom as we are united in the one body of our Lord, and in the sacrifice of his blood. This is the fulfillment of all sacrifices, whose purpose is to unite God and us mortals, and to unite us to one another.”

From the Catecheses by Saint John Chrysostom, bishop
The power of Christ’s blood

If we wish to understand the power of Christ’s blood, we should go back to the ancient account of its prefiguration in Egypt. “Sacrifice a lamb without blemish,” commanded Moses, “and sprinkle its blood on your doors.” If we were to ask him what he meant, and how the blood of an irrational beast could possibly save men endowed with reason, his answer would be that the saving power lies not in the blood itself, but in the fact that it is a sign of the Lord’s blood. In those days, when the destroying angel saw the blood on the doors he did not dare to enter, so how much less will the devil approach now when he sees, not that figurative blood on the doors, but the true blood on the lips of believers, the doors of the temple of Christ.

If you desire further proof of the power of this blood, remember where it came from, how it ran down from the cross, flowing from the Master’s side. The gospel records that when Christ was dead, but still hung on the cross, a soldier came and pierced his side with a lance and immediately there poured out water and blood. Now the water was a symbol of baptism and the blood, of the holy Eucharist. The soldier pierced the Lord’s side, he breached the wall of the sacred temple, and I have found the treasure and made it my own. So also with the lamb: the Jews sacrificed the victim and I have been saved by it.

“There flowed from his side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolised baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two sacraments the Church is born: from baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit,” and from the holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of baptism and the Eucharist flowed from his side, it was from his side that Christ fashioned the Church, as he had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!” As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from his side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after his own death.

Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.

Transitus of St Benedict

Today is the solemnity remembrance of the death of our Holy Father St Benedict. He died in AD 547.

St Benedict as we know, was an ordinary man who bequeathed to us an extraordinary legacy of monastic life and culture with the founding a monastery at Monte Cassino (and several monasteries) and curating his ‘rule for beginners’. The daily reading of the Holy Rule continues to inspire others to seek God as disciples and friends of Jesus.

Image courtesy of Ampleforth Abbey

Cyril of Jerusalem keeps our eyes on salvation

There’s no reason we would know about Cyril of Jerusalem, a bishop and a liturgical theologian and ultimately a saint. For those of us who make the claim to be liturgical historians, Cyril’s a big deal. Liturgy people know the 4th-century pilgrim Egeria who happened to be in Jerusalem to witness the Holy Week and Easter liturgies led by Bishop Cyril. Egeria is the earliest record we have of the liturgical rites of the time. Her descriptions has long fascinated and puzzling. Egeria’s eye-witness account was a progression (and a procession) of several days of liturgy as it was lived then; the witness she gives the nature of the promise of life given be the Lord. What Egeria and thus Cyril did was to recount the narrative of creation and salvation history as known through the lens of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, i.e., the Lord’s passion, death, resurrection, and ascension.

The people in front of Cyril were reminded that by Easter all was done. No, he pointed us to think differently about the questions of life and the longing for God in a different way. Cyril reminds us, even in 2024, that we are made for a Promise –that is, eternal life– that they we are now just getting started. Cyril tells us that with Jesus Christ, Love incarnate, is here to redeem us.

As it is stated elsewhere, we should never think of Lent as a stand-alone season. When Lent is over it’s not really over; Lent is the preamble to a lifetime of reflection on Jesus, his Gospel and the sacred duties (Tradition) to which he calls each of us.

The importance of Cyril for us today is that he brings to the table the awareness that we are a people of a promise, of expectation and desire. The awareness is that of truly living, fully flourishing as human being. We are human beings where desire, expectation, promise give us the power, the stimulus to move ourselves forward out a negativity or a nihilism to truth and life. He makes me look at myself with wonder.

The thirst we have is satisfied by the Lord

As move closer to the intensity of Holy Week we begin to refocus our spiritual eyes and hearts on what it means to be people of great, and holy desire by attending to the work the Lord has done for us. We are indeed people who thirst. We are people who desire to be in friendship with the Lord of Life who alone satisfies the needs of our hearts. The following portion of the Letter of the great bishop Athanasius iterates what we need, who we are, and what we are doing.

From an Easter letter by Saint Athanasius, bishop

The Paschal sacrament brings together in unity of faith those who are far away

Brethren, how fine a thing it is to move from festival to festival, from prayer to prayer, from holy day to holy day. The time is now at hand when we enter on a new beginning: the proclamation of the blessed Passover, in which the Lord was sacrificed. We feed as on the food of life, we constantly refresh our souls with his precious blood, as from a fountain. Yet we are always thirsting, burning to be satisfied. But he himself is present for those who thirst and in his goodness invites them to the feast day. Our Saviour repeats his words: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He quenched the thirst not only of those who came to him then. Whenever anyone seeks him he is freely admitted to the presence of the Saviour. The grace of the feast is not restricted to one occasion. Its rays of glory never set. It is always at hand to enlighten the mind of those who desire it. Its power is always there for those whose minds have been enlightened and who meditate day and night on the holy Scriptures, like the one who is called blessed in the holy psalm: Blessed is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked, or stood where sinners stand, or sat in the seat of the scornful, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.

Moreover, my friends, the God who first established this feast for us allows us to celebrate it each year. He who gave up his Son to death for our salvation, from the same motive gives us this feast, which is commemorated every year. This feast guides us through the trials that meet us in this world. God now gives us the joy of salvation that shines out from this feast, as he brings us together to form one assembly, uniting us all in spirit in every place, allowing us to pray together and to offer common thanksgiving, as is our duty on the feast. Such is the wonder of his love: he gathers to this feast those who are far apart, and brings together in unity of faith those who may be physically separated from each other.

The Liturgical Vocation of Man

In the liturgy of St John Chrysostom, the Cherubic Hymn (“We who mystically represent the Cherubim”) shows the icon of the angelic ministry of adoration and of prayer in man. It is also the moment where the angelic hosts join the liturgical celebration. Man is associated with their song first in the Trisagion (“Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal”) and then the Sanctus resumes the theme of the Anaphora, the eucharistic praise of the Trinity. Men and angels are united in the same élan of adoration (“Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. Heaven and earth are full of Thy Glory”). The content of the age to come, “full of glory,” begins already on earth.

A saint is not a superman, but one who discovers and lives his truth as a liturgical being. The best definition of man comes from the Liturgy: The human being is the one of the Trisagion and of the Sanctus (*I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live”). St Antony speaks of a doctor who gave the poor all that he did not need and sang the Trisagion all day long, uniting himself to the choir of angels. It is for this “action” that man is “set apart,” made holy. To sing to God is his one preoccupation, his unique “labor”: “And there came from the throne a voice that said: ‘Praise God, all you his servants’ ” (Rv 7:11). In the catacombs, the most frequent image is the figure of a woman in prayer, the Orant; she represents the one true attitude of the human soul. It is not enough to say prayers; one must become, be prayer, prayer incarnate. It is not enough to have moments of praise. All of life, each act, every gesture, even the smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should offer not what one has, but what one is. This is a favored subject in iconography. It translates the message of the Gospel: chaire, “rejoice and be glad,” “let everything that has breath praise the Lord.” This is the astonishing lightening of the weight of the world, when man’s own heaviness vanishes. “The King of Kings, the Christ is coming, and this is the “one thing needful.” The doxology of the Lord’s Prayer (“the kingdom and the power, and the glory”) is the heart of the liturgy. It is to respond to his vocation as a liturgical being that man is charismatic, the one who bears the gifts of the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit Himself: “You have been sealed with the Holy Spirit … you whom God has taken for His own, to make His glory praised” (Eph 1:14). One could not state more precisely the liturgical essence and destiny of man.

Paul Evdokimov (1901-70)