Man’s Reconciliation with God
March 22, 2023 | K. A. Malandain TC ‘26
image description: cross with red linen
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Amen.
I do hope you are having a prayerful and fruitful Lent–a time of spiritual nourishment through the withdrawal from worldly desires. But do not despair if this is not the case; do not be upset if your promises have been broken and you find yourself feeling further from God than you did on the 22nd of February. For there are still, in fact, good fruits that can be reaped from what you might be perceiving as a failure–those fruits being, a knowledge of our fallen nature as humans in the world, and a reminder of the difficulty of being a disciple of Christ. Denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following the Lord is no easy feat.
Christ’s Passion was not a single moment of suffering with everything amalgamated into some strange and instant death. No, rather it was a process: a continual suffering, a journey to death at Calvary. Our Saviour, fully God and fully Man, suffered as a man in His Passion. Instead of bowing to death and being beaten by evil, He destroyed sin and was glorified as God on Golgotha. He did “not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). Equally we, on our earthly pilgrimage, must suffer through our journey towards the Creator. We are to prepare to glorify Him eternally in heaven, veiled not as He is now but revealed completely, that we, as St. Thomas writes in the Adoro Te Devote, may “see the vision clear of [His] unveiled face.” For “the life of man upon earth is a warfare,” and we must be ready for battle (Job 7:1).
The glorification of Christ on the Cross and the reconciliation of Man with God happened at no unfamiliar place. Early Christian writings from the first few centuries after His death reveal the nature of Golgotha as the burial site of Adam and the place where his skull was found (hence the Aramaic name Golgotha meaning the skull). Although this cannot be confirmed, Origen, Chrysostom, and Jerome all speak to its truth through the passing down of tradition from the earliest Christians and from Jewish tradition.
How fitting is it, therefore, that the Blood of Christ–the price of our salvation and without which there is no pardon–flowed forth at the crucifixion as a river of mercy down onto the skull of Adam, he who through his sin brought Man out of paradise and into the world. Jesus, taking His body from the clay of Adam, reconciled us to Himself through the sacrifice of His Most Holy Blood, stretching out His hand and showing us the way to the “narrow gate” (Matt. 7:13).
We are not alone in our pilgrimage. In this week of Lent, the Church also celebrates the Feasts of St Joseph and the Annunciation of the Lord. Therefore, we should call to mind especially the themes reflected so beautifully in the lives of the Mother of Christ and His Foster-Father: chastity, a reflection of our withdrawal from worldly desires, and obedience, our call to always strive to live out the will of God. For that is what the Christian life requires, and it is how we become closer to the Lord, especially in this season of penance.
Let us turn, therefore, our eyes to Christ, let our focus be on heaven, and let our mouths proclaim those same words of the Blessed Mother: Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum – be it done unto me according to Thy Word. Amen.
This piece is a part of a series for Lent 2023. Read more at https://www.yalelogos.com/lent2023