Pieter Jozef Verhaghen,1781
Translation of the Epistle for the Fourth Sunday of Lent
Brethren: it is written that Abraham had two sons; the one by a bond-woman, and the other by a free-woman. But he who was of the bond-woman was born according to the flesh; but he of the free-woman was by promise. Which things are said by an allegory. For these are the two testaments; the one from Mount Sina, engendering unto bondage, which is Agar: for Sina is a mountain in Arabia, which hath affinity to that Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children: but that Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was after the spirit, so also it is now. But what saith the Scriptures? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman. So then, brethren, we are not the children of the bond-woman, but of the free; by the freedom wherewith Christ hath made us free.
Continuation of the Holy Gospel According to Saint John
At that time, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee which is that of Tiberias; and a great multitude followed Him, because they saw the miracles which He did on them that were diseased. Jesus therefore went up into a mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. Now the pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand. When Jesus therefore had lifted up His eyes, and seen that a very great multitude cometh to Him, He said to Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this He said to try him; for He Himself knew what He would do. Philip answered Him, Two hundred penny-worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little. One of His disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, saith to Him, There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves and two fishes; but what are these among so many? Then Jesus said: Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. The men therefore sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, He distributed to them that were set down. In like manner also of the fishes, as much as they would. And when they were filled, He said to His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost. They gathered up therefore, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten. Now those men, when they had seen what a miracle Jesus had done, said, This is of a truth the prophet that is to come into the world. Jesus therefore, when He knew that they would come to take Him by force and make Him king, fled again into the mountain Himself alone.
The Saving Words of the Gospel.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Transcription of Sermon
‘We are Children of the Promise, rejoice,’ says St. Paul in today’s reading. Children of the Promise. We are reminded of this union of past promise and future glory here in the very center of a penitential time. There was a promise made by God long ago, and its future fulfillment which was fulfilled in Christ, and, nonetheless, in the souls of each one of us will be fulfilled in our entry into eternity. The promise that God made is steadfast. He cannot go against His only Word, and that is our hope; and yet, there is something unfilled, right? That is our part, our commitment in this relationship with Him, and that is something that we are still, as Paul says, working out with fear and trembling. In other words, we’re on a pilgrimage of the Christian follower of Christ who imitates Him now as He goes towards Jerusalem and, ultimately, to Resurrection and Heaven. And so, the Church of the year is something of a microcosm of our lives.
It’s also a microcosm of all of Salvation History. And today, Lætáre Sunday, we wear rose because, in the midst of penance, there is a sign of joy. And the sign of joy is precisely the promise that Our Lord made. We don’t hyper-focus on something present; rather, we see it in its contact of past and future. And so, rose then is a sign of joy. It’s like the petals of a rose, which also contain the thorns of penance. We have this similar dynamic in the middle of Advent as well.
And this joy that we are enjoined to exercise is not an emotion. Joy, this Rejoice Sunday – that was the entrance antiphon, “Lætáre,” and in Advent, we have “Gaudéte.” They’re said in the imperative. They’re commands. Which probably sounds a little odd when you tell somebody, “Be happy.” Well, we don’t necessarily control our emotions, and that’s fine because this has nothing to do with emotions. In fact, it has nothing to do with anything except for an act. It’s a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So, this joy that the Church is encouraging us, enjoining us, commanding us to exercise is an act. But it’s an act that requires some conditions.
One condition is to be in a state of grace. Without the state of grace, we do not have the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And this is precisely a fruit of the Holy Spirit. When we think of a fruit, we think of what a plant produces. There’s the fruit of human labor. It has to do with production. We have what’s called the fruit of reason when we logic to a conclu- – we use syllogisms and come to a conclusion. So, this fruit of the Holy Spirit is the consequence of an action. And it’s His work. This joy ought to be a part of the package if we’re in a state of grace. Why not? Why wouldn’t it be? It’s the logical consequence. It’s the product of the divine indwelling.
Now, there’s a difference between extrinsic joy and intrinsic joy. Intrinsic joy is immutable. Extrinsic joy wains/waxes, comes/goes, grows/shrinks. It’s mutable. That’s extrinsic joy. What’s the difference? Well, the souls in Heaven experience intrinsic joy by beholding the Godhead, the Beatific Vision. We, followers of Christ, experience intrinsic joy, this immutable joy, when we consider who God is, when we consider His perfections, when we consider the life of grace, these things that are properly His. We can experience sorrows at the same time. The souls in Heaven experience an extrinsic sorrow when they see sin in our world, and nonetheless, their intrinsic joy is not moved. When Our Lady appeared in La Salette, she was weeping. So, imagine Mary weeping, who at the same time beholds the Beatific Vision. So, this is an example of the difference between intrinsic joy, which is immutable, and extrinsic, which can change according to what we’re thinking of.
Our difficulties are… we absolutize the difficulties, and we lose sight of what is immutable. We lose sight of the Godhead. We lose sight of what is eternal. We increase our penance in Lent. We increase our prayer. We consider the Passion of Christ, and we sorrow with Christ, and, nonetheless, this sorrow is not, as a scripture says, a sorrow unto death. This is the sorrow of love because you suffer with your beloved. When we consider Our Lord’s sufferings, it’s an act of contemplation and of love. Our Lord wants to be accompanied in His Passion, and that doesn’t move, doesn’t touch our intrinsic joy, the joy that we are encouraged to exercise today. This was the strength of Martyrs who understood the context of their pain because they understood that this pain, or the threat of pain, doesn’t have the last word. This is something that’s mutable. It’s changeable. It’s something that is temporary, whereas Our Lord is permanent.
And so, this miracle today that Our Lord does in the Gospel is kind of a union of past, and present, and future. It reminds us of the miraculous manna that fed the Jews in the desert. But it’s also a symbol of something to come, right? The Heavenly Banquet. And we see this in Psalm 22 of the Good Shepherd who prepares a banquet in green pastures for His chosen ones, for the sheep. And then, it’s happening now. So, there’s this union of past, future, and present. We see this in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, it’s the mystery of the Saving Death of Christ, made truly present, the Body of Christ, made present now, and we have a foretaste of Heaven now.
And so, in the midst of Lent, the Church reminds us of that which is permanent. Penance is not permanent. Contrition is not permanent. Augustine tells us that there are different types of prayer. There’s adoration, there’s thanksgiving, there’s petition, and there’s contrition. He says, “But in Heaven, there won’t be any petition or contrition. It’ll just be thanksgiving and adoration.” That’s what remains.
But this notion of past, present, and future reminds me, and if you haven’t read it, I recommend you read the Confessions of St. Augustine. In Book 11, he talks about time and memory. It was really interesting what he said. What a great man of letters he was, who wrote more than many people will read in their lives. He argues that time is a creation, and it was created before man was created. Therefore, when we were created, we were created in the context of time. And he says we make a false dichotomy of eternity and time. We kind of put them as opposites one to the other, and he said that’s not really the case because we have a memory, because our memory transcends the present.
For God, we know that everything is present to Him. For God, who is all-knowing, there’s no past, no future; it’s all present to Him integrally. Well, thanks to our memory, we’re able to transcend the present and remember what we did. Thanks to our memory, we can remember the promise that Our Lord made, which points towards a future, putting are present in context. And so, the fact that we have a memory proves that our interior life is bigger than everything outside of us. We bear within us something infinite. Thomas Aquinas says that the human mind has the potential for infinitude. And it makes sense if we consider that the human mind was created to contemplate the Godhead who was infinite, and we’re never, even in heaven, we’re never done. We’ve never exhausted the mystery. And so, with our memories, we’re not limited to a mere physical existence. We’re subjected to the passage of time, and we feel that in our bodies for sure, but our souls, our memory, our mind transcends time.
When Augustine was going over his past, it’s interesting. Whenever Augustine talks about the past, it’s always oriented towards the eschaton. It’s always oriented towards eternal life. He never speaks about just the past. It’s always immediately put into a proper context of something that is yet, as of yet, unfulfilled, and he calls this the distention of the soul, the distentio animi, the distention of the soul, the expansion of the soul which allows us to transcend the present remembering everything that – whatever we can from what has already transpired that is oriented towards an, as of yet, unfulfilled future. And nonetheless, we experience time, this creature, in a way that animals don’t, in a way that angels don’t, in a way that God doesn’t. He says the past is present through our memory, the present is present through our attending it, and the future is present through our expectation.
And this, you know, these three, we ought not separate them, but these three things, the past, the present, the future, are never understood properly if they’re understood, each one, as an individual piece. Think of the insanity of 2020 and the BLM/Antifa/the Marxist movement, to eradicate history, so to say, and live in a hyper-present; tearing down statues, forgetting about history, et cetera, living in a hyper-present, which is kind of proper to children because that’s why when parents tell their children stories, they have to say a long time ago in a place far away because the child thinks it’s the monster that he’s going to hear about is here right now; if he hears about it, he’s in the closet, he’s under the bed. So, it’s kind of proper to children to make everything a hyper-present.
On the other hand, there are people that live in the past. People who can’t get past their own forgiven sins and they’re their prisoners of sins; either forgiven or unforgiven those are two different scenarios. But that’s no way to go through life. Or some people who distract themselves thinking that I’ll be good tomorrow. And they think that I’ll be heroically virtuous later. Well, if it’s not happening now, it’s not going to happen later. And so, all of this is of a peace, past, present, and future.
And so, Augustine says it’s all present. In other words, our souls participate in God’s eternity already. There’s a future present, there’s a present present, and there’s a past present. All of it is made present because we have an intellect.
On the other hand, with regard to memory, we can sometimes be prisoners of bad memories, traumas, and things of that nature, and John of the Cross gives a solution; he gives us a way out of that; being a prisoner of the memory. And he says that it’s precisely the virtue of hope that purifies the memory. Just as charity purifies the will, and faith purifies the intellect, it’s hope that purifies the memory.
And as a result — and we are Children of the Promise, who are aware of the promise that was made long ago by God the Father, and that His promise is of a future glory that is, as of yet, not experienced — we can rejoice. We should rejoice. We’re obliged to rejoice because it’s all true.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, the Holy Ghost. Amen.
~Fr. Ermatinger