Holy Saturday: A Reflection
Credo in Iesum Christum qui descendit ad inferos.
After Adam’s sin, it is said that Adam’s expulsion from the Temple Garden of God was ever descent; every step forward was a step downward from the heights and away from closeness with God, with whom he had walked in the cool of the day. Downward Adam went, more enmeshed with the toils of the world, more estranged from God, his Creator, his Beloved. […]
Good Friday in Three Parts: Part III
And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Crucifixion of Christ, Isenheim Altarpiece (detail), Matthias Grünewald, 1510-15
Depictions of the Crucifiction of Christ typically end in darkness and silence. The heavens grow dark, the distant Father is seemingly silent in the face of the murder of His Only Begotten Son, life fades from the Incarnate Body of the Son, […]
Good Friday in Three Parts: Part II
Behold, But a Man
Pontius Pilate is altogether human, perhaps too human. He is a man of some knowledge, but not a man of conviction or ideals. Pilate knows that truth and justice are important but, likely due to being assigned to the provincial backwater of Roman Judaea, decidedly not Roman and filled with a plethora of competing political and religious worldviews, took a subjective stance on the issue. What mattered at the end […]
Good Friday in Three Parts: Part I
For Our Sins
There is nothing particularly necessary about the maltreatment that Jesus suffers as part of His Passion. None of the animal sacrificial victims of the Old Law were abused prior to their sacrifice, and their slaughter was as humane as a sacrifice could be. Even the goat of Yom Kippur, upon which the sins of the Nation were placed, was simply let free. The abuse that Christ suffered prior to His death […]
Why is Tonight Different From All Other Nights? — A Reflection
Why is tonight different from all other nights, Papa?
La Última Cena, Bartolomeo Carducci, 1605
The high point of the Jewish liturgical year: the Passover, the day when the Jews recollected and celebrated God’s deliverance of the ancient Hebrew peoples from bondage in Egypt and set in motion that which would bring about the giving of the Law, the founding of the Korban […]
Spy Wednesday – A Reflection
Spy Wednesday
Judas Accepting the 30 Pieces of Silver Icon, Maxim Sheshukov
It would be wrong to view Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of the Lord, as a tragic figure in the unfolding of the last days of Our Lord’s Passion. Pitiable yes, but tragic no. Tragic denotes a figure to whom misfortune out of their control befalls. This is not Judas, for his actions […]
And I Will Give Them One Heart, and Put a New Spirit Within Them
Part IV in a Series by Pseudo-Ermatinger
Women Picking Olives, Vangogh, 1889
The way to the Holy Mountain of the Divine Father is a path trod by prayer. If one ascends through prayer, they will find themselves ascending through the cloud of unknowing that veils the summit from prying eyes (cfr. Job 28:12-28; Isa 45:3; 1 Cor 2:9). There beyond they […]
At the East of the Garden of Eden God Placed the Cherubim, and a Flaming Sword To Guard the Way
Part III in a Series by Pseudo-Ermatinger
The space shuttle Challenger lifts off from the Complex 39A launch pad, National Archives, 1983.
The soul’s journey towards the divine may travel outward from herself, might propel herself outward and upward under her own power, her own ingenuity, her own vainglory. To be sure, the powers of man, of body, mind, […]
Listen, While I Tell Again the Story of the Lord’s Mercies, What Renown the Lord has Won
Part II in a Series by Pseudo-Ermatinger
Bergidyll Hans Dahl (ca. 1900)
The little of our Heavenly Father that we see in this world below is enough to cry out to Him Glory! — at least it should be. Creation cries out to Him unceasingly, praising Him for the sundry multitude […]
Come, Let Us Go Up to the Mountain of the LORD
Part I in a Series by Pseudo-Ermatinger
Soria Moria by Theodor Kittelsen (1881)
Gregory the Sinaite instructed those who desired to pray to take a guide, lest they get lost in the venture. Who then should we take for our guide? There is a two-fold temptation; the first, to chart our course using […]