Sassafras Parish Newsletter - February 2008

Dear Friends in Christ,

As we follow our course through the liturgical Easter cycle this year, it will be profitable for us to reflect on the meaning of this season through which we relive the life of our Lord. The liturgical year began with the expectation of the Christ at Advent, and continues through to the last Sunday after Pentecost, when we consider the Second Coming of our Lord. Each year, we follow, the human career of the Word of God, as it were, in miniature. Yet this is not the only purpose of the liturgical year. This course of readings that are put to us each Sunday are also symbolic of the work of salvation through the entire history of the world, and more immediately, in our own souls.

When in the beginning, God created the world, He saw that it was good (Gen. 1).  All the works of God are perfect, and yet this did not stop man from abusing his gift of free will and separating himself from his Creator and Lord through sin. With sin came chaos; disorder in the human soul and in all of creation. Nevertheless, we would not be left to our own devices as God would send a Saviour; the seed of the Woman who would crush the head of the tempter. The entire Old Testament is the preparation for the coming of this Messiah, Who was no ordinary man, but the Word of God clothed in flesh and taking His place among men. More than this, He took the place of sinful man, willing to be “offered once to exhaust the sins of many” (Heb. 9); to take all of the sins of every man and woman who ever offended (or will offend) the Eternal Father and to atone for them by offering Himself up as an acceptable sacrifice. Man was forgiven through the redemptive act of Calvary—through the death of the God-Man. Death however could not conquer Him, for on the third day He was rewarded by His Father for His “obedience unto death, even to the death of the cross”. And so He rose again from the dead, receiving “a name which is above all names, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those that are in heaven, on earth and under the earth” (Phil. 2).

All of nature being contained in the Word of God, by Whom “all things were made, and without Him was made nothing that was made” (Jn. 1), all nature is redeemed together with the summit of creation—mankind. The rift between the world and God is bridged, though this does not let man off free. If the redemption is to take effect in his soul, he must embrace the life of Christ and allow himself to be renewed through the workings of grace. “If then, any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away; behold all things are made new” (II Cor. 5). As Christ was renewed by His resurrection, so is creation to be renewed, with renewed man at its head.

And so we come to the immediate meaning of this cycle for the Christian soul: our salvation is to be worked out in conformity with the prototype of the New Man—our Lord: “For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow His steps” (I Pet. 2). This is the path to life everlasting—conformity to Him Who is Life itself: “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live” (Jn. 9). For if we make Him our life, He will glorify us with Himself, as He is glorified: “When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3). This is what it is to be a Christian—to have fellowship with Christ in death and in life. Only then we can hope to be included in the glorification of the Church: “And I heard a multitude, and as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of great thunders, saying Alleluia: for the marriage of the Lamb is come and his wife hath prepared herself. And it is granted to her that she should clothe herself with fine linen, glittering and white. For the fine linen are the justifications of the saints. And He said to me: Write: Blessed are they that are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Apoc. 19).

Wishing you every blessing of the Lenten and Paschal season, 

Fr. Brendan Arthur, FSSPX