1st Week of Lent 2024 - Friday - Surpassing Righteousness (and St. Polycarp)

Unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of God.

The scribes and Pharisees were renowned for their zeal, concern for purity, and their conformity to the law of Moses.  The very word Pharisee comes from the word meaning “to separate”. The Pharisees sought to separate themselves from everything that was sinful. They would even avoid eating with sinners, hence, their consternation when Jesus would dine with tax collectors and prostitutes.  They were meticulous in distancing themselves from sin. 

However, the Lord often criticizes the Pharisees for neglecting the deeper, internal aspects of righteousness, such as humility, mercy, and genuine love for God and others. 

Christians must do both. We must be meticulous in rooting out sin, while at the same time pursuing that internal transformation, that God wants for us. 

Christians are called to a righteousness that goes beyond external religious rituals and legalistic observance. That doesn’t mean that we prohibit religious rituals or legal observance. Like, well, I’m humble so I don’t need to follow the law. No. We need both. 

We follow legitimate authority, we follow liturgical law, we separate ourselves from sinful behavior, and root out our attachments to sin, but we also are to cultivate gentleness, patience, generosity, genuine care for people, and a burning love for God. 

This teaching of Jesus is important for us to keep in mind as we engage in our Lenten observances. Our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are not mindless rituals. Fasting isn’t magic. Fasting alone is not enough to win entrance into heaven. Nor is the quantity of one’s fasting a measure of one’s righteousness. Rather, fasting is to be done a sign of sincere repentance and penance for sin which offends God and has damage our souls. Lenten fasting and detachment from worldly entertainments is to deepen our hunger, nor just for food, but for God. 

We fast and pray and give because Christ fast and prayed and gave, but also to become like him in ALL things. That our minds and hearts may become like His. 

Today on the liturgical calendar is one of the beloved saints and martyrs of the early church, St. Polycarp. The top middle stained glass window in the eastern narthex here depicts St. Polycarp being ordained a bishop of St. John the Apostle along with our parish patron St. Ignatius of Antioch. Like Ignatius, Polycarp also wrote letters, but we have only one surviving letter: St. Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians. 

In it, St. Polycarp takes up this idea of righteousness as following the example of Christ. Polycarp writes: “Let us then continually persevere in our hope and the security of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ who bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth), but who endured all things for us so that we might live in Him. Let us then be imitators of his patience. If we suffer for his name's sake, let us glorify him. For he has set us this example in himself, and we have believed that.”

Let us take up this great saint’s advice this Lent, in striving for true righteousness, which is Jesus Christ himself for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. 

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That the season of Lent may bring the most hardened hearts to repentance and bring to all people purification of sin and selfishness.

For those preparing for baptism and the Easter sacraments, that they may continue to conform themselves to Christ through fervent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

For all who are oppressed by any kind of need, that the Lord may graciously grant them relief.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.

December 27 2021 - St. John the Apostle & Evangelist (and his student Ignatius of Antioch)

 In the eastern narthex here at St. Ignatius of Antioch, the middle set of stained glass windows depict the life of our parishes patron St. Ignatius. And the very top stained glass window contains three figures. St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, and the saint we honor on this third day of the Christmas Octave, the principal patron of the Diocese of Cleveland, St. John the Apostle and Evangelist.

These three saints are depicted together, for it is said that Polycarp and Ignatius were both students of the beloved disciple (and this is how they are depicted, as if sitting at the foot of the master). They were also both consecrated bishops by St. John around the year 66 A.D. Polycarp was made bishop of Smyrna, and Ignatius, of course, was made the third bishop of Antioch, where he remained for about 40 years, at which point he was arrested and marched to his martyrdom in Rome.

On his way to martyrdom, Ignatius wrote his famous epistles, and you can really tell he had spent time with the Apostle John, for John’s influence runs through the epistles of dear Ignatius.

Ignatius writes of “the timeless, eternal, invisible Word made visible” drawn, concepts we find in beloved John’s prologue. Ignatius presents the Lord many times as the Divine Physician, the Son of God, True God, the Divine Word, the Logos, as does John. 

St. John impacted St. Ignatius deeply, and he is meant to impact all of us, deeply. No doubt, the love, the knowledge, the understanding that Ignatius derived from John, enabled him to teach and guide the flock at Antioch, and gave him conviction and courage when facing the Emperor, and provided him bravery and resolution as he faced his martyrdom.

So we do well to meditate on the writings of John often. For John, laid his head on the breast of our Savior, and helps us to do the same. When we meditate on John’s gospel, we can hear the Lord’s own heartbeat. 

We can hear his love for the Father and the Lord’s love for his blessed Mother, his love for his apostles, his deeper mercy for sinners, and his love for us. 

The collect for today’s Mass speaks of how, God, through the apostle John has unlocked for us the secrets of the Word, and asks God to help us grasp with proper understanding what he has brought to our ears. What a powerful prayer! 

And what a fitting saint to celebrate so near to the feast of the Lord’s birth, for St. John unlocks for us the secret hidden to many. That the Christ child is not an ordinary child, he is the Word Made Flesh come to save us from our sins.

Like St. Ignatius of Antioch, may we all become students of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, to learn ever more deeply the love and knowledge of Christ, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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We bring forth now our prayers of petitions.

For the Church of Cleveland under the patronage of St. John, apostle and evangelist, and particularly for Bishop Malesic, that together we may witness faithfully and tirelessly to the truth of the Gospel

For Christians who are persecuted throughout the world, especially those who face martyrdom, that they may have a faith that is constant and pure.

For those oppressed by hunger, sickness or loneliness, that through the mystery of the Nativity of Christ, they may find relief in both mind and body. 

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

Incline your merciful ear to our prayers, we ask, O Lord, and listen in kindness to the supplications of those who call on you. Through Christ our Lord