Monastery of the Holy Cross

Et Incarnatus Est – The Prior’s Blog

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 7:21-22

“And all flesh died that moved upon the earth…everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.”

So we see all living creatures in the air and on land are conceived of as having a bi-partite nature of ‘flesh’ and ‘breath’.  There is no distinction between human beings and animals in this way of thinking.  Animals would seem to partake of a soul that is not distinguished, at least in this context, from a human soul.  What does distinguish human beings is being made in the image and likeness of God.

Meditations on Heaven: Salvation as Health

“ ‘Salvation’ is not just a matter of avoiding hell and somehow getting into heaven. It is, as its etymology indicates, the wholeness of good health. Present-day Italian still says la salute, with the two meanings of health and salvation. No-one is healthy who has any sort of infirmity. Every fault, even the smallest and least noticeable, means the contamination of a little health, a little ‘salvation’.”

—Irenee Hausherr, SJ, Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East, p. 23

As long as heaven and hell are seen only as ‘afterlife’ choices, we will be inclined to a view of morality that is a kind of jumping through hoops or scorekeeping. Atheists who reject this view have reason to do so, I think. However, it is not at all representative of the great tradition of Christian moral reflection, which sees ‘salvation’ in the terms that Hausherr presents it in the quote: health, fullness of life, joy, contentment. All our choices lead either toward such flourishing or away from it.

Over the course of our lives, we will have tended either toward ‘salvation’ or away from it. And the realities of heaven and hell correspond to these patterns of choices.

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 6:12

“And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.”

When we read that “all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth,” and yet we read that Noah “was a righteous man,” who “walked with God,” [6: 9] we are to understand that Noah was not a man of the flesh but of the spirit.

Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Ascension

As members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we are already seated with Christ at the Father’s right in the heavenly places.  Our human nature has been glorified in Christ by its translation to heaven, and the life we live now is a life of pilgrimage to our true homeland, which is in the New Creation.  Our conversatio should be spiritual and heavenly, the glory of the flesh purified and illuminated by the grace of baptism.

The Divine Liturgy greatly aids us in coming to recognize this truth.  In the liturgy, we turn our minds, hearts and bodies toward Christ seated with the Father, and ask to be transformed from glory to glory in His likeness.  This is the meaning of facing East:  by turning in a common direction toward the reality that transcends any human project, we consent to God’s entrance into our lives.  We learn to desire not only spiritual goods, but the Divine Life itself.

The Mystery of the Ascension teaches us that our true life is hidden with Christ in God.  This a reality which requires effort to make manifest, most especially the effort of liturgical worship.

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 6:11

“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.”

The corruption of the earth is not tied to the concept of sin.  This is because where there is no covenant, there is no sin.  Yet even without the covenant, mankind is held accountable for corruption because “although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.” [Rom 1: 21]

Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Resurrection

We do not often enough consider that in baptism, we have already begun living our resurrected lives.  The Resurrection of Jesus is not merely the first of many, it is the cosmic regeneration itself.  Gradually, from this center and foundation, Christ’s new creation is already growing.  We have been incorporated into Christ and thereby have become co-workers in His new creation.

The first task is for us to live ‘in newness of life’.  We ought to take time each day to reflect on this gift, so as to live as one of the saints already.  We would be so much less likely to forget God, to be at peace with our imperfections and attachments to venial sin, if we truly grasped that we bear the new creation in ourselves.  Its growth into the lives of others and into the cosmos itself depends on our appropriating for ourselves ‘the immeasurable greatness of the power at work in us who believe.’ [Eph. 1:19]

Heaven is not something waiting at the end of our lives as a token reward for having been morally upright.  It is a state of being in the present:  in unity with Christ, together with the saints who already enjoy the vision of God in eternity as members of the one Church.

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 6:14 (Part 2)

“Make yourself an ark…and cover it inside and out with pitch.”

(Here is the first part of the scholion on this verse.)

God’s instructions to Noah indicate that the ark is a miniature cosmos.  God is the ‘Divine Geometer’:  just as He created the cosmos by ‘drawing a circle on the deep’ and ‘marking out the foundations of the earth’ [Prv. 8: 27, 29], so the ark is harmonious, measured, proportioned.  The same can be said of the Ark of the Covenant, the Temple, and even of Jerusalem as a whole:  “Walk through Zion, walk all round it; count the number of its towers.” [Ps. 48: 12]

All these holy spaces must be kept pure.  When the sin of Jerusalem grew too great, God withdrew His presence, and the city fell.  Let this not be said of the new temple of our bodies.

Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus

Being human means dying every day.  We do not easily realize this when we are young.  As our twenties pass into our thirties and forties, however, we begin to discover that we must relinquish a great deal of what we had hoped for in life.  Our early successes fade into the past more and more quickly, and new successes are more difficult to achieve as the years follow relentlessly.

The life of Jesus Christ was, for many of His followers, an immense disappointment.  After the healings, the miracles, the inspiring teachings, how could this young man allow Himself to be brutally tortured and executed?  But the same question can be asked of every human life.  Each one is a kind of miracle; each one holds a particular kind of promise.  And each one is no less mercilessly snuffed out at the end—or so it would seem.

The mystery of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Death shows us the lengths to which God will go in order to give us life.  In solidarity with broken humanity, the immortal Son of God passes from the unrealized possibilities of this present life into the mysterious reality of another life which is accessible only to faith.  He is also the Son of Man, our Brother, and He invites us to make the same act of trust in the Father that He Himself did.

 

Scholia on Genesis: Genesis 6:14 (Part 1)

“Make yourself an ark…and cover (kaphartta) it inside and out with pitch.”

This act of covering signifies purification and propitiation.  In Exodus and Leviticus, the covering of the Ark of the Covenant is called the kipperot.  It is the fundamental place of expiation of sin.  The act of ‘covering’ purifies Noah’s ark, protecting it from the chaos that is about to be unleashed by sin.  The ark will be a miniature cosmos, preserving creation from un-creation.

This is the image by which those who are ‘baptized into Christ’ are saved from the wrath that is to come.  Christ, who became for us an ‘expiation’ (Romans 3: 25—the Greek hilasterion translates kipperot), covers our sins, purifying us in order that we may be preserved for the new creation.

Incarnational Meditations on the Rosary: The Carrying of the Cross

It is incumbent upon the Christian to die to the flesh so as to live to the Spirit of Jesus Christ.  Therefore, the practices of mortification represented by the scourging and the crown of thorns are universal obligations that we live out under various aspects, such as fasting, prayer and almsgiving.

But we are also individuals, unique creatures of a loving God Who endowed each of us with a particular dignity.  The negative side to this is that each of us has his or her own particular battle against sin and vice.  When our Lord invites those who follow Him to take up their crosses daily, He is inviting us to embrace our lives as they truly are, not as an abstract exercise in conformity.  This means embracing the particular sufferings that belong to my unique life, rather than blaming others or avoiding responsibility.  It does not mean planning and seeking out special sufferings, as if I knew best what is necessary for my growth in the mystical life.  Sometimes the absence of spectacular suffering is as much a mortification for those who desire holiness as is needed, and, in some cases, it may be more beneficial.  The key is to take up my cross and not someone else’s, to be open to the medicaments prescribed by the Heavenly Physician for my particular maladies, trusting in His love.

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