Vigils Reading – 13th Sunday

THE CHRIST WHO SPEAKS NOW

From a commentary by St Symeon the New Theologian1

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Many people never stop saying – I have heard them myself – “If only we

had lived in the days of the apostles, and been counted worthy to gaze upon

Christ as they did, we should have become holy like them.” Such people do not

realize that the Christ who spoke then and the Christ who speaks now

throughout the whole world is one and the same. If he were not the same then

and now, God in every respect, in his operations as in the sacraments, how

would it be seen that the Father is always in the Son and the Son in the Father,

according to the words Christ spoke through the Spirit: My Father is still

working and so am I?

But no doubt someone will say that merely to hear his words now and to

be taught about him and his kingdom is not the same thing as to have seen him

then in the body. And I answer that indeed the position now is not the same as

it was then, but our situation now, in the present day, is very much better. It

leads us more easily to a deeper faith and conviction than seeing and hearing

him in the flesh would have done.

Then he appeared to the uncomprehending…as a man of lowly station;

now he is proclaimed to us as true God. Then in his body he associated with tax

collectors and sinners and ate with them; now he is seated at the right hand of

God the Father, and is never in any way separated from him. We are firmly

persuaded that it is he who feeds the entire world, and we declare – at least if

we are believers – that without him nothing came into being. Then even those

of lowliest condition held him in contempt. They said: Is this not the son of

Mary, and of Joseph the carpenter? Now kings and rulers worship him as Son

of the true God, and himself true God, and he has glorified and continues to

glorify those who worship him in spirit and in truth, although he often punishes

them when they sin. He transforms them, more than all the nations under

heaven, from clay into iron. Then he was thought to be mortal and corruptible

like the rest of humankind. He was no different in appearance from other men.

The formless and invisible God, without change or alteration, assumed a human

form and showed himself to be a normal human being. He ate, he drank, he

slept, he sweated, and he grew weary. He did everything other people do, except

he did not sin. For anyone to recognize him in that human body, and to believe

that he was the God who made heaven and earth and everything in them was

very exceptional.

This is why when Peter said: You are the Son of the living God, the master

called him blessed, saying: Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and

blood has not revealed this to you — you do not speak of something your eyes

have seen – but my Father who is in heaven.

It is certain therefore that anyone who now hears Christ cry out daily

through the holy Gospels, and proclaim the will of his heavenly Father, but does

not obey him with fear and trembling and keep his commandments – it is

certain that such a person would have refused to believe in him then, if he had

been present, and seen him, and heard him teach. Indeed there is reason to fear

that in his total incredulity he would have blasphemed by regarding Christ not

as true God, but as an enemy of God.

1 Journey with the Fathers – Year B – New City Press – 1993 – pg 96-97.3