Wednesday of Holy Week

From a sermon by 4
ST LEO THE GREAT
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When God, whose absolute being is immune from suffering, assumed our fragile humanity in Christ, he strengthened it beyond measure. Henceforth it was no longer to remain under death’s dominion; through a nature immortal in itself, mortal man would be raised to life.

We must strive, dearly beloved, with great effort of soul and body to join ourselves inseparably to this mystery. While failure to observe the Paschal Solemnity would be a very grave offense, it would be still more dangerous to be united with congregations at Church but have no sharing in our Lord’s Passion. The apostle’s saying is true: If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.No one can truly worship the suffering, dead and risen Christ unless he himself suffers, dies, and rises again with him.

For all the Church’s children this sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection begins at the mystery of regeneration, when sin is destroyed and we are born to new life. There the Lord’s three-day sojourn in the grave is represented by a three-fold immersion. The stone is, as it were, rolled away from the tomb, and those who enter the font in their old, sin-stained condition are brought forth new by the baptismal waters. What has been effected in mystery, however, must still be carried out in their daily lives. As long as they are in this mortal body, those who are born of the Spirit must take up their cross.

Christ has lifted us up with himself on the Cross: there let the Christian take his stand. He knows it is the place where his human nature was redeemed, and all his steps should be directed toward it – for the Lord’s Passion is prolonged until the end of the world. Just as it is he whom we honour and love in the saints, he whom we feed and clothe in the poor, so too it is he who suffers in all who endure adversity for the sake of what is right, unless, indeed, we are to imagine that, with the spread of the faith, all persecution has come to an end together with every conflict which ever raged against the blessed martyrs – as if the bearing of the Cross were reserved only for those who have to suffer atrocious torments for the love of Christ.

Wise souls who have learned to fear and love the one and only Lord and to hope in him alone, mortify their passions and crucify their bodily senses. They prefer the will of God to their own lives, and insofar as they renounce love of self for love of God, they love themselves all the more truly. In such members of Christ’s body, beloved brethren, the Holy Passover is celebrated properly and they shall lack none of those victories which our Saviour’s Passion has won.

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St Leo the Great, Sermon 70.3-5 – Good Friday 443 (PL 54,:382-384); Word in Season II, 2nd ed.