Vigils Reading
THE BOND OF LOVE
From a sermon by St Leo the Great
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Among all the days which Christian devotion holds honorable in many
ways, there is none more excellent than the Paschal Feast, through which the
dignity of all the solemnities in the Church of God is consecrated. Even the very
birth of our Lord from a human mother is credited to this mystery, for there was
no other reason for the Son of God to be born than that he could be fixed to a
cross. Our mortal flesh was taken up in the womb of a Virgin, and in this mortal
flesh the unfolding of his Passion was accomplished. Thus the mercy of God
fulfilled a plan too deep for words: Christ’s humanity became for us a sacrifice of
redemption, the destruction of sin, and the firstfruits of resurrection to eternal
life.
When we consider what the entire world owes to our Lord’s Cross, we
realize our need to prepare for the celebration of Easter by a fast of forty days if
we are to take part worthily in these sacred mysteries. It is not only the highest
bishops or the priests of the second order, nor the ministers who administer the
sacraments alone, but the whole body of the Church and the entire company of
the faithful who must be purified, so that in the Temple of God, whose
foundation is its Founder himself, every stone may be beautiful and all parts
radiant.
If it is reasonable to embellish a king’s palace or governor’s residence with
every ornamental art, so that the greater a person’s importance the more
splendid his dwelling, what zeal ought to be expended in building the House of
God himself, and how distinguished should be its furnishing! No doubt such a
task can be neither undertaken nor completed without the architect;
nevertheless the builder of the house has given it the power to grow in stature
through its own efforts. In the building of this Temple living and intelligent
materials are being used, which of their own free will assemble themselves into
a single structure at the prompting of the Spirit of grace. There was a time when
they neither loved God nor sought him; but he loved and sought them so that
they might begin to love and seek him in return. This is what the blessed apostle
John speaks of when he says: Let us love God, for he first loved us.
Since therefore the entire company of the faithful and each believer in
particular form one and the same Temple of God, there must be the same
perfection in each individual as there is in the whole; for even if all are not
alike in beauty nor is there equal merit in such a diversity of membership, yet
the bond of love ensures communion of beauty among them all. While those
who are united in holy love may not all have received the same gifts of grace,
they rejoice nonetheless in their mutual blessings. Nothing that they love can
be wanting to them, for they become rich in their own increase when they
rejoice in another’s progress.