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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260521
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260522
DTSTAMP:20260520T113950
CREATED:20260517T184055Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260517T184055Z
UID:14939-1779321600-1779407999@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Easter Weekday
DESCRIPTION:A reading from\nST CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA 5\n◊◊◊\nAs the reason for his departure\, our Lord mentioned his desire to open the way for our ascent to the heavenly places and to prepare a safe passage for us by making smooth the road that had previously been impassable. For heaven was then completely inaccessible to us – human foot had never trodden that pure and holy country of the angels. It was Christ who first prepared the way for our ascent there. By offering himself to God the Father as the first-fruits of all who are dead and buried\, he gave us a way of entry into heaven and was himself the first man the inhabitants of heaven ever saw. \nThe angels in heaven\, knowing nothing of the sacred and profound mystery of the incarnation\, were astonished at his coming and almost thrown into confusion by an event so strange and unheard of. Who is this coming from Edom? they asked; that is\, from the earth. But the Spirit did not leave the heavenly throng ignorant of the wonderful wisdom of God the Father. Commanding them to open the gates of heaven in honor of the king and master of the universe\, he cried out: Lift up your gates\, you princes\, and be lifted up\, you everlasting doors\, that the king of glory may come in. \nAnd so our Lord Jesus Christ has opened up for us a new and living way\, as Paul says\, not by entering a sanctuary made with hands\, but by entering heaven itself to appear before God on our behalf. For Christ has not ascended in order to make his own appearance before God the Father. \nHe was\, is\, and ever will be in the Father and in the sight of him from whom he receives his being\, for he is his Father’s unfailing joy. But now the Word\, who had never before been clothed in human nature\, has ascended as a man to show himself in a strange and unfamiliar fashion. And he has done this on our account and in our name\, so that being like us\, though with his power as the Son\, and hearing the command\, Sit at my right hand\, as a member of our race\, he might transmit to all of us the glory of being children of God. \nAs man then he appeared before the Father on our behalf\, to enable us whom original sin had excluded from his presence to see the Father’s face once more. As the Son he took his seat to enable us as sons through him to be called children of God. So Paul\, who claims to speak for Christ\, teaching that the whole human race has a share in the events of Christ’s life\, says that God has raised us up with him and enthroned us with him in heaven. To Christ as the Son by nature belongs the prerogative of sitting at the Father’s side; this honor can rightly and truly be ascribed to him alone. \nYet because his having become man means that he sits there as one who is in all respects like ourselves\, as well as being as we believe God from God\, in some mysterious way he passes this honor on to us. \n5\nSt Cyril of Alexandria\, Commentary on St John’s Gospel\, 9 (PG 74:182-183);Word in Season III\, 2nd ed.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/easter-weekday-15/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260522
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260523
DTSTAMP:20260520T113950
CREATED:20260517T184712Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260517T184712Z
UID:14941-1779408000-1779494399@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Easter Weekday
DESCRIPTION:A reading from\nST LEO THE GREAT 6\n◊◊◊\nAfter the blessed and glorious Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ\, when the divine power in three days raised the true Temple of God…on this very day\, dearly beloved\, the number of the forty holy days is completed. While the Lord draws out the time of his bodily presence\, our faith in his Resurrection is being strengthened by the necessary signs. The Death of Christ had greatly disturbed the hearts of the disciples. When the holy women\, as the Gospel story has told us\, proclaimed that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb\, the sepulcher was empty\, and that angels were witnesses of the living Lord\, their words seemed to the Apostles and other disciples as pure nonsense. \nThe Spirit of Truth would by no means have permitted this wavering in human weakness to enter the hearts of his preachers\, if their trembling anxiety and questioning delay were not to have established the foundations of our faith. Consequently\, it was our doubts\, our danger\, that was being considered in the Apostles. We\, in the guise of the Apostles\, were being instructed against the slanders of the wicked and the proofs of earthly wisdom. Let us give thanks for necessary slowness of the Holy Fathers. They doubted so that we need not doubt. \nThese days\, dearly beloved\, between the Resurrection of the Lord and his Ascension provided the opportunity to confirm great mysteries\, to reveal great secrets. In these days the Holy Spirit was poured into all the Apostles by the breath of the Lord; and to blessed Peter above all the others\, after the keys of the kingdom\, the care of the Lord’s sheep is entrusted. Through all this time which\nwent by between the Resurrection of the Lord and his Ascension\, the providence of God took thought for this: that they should recognize the Lord Jesus Christ as truly risen\, who was truly born\, truly suffered\, and truly died. \nThe result was that not only were they not afflicted with sadness but were filled with great joy when the Lord went into the heights of heaven. Truly it was a great and indescribable source of rejoicing when\, in the sight of the heavenly multitudes\, the nature of our human race ascended over the dignity of all heavenly creatures\, to pass the angelic orders and to be raised beyond the heights of archangels. In its ascension it did not stop at any other height until this same nature was received at the seat of the eternal Father\, to be associated on the throne of the glory of that One to whose nature it was joined in the Son. \nSince the Ascension of Christ is our elevation\, and since\, where the glory of the Head has preceded its\, there hope for the body is also invited\, let us exult\, dearly beloved\, with worthy joy and be glad with a holy thanksgiving. \nToday we are established not only as possessors of Paradise\, but we have even penetrated the heights of the heavens in Christ\, prepared more fully for it through the indescribable grace of Christ which we had lost through the ill will of the devil. Those whom the violent enemy threw down from the happiness of our first dwelling\, the Son of God has placed\, incorporated within himself\, at the right hand of the Father\, the Son of God who lives and reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen. \n6\nSt Leo the Great\, Sermon 73; FoC 93 (1996) tr. Freeland & Conway.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/easter-weekday-16/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20260523
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20260524
DTSTAMP:20260520T113950
CREATED:20260517T185342Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260517T185342Z
UID:14943-1779494400-1779580799@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Easter Weekday
DESCRIPTION:A reading from\nST LEO THE GREAT 7\n◊◊◊\nThe faith of the infant Church was increased by the Lord’s Ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit; it was to remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment\, exile and hunger\, fire and ravening beasts\, and the most refined tortures ever devised by brutal persecutors. Even the blessed Apostles\, though they had been strengthened by so many miracles and instructed by so much teaching\, took fright at the cruel suffering of the Lord’s Passion and could not accept his Resurrection without hesitation. \nYet they made such progress through his Ascension that they now found joy in what had terrified them before. They were able to fix their minds on Christ’s divinity as he sat at the right hand of the Father\, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no longer hindered them from turning all their attention to the realization that he had not left his Father when he came down to earth\, nor abandoned his disciples when he ascended into heaven. \nThe truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into his Father’s glory. He now began to be indescribably more present in his divinity to those from whom he was further removed in his humanity. A more mature faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ’s tangible body\, in which as man he is inferior to the Father. \nFor while his glorified body retained the same nature\, the faith of those who believed in him was now summoned to heights where\, as the Father’s equal\, the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical handling but by spiritual discernment. This explains why our Lord said to the Church in the person of Mary Magdalene\, as she ran forward to cling to him: Do not touch me\, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. In other words\, I do not want you to come to me corporeally\, to recognize me by what your bodily senses tell you; I want you to wait for something higher. \nAnd when the eyes of his disciples\, rapt in wonder\, followed their ascending Lord to heaven\, there stood beside them two angels\, in garments of marvelously shining whiteness\, who said to them: Men of Galilee\, why are you standing looking up to heaven? This Jesus who has been taken from you will come again in the same way as you have seen him going up to heaven. By these words all the Church’s children have been taught to believe that Jesus Christ will come again visibly in the same flesh in which he ascended\, and that there can be no doubt concerning the subjection of all things to him who was served by angels from the moment of his birth. \nAs it was an angel who announced to the blessed Virgin that Christ would be conceived of the Holy Spirit\, so too it was the song of heavenly beings that told the shepherds of his virginal birth; and as the first attestations of his rising from the dead were delivered by messengers from on high\, so it was the task of angels to proclaim that he would come in the same flesh to judge the world. All these things were intended to make us realize what tremendous angelic powers are to accompany him when he comes to judge\, since such mighty spirits ministered to him even when he came to be judged himself. \n7\nSt Leo the Great\, Sermon 74\, 3-4 (CCL 138A:457-459); Word in Season III\, 1st ed.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/easter-weekday-17/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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