A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John(12:27-33)
Jesus said, ‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peopleto myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
From a Holy Week sermon by St. Aelred of Rievaulx
Our Lord Jesus Christ worked our salvation not in one way only, but undoubtedly in many ways. Since it was in mercy that he had planned our redemption, he wrought this redemption in such a way that he might serve as an example for us. My brothers, in this season you are recalling this redemption of ours. Be careful, then, to reflect not only on the fact of this redemption but also on two other points: the manner in which this redemption was wrought, and the place in which it was wrought. The manner of redemption is the suffering of the Cross; the place, outside the city.
Let us then learn from the Cross of Jesus our proper way of living. Should I say ‘living’ or, instead, ‘dying’? Rather, both living and dying. Dying to the world, living for God. Dying to vices and living by the virtues. Dying to the flesh, but living in the spirit. Thus in the Cross of Christ there is death and in the Cross of Christ there is life. The death of death is there, and the life of life. The death of sins is there and the life of the virtues. The death of the flesh is there, and the life of the spirit. But why did God choose this manner of death? He chose it as both a mystery and an example. In addition, he chose it because our sickness was such as to make such a remedy appropriate.
It was fitting that we who had fallen because of a tree might rise up because of a tree. Fitting that the one who had conquered by means of a tree might also be conquered by means of a tree. Fitting that we who had eaten the fruit of death from a tree might be given the fruit of life from a tree. And because we had fallen from the security of that most blessed place on earth intothis great, expansive sea,it was fitting that wood should be made ready to carry us across it. For no one crosses the sea except on wood, or this world except on the Cross.
Let me say something now about the mystery contained in the manner of our redemption. Death on a Cross is endured not on the earth but above the earth; and the victim’s limbs are not cut off but stretched. They are stretched horizontally and perpendicularly, so that the crucified man is stretched out in the four directions and seems to embrace the four quarters of the world, taking possession of both heaven and earth. For when a Cross is set upright, the head is directed to heaven and the feet to earth, and the outstretched arms to what is located between heaven and earth. Moreover, if you lay a crucified man on the ground, one part of him will occupy the east, another the west, another the south, and another the north.
Do you see, now, the mystery in the kind of death Christ chose? The Apostle sets forth this point with clarity, when he says:He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross.And, revealing the mystery, he says:Therefore God exalted him and gave him the name that is above all names, so that at the name of Jesus every knee might bend of those who are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.Since, then, he was to take possession of heaven and earth through the Cross, on the Cross he embraced heaven and earth.
Musical Selection
The golden gates are lifted up,
The doors are opened wide;
The King of glory is gone up Unto his Father’s side.
And ever on our earthly path
A gleam of glory lies,
A light still breaks behind the cloud
That veiled thee from our eyes.
Lift up our hearts, lift up our minds:
And let thy grace be giv’n,
That, while we journey yet below,
Our treasure be in heavn;
That where thou art, at God’s right hand,
Our hope, our love, may be:
Dwell in us now, that we may dwell
For evermore in thee.
Prayer
Merciful Lord,
incline your ear to our prayers
and forgive your servants. all their sins,
that they may have life on the day of resurrection
and find rest in the realm of light.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,