Bulletins
March 21, 2021
Download the Bulletin as a PDF21 March
Whether we are celebrating the Fifth Sunday of Lent in the Ordinary Form (John 12,2033) or Passion Sunday in the Extraordinary Form (John 8,4659), we read in the Holy Gospel of John the words of Jesus about His seeking not His own glory but the glory of the Father. What does it mean that Jesus, who has come to glorify the Father, asks the Father “glorify your name”?
This excerpt from Homily 67 by St. John Chrysostom takes the words of John 12,28 “Father, glorify Your Name.” and paraphrases them:
“Lead Me henceforth to the Cross”.
This statement from Our Lord “greatly shows His humanity, and a nature unwilling to die, but clinging to the present life, proving that He was not exempt from human feelings. For as it is no blame to be hungry, or to sleep, so neither is it to desire the present life; and Christ indeed had a body pure from sin, yet not free from natural wants, for then it would not have been a body. By these words also He taught something else. Of what kind is that? That if ever we be in agony and dread, we even then start not back from that which is set before us; and by saying, ‘Glorify Your Name’ He shows that He dies for the truth calling the action, glory to God. And this fell out after the Crucifixion. The world was about to be converted, to acknowledge the Name of God, and to serve Him, not the Name of the Father only, but also that of the Son; yet still as to this He is silent.”
“Knowing then these things, let us rouse ourselves, let us glorify God, not by our faith alone, but also by our life, since otherwise it would not be glory, but blasphemy. For God is not so much blasphemed by an impure heathen, as by a corrupt Christian. Wherefore I entreat you to do all that God may be glorified; for, Woe, it says, to that servant by whom the Name of God is blasphemed, (and wherever there is a woe, every punishment and vengeance straightway follows,) but blessed is he by whom that Name is glorified…. may we never have cause to be ashamed of our words, nor you to hide your faces, but may all be able to stand with boldness before the judgmentseat of Christ, that we also may be able to rejoice over you, and to have some compensation of our own faults, in your being approved in Christ Jesus our Lord, with whom to the Father and the Holy Ghost be glory forever. Amen.”
God bless us all.
Rev. Christopher J. Pollard
