Lent 4th Week, From the writings of Henri de Lubac, SJ

Vigil Lectionary Readings, 

Lent II Fourth Week Thursday.

Thursday

First Reading        Numbers 3:1-13: 8:5-11.

Responsory          Heb 10:22-23; Mk 16:16

With our hearts cleansed and freed from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with clean water, let us stand firm in the profession of our hope, + for he who made the promise is faithful.

V Everyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. +For he who ...

         

Alternative Reading

From the writings of Henri de Lubac, SJ (Catholicisme, 206-207)

The thoughts of a Christian way follow various attractions, but they are always drawn back, as by the force of gravity, to the contemplation of the cross. The whole mystery of Christ is at once a mystery of resurrection and a mystery of death. Neither is complete without the other, and one word express­es both: the paschal mystery, that is to say, the Passover. It is the transmutation of the whole being implying a total separa­tion from self which no one can hope to escape. The individ­ual must renounce all natural values insofar as they are pure­ly natural, even those which have made it possible to rise above one's personal limitations.

However authentic and pure the vision of unity that inspires and directs a person's activity, before it can become a reality it must be eclipsed. The mighty shadow of the cross must envelop it. Humanity must cease to regard itself as its own final end if it is to become one, for God is essentially a God who admits of no sharing, a God who must be loved without rival or not at all.

Nor is it possible to pass effortlessly from a natural to a supernatural love. To lose oneself is the condition for finding oneself. The rigor of this spiritual logic applies to humanity as a whole as well as to the individual, to my love of the human family and of particular people as well as to my self-love. The law of exodus is the law of ecstasy. We cannot avoid being part of the human race, but the human race as a whole must die to itself in everyone of its members, so as to live trans­formed in God. The only perfect fellowship is a fellowship united in a common adoration. "The glory of God is a human being fully alive," but only by giving all the glory to God can the individual have access to life in total solidarity with others; in no other way can society be complete. Such is the uni­versal Passover which lays the foundations of the city of God.

Christ sustains the whole of humanity in his own person.

Through his death on the cross that humanity renounces self­love and dies. But the mystery is deeper yet. He who bore all within himself was abandoned by all; the universal Man died alone. Such was the climax of the kenosis and the completion of the sacrifice. This abandonment, even to apparent deser­tion by the Father, was necessary to effect reunion, Here we have the mystery of loneliness, of rending apart, becoming the one efficacious sign of gathering together into unity; a sacred sword reaching to the separation of soul and spirit only so that universal life may flow in.

“O you who are alone among the lonely, you who are all in all!”

To conclude in the words of Saint Irenaeus: "Through the wood of the cross the work of God's Word has become manifest to all; his arms are there extended to gather the whole human race together – two hands outstretched, since there are two peoples scattered over the whole earth. And because there is one only God above all and through all and in all, we see in the centre of the cross one single head."

Responsory          Jn 4:23-24

Those who worship the Father must worship him in spirit and in truth. + The Father seeks such worshipers as these.

v. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. + The Father seeks ...