Daily reflections through Holy Week By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
Holy Saturday: In the Silence of the Tomb, the Light is Kindled
After the liturgy of Good Friday, the Church keeps silence. The Cross has been taken down, the altar is bare, the tabernacle stands empty. Christ is no longer visible on earth—His Body lies in the tomb, and His Soul has descended into the place of the dead.
Holy Saturday is the most hidden day of the Church’s year. Neither Friday’s agony nor Sunday’s exultation marks it. It is the day of the tomb. The day when death holds the Lord of Life. And yet, this is not a defeat. Christ rests in the grave because His work is complete. He rests, as God rested after creation—not in exhaustion, but in fulfillment. “It is consummated.” And so, He goes where all men must go, to the depths of Sheol—not as a prisoner, but as a King.
The Creed tells us plainly: descendit ad infernos. He descended into hell. The gates of death swing open at His arrival. The just who had died in hope—Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and David—waited in patient longing. Now the Bridegroom comes. He breaks their chains. He harrows hell. Death is undone from within.
Dom Guéranger, in his Liturgical Year, writes that on this day “the Church weeps, but it is with love and hope. Her Bridegroom is hidden, but not lost. She keeps vigil, not in despair, but in reverence.” No sacraments are celebrated today. The Church waits. She fasts. She watches.
But the Church is not idle. The ancient Roman liturgy of Holy Saturday, in its classical pre-1955 form, is deeply solemn, unfolding not as a celebration, but as a sacred vigil of prophecy, fire, water, and sacramental preparation. It begins in the early morning, while the world is still hushed, and it does not yet proclaim Resurrection. It prepares for it—like the stone that is beginning to tremble, like the light that is about to break.
Outside the church, a new fire is struck from flint—a symbol of Christ’s Resurrection from the sealed rock of the tomb. From it, the triple candle is lit, and the ministers process into the darkened church. Three times the deacon halts and chants: Lumen Christi—the light of Christ. Three times the faithful respond: Deo gratias. The Paschal Candle is blessed, marked with the wounds of Christ, and lit from the triple flame. Then comes the Exsultet, that luminous hymn which praises this “most blessed of nights,” the night when Christ broke the chains of death and rose in victory.
Yet the Resurrection is not declared. Not yet. The Church turns instead to the sacred prophecies—twelve in all—taken from the Old Testament. These are no ordinary readings. They are a liturgical retelling of all salvation history, from the creation of the world to the crossing of the Red Sea, from the call of Abraham to the restoration of Jerusalem. Each prophecy is followed by a chant or tract, and all are offered in solemn preparation, as if the Church herself is passing through the centuries in fast-forward, pausing at every sign of hope.
When the final prophecy has been read, if there are catechumens, the ministers go to bless the baptismal font. The water is exorcised and sanctified; the Paschal Candle is immersed three times into its depths. The oils are poured in: the Oil of Catechumens, the Sacred Chrism. The catechumens are baptized, confirmed, and clothed in white. The womb of the Church has borne new children—signs that Resurrection is near.
Now the Litany of the Saints is sung—calling upon the whole Church Triumphant to intercede for the Church Militant. Only when this sacred litany has concluded does the altar come to life. The ministers vest in white. The ornaments are returned. The bells are rung. The Mass of the Easter Vigil begins.
And yet it is still Holy Saturday. This is not the full feast of Easter. The tone remains noble, but restrained. There is no introit. No Creed. No Offertory chant. The Mass begins with the Gloria in excelsis, which had been silenced since Maundy Thursday. The Gospel is that of the Resurrection, from Saint Matthew: the angel at the tomb declaring, “He is not here. For He is risen, as He said.”
The celebrant receives Holy Communion. The faithful may receive, but many still wait for the full Resurrection Mass on Easter Sunday. Even now, the Church holds her breath. The Canon is recited without elaboration. The Last Gospel is read. And the liturgy ends quietly.
As Fr Pius Parsch reflects, Holy Saturday is not yet Easter. “The joy is real,” he writes, “but it is hidden beneath the veil of the tomb. The light is kindled, but it does not yet flood the earth. The stone trembles, but it has not yet rolled away.”
This is a day of mysteries held in stillness. Christ has conquered death, but He has not yet revealed Himself. He reigns in silence. He descends into the shadowed places of the dead, bringing light. He rests in the tomb—but not as a defeated man. He rests as one who has finished His work, as the Second Adam whose sleep will bring forth a new creation.
And the Church waits. Not idly. Not passively. But with veiled joy. She has lit the fire. She has blessed the font. She has sung the Alleluia.
And now, she listens—listens for the first cry of Easter, listens for the seal of the tomb to break, listens for the Gardener to speak her name.
Holy Saturday teaches us to live in that silence. To trust what we cannot see. To hope where all seems ended. Because in this silence, death is being undone. The earth is holding her breath.
Sermons in Holy Week By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
I. The Shape of Sacrifice: Offering, Death, and Consumption
In the divine pedagogy of the Old Law, sacrifice was never understood as a single gesture, but as a sacred sequence—a liturgical drama unfolding in three essential acts: immolation, application, and consumption. This triadic structure was not arbitrary. It reflected a divinely revealed anthropology and theology. The offering of sacrifice was the means by which sinful man could be reconciled to the All-Holy God, and also the appointed path through which communion with God could be restored.
The first element, immolation, was the slaying of the victim. It signified that sin demands death, that atonement requires the life-blood of an innocent substitute. But slaying alone was insufficient; death in itself is a curse, not a gift. Hence the second moment: the application of the blood—sprinkled upon the altar, the veil, the people—served to consecrate, to purify, and to mark out those who would benefit from the sacrifice. The blood, as Leviticus tells us, is the life, and this life must be poured out for sin to be remitted.
But there was a third act, the climax without which the entire ritual remained incomplete: the consumption of the victim. This was carried out in one of two ways. Either the flesh of the victim was burned on the altar—a holocaust ascending as a “pleasing aroma to the Lord”—or, in the case of communion sacrifices, it was eaten by the priests and, at times, by the faithful. This final act of eating was never perfunctory. It was the sign of divine acceptance and the means of human participation. To eat of the offering was to share in its sanctity, to receive its fruits, to be united with its purpose.
This is why, in the Levitical priesthood, the priest who offered the sacrifice was required to consume it. “The priest shall eat it in the holy place; it is most holy” (Lev. 6:26). This was more than ritual obligation; it was theological necessity. The priest, as mediator, could not remain outside the mystery he enacted. His reception of the victim was the final seal of the offering—a sacramental affirmation that the worship was completed and the covenant renewed.
The failure to complete this third act rendered the sacrifice defective. It would be akin to lighting the fire without placing the offering, or speaking the words of prayer without lifting the heart. Without communion, the sacrifice was not a relationship—it was a gesture left unfinished, a bridge built only halfway.
This ancient liturgical pattern, enshrined by divine command and upheld with reverent care throughout the centuries of temple worship, was not a dead ritual. It was a living prophecy. In its order and symbolism, it prepared Israel—and through Israel, the nations—for the coming of the true Sacrifice.
In this light, we begin to understand why, at the Last Supper, the Evangelists make no mention of a lamb. The bread and wine are present. The apostles are present. But there is no animal. The reason is staggering in its simplicity: Christ Himself is the Lamb. Not placed on the table, but seated at it. Not slain by another, but self-offered. What was once a ritual shadow now becomes reality in the flesh.
Thus, when Christ our Lord enters the world, He does not come to abolish sacrifice, but to fulfill it—to take all that was prefigured in the Old and bring it to its perfection in the New. He does not negate the threefold structure; He intensifies it. He offers Himself as the immolated Victim, sheds His Blood in a true and eternal application, and completes the sacrifice not in the fire of a temple altar nor in the mouth of another, but in His own glorification, when He rises from the dead and ascends to the Father.
As the Epistle to the Hebrews declares, “When Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things that have come, He entered once for all into the holy places… by means of His own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:11–12). The ancient pattern has not been set aside. It has been fulfilled in Christ—not by imitation, but by actualization. He is the true Lamb, the true Priest, and the true Altar. In Him, offering, death, and consumption reach their telos.
In the Eucharist and in the liturgy of the Church, this mystery continues to be made present—not as mere remembrance, but as a sacramental participation in that same sacrifice of Calvary.
This is what biblical remembrance—anamnesis—has always meant. For the Jew, Passover was never a mere commemoration of past deliverance, but a real entry into that saving event. “This is what the Lord did for me when He brought me out of Egypt,” each generation was taught to say. So too in the Eucharist: the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ is not repeated, but made present—that every soul might encounter what was accomplished once upon the Cross.
And so, the logic of the ancient rite lives on: the one who offers must also receive; the one who confects must consume. For in Christ, and in His Church, the sacrifice is never simply offered—it is received, embraced, and lived.
II. Christ the High Priest and the Paschal Victim
It is a foundational dogma of the Catholic faith that Jesus Christ is both the true High Priest and the spotless Victim of the New and Eternal Covenant. As the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches with singular clarity: “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. 9:26). Unlike the Levitical priests, who offered animals not their own and blood that was not theirs, Christ offers Himself—body, blood, soul, and divinity. The One who offers is the One who is offered. The altar is sanctified by the Victim who is also the Priest.
This unity—of offerer and offering—is utterly singular in the history of salvation. No prophet, no patriarch, no priest of the old dispensation could approach such a role. Abraham did not offer Isaac, but a ram caught in a thicket. Aaron offered bulls and goats. Christ alone could offer Himself without blemish to God, in the fullness of liberty, charity, and obedience. This is not mere rhetoric—it is the fulfillment of every type, the summit of every prophecy, the very form of worship in spirit and truth.
Yet this singular sacrifice cannot be confined to the physical moment of His death. While Calvary is the apex, it is not the whole. The Cross is the oblation—there, the Victim is slain. But in the divine liturgy of salvation, the sacrifice has a consummation: in the Resurrection and in the Ascension. For the purpose of sacrifice is not death alone, but life through death. It is not the extinguishing of the offering, but its transfiguration.
The consumption of the ancient sacrifices signified both the completion of the offering and communion with it. But who shall consume the slain and risen Christ? Not the priest, for Christ is the priest. Not the fire of an altar, for He is the altar. The answer is more profound: the sacrifice is consumed by glorification. Christ rises not as a ghost or a memory, but as the same Victim who was slain—now glorified. He ascends into heaven not to abandon His people, but to present His own Blood before the Father, bearing the marks of His Passion into the heavenly sanctuary.
In the words of the Roman Canon, He ascends “to Thy altar on high,” bearing not a symbol, but His real, risen Body—pierced, transfigured, and glorified. The Father receives the Son not as a memory, but as a living Host, a perpetual offering. The Ascension is thus not a postscript to the Cross, but its liturgical fulfillment. It is the eternal Amen of the Father to the Son’s Consummatum est—“It is finished.”
Christ, then, is the glorified Host, the Victim who lives forever, continually offered and eternally received. He is both the Sacrament and the Altar, both the Priest and the Temple. This is why the Eucharistic sacrifice is not a mere repetition, but a real re-presentation of this mystery. In every Mass, what was offered once on Calvary and consummated in heaven is made present under the veil of sacrament, that the Church might be united to her Spouse through the Victim who now reigns.
In this we see the radiant logic of the Incarnation. The Son became man not only to die, but to be received. He took on flesh not only to shed His Blood, but to take that Blood into the sanctuary not made with hands. And in so doing, He shows us that true sacrifice ends not in destruction, but in glory.
III. The Priest Must Consume the Offering
In every true sacrifice, as shaped by divine institution and tradition, the act of consuming the victim is not an optional or decorative appendage, but a theological necessity. It signifies both the completion of the offering and the communion between God and man that the sacrifice is intended to establish. To slay the victim and pour out its blood, yet never receive it, would be to halt the liturgy midstream—to suspend the act of worship before it reaches its proper consummation.
This liturgical and spiritual logic is carried forward into the New Covenant, where the priest does not offer the blood of goats or bulls, but offers Christ Himself, truly present under the sacramental signs. The Mass is not merely a ritual reenactment or an abstract commemoration. It is a true re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, sacramentally enacted in time. And just as Christ, in offering Himself, enters wholly into the mystery of His oblation, so too must the priest who acts in persona Christi.
Therefore, it is not enough that the priest speak the words of consecration. He must also receive what he has consecrated. The Eucharist is not a thing to be created and admired from afar. It is a gift to be consumed—first and foremost by the one who has offered it. This consumption is not merely a pious privilege. It is part of the essence of the sacrificial action. The priest must not only say, Hoc est enim Corpus meum; he must, with Christ, offer and receive the same Body, given up for the salvation of the world.
To omit this final act would rupture the very structure of the Mass. For while the faithful’s reception of Holy Communion is a great good and a spiritual nourishment, it is not necessary for the completion of the sacrifice. Only the celebrant’s communion is strictly required, for it is he who stands at the altar not merely as a participant, but as the ministerial presence of Christ Himself.
This is why, in the rubrics of the traditional Roman rite—as codified in the Missale Romanum and faithfully preserved until modern interventions—the priest is bound to consume both Species. He must receive the Body and the Blood, so that the full reality of the sacrifice is enacted: the Body separated from the Blood, representing death; then reunited in the living recipient, representing glorified life.
It is also for this reason that the celebrant’s communion is not a private moment of devotion, but a liturgical act, governed by its own prayers and integrated seamlessly into the order of the Mass. The Domine, non sum dignus, the Quid retribuam, and the careful reception at the altar—each of these shows that the priest’s communion is part of the sacred drama, not a break from it.
Here we see that the celebrant’s communion is not simply an individual’s encounter with Christ, but the sacramental completion of the very oblation he has made present. He who confects must consume. He who offers must receive. He who brings Christ down to the altar must, in obedience and humility, receive Him in return.
And in this, the priest enters into the very mystery of Christ’s own self-offering. For Christ did not merely give Himself to others. He gave Himself completely—to the Father, and even to Himself, in perfect unity of will and being. He held nothing back. The priest, too, must offer himself with Christ and for Christ, and he must receive the sacramental Victim as a sign that he has given all.
Only then is the Sacrifice completed—not just on the altar, but in the soul of the priest who offers it.
IV. The Unique Silence of Good Friday
Among the most profound liturgical expressions of the Church’s theology of sacrifice is found not in what is done, but in what is not done on Good Friday. The liturgy of this day, as preserved in the traditional Roman Rite before the reforms of 1955, is unique in all the Church’s calendar. It is called the Mass of the Presanctified—a term that strikes modern ears as paradoxical, perhaps even oxymoronic. How can there be a Mass where the Eucharist is not consecrated?
The answer leads us deep into the heart of the Paschal Mystery and reveals with stunning clarity the Church’s belief in the singularity and sufficiency of Christ’s Sacrifice. On this day, the Church does not confect the Eucharist anew, because Christ is not sacrificed again. Rather, the Host consecrated on Holy Thursday is brought forth with solemn reverence, processed in silence, and received by the priest alone. There is no Consecration. There is no elevation. There is no Ite, missa est. Instead, there is stillness, veneration, and awe.
This silence is not emptiness. It is fullness made manifest by restraint. It is the Church standing at the foot of the Cross, in tears, in mourning, in sacred dread. The Mass of the Presanctified declares by its very structure: “Today, Christ alone acts. We are here not to replicate, but to adore.”
Why does the priest alone consume the Host? Because today, he is not functioning in the ordinary rhythm of sacramental mediation. He does not say, Hoc est enim Corpus meum. He does not bring Christ to the altar by his words. Instead, he receives the pre-consecrated Host—Christ already present, already offered—and does so alone, in the name of the Church. Just as on Calvary, only one could bear the Cross, only one could say, Consummatum est, so now only one receives the Fruit of that Tree.
This is no liturgical minimalism. It is maximal realism. The priest alone receives the Host because he is configured to the One who, on this day, offered Himself alone. The solitude of the celebrant is a sacramental icon of the solitude of Christ—abandoned by His disciples, silent before His accusers, pierced and poured out in the sight of the world.
The faithful, too, enter into this mystery not by taking, but by beholding. The act of adoration replaces reception. The veiled crucifix is unveiled. The people kneel thrice in veneration. The sacred ministers prostrate. All eyes are on the Cross—and through the Cross, on the Host reserved, the Body broken, the Lamb once slain.
In this way, the traditional Good Friday liturgy teaches us the utter uniqueness of Christ’s priesthood. No other priest can offer what He offers. No other man can stand where He stood. The Sacrifice is complete. It is perfect. It is once for all. And on this day, the Church dares not imitate, but only enter into that one Sacrifice by awe and by love.
What emerges is a liturgical paradox that only tradition dares to hold: the greatest act of divine love is marked not by multiplicity of action, but by reduction, even deprivation. There is no Gloria. No bells. No candles on the altar. No full Mass. The Church is stripped as Christ was stripped—her liturgy conformed to His Passion. And yet, precisely in this starkness, the fullness of the mystery shines. The priest’s solitary communion is not a restriction—it is a theological statement. It says to the world: Only Christ could do this. And He has done it. Once. For all. Forever.
V. The Resurrection: Not the Undoing, but the Fulfillment
There is a grave and persistent error, often whispered subtly in modern catechesis, that the Resurrection somehow cancels the Cross—that Easter reverses Good Friday, that the joy of life eclipses the sorrow of death. But this is not the teaching of the Church. The Resurrection is not the undoing of the Sacrifice—it is its fulfillment. It is not the negation of the Cross, but its vindication, consummation, and eternal exaltation.
St. Paul declares: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:17). But why? Not because the Resurrection adds something entirely separate from the Cross, but because it completes what the Cross begins. The death of Christ is the oblation—the perfect self-offering of the Lamb of God. But the purpose of sacrifice is not death for its own sake; it is communion, glorification, peace. A burnt offering that remained in ashes without being taken up would be a sacrifice without answer. A lamb slain but never consumed would be a ritual incomplete.
The Fathers of the Church grasped this instinctively. For them, the Resurrection was the divine receipt—proof that the Father had accepted the offering of the Son. It was the evidence that the sacrifice had been efficacious. Christ did not merely die. He died for us—and rose for us, that we might not only be cleansed of sin, but raised to life. As the prophet Hosea foretold, “He will revive us after two days; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him” (Hos. 6:2).
In the Old Law, the consumption of the victim by fire or by the priest signified that the sacrifice had reached its goal. In the New Covenant, the glorification of Christ’s Body in the Resurrection is the sacramental reality to which those earlier signs pointed. No longer destroyed, the Victim is transfigured. No longer dead, the Lamb now lives to intercede. As the Exsultet proclaims on Easter night: “Christ, your Son, who, coming back from death’s domain, has shed His peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns forever and ever.”
This glorified life is not disconnected from the Passion. The Risen Christ is still the Crucified One. His wounds are not erased, but glorified. His Body is not replaced, but transformed. The Victim remains the same—only now He reigns, enthroned in glory, offering Himself perpetually before the Father. He is, in the language of the Roman Canon, “Hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam”—a pure, holy, and spotless Victim, not once offered and forgotten, but once offered and forever present.
Thus, the Resurrection is not a separate mystery, but the completion of the one Mystery of Christ. Calvary without Easter would be a noble death, a martyrdom perhaps—but not a redemptive act with cosmic consequences. Easter without Calvary would be triumph without cause, glory without sacrifice. But together, the Cross and the Resurrection form the indivisible unity of the Paschal Mystery, the center of our faith, the font of all grace.
This is why the traditional liturgy moves from Holy Saturday into Easter with such reverent gravity. The Church does not leap from the tomb in haste, but waits in silence until the light breaks forth. The fire is blessed. The candle is lit. The Exsultet is chanted. Baptismal water flows. And finally, the Alleluia is sung—not as a spontaneous reaction, but as a liturgical declaration: the Sacrifice has been accepted, and the Victim now lives.
In the Mass, this unity is preserved. The Host consecrated on the altar is the same Christ who died and rose. The priest consumes not a fragment of the past, but the living Body of the risen Lord. Every Eucharist is a participation in the same Sacrifice that was consummated on Easter morning and now ascends into eternity. As the Church sings in the Paschal Preface: “By the oblation of His Body, He brought the sacrifices of old to fulfillment in the reality of the Cross, and by commending Himself to You for our salvation, showed Himself to be the Priest, the Altar, and the Lamb of sacrifice.”
In Christ’s Resurrection, therefore, the sacrifice is not reversed—it is received, glorified, eternalized. What was offered in time is now presented in eternity. What was slain is now alive. What was veiled in suffering is now radiant in light. The Victim has become the Host. The Priest has entered the sanctuary not made by hands. And the Church now feeds upon the Fruit of the Tree of Life.
Conclusion
The mystery of Christ’s priesthood cannot be understood apart from His victimhood, nor can His sacrifice be rightly grasped without seeing its consummation in glory.
The Incarnate Word came into the world not only to teach, not only to die, but to offer Himself—freely, fully, finally—and to unite the world to God through that offering. The Cross is the altar; His Body, the Victim; His Soul, the Priest. And in His Resurrection and Ascension, the same Victim is received by the Father, exalted above the heavens, and made perpetually present to the Church in the Most Holy Eucharist.
Herein lies the greatness of the Catholic priesthood: not in the exercise of ecclesiastical power, but in the priest’s share in this ineffable mystery. The priest is not his own. He is ordained to act in persona Christi—to say not, “This is Christ’s Body,” but “This is My Body.” He is conformed to the One who offered Himself, and so must himself offer and be offered.
This is why the priest must consume what he consecrates. He cannot remain outside the sacrifice he makes present. He must enter into it. He must receive the Victim so that the action he performs is not an empty shell, but a living act. This communion is not optional, not devotional, but essential to the liturgical consummation of the Sacrifice.
And this is why, on Good Friday, the Church in her traditional rite makes a profound and deliberate exception. There, at the altar stripped of ornament, with no consecration, no Mass in the full sense, the priest alone receives the pre-consecrated Host. Not because others are unworthy—but because today Christ alone offers, Christ alone dies, and Christ alone is received. The Church enters into her Lord’s Passion not as imitator but as witness, in silence, in reverence, in awe.
The logic of divine worship is not egalitarian. It is not performative. It is sacrificial. And sacrifice demands not only offering, but also consummation—completion, communion, and ultimately, glorification. In Christ’s death and Resurrection, all three are fulfilled. And in the traditional liturgy of the Church, all three are confessed—not merely in doctrine, but in gesture, word, and silence.
Thus the Church lives out the words of St. Paul: “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Cor. 5:7–8). The feast is not a denial of the sacrifice, but its fruit. The glory of Easter does not replace Good Friday—it arises from it, as light from darkness, as life from death, as glory from the Cross.
And so, every time the priest ascends the altar, he carries with him the entire mystery: Calvary, the tomb, the empty garden, the Mount of Ascension. He speaks Christ’s words, he offers Christ’s Body, he receives Christ’s Flesh—and by that reception, he completes what Christ Himself completed: the one eternal sacrifice, offered once and for all, but present in every age.
To believe this is to be Catholic. To celebrate this is to be liturgical. To enter into this is to be united with Christ the Priest and the Victim, the Lamb slain, the Lord glorified. To Him be honor and glory forever. Amen.
Sermons in Holy Week By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
Maundy Thursday Sermon: “Having Loved His Own, He Loved Them Unto the End”
This night belongs to eternity. It is the threshold of the mysteries. It is the solemn gateway through which the Church enters the Sacred Triduum, not in silence, but with a command that resounds beyond time and into the very heart of God: Mandatum novum do vobis—“A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
But this is no ordinary command. It is not a moral principle appended to an ethical code. It is the Word made flesh, revealing Himself through love, unto love, by love. What unfolds this evening is not a lesson in brotherhood. It is not a supper of human fellowship. It is the deliberate descent of the Eternal Son into the lowest place, that He might raise fallen man to the heights of divine union.
Our Lord, knowing that His hour had come to pass out of this world to the Father, loved His own who were in the world. And He loved them unto the end.
But St. John says more than “He loved them to the end.” The Greek phrase is εἰς τέλος ([eis TEH-los]), a compact expression freighted with layers of meaning. It does not merely signify temporal conclusion—as if Christ’s love extended only to the final moment of His earthly life. No, εἰς τέλος means to the uttermost, to perfection, to completion in its fullest sense. It is love without measure, love poured out without remainder, love stretched across the beams of the Cross until there is nothing left to give.
This is not human affection. It is not the love of friendship, or companionship, or sentiment. It is divine charity made flesh and blood. It is the self-emptying of the Eternal Word in obedience to the will of the Father. It is the sacred logic of sacrifice, the love that descends into death so that man might rise into life. As the Fathers have taught us, there is no telos—no goal, no finality—apart from the Cross. And the Cross is already planted in the Upper Room.
εἰς τέλος speaks not only of duration, but of intensity. Not only of continuity, but of consummation. Christ loved them not only until the end, but unto the end. That is, into the very depths of love’s purpose—namely, our redemption. His love was not cut short by betrayal, not diminished by human frailty, not defeated by suffering. It was love perfected in weakness, manifest in bread and wine, fulfilled in the nails and the lance.
In this phrase, we see unveiled the heart of the priesthood and the heart of the Mass. For every priest must learn to love εἰς τέλος. To go beyond comfort, beyond admiration, beyond even duty—to love as Christ loves: in humility, in silence, in sacrifice, without counting the cost. The priest who offers this Sacrifice must himself be a sacrifice. He must love the souls entrusted to him not with the measure of the world, but with the measure of the Crucified.
And every communicant must also learn to love εἰς τέλος—to approach the altar not merely to receive, but to be conformed to what he receives. The Eucharist is not a private consolation. It is a covenant of blood. It is the Love that goes unto the end, that demands everything, and in return gives the All.
The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Crucified God
In the Upper Room, Our Lord does not give a token of His departure. He does not establish a ritual to symbolize His absence. Rather, He bestows the reality of His abiding presence. What begins at this altar is not a “farewell meal,” but the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist—the re-presentation of the one eternal Sacrifice of the Cross.
Hoc est enim Corpus meum.Hic est enim calix Sanguinis mei. No prophet had ever spoken such words. No patriarch had dared to claim such authority. These are not phrases of metaphor or allegory, but words of divine causality. The One who spoke the universe into existence now speaks His Flesh into bread, His Blood into wine. What was once a figure becomes a fact; what was once promise becomes fulfillment.
St. Thomas Aquinas, that angelic voice of clarity, says it thus: “This Sacrament is the memorial of Christ’s Passion: it is the fulfillment of ancient types; the greatest of His miracles; and a unique consolation to those who mourn His absence.” For what He is about to suffer tomorrow, He offers today—freely, fully, sacramentally. There is no mere foreshadowing here. The Cross is mystically present already, for Christ the High Priest begins His offering tonight, veiled under sacramental signs, in anticipation of the brutal clarity of the morrow.
The Eucharist, then, is not sacred bread, nor holy symbol, nor spiritual fellowship. It is Christ Himself—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—hidden in humility, abiding in love, given to those He has called His own. The same Christ who hung on the gibbet of the Cross. The same Christ who rose glorious from the tomb. The same Christ who reigns forever in majesty. This is what we receive tonight.
The Priesthood: Sacramental Headship, Not Functional Ministry
But Our Lord does not institute the Eucharist alone. He also institutes the priesthood—not a vague priesthood of “all believers,” but the ministerial priesthood of His chosen apostles, set apart, sealed with authority, ordained to stand in persona Christi. When He says, “Do this in memory of Me,” it is not an invitation to recall, but a command to re-present—to make present again His one saving Sacrifice, not symbolically, but sacramentally.
And in that moment, the Twelve are no longer merely disciples. They are priests. Priests not of their own design, but conformed to the Eternal High Priest Himself. What they receive, they are charged to give. What they behold, they are commanded to confect. What they witness, they are commissioned to offer, until the end of time.
This is why Christ does not entrust the Eucharist to the crowd, nor delegate it to the community. The altar is not a shared platform. It is the place of sacrifice, and only he who is configured to Christ in sacramental character may approach it with consecrating hands.
The priest is not a presider. He is not a facilitator. He is not a celebrant in the modern, convivial sense. He is a victim with the Victim, an oblation alongside the Oblation, a servant who disappears that Christ may be manifest. His identity is not self-chosen; it is given. He is not his own. He is crucified with Christ. And unless he dies to himself, he cannot bear the weight of the mysteries he handles.
Christ the Priest and the Victim
To understand the full gravity of this night, we must go deeper still. Christ does not only institute a sacrifice, and He does not only institute priests. He makes Himself the Sacrifice. He is not merely the priest who offers—He is the offering itself. He is both Priest and Victim, both the one who acts and the one who is acted upon. This is the mystery that crowns all liturgical theology and gives the Mass its true identity.
The priesthood Christ establishes is not ceremonial. It is sacrificial. A priest is not primarily one who teaches, counsels, or governs, but one who offers. And what he offers must be holy—indeed, it must be Christ Himself.
The old covenant had many priests and many victims. The new and eternal covenant has only one Priest and one Victim—Jesus Christ. And in the Sacrifice of the Mass, He perpetuates this offering through His priests. They do not offer a new sacrifice. They do not add to Calvary. But they make present again—sacramentally and truly—that one eternal oblation by which the world was redeemed.
Here we see why the priest must consume what he consecrates. This is no rubric of formality. It is intrinsic to the nature of the sacrifice. In the Old Law, the priest who offered the victim also partook of it, completing the ritual. In the New Law, the offering must be consummated. The Sacrifice must be received.
When the priest says the words of consecration, he is not merely pronouncing them—he is being conformed to them. Christ speaks through him. And just as Christ gave Himself totally in sacrifice, He also entered fully into that sacrifice. The priest must do the same. To offer without receiving would be to divide what God has joined.
It is Christ who offers, and it is Christ who receives. The priest, acting in persona Christi, must do both. To consume the Victim is to complete the priestly act—it is the liturgical enactment of total union. The priest gives what he receives and receives what he gives: Christ Himself.
The Mandatum: Humility in Hierarchy
Thus, it is no contradiction—indeed, it is the perfect harmony of the divine economy—that the Eternal High Priest now rises from table, removes His outer garments, girds Himself with a linen towel, and kneels to wash the feet of sinful men.
This is the mystery of God made low.
The Creator stoops before the creature.
The Word through whom all things were made bends down before the dust of the earth.
The Master kneels before His servants.
The Sinless One pours water over the feet of sinners.
And He does so not as prelude, but as proclamation. Not to obscure His divinity, but to reveal its proper form. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve—and to give His life as a ransom for many. Here, in this act of abasement, the priesthood is revealed not in the vesture of power, but in the nakedness of poverty. Not in dominion, but in descent. Not in prestige, but in purification.
This is not egalitarian theatre. This is not a liturgical performance to affirm horizontal bonds of fraternity. The Mandatum is not a rite of communal inclusion. It is a prophetic gesture, a sacred sign, an enacted homily of sacrificial hierarchy. It is the icon of Christ the Priest who, robed in humility, cleanses those whom He has chosen to share in His offering.
“Unless I wash you,” He says to Peter, “you shall have no part in Me.” It is a terrifying sentence. And it is not spoken only to Peter. It is spoken to every man called to serve at the altar. For unless the priest is first washed, he is unworthy to offer. Unless he is first emptied, he cannot mediate. Unless he is first humbled, he will profane the mysteries he is appointed to handle.
This foot washing is no sentiment. It is judgment and mercy intertwined. It is the divine pedagogy of priestly formation. He who would ascend the altar must first descend into the basin. He who would preach the truth must first be silent under the hand of the Master. He who would stand before God must first fall at His feet.
And it is no coincidence that it is the feet which are washed. For the feet are the members most acquainted with the earth. They bear the dust of the journey. They speak of movement, of pilgrimage, of mission. To wash the feet is to cleanse the way. It is to prepare the chosen for what they must now become: men not of the world, but sent into it; not for themselves, but for Christ and His flock.
Here, Christ institutes not only the Eucharist and the priesthood, but the essential form of both. The Eucharist is the Sacrifice of Love. The priesthood is the ministry of Love. And Love goes downward. Love descends. Love kneels. Love washes, bleeds, and dies.
And if the priest forgets this—if he ascends the sanctuary steps with pride in his heart, with ambition in his mind, with presumption in his soul—then he is no longer in persona Christi. He is in persona Judæ. For the priest who refuses to serve will betray. The priest who will not kneel will fall. The priest who cannot weep will soon no longer believe.
So tonight, the Church does not merely remember what Christ did. She sees what every priest must become. She contemplates not a moral gesture, but a mystical revelation. The Church, in her sacred hierarchy, is not a machine of control. She is a Body, ordered from Head to members. And the Head—Christ the Priest—rules by serving, reigns by kneeling, conquers by suffering.
Let the bishop, then, gird himself with the towel. Let the priest, then, pour water into the basin. Let the deacon, then, stoop low in silence. For tonight, God reveals what greatness is: to serve the least, to cleanse the sinner, to love εἰς τέλος.
The Betrayal: The Price of Freedom, the Mystery of Sin
Even now, the betrayer sits at table. Even now, Judas receives from the hand of Christ the first Holy Communion—and commits the first sacrilege. The God who humbles Himself to be food is betrayed by the one who feeds on Him. The Eternal Word made flesh, who in that moment pours out His love in sacramental form, is handed over by lips that have just received Him. And still He permits it. What thou must do, do quickly. It is not the cry of desperation, but the sovereign permission of the Word made flesh, whose love is strong enough to suffer rejection, whose providence is vast enough to enfold rebellion, and whose mercy is deep enough to pass through treason on the way to triumph.
It is a moment of profound paradox. The Bread of Life becomes the price of betrayal. The chalice of salvation is received by one who has already sold the Savior. The kiss of peace becomes the weapon of treachery. And Christ does not resist it. He does not prevent the hand from dipping with His own. He does not withhold Himself from the one who would mock Him. Instead, He gives, and gives, and gives—knowing full well what the gift will be used for.
This is the mystery of sin permitted—permitted not because God is indifferent, but because He is patient; not because He is powerless, but because He is all-powerful. Here, as throughout salvation history, He allows freedom even when it wounds Him, because without freedom, there can be no love, no loyalty, no true obedience. Judas is not a puppet; he is a priest in embryo, chosen, instructed, entrusted, and yet freely resolved to do the unthinkable.
What thou must do, do quickly. These are words of divine permission, but not divine complicity. Christ authorizes nothing evil. He simply refuses to obstruct the choice. The betrayal becomes a necessary ingredient in the Paschal Mystery—not necessary by nature, but necessary because of man’s sin, and used by God for man’s salvation. This is the same God who brought water from the rock, life from the womb of the barren, and glory from the ignominy of the Cross.
The betrayal of Judas is a warning, not only to the wicked, but to the pious. For Judas was not a stranger—he was an apostle. He was not merely nearby—he was within the inner circle. He heard the same teaching, witnessed the same miracles, sat beside the same Lord. And he fell. He fell not by ignorance, but by hardness of heart. He betrayed Christ not from without, but from within the household of faith.
This is why the Fathers saw in Judas a figure not only of individual treachery, but of ecclesial tragedy—the icon of apostasy from within, of corruption in the sanctuary, of priests who break communion while still offering sacrifice. His fall is a warning to every age, and especially to our own, when betrayal often comes clothed in vestments and justified with doctrine inverted.
And yet Christ, in His mercy, allowed Judas to kiss Him. He called him “friend” even in the hour of betrayal. He did not cease to love him, though He could not save him against his will. Such is the love of God: unyielding in truth, unchanging in charity, ever desirous that none be lost—even the traitor.
And with those words—What thou must do, do quickly—the hour accelerates. The chalice is drained. The hymn is sung. The traitor departs. The Cross begins to loom. The darkness gathers its strength. And the Church, silent and watchful, prepares to follow her Spouse into the garden.
There is no triumph without Gethsemane. No Easter without this hour. No glory without this descent. The betrayal, the agony, the arrest—all of it is permitted, even woven into the tapestry of redemption. For grace does not erase history. It transfigures it.
The Church learns tonight what love costs.
And she learns it by watching the one who was betrayed—yet never ceased to love.
Gethsemane: The Chalice of Obedience
And so they go out—the Lord and the eleven—to the garden across the Kidron, to the place called Gethsemane, where olive trees stretch like ancient sentinels beneath the moon. It is here that the final drama of the human will plays out—not in the courts of men, not in the public spectacle of trial or execution, but in the hidden stillness of the night. Christ enters the solitude of obedience. He enters the silence of surrender.
This is the true sanctuary before the sanctuary of Calvary. The garden is an altar, the earth is a chalice, the darkness is a veil. And here the Son begins to offer Himself not only in figure, but in feeling. He who is without sin takes upon Himself the full weight of sin—not as guilt, but as burden; not as corruption, but as agony.
My soul is sorrowful even unto death. These are not poetic words. They are the cry of the sinless one tasting death before the cross, not merely physical death, but the death of abandonment, of betrayal, of the full weight of every human sorrow and spiritual affliction. Here, in Gethsemane, the priest drinks the chalice before it is even lifted on Golgotha.
Christ falls prostrate—not in failure, but in surrender. He who created Adam now embraces the ground from which Adam came. He who is the new Adam now takes upon Himself the full horror of the Fall. The agony is so intense that His sweat becomes like drops of blood. And yet, with trembling lips and burning heart, He speaks the words that define all true religion: Not My will, but Thine be done.
This is not resignation. It is not quietism. It is love in its highest register: willing what the Father wills, even when it costs everything. The chalice is not just suffering. It is the mystery of divine justice and mercy, concentrated and handed to the lips of the sinless Lamb. And He drinks—not because it is pleasant, but because it is the will of the Father.
In this hour, He asks His friends to watch with Him. Just to watch. Not to preach, not to perform, not even to speak—just to stay awake in love. But they sleep. Their flesh is weak, though their spirit is willing. And so He is alone—not because He chose isolation, but because the world, even the Church, does not yet know how to stay awake in the presence of grief.
The Church tonight must return to Gethsemane. The Church must kneel beside the blood-soaked earth and learn again how to be silent with Christ, how to suffer with Him, how to say fiat in the darkness. The sanctuary lamp now flickers in the chapel of Repose, and the faithful are invited to watch with the veiled Host. Not because Christ is in danger—but because we are. The danger is forgetfulness. The danger is indifference. The danger is comfort that silences love.
The priest, above all, must learn Gethsemane. For if he offers the Sacrifice of Calvary on the altar, he must first share the agony of the Garden in his soul. He must learn to say, “Yes, Father,” even when every nerve cries out, “Let it pass.” He must love the chalice because it is His Master’s chalice. He must drink it to the dregs—not because he is strong, but because grace is stronger.
Gethsemane is not a place of escape. It is the place where Christ embraces the Cross before He carries it. It is where the true face of love is revealed—not exalted, but sweating blood; not triumphant, but obedient.
It is where the Bridegroom says Yes to the Bride’s salvation.
Daily reflections through Holy Week By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
Good Friday – The Triumph of the Cross in Silence and Blood
There is no Mass today.
And that absence is not a gap—it is a sacred silence. The Church, who has sung and preached and offered the Sacrifice each day, now falls silent. The altar stands stripped. The tabernacle lies open and empty. The sacred ministers wear black. It is not a void—it is a vigil.
This is Good Friday, Feria Sexta in Parasceve—the sixth day, the day of consummation, the day when death dies.
And yet, the liturgy continues. It moves not with the rhythm of joy, but with the gravity of love wounded. The Church approaches the Cross with uncovered head and unsandaled feet.
The sacred action begins in silence. The clergy prostrate before the altar—an ancient gesture of grief, yes, but also of cosmic adoration. For this altar, once clothed in glory, is now Golgotha.
The Church does not sing her sorrow. She reads it. The Passion according to Saint John is proclaimed—not performed, not dramatized, but chanted with the quiet dignity of faith. And John, the beloved disciple, does not dwell on the wounds of Christ so much as on His majesty. He shows us a Savior who is not overpowered, but victorious—a King whose throne is the Cross.
“It is consummated.”
These are not the words of defeat. They are the final utterance of divine power. The work of redemption is complete. Nothing remains to be done. And so He bows His head—not in exhaustion, but in willing surrender—and gives up His spirit.
The Church responds not with tears alone, but with prayer. The Solemn Collects are among the oldest and most universal prayers in the liturgy: a litany of intercession for every order of man. For the Church. For her ministers. For catechumens. For rulers. For heretics. For the Jewish people. For pagans. For all.
Each prayer follows a sacred rhythm: an invitation to pray, a moment of silent kneeling, and the oration itself. There is no haste. The Church pleads like a widow at the judge’s door, confident in mercy yet crushed by sorrow.
Then comes the moment of revelation. The unveiling of the Cross.
It begins veiled in black. Three times the deacon lifts the veil, and each time the priest sings:
“Ecce lignum Crucis, in quo salus mundi pependit.” “Behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.”
And each time the people respond:
“Venite, adoremus.” “Come, let us adore.”
It is not a symbol that is revealed. It is the very instrument of our redemption. The Cross is not a relic of sorrow. It is the Tree of Life.
The faithful come forward—not to receive the Eucharist, but to venerate the Cross. Shoes are removed. Silence is kept. The wood is kissed. This is the liturgy’s most intimate gesture: not the reception of a gift, but the adoration of the One who gave everything.
And then, in awe, the Church prepares for the Mass of the Presanctified.
But it is no Mass. There is no consecration, no repetition of Calvary. Only one—the priest—ascends the altar, and only once. The Sacred Host, consecrated the evening before, is carried from the altar of repose, under canopy and torchlight, as a King borne to battle.
And the priest alone receives the Body of Christ.
There is no Communion for the faithful.
The Bridegroom is not yet with us. The sacrifice is complete, but the tomb is not yet full. The faithful remain in mourning, their hunger liturgical. The absence is intentional. It is catechesis.
The altar is then left bare. There is no blessing. No dismissal. The people depart in silence, as the Mother of Sorrows once departed from the hill of execution.
This is not drama. This is not piety. This is the rite of the Church as she stands beneath the Cross.
She does not explain. She does not distract. She does not lighten the burden.
She kneels. She watches. She waits.
Because this death is not defeat.
It is victory—hidden beneath bruises, obscured by blood, but real. The Cross is the throne. The nails are scepters. The silence is the shout of God to a world deafened by sin.
And the Church, in awe, can only whisper:
“Ecce lignum Crucis.” “Behold the wood of the Cross.”
Daily reflections through Holy Week By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
Maundy Thursday – The Gift, the Commandment, the Betrayal
It is the first day of the Triduum. The solemn door opens. And we step into a sacred threshold—Maundy Thursday, Feria Quinta in Coena Domini, the day of the Supper, of the Mandatum, of the Priesthood, and of the Holy Eucharist.
This is the only day in the Roman year when the Church dares to speak of glory in the midst of Passiontide. In the Tridentine rite, the sacred ministers clothe themselves in white. The Gloria is sung for the last time. The bells ring out, and then fall silent. And why? Because something is being instituted—not ended. The Passion has not yet begun in blood. It begins in gift.
Tonight, the Church kneels with Christ in the upper room. She listens with awe to the words that create the New Covenant:
“This is My Body… This is My Blood… Do this in commemoration of Me.”
With these few words, Christ empties Himself anew—not merely by taking the form of a servant, but by becoming our Food, hidden under the appearance of bread and wine. The Passover of Israel becomes the Sacrifice of the Lamb. And in this moment, Christ gives the Church what no prophet could give: the Eucharist, the Priesthood, and the Commandment of Charity—all born in one liturgical act.
And yet, beneath the white vestments, a shadow already falls. For the one who will betray Him has already stretched his hand toward the dish. Judas is present. And the Lord knows.
He does not cast him out. He does not expose him. He simply continues to love him, to feed him, to kneel before him.
The Mandatum, the foot-washing preserved in the pre-1955 rite as a separate and optional devotion after the Mass, unveils the humiliation of divine love. Christ does not only command charity—He enacts it. He, who flung stars into space, now bends down and washes the feet of sinful men. He who is the Head becomes the servant.
But even this act is misunderstood. Peter, impetuous and proud, resists. He cannot bear the thought of being served by the one he ought to serve. He forgets that to receive Christ’s love requires humility—the humility to be washed.
And so must we. We must allow ourselves to be washed. To be fed. To be loved—on God’s terms, not ours.
The pre-1955 Missal preserves the sacredness of this night not by diluting it with dramatics, but by enshrining it in awe. The Canon of the Mass remains unchanged, because tonight’s sacrifice is already Calvary—but hidden in mystery, veiled in bread and wine. The Offertory and Communion chants sing of the Chalice of salvation and the Body of the Lord received with reverence and trembling.
And after the Last Gospel, there is no dismissal. The Mass does not end. It is interrupted. Because the Passion has begun.
The Blessed Sacrament is not reposed in the tabernacle. It is carried to the Altar of Repose—ornately veiled, adorned with flowers and candles—but this beauty is fragile. For this is not a feast. It is a vigil.
And the altar is stripped in silence.
Vestments are removed. Linens taken away. The tabernacle is left open and bare.
This is not merely a symbol. It is a liturgical expression of desolation. The Bridegroom is taken from us. The sanctuary is exposed. The household of God is left empty, for He has gone out into the night.
The Church invites us to follow Him in prayer—to remain with Him, if only for an hour, in the garden of His sorrow.
But already we know how the story will unfold. The betrayal is sealed. The sleep has begun. The swords are drawn. And the Passion will now move swiftly.
But tonight, we are still in the Upper Room.
Let us not rush past it. Let us not forget the greatness of the gift.
Tonight, the Lord gives us everything. His Body. His Blood. His Priesthood. His commandment. His kneeling. His silence. His patience. His love.
And He gives it knowing He will be betrayed. He does not give because we are worthy. He gives because He is good.
And so tonight, the Church—poor and trembling as she is—stands in the radiance of this mystery, and prays not to be worthy, but to be faithful.
She prays to remember what the apostles forgot: That love is not a feeling, but a death.
That glory is not triumph, but gift.
That the altar is not a table—it is a Cross.
And that the Bread we receive is not a symbol. It is Christ Himself.
May we never forget what He gave us.
May we never take lightly the words spoken this night.
And may we never again approach the sacred mysteries without awe, without reverence, without humility.
For this is the night in which Christ our God passed from this world to the Father, and gave Himself to those He loved—to the end.
Let us kneel with Him. Let us watch with Him. Let us love Him.
Daily reflections through Holy Week By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
Spy Wednesday – The Price of Betrayal, the Silence of the Redeemer
The Church, ever the wise and sorrowing mother, arrives this day at the threshold of unspeakable treachery. It is Wednesday in the Great and Holy Week, a day whose ancient name in the Christian West—Spy Wednesday—still echoes with the hiss of betrayal. It is today, the sacred liturgy reminds us, that Judas Iscariot became a traitor, not by compulsion, not by sudden impulse, but by a will that had already turned away from the Light and had made a pact with the shadows.
He, who once walked among the Twelve, who ate of the multiplied loaves, who saw the dead raised and demons cast out, who received the morsel from Christ’s own hand at table—he is the one who sells the Lord for silver. And yet, the mystery that chills the heart is not only the betrayal, but the setting of it: at table, in intimacy, beneath the same roof where Christ dwelt in love. The treason is not from a stranger, but from a friend. “My friend, wherefore art thou come?”—the gentle rebuke in Gethsemane cuts more deeply than any sword.
The Mass of this day, in the venerable rite of the Roman Church, offers no dramatized retelling, no explanatory commentary. It simply places before us the weight of Scripture, the tension of prophecy, and the voice of the suffering Christ rising in the psalms. The Epistle, taken from the prophet Isaias, does not describe a man broken by violence, but a divine figure clothed in garments red from the winepress—garments stained not by the blood of others, but by His own, for He has chosen to tread the winepress alone. The Fathers saw in this figure none other than Our Lord Jesus Christ, striding alone into the fury of His Passion, His victory hidden beneath bruises, His strength expressed in silence.
Then comes the Passion according to St. Luke: tender, terrible, majestic. It opens with Judas—the same Judas—communing with the priests of the temple, not in prayer, but in commerce. He sells the Light of the world for a sum worthy of a field of blood. From this moment forward, the Gospel unfolds with a quiet gravity that defies commentary. The sleeping disciples, the agony in the garden, the unjust arrest, the mocking and spitting, the denial of Peter—all is told without embellishment, as though the Evangelist, stunned by the reality of the mystery, simply sets it down as it happened.
And what does the Church place on our lips as the priest offers the unbloody Sacrifice? Not a psalm of vengeance, but a psalm of afflicted supplication. From Psalm 101—“Domine, exaudi orationem meam, et clamor meus ad te veniat.” “O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come unto Thee.” This is the prayer of Christ and His Church, not in triumph, but in abandonment. The One who will soon hang upon the Cross does not raise His voice in protest, but in prayer. He does not curse His enemies; He cries to the Father.
And what of Judas? What shall we say of him? He is not a curiosity, a villain from the margins of the Gospel. He is a warning. He is the parable of the Christian who persists in sin, who walks with Christ externally but harbors rebellion within. He is the scandal of sacrilegious Communion. He is the one who receives the Body of the Lord while his mind calculates betrayal. He is every soul that clings to silver rather than surrender. And his final act is not his worst—his worst act is not his betrayal, but his despair.
For Judas might have been saved. He might have run to Calvary, as Peter ran to the tomb. He might have wept, as Peter wept. But he did not believe in mercy. That was his final fall.
Today, we are placed in the company of both men. Peter denies; Judas betrays. But only one returns. Only one is healed. The liturgy does not ask us to scorn Judas. It asks us to examine our own hearts: to ask where we have compromised, where we have clung to resentment, where we have sold Christ in little ways.
And it asks us to return. Now. Before the kiss is given. Before the mob comes. Before the rooster crows.
For we are still in the sanctuary of time. We still walk in the acceptable hour, the day of grace. “Inclina aurem tuam ad me, Domine”—“Incline Thy ear to me, O Lord”—the psalmist cries. And so must we.
Spy Wednesday is not yet Good Friday. It is the final warning, the last call of mercy before the Passion overtakes us. Let us meet it not with silver in our hands, but with tears in our eyes. Let us watch with Christ, before we are found sleeping. Let us pray with Him, before we deny Him. Let us love Him now—while we still can.
Daily reflections through Holy Week By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
Holy Tuesday – The Shadow of Betrayal and the Silence of Christ
The Church, in her venerable and ancient liturgy, does not hasten toward Calvary. She tarries. She lingers. Each day of Holy Week, in the classical Roman Rite, is not merely a chronological step closer to the Cross; it is a mystical unveiling of the soul’s interior drama as it draws near to the abyss of divine love and human frailty. And Holy Tuesday, so often overshadowed by the greater liturgical moments that follow it, possesses a weight and gravity that cannot be ignored.
This day is a mirror. It is not yet the moment of betrayal or crucifixion, but it is the moment in which the soul begins to realize how easily it could fail the test. Today, the Church hands us the Passion according to Saint Mark, not to recite like a school lesson, but to consume as a sacrament of truth. It is the shortest and most stripped-down of the Passion narratives—precise, unembellished, like a blade honed on the edge of divine justice. And because of this, it pierces.
The liturgy gives us no grand entrances, no miracles, no discourses. Instead, it presents us with Judas preparing his betrayal, Peter swearing loyalty he will not keep, the disciples failing to watch, and Christ suffering in silence. The Word made flesh speaks almost nothing in His own defense. He does not argue. He does not explain. He stands before His accusers with the silence of truth.
The Church, in her wisdom, has preserved this Gospel in the very heart of Passiontide, that it might confront us with ourselves. Not with who we imagine ourselves to be, but with who we truly are. We are all in the narrative—somewhere. We are at the Last Supper. We are in the garden. We are standing by the fire with Peter. We are asleep when we should be praying. We are asking, with trembling hope or lurking guilt: “Is it I, Lord?”
That haunting question from the mouth of the Apostles is the spiritual signature of this day. And the answer, if we are honest, is yes. Yes, it is I. I have denied You by my silence. I have betrayed You by my sins. I have fled when I should have stood firm.
But the liturgy does not condemn. It reveals. The Passion of Christ is not placed before us to crush us beneath the weight of our failures, but to lead us, as it led Peter, into that salutary sorrow which produces repentance. The same Peter who swore he would never deny the Lord—he who drew his sword, who followed at a distance—this same Peter falls. And it is not the judgment of Christ that breaks him, but the gaze of Christ: silent, sorrowful, piercing, merciful.
It is in that gaze that the Church invites us to dwell today. The Communion antiphon, taken from Psalm 68, expresses not triumph, but humiliation:
Adversum me exercebantur qui sedebant in porta: et in me psallebant qui bibebant vinum: ego vero orationem meam ad te, Domine: tempus beneplaciti, Deus, in multitudine misericordiae tuae.
“They who sat at the gate spoke against Me; and they who drank wine sang against Me. But I—My prayer was to Thee, O Lord: it is the time of Thy good pleasure, O God, in the multitude of Thy mercy.”
Even here, in the midst of mockery and betrayal, the Messiah prays. He does not curse His enemies. He does not curse His weak friends. He turns instead to the Father. In the day of derision, He chooses intercession.
This is how the Church teaches us to suffer.
Not with outrage. Not with cynicism. Not with bitterness. But with prayer. This is the secret strength of Holy Tuesday: its quiet insistence that the true disciple does not scream when he is misunderstood, nor retaliate when he is wounded. He simply turns his face toward Gethsemane and follows the Lord who goes there alone.
But the day is not only about weakness. It is also about hope. The fall of Peter is not final, because his tears are real. He leaves the courtyard weeping—not to hide in despair, but to begin again. The liturgy does not ask us to be perfect. It asks us to be penitent. Judas despaired, Peter repented. Both sinned, but only one allowed himself to be redeemed.
We stand today between them.
The Passion according to Saint Mark ends with Christ delivered into the hands of men. He does not resist. He does not explain Himself. He is, as Isaiah foretold, the Lamb led to the slaughter, silent before His shearers.
And yet, it is this silence that saves. The Word who was made flesh now saves the world without speaking. His silence is not absence—it is power restrained by love.
We are invited to enter that silence. To make it our own. Not merely by observing the events of Holy Week, but by participating in them—through recollection, through contrition, through sacramental confession and holy reception of the altar’s divine victim.
Holy Tuesday is the hinge of Holy Week. It is the moment when the soul must stop pretending that it can follow Christ from a safe distance. It must draw near or fall away. It must weep or turn away in pride. It must confess, “I am Peter,” and let the tears come.
Let them come.
The Church will be waiting for us at the tomb, when the stone is rolled away.
But today, she stands with us at the fire, where the rooster is about to crow.
And she asks, for the last time before the Passion begins in earnest:
Will you follow?
Or will you sleep?
Practical Devotions for the Day
Read and meditate on Mark 14 slowly, asking: “Where am I in this story?”
Make an unhurried examination of conscience. Identify not just sins, but patterns of betrayal: spiritual apathy, moral compromise, avoidance of truth.
Pray the Litany of the Passion or Psalm 50 (Miserere), offering acts of reparation.
If possible, go to Confession—to rise like Peter, not fall like Judas.
Daily reflections through Holy Week By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
Holy Monday: The Fragrance of Love, the Shadow of Death
Feria Secunda in Hebdomada Sancta – Tridentine Liturgy (Pre-1955)
If Palm Sunday casts the triumphant but somber shadow of the Cross over the week to come, Holy Monday draws us more intimately into the household of Bethany—into the closeness of friendship, the costly nature of love, and the first outward steps of Christ toward His appointed death.
The traditional Roman liturgy for Holy Monday, unchanged until the mid-twentieth century, is stark, tender, and heavy with impending grief. The chants, readings, and prayers form a mosaic of divine foreknowledge and human response—welcoming Christ with love or plotting against Him in hatred. Each gesture, each word from today’s Mass calls the soul to stand either with Mary of Bethany in adoration, or with Judas in murmuring criticism.
The Liturgical Structure: A Gathering Storm
Holy Monday retains all the Lenten austerity that intensifies in Passiontide. The Mass is offered in violet vestments, without Gloria or Alleluia. The chants are drawn from the Psalms, anticipating suffering yet grounded in hope. The silence grows deeper. The Crucifix remains veiled. The Church is beginning to walk with Christ—not in theory, but in real time.
The Gospel from John 12:1–9 is the central moment of this day. Six days before the Passover, Jesus comes to Bethany—to the house of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. This visit, in its quiet domestic setting, marks a profound turning point in the Passion narrative. Christ, already marked for death by the high priests, chooses to spend His final days not in hiding, but with friends, entering fully into the human tenderness that will make His Passion all the more painful.
“Mary, therefore, took a pound of ointment of right spikenard… and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair.”
Mary’s Gesture: Extravagance or Prophecy?
The Church Fathers, particularly St. Gregory the Great and Origen, saw in this moment a deeply mystical significance. Mary’s action is not merely emotional—it is liturgical, prophetic, and deeply sacrificial. She pours out precious oil, not on Christ’s head as a king, but on His feet as one already anointed for death.
The value of the ointment—“three hundred denarii,” nearly a year’s wages—scandalizes Judas. To him, such love is wasteful. To Christ, it is beautiful.
“Let her alone: that she may keep it against the day of My burial.”
In this statement, Christ accepts her offering not as sentiment, but as preparation. Mary sees what the others do not: that the road to Jerusalem is the road to the tomb. Her love is not reactive—it is preemptive. Her devotion is not convenient—it is costly.
In contrast, Judas’ words reveal the practical mind detached from love. His feigned concern for the poor masks a heart already lost. In Mary, we see the disciple. In Judas, the betrayer in embryo.
The Epistle: Isaiah’s Suffering Servant
The Epistle from Isaiah 50:5–10 is one of the clearest and most stirring portraits of Christ’s meek acceptance of suffering:
“I have given my body to the strikers, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from them that rebuked me and spit upon me.”
This is not passive resignation. It is active surrender. The Servant does not seek suffering, but neither does He resist it. He knows that to redeem, He must endure—and to endure, He must be rooted in obedience: “The Lord God hath opened my ear, and I do not resist.”
For the faithful, this reading sets the tone: the way of Christ is not one of dramatic resistance or triumphalism, but of loving surrender to the will of the Father. It is a call to spiritual courage—not loud, but steady. Not impulsive, but grounded in contemplation.
Spiritual Intention: To Love Before the Cross
Holy Monday is a day to examine the quality of our love for Christ. Not its warmth or intensity, but its sacrificial character.
Are we like Mary, pouring out what is costly because we know who He is?
Or are we like Judas, calculating the value of everything and seeing devotion as extravagance?
The traditional liturgy does not explain these questions—it asks them, silently and insistently.
Will we anoint Christ with our love now, or only lament when He has passed by?
Holy Monday calls us to love Him while we still have Him. This day in Bethany reminds us that time is short, and that adoration offered now, while Christ is hidden in the tabernacle or disguised in the suffering, is the greatest act of preparation for His Passion.
Lessons and Applications
1. Love must be willing to waste itself Mary’s action is a scandal to utilitarians. But divine love is not measured by cost. It is measured by self-gift. The saints have always understood this. Lavish liturgy, generous charity, hidden prayer, all appear wasteful to the world. But they are the fragrance of true love, filling the house.
2. Judas begins not with betrayal, but with criticism Notice how Judas does not yet leave. He criticizes. He murmurs. He disguises pride as virtue. This is where betrayal often begins—in a hardened heart disguised as realism. The soul tempted to justify withdrawal from God often starts by criticizing the piety of others.
3. Bethany is the school of contemplation Mary does not speak. She acts. And her action becomes a sacrament of preparation. Each time we choose silent, loving adoration, we prepare the way for Christ to enter more deeply into our lives—even if that entry comes by way of the Cross.
Practical Devotions for Holy Monday
Spend time in silence before the Blessed Sacrament, pouring out your heart like Mary’s ointment—without words if need be.
Read John 12:1–9 slowly. Imagine being in the room. What do you smell? See? Feel? What would you do?
Examine your motives. Are you generous with Christ? Or do you grumble internally at the cost of discipleship?
Offer a small act of costly love—a sacrifice of time, attention, or comfort—for no other reason than that He is worthy.
Pray Psalm 35 or Psalm 50 (Miserere), in reparation for past coldness or criticism toward devotion, either your own or others’.
Conclusion: The Fragrance That Fills the Church
The liturgy of Holy Monday is like the spikenard itself: rich, pungent, and clinging. It lingers in the soul. It calls us to a love that is not economical, but extravagant. It reminds us that our Savior is not far away—He is reclining at table with us, waiting to be loved, waiting to be known before He is taken from us.
“Amen, I say to you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be told for a memorial of her.” (Matt. 26:13)
Let us do likewise. Let us anoint Christ, today, with the perfume of our love—before the tomb is sealed and the world sleeps.
In Conspectu Dei: Reflections on the Holy Week Liturgy “In the sight of God”— emphasizing worship as divine encounter. By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
INTRODUCTION
The sacred liturgy is the heart of the Church’s life and the source of all true sanctity. Nowhere is this more evident than in the solemn rites of Holy Week, when the Church accompanies her Divine Spouse through the mysteries of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. These days are not merely commemorative; they are sacramental, mystical, and transformative.
The following reflections are offered to assist the faithful in entering more deeply into the traditional liturgy—not only in form, but in spirit. They are not academic commentaries, nor practical guides alone, but meditations intended to stir the soul to a fuller participation: not merely by following with the eyes, but by uniting the heart and will to Christ’s saving work.
May these words serve as a small help in approaching the sacred mysteries with greater reverence, understanding, and devotion—so that each soul may be more perfectly conformed to the Crucified and Risen Lord, through the timeless worship of His holy Church.
Liturgical Participation: Communion, Not Imitation
In the sacred liturgy, the faithful are not mere spectators. They are not gathered as a public audience for religious instruction or ceremony. Rather, they are members of the Mystical Body of Christ, mystically united to the action of their Head, the Eternal High Priest, who in every liturgical act offers anew His sacrifice to the Father through sacramental signs.
True participation in the liturgy is not measured by activity or outward visibility. The Church has never taught that sacred worship depends upon the multiplication of gestures or spoken responses by the laity. Rather, participation is principally interior—a movement of faith and love by which the soul unites itself to the Sacrifice of the Altar. As Pope Pius X taught, the faithful participate in the liturgy most fruitfully when they “pray the Mass,” joining their hearts to the sacred action wrought by the priest in persona Christi.
This is not imitation of Christ in a moral sense, but mystical communion with His self-oblation. It is a spiritual act of union with His suffering, His obedience, and His love. The more the faithful assist with reverence and interior devotion, the more they are conformed to Him who offered Himself “a victim, a sacrifice to God for an odour of sweetness”¹.
To assist at the sacred rites during Holy Week is, therefore, to renew our consent to die with Christ—dying to the world, to the flesh, and to our own will—that we may also rise with Him in glory. The external rites are sublime and solemn, but their value is fully realized only when they are interiorly embraced by souls thirsting for union with the Crucified.
Footnotes ¹ Ephesians 5:2; cf. Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei §§20–21; Roman Catechism, Part II, on the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Sharing in the Paschal Mystery
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and all the rites surrounding it, are not commemorations in the modern, historical sense. They are the perpetuation of the redemptive act of Christ under sacramental veils. The liturgy of the Church does not look back wistfully to Calvary—it makes present the one Sacrifice of the Cross, re-presented in an unbloody manner upon the altar.
This is the sacred mystery at the heart of Holy Week: that what was accomplished once in time is now dispensed through the Church’s liturgy, by the power of Christ and the operation of the Holy Ghost. The ceremonies of this most solemn week are not sentimental reenactments, but sacred channels of divine grace, given to unite the faithful to the sufferings and triumph of the Redeemer.
The liturgy, being sacramental, effects what it signifies. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches, the sacraments operate ex opere operato, by the very fact of their performance, because it is Christ who acts in them. Yet this grace bears fruit in proportion to the disposition of the soul. The exterior rite is valid and efficacious; but its spiritual harvest is abundant only where there is humility, contrition, and a burning desire to be united to Christ Crucified².
Thus, the liturgical action is not a stage upon which we express ourselves, but the divine means by which Christ expresses His love—and draws us to Himself. We love because He first loved us. We offer because He first offered Himself. This is not a dialogue of equals, but a condescension of mercy to which we respond in adoration and sacrifice.
Footnotes ² cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III, q.83, a.1; Council of Trent, Session XXII, ch.2; Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei §59.
The Interior Fruitfulness of the Sacred Liturgy
The sacred liturgy is not a vehicle for personal creativity or community self-expression. It is a work of God, a divine action, instituted by Christ and entrusted to His Church. It sanctifies not by emotion or novelty, but by the objective power of grace conferred through the rites as the Church has received them.
The Church has always taught that true and fruitful participation in the liturgy is interior—silent, recollected, devout. While exterior acts have their place, they are ordered to a deeper reality: the union of the soul with Christ’s offering. As Pope Pius XII insisted, “the chief element of divine worship must be interior worship”³.
This is why silence, reverence, and sacred continuity are not aesthetic preferences, but theological necessities. The liturgy is the summit of the Church’s prayer because it is where Christ offers Himself anew through the ministry of His priests. The faithful participate most deeply when they unite their own sacrifices—offered upon the altar of the heart—with that perfect Victim who is daily immolated for the salvation of souls.
The rites of Holy Week thus call each Christian to interior renewal. As the Church passes through the mysteries of the Passion, she calls her children to be conformed to Christ in His humility and His Cross. The sacred signs form us in the likeness of the Son—not through innovation or performance, but through contemplation, self-denial, and loving participation in His redemptive work.
Footnotes ³ Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei §24; cf. Council of Trent, Session XXII, ch.1; St. John Eudes, The Priest: His Dignity and Obligations.
Christ the Liturgical Centre: The Priest Who Offers, the Lamb Who Is Offered
In every act of sacred worship, it is Christ who is at work. He is the true celebrant of every Mass, the High Priest of the new and eternal covenant. The visible priest acts only in His Person; the sacred ministers are instruments through which the Eternal Priest continues His offering to the Father⁴.
Christ is also the Victim. What He offered once on Calvary is made present again on the altar—mystically, yet really. The liturgy is thus the union of Priest and Victim, the perpetual presentation of the same Sacrifice in an unbloody manner. This is why the Church teaches that the Mass is one and the same sacrifice as that of the Cross⁵.
The faithful, therefore, do not gather around the altar merely to be instructed or encouraged. They approach it in reverence to witness and participate—according to their state—in the act by which the world is redeemed. In this sacred action, Christ glorifies the Father and sanctifies His Church. The altar is Calvary; the sanctuary is a foretaste of heaven.
All things in the liturgy exist to direct our attention to this mystery. The silence, the orientation, the Latin tongue, the sacred vestments—all elevate the mind and heart to Christ. When rightly understood, they allow the faithful to be drawn into that divine action which surpasses all human activity: the self-offering of the Son to the Father, in which we are invited to share.
Footnotes ⁴ cf. Council of Trent, Session XXII, ch.2; Pope Pius XI, Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, §12. ⁵ Roman Catechism, Part II, ch.4; Mediator Dei §68.
The Liturgy as a Foretaste of Glory
The sacred liturgy not only looks back to the Passion; it looks forward to eternity. It is the veil through which we glimpse the heavenly court. The altar is not only the place of sacrifice—it is the threshold of heaven. Every sacred liturgy is a participation in the celestial liturgy, where the angels cry Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus before the throne of God⁶.
This is the eschatological character of the liturgy so clearly understood by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. In it, time meets eternity; earth touches heaven. The sacred rites are patterned upon the eternal worship of the Lamb, and through them, the Church on earth is united with the Church Triumphant. This is why the saints longed for the altar, and why the faithful of old approached it in awe and trembling.
Holy Week reveals this with especial clarity. The sufferings of Christ lead not to annihilation, but to glory. The tomb gives way to the throne. In the sacred liturgy, the faithful do not only mourn their sins; they anticipate their glorification. They learn to desire heaven because they have tasted something of its majesty.
To worship according to the mind of the Church is therefore to be prepared for eternity. The beauty and solemnity of the ancient rites are not ornaments, but reflections of divine order. They form the soul for the heavenly liturgy by immersing it in reverence, humility, and sacrificial love.
Footnotes ⁶ cf. Revelation 4:8; Mediator Dei §§3–4; Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol. 6 (Passiontide).
The Church Is Made in Worship
The Church, in her visible structure, in her teaching and discipline, in her sacraments and hierarchy, exists for one end: the glory of God and the sanctification of souls. And nowhere is this end more perfectly realized than in the sacred liturgy. It is here that the Church is most truly herself: the Bride united to her Bridegroom, the Body animated by its Head⁷.
In the act of worship, the Church is not only expressing devotion—she is being formed. The faithful are configured to Christ; the priest is conformed to the Eternal High Priest; the Church herself is renewed in her sacred identity. From the altar flows the grace that builds up her unity, strengthens her mission, and sanctifies her members.
This is why tradition insists that the liturgy is received, not invented. It is a divine gift, not a human project. The rites handed down across centuries are not museum pieces but living expressions of the Church’s soul. To preserve them faithfully is not an act of nostalgia—it is an act of fidelity to Christ and the order He has established.
The Church is most herself when she is silent before the mystery, obedient to tradition, and recollected in the presence of God. This is her truest apostolate. From worship rightly offered, all true renewal flows.
Footnotes ⁷ cf. Mystici Corporis Christi, §§60–65; Mediator Dei §24; Roman Catechism, Part II, ch.5.
Conclusion: To Worship in Spirit and in Truth
The sacred liturgy of Holy Week leads the Church into the heart of the Christian mystery: the suffering, death, and resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. These rites, solemn and immemorial, do not merely instruct the mind or stir the emotions—they sanctify the soul and glorify God. They are the appointed means by which Christ’s redemptive work is made present to His Church, and through which the faithful are invited to unite themselves to the saving Victim offered upon the altar.
To participate rightly in this liturgy is to enter into a divine mystery with reverence, humility, and love. It is to acknowledge that we are not the authors of our worship, but its recipients and servants. The priest ascends the altar as Christ, and we ascend with him in spirit, offering ourselves in union with the great oblation. We bring our crosses, our sins, our hopes, and our needs—not as isolated individuals, but as members of the Mystical Body.
This participation is not measured by noise or motion, but by interior surrender. As the Church has always taught, the most fruitful worship is that which conforms the soul to Christ, drawing it into His obedience, His humility, and His self-offering. Whether with missal in hand, Rosary in heart, or gaze fixed silently upon the altar, what matters most is that the soul be truly present—adoring, uniting, and offering itself in faith.
Holy Week is not merely the highest week of the liturgical year; it is the school of the Cross, the furnace of charity, the path to glory. If we enter it with docility, it will not leave us unchanged. For to worship in spirit and in truth is to be made like unto the One we worship: the Lamb who was slain and who now reigns.
Let us then approach these sacred days as pilgrims at the threshold of eternity, prepared to die with Christ, that we may also rise with Him to newness of life.
The Key to the Christian Life: Mastery of the Self, Why Holiness Is Not Impossible—and Why the World Depends on It By ✠Jerome OSJV, Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate
INTRODUCTION
Carissimi, beloved in Christ Laudetur Jesus Christus! We stand today at the threshold of Passiontide, gazing not merely at a season, but at a mystery—the mystery of God’s love, clothed in weakness, crowned in thorns, nailed in silence.
The Church, in her wisdom, veils the crucifix today. And perhaps that troubles us. We ask: why hide the very image that saves? But let me suggest that the veil is not hiding the Cross from us—it is hiding us from the truth of it.
You see, we do not understand the Cross—not really. We sentimentalize it. We wear it around our necks like jewelry, while refusing to carry it in our hearts. The veil reminds us: the Cross is not yet fully known to us. And so, we are asked to behold it—not with our eyes, but with our faith.
The Key to the Christian Life: Mastery of the Self
At its heart, the Christian life is not a mysterious code or an unattainable spiritual acrobatics. It is, quite simply, self-control. That is the whole trick. Holiness is not a magic gift doled out to a few lucky souls—it is the fruit of learning to govern oneself.
To be a Christian is to take control of one’s emotions, one’s instincts, one’s gifts and limitations—what the ancients called the passions. It is to become master of your predilections, your inclinations, your talents, your appetites, and even your sensitivities. All of these are the raw material of potential… of who we might become.
What distinguishes us from the animals is not strength or instinct, but reason: the ability to reflect, to deliberate, to act not only within but beyond the constraints of impulse and empirical experience.
This rational capacity is not just utilitarian—it is teleological. It exists to orient us toward what is higher, what is good, what is true. And supremely, it exists to lead us to God.
Self-Discipline Is Not Denial—It Is Direction
The Gospel and the saints urge self-discipline not because God delights in denial for its own sake, but because discipline is the door to our destiny. Every “no” to the flesh is a “yes” to the spirit. Every refusal of sin is an opening to grace. Holiness is not about repression—it is about right orientation. It is the harnessing of all we are—body, mind, and soul—toward the one end for which we were made: communion with God.
Seen this way, the Ten Commandments are not restrictions—they are liberations. They prohibit only what wounds ourselves or others. There is no good thing they forbid. They are not a cage, but a guardrail, protecting the freedom of the children of God.
The World, the Flesh, and the Lie of Powerlessness
The world tells us that self-restraint is unnatural, that virtue is an ideal but not a possibility, that indulgence is freedom and chastity is repression. But this is the ancient lie. The body can lie. Our selfish will can lie. Temptation dresses itself up as authenticity. But if we give in to the lower self, we are not free—we are slaves.
The saints are those who got over themselves. Who silenced the tantrums of the ego. Who chose righteousness when it was hard, purity when it was mocked, truth when it cost everything. And they did it not by superhuman strength, but by grace—and by choice.
Holiness Is Always a Choice
There is nothing about the pursuit of holiness that is impossible. It is difficult, yes. But not impossible. “Be ye perfect,” Christ says—not to taunt us, but to invite us. The way of virtue is always open. At every moment, you can choose the good. That is your power. That is your freedom. That is your dignity.
To be godly does not require brilliance, nor status, nor some mystical experience. It requires this: the decision to do what is right. Every time.
And when you fall, it requires the humility to rise again and make the decision anew.
The Ten Commandments Are Not Restrictions—They Are Liberations
The modern world often hears the Ten Commandments as a list of prohibitions, a moral straitjacket designed to limit freedom and suppress desire. But this is a profound misunderstanding. The Commandments are not burdens imposed from without—they are liberations spoken from the heart of a loving God who knows what makes for true human flourishing.
Each commandment guards something sacred. Each one protects a vital dimension of life and love. They do not restrict the good; they define it. They do not inhibit human potential; they release it from the chaos of sin and the tyranny of selfishness.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” liberates us from idolatry, from the soul-crushing slavery of false masters—whether money, power, vanity, or pleasure—and grounds us in the worship of the one true God who alone gives life.
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain” protects the holiness of speech and the integrity of our relationship with the divine. It frees our tongues from flippancy, deception, and misuse of what is sacred.
“Remember the Sabbath day” is not a burden but a gift: an invitation to rest, to worship, to be reminded that we are more than what we produce. It liberates us from the idol of work and from forgetfulness of eternity.
“Honour thy father and thy mother” affirms the sanctity of family and the gift of generational continuity. It is not a rule for submission, but a path to harmony, stability, and gratitude.
“Thou shalt not kill” is self-evidently protective—but it also affirms the infinite worth of every human life. It declares that no life is expendable, and that justice is not ours to take by violence.
“Thou shalt not commit adultery” safeguards the integrity of love and the beauty of marital fidelity. It frees us from the destructive lie that pleasure is more valuable than covenant, and that desire is more important than devotion.
“Thou shalt not steal” honors the dignity of work, the right to private property, and the responsibility of stewardship. It restrains the grasping impulse and calls us to mutual respect and justice.
“Thou shalt not bear false witness” upholds truth as the foundation of all human trust and society. It liberates our speech from manipulation and preserves the honor of others.
“Thou shalt not covet” cuts to the root of so many sins: discontent, envy, greed. It is the commandment of interior freedom. To obey it is to be free not only from wrongdoing, but from the restless hunger that spoils joy and peace.
In short, the Ten Commandments forbid nothing that is for our good. They prohibit only what harms: what harms the self, what harms others, what harms communion with God. There is not one commandment that, rightly understood, restricts anything holy, noble, generous, or life-giving. These laws are not chains but signposts. They do not say “You may not live,” but “Here is the way to life.” They are the spiritual grammar of love—both love of God and love of neighbour.
To follow them is not to be shackled, but to be free indeed.
If Everyone Lived the Ten Commandments…
If every soul on earth truly lived the Ten Commandments, the world would indeed be perfect. There would be no violence, no betrayal, no theft, no lies, no exploitation, no envy. God would be worshipped, the family honoured, the truth upheld, and every human life cherished. That is not fantasy—it is the ideal God Himself revealed as the path to human flourishing. It is the outline of sanctity, the moral architecture of a just and peaceful world.
But we live in a fallen world, where sin wounds even our best intentions. Perfection here may elude us. Yet imagine—not a world where everyone is perfect—but a world where everyone is striving to live the Commandments. Where people do not dismiss virtue as impossible or old-fashioned, but take it seriously. Where families encourage one another in holiness. Where neighbours cheer one another on in truthfulness, fidelity, chastity, generosity, reverence, and worship.
Imagine a culture where the prevailing spirit is not competition in sin, but cooperation in righteousness—where we are not scandalized by others’ goodness, but moved by it; not threatened by virtue, but inspired to imitate it.
That would be no utopia—but it would be a world transformed. A nearly perfect reality, attainable not by force or fantasy, but by the mutual pursuit of what is truly good.
And that—that—is God’s will. Not only that we individually obey His law, but that we desire and help others to obey it too. “Exhort one another daily,” says the Apostle, “that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:13). The Commandments are not a private code—they are the common foundation of a redeemed humanity.
So let us not despair over the world’s fallenness. Let us build up a culture of striving. Let us will the good for one another, and help each other toward it. That is how the kingdom of God grows—soul by soul, family by family, community by community.
Until one day, that ideal will no longer be a dream—but a reality, fully revealed in the light of His glory.
This Is the Answer to Society’s Problems Today
The Ten Commandments are not relics of a bygone age—they are the enduring answer to the crises of our time. They formed the moral bedrock of Western civilisation, the foundation of what we call the Judeo-Christian world. From them came the dignity of the person, the sanctity of life, the honour of the family, the principle of justice, and the call to responsibility before God.
If that civilisation has faltered, it is not because the Commandments failed—it is because we stopped striving to live them. We abandoned the path, and then wondered why we are lost. We dismantled the moral compass, and then blamed the darkness. But the solution is not more theories, more programs, or more politics—it is a return.
If we came back—not perfectly, but sincerely—to the Commandments as the common rule of life, society could be transformed again. If we once more taught our children to honour their parents, to speak the truth, to revere the sacred, to respect the property and dignity of others, to guard their hearts against envy and lust—if we turned our hearts to the living God and taught others to do the same—then the rot could be reversed, the decay healed, and the beauty of Christian civilisation rekindled.
This is not nostalgia. It is vision. Not naïve idealism, but a sober and hopeful realism. We have the blueprint. It is ancient, yet always new.
The only question is whether we have the courage to return to it.
And that return begins—not with governments, not with institutions—but with individuals. With you. With me. With the choice to live, and to encourage others to live, according to the law of God written not only on stone, but on the heart of every human soul.
We Tried to Make Virtue Out of Sin
In our modern age, we have not merely abandoned the moral law—we have inverted it. We tried to make virtue out of sin, to baptize selfishness and crown it as righteousness. We were told that the pursuit of personal pleasure, self-expression, and unrestrained autonomy was the highest good. That to deny oneself was repression, and to indulge every appetite was liberation.
We rebranded pride as self-esteem, lust as love, greed as ambition, envy as fairness, and wrath as justice. We told ourselves that the old moral codes were outdated, that commandments were chains, and that freedom meant doing what we want, when we want, to whom we want.
But freedom divorced from truth is not freedom—it is slavery to the self. When we made selfishness righteous, we hollowed out virtue. We ceased to pursue what was good and began to worship what was pleasurable. And in doing so, we have reaped what we sowed: broken homes, shattered communities, isolated individuals, a culture sick with anxiety, confusion, and despair.
The irony is stark: we rejected the Commandments as too hard—and now live in a world made harder by sin.
Yet even now, the path back is not closed. It is still there, waiting: the path of repentance, of truth, of virtue. A return to calling good good and evil evil. A return to the God who alone defines righteousness—not by feelings, but by love grounded in truth.
And if we would recover society, we must begin by recovering that truth—starting in the soul.
We Don’t Need to Overthrow the World—We Need to Change Ourselves
There is a great temptation in times of cultural collapse to look outward—to seek grand solutions, political revolutions, systemic overhauls. And while politics has its place, it is not the starting point. We do not need to bring down governments or refashion entire systems. Those things will follow if hearts are changed. What we need first, and most urgently, is to change ourselves.
The crisis we face is not merely institutional—it is moral, spiritual, personal. We are not suffering from a lack of policy but a lack of virtue. And virtue cannot be legislated into being. It must be cultivated, soul by soul, family by family, community by community.
What would transform the world is not ideological conquest, but personal conversion. Men and women who choose to live the truth, to uphold what is good, to restrain their passions, to discipline their appetites, to seek God’s will above their own.
And as we seek this transformation, we must not punish weakness but encourage striving. We must recover the distinction between failing and refusing to try. The former deserves patience and support; the latter, honest correction. But even correction must be oriented not to shame, but to rehabilitation. Holiness is not about perfection from the start—it is about the will to keep rising when we fall.
We must learn again to be a people of both truth and mercy. Not soft in our standards, but strong in our compassion. A society that upholds the good and helps the fallen return to it is a society on the road to renewal.
The world is changed not by programs or protests, but by people—people who choose to become what God made them to be. That is the beginning of everything. That is how cultures are rebuilt: not from the top down, but from the inside out.
No One Denies the Goodness of Jesus
Across cultures and centuries, even among those who reject Christianity, one thing is rarely denied: the goodness of Jesus. His compassion, His wisdom, His courage in the face of power, His mercy toward the sinner, His unwavering commitment to truth and love—these shine even through the haze of skepticism. The world may dispute His divinity, but it does not easily dismiss His virtue. And this is no accident. God did not reveal Himself as a theory, a moral code, or an abstract ideal. He became man. He took on flesh, entered history, and walked among us—so that we might have a person to follow. A face to look upon. A voice to hear. A life to imitate.
Jesus is not a symbol of goodness—He is goodness incarnate. He shows us, not only what God is like, but what man is meant to be. He is the pattern of holiness made visible, the commandments lived out perfectly in love.
God knew we needed more than rules—we needed a relationship. More than principles—we needed a Person. Not just a ladder to climb, but a hand to grasp.
And so He came.
To follow Jesus is not to chase after an unreachable ideal. It is to walk behind the One who has gone before us, who knows the path because He is the path. His goodness is not a challenge thrown down in judgment, but an invitation extended in mercy: Come, follow Me.
Conclusion
In Christ we have the “fulfillment of the Law” (cf. Matthew 5:17)—not its abolition, but it’s perfection.
We have in Him not just the One who spoke the commandments, but the One who lived them.
He is the Law in motion. The Word made flesh. The Commandments walked out in sandals, written not on tablets of stone, but on the beating heart of a sinless Man.
In Him, we see what it means to love God with all the heart, all the mind, all the soul, all the strength.
In Him, we see what it means to honour one’s mother, to bless one’s persecutors, to speak no falsehood, to covet nothing.
In Him, the will of the Father becomes a life poured out for others.
And so He does not simply tell us to follow the Law—He leads us in it. He goes before us. He makes the impossible possible, because He gives us more than example—He gives us grace.
And now, dear brethren, as we go forth into Passiontide and draw near to the Cross, let us not follow at a distance. Let us follow closely. Intimately. Let us take up His commandments—not as burdens, but as the path of love.
Because in the end, it is not rules that save us—it is a Person.
And that Person is Jesus Christ—crucified, risen, and reigning—who is Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).
Follow Him—and you will walk not only through the shadow of death, but into the dawn of resurrection.
Use this veiled Passiontide to learn to follow Him and His embodied living of the Commandments, seeing Him with the eyes of faith. Amen.
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