Friday in the Easter Octave is defined by one of the most influential texts in the history of the world: a simple order that transformed a band of eleven outcasts in Galilee into the marvelous Christendom:
The eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing Him they adored: but some doubted. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
Amen, amen, amen. What are you doing to put the Great Commission into practice in our newly-paganized age? We learn how to act from the teachings of Saint Jerome, remembered in today's Matins:
The order of the Lord's commands to the Apostles is markedly this. First, to teach all nations; secondly, to make them partake in the Sacrament of the faith; thirdly, when they had believed and been baptized, to teach them what to observe. And lest we should think that He commanded things light and few, He hath said: All things whatsoever I have commanded you, so that all, who have believed and been baptized in the Name of the Trinity, are bound to observe all things whatsoever He hath commanded. And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. He Who promiseth that He will be with His disciples even unto the end of the world, doth give them thereby to know that they will be always conquerors, and that He will never fail any who believe in Him.
Teaching, Faith, Commandment: Truth is at the center of the Mission of the Church to all the Peoples of the world. May it begin once again once this Babylonian Exile started with Vatican II is at last put to an end.
