Fontgombault Sermon for Easter Day 2021: "The tomb is empty. Will the same happen to the tombs of our lives, of our miseries?"

MASS FOR EASTER DAY

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Father Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, April 4, 2021

 

Rich and poor, exult together. You who have abstained, and you who were neglectful, honor this day. You who have fasted, and you who have not fasted, rejoice today… All of you, enjoy the feast of faith… Let no one bewail his misery, for our Kingdom has appeared. Let no one weep on his sins, for forgiveness has risen from the tomb. Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free. Death held Him, and He has smothered death; He descended into hell, and He has despoiled it… Hell, where is thy victory? Christ is risen, and the devils are fallen. Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice. Christ is risen, and life reigns.

 Dear Brothers and Sisters, 

 My dearly beloved Sons, 

 By these words, taken from the Byzantine rite of the Easter Vigil, St. John Chrysostom, archbishop of Constantinople, addressed his people “on this holy and radiant day of Christ our God’s glorious and salutary resurrection.” Whoever we may be, whatever our lives may be, let us implore the forgiveness Christ offers us through His victory over evil, and over death. Let us rise with Him and enjoy the feast of faith. These words divide mankind into two parts. Every man who acknowledges he needs a savior receives them for his salvation. Every man who is self-sufficient rejects them for his ruin. 

 On this holy Easter day, let us remember the parable of the prodigal son, also called the parable of the merciful father. Among the two sons, the younger first demands his share of the estate, then leave his father’s home to live his own life. He squanders all his goods, and then conceives the wish to go back to his father, not as a son, but as a hired servant. From afar, his father catches sight of him. He goes and meets him, forgives him, and orders his homecoming to be celebrated. The elder son comes back from the field, and having been informed of the reason for the celebration, is greatly angered and refuses to join the feast. Neither the elder son nor the younger had understood the secret of their father’s heart, mercy. The elder, out of a narrow-minded fidelity to his education, was expecting from his father nothing but justice. He was righteous, and deemed himself not to need mercy. The younger son had squandered away his goods, his inheritance, and above all, his education. Aware of his own misery and responsibility, he could only claim to be condemned. As to the father, he was eager to share his secret, his mercy, with both of his children. 

+ HAPPY EASTER! + Saint Gregory the Great's Sermon for Easter Sunday, 591: "Let us pass over from evildoing to virtue, that we may merit to see our Redeemer in Galilee."

Sermon by Gregory, Bishop of Rome

Basilica of Saint Mary Major

April 15, 591

Sermon on the Holy Day of the Resurrection

Gospel for the Mass of the Day (Mk 16:1-7)

It has been my custom, beloved brethren, to speak to you on many of the Gospel readings, by means of a sermon I had already dictated for you. But since I have been unable, because of the weakness of my throat, to read to you myself what I had prepared, I notice that some among you listen somewhat indifferently. So, contrary to my usual practice, I shall for the future make the effort during the sacred solemnities of the Mass to explain the Gospel, not through a sermon I have dictated, but by speaking directly to you myself.

So for the future it shall be the rule for me to speak to you in this way. For the words which are spoken directly to sluggish souls awaken them more readily than a sermon that is read to them; moving them by that touch as it were of authority, so that they listen with more attention. I am not, as I well know, competent to fulfill this office: but let your charity make good what my ignorance denies me. For I have in mind Him Who has said: Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it (Ps. lxxx. ii). We all have in mind a good work , and it will be perfected by His divine assistance (II Tim. iii. 17). And also, this great solemnity of the Sunday of the Resurrection gives us a fitting occasion for speaking to you: for it would indeed be unfitting that the tongue of our body should be silent in the praises that are clue this day; that day on which the Body of our Author rose again from the dead.

Fontgombault Sermons for Easter Vigil and Easter Day - "May this epidemic make men return to God." | "Dear Brothers and Sisters, you are not here, but we are together in the risen Christ."

Sermon for Easter Vigil (followed by the Sermon for Easter Day)

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, April 11, 2020

Si consurrexistis cum Christo...

If you be risen with Christ....

(Col 3:1)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

Among the texts of the Easter Vigil, the Genesis narrative holds the first place. With simple words, this narrative evokes the origin of the earth and heavens, of all they contain, and especially man, in a word, of all creatures, namely, of everything that is, and that is not God.

The scene is breathtaking. Amidst the primeval chaos, a Word is heard. God speaks. He says, and things are. They are exactly what He says, and what they are. Each being thus receives a place, and remains in its place.

Man’s creation is told in a different way. God proclaims His intention, “Let us make man to our image and likeness” (Gn 1:26). And the author of the Book of Genesis notes:

And God created man to His own image: to the image of God He created him: male and female He created them. (Gn 1:27)

The parallel between these two verses incites some exegetes to draw from this text “a two-fold teaching: the creation of the human being, and his uncreation”.[1] Man is called, according to the divine plan, to be image and likeness of God. Indeed, God creates him in His own image. But the likeness remains to be achieved. As opposed to the other creatures, man is therefore responsible for part of his path, through the exercise of his freedom, towards a likeness that is to be acquired.

In its bareness, the sacred text is of a very different craftsmanship as compared to the ancient mythologies, where the world is born from a war waged among the gods, and the sacred text bears witness to the gift God has given to the universe. What harmony, what peace! Each particular creation ends up with a judgment of God: this is good, and even very good.

But what is left of the mission God has entrusted us with? What of our likeness? 

EX ORIENTE LUX - Dominica Paschæ in Resurrectione Domini - A Meditation of Saint Alphonsus on Paradise

Osanna, Sanctus Deus Sabaoth,
superillustrans claritate tua
felices ignes horum malacoth!

L'anima d'ogne bruto e delle piante

di complession potenziata tira
lo raggio e il moto delle luci sante;

ma vostra vita sanza mezzo spira
la Somma Beninanza, e la innamora
di sé sì che poi sempre la disira.

E quinci puoi argomentare ancora
vostra resurrezion, se tu ripensi
come l'umana carne fessi allora

che li primi parenti intrambo fensi.*

Commedia, Paradiso (c. VII)

A VERY HAPPY AND HOLY EASTER TO ALL OUR READERS! 
Salve, Festa Dies: Hail, O Festive Day!

__________________________________

A MEDITATION ON PARADISE

for the Paschal Festivity

The Joys of Heaven

I.

Oh, happy are we if we suffer with patience on earth the troubles of this present life! Distress of circumstances, fears, bodily infirmities, persecutions and crosses of every kind, will one day come to an end; and if we be saved, they will all become for us subjects of joy and glory in paradise: Your sorrow (says the Saviour, to encourage us) shall be turned into joy.

Fontgombault Easter Vigil Sermon: The Resurrection and what is the meaning of the Notre-Dame de Paris Fire

Notre-Dame de Fontgombault

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

(Fontgombault, April 21st, 2019)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

Guest Op-Ed: Carrying the joys of Easter into daily life

By Veronica A. Arntz

Praesta, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus: ut, qui paschalia festa peregimus; haec, te largiente, moribus et vita teneamus. Per Dominum nostrum.—Grant, we beseech Thee, almighty God, that we who have celebrated the Paschal Feast, may, be Thy bounty, retain its fruits in our daily habits and behavior. Through our Lord.

After the glories of Easter week, these words of the collect of Low Sunday, or Domenica in albis, give us the direction for the rest of the liturgical year. Through the grace of God, we are meant to carry the fruits of the time we spent praising and thanking God during Easter week into our daily habits and lives.

EX ORIENTE LUX

Osanna, Sanctus Deus Sabaoth,
superillustrans claritate tua
felices ignes horum malacoth!

L'anima d'ogne bruto e delle piante

di complession potenziata tira
lo raggio e il moto delle luci sante;

ma vostra vita sanza mezzo spira
la Somma Beninanza, e la innamora
di sé sì che poi sempre la disira.

E quinci puoi argomentare ancora
vostra resurrezion, se tu ripensi
come l'umana carne fessi allora

che li primi parenti intrambo fensi.

Dante
Paradiso
c. VII

________________________________________________
Hosanna holy God of Sabaoth,/ abundantly illumining with thy brightness/ the blessed fires of these kingdoms ... 
The soul of every brute and of each plant,/ The ray and motion of the sacred lights,/ Draw from complexion with meet power endued.
But this our life the Supreme Good inspires/ Immediate, and enamours of itself;/ So that our wishes rest forever here. 
And hence thou mayst by inference conclude/ Our resurrection certain, if thy mind/ Consider how the human flesh was framed,/ When both our parents at the first were made. 
(Transl. H.F.Cary, adap.) - ...Our regular Paschal feature...

EX ORIENTE LUX - Dominica Paschæ in Resurrectione Domini - A Meditation of Saint Alphonsus on Paradise

Osanna, Sanctus Deus Sabaoth,
superillustrans claritate tua
felices ignes horum malacoth!

L'anima d'ogne bruto e delle piante
di complession potenziata tira
lo raggio e il moto delle luci sante;

ma vostra vita sanza mezzo spira
la Somma Beninanza, e la innamora
di sé sì che poi sempre la disira.

E quinci puoi argomentare ancora
vostra resurrezion, se tu ripensi
come l'umana carne fessi allora

che li primi parenti intrambo fensi.*

Commedia, Paradiso (c. VII)

A VERY HAPPY AND HOLY EASTER TO ALL OUR READERS! 
Salve, Festa Dies: Hail, O Festive Day!

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter: Seeing, believing and not believing

The gospels of Eastertide all deal with faith, specifically Easter faith, but also faith in God and what that means and what it looks like.  Once again we make reference to the uniqueness of the post- Resurrection appearances of Christ, and their startling nature and the understanding on the part of each of the Gospel writers that words just cannot convey what happened, what the disciples saw.  It is as if words cannot bridge the reality of the resurrected Jesus.  And part of these appearances include Jesus’ upbraiding his disciples for their lack of faith, for their initial refusal to see what is really there:  “I am no ghost.  Look at my hands and my side.”  From Matthew’s Gospel: “But later, as the eleven were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief.”  And from Luke on the road to Emmaus: “ Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe..!”

This has to make us ponder, this has to make us ask the question:  what is faith in the resurrected Christ, and how does one get to the point of faith in Him?  And going further with this question, we surely come to the question of belief in God, what is its nature, what does it involve with regard to the individual person.  We know the old adage: seeing is believing.  Well, obviously the disciples and Mary Magdalene did not equate seeing with believing, at least in the synoptic Gospels.  But that is why these appearances of the risen Lord seem so odd to us, a bit, forgive the term, sketchy, not clear, something that leaves us wanting something more.  We could say that the disciples were not that smart and so they had a hard time getting things.  But this is not a matter of intelligence. This is a matter of seeing and not believing.  And that doubt persists right up to the Ascension:  at the end of Matthew’s Gospel we read:  “When they saw him they worshiped him but they doubted."

We see the answer to these quasi-paradoxical statements and events when we remember John’s words when Peter and John on Easter morning look into the empty tomb:  “He saw and he believed.”  So is this a positive case of seeing and believing as opposed to the negative cases we alluded to earlier?  No.  Because they did not see the risen Lord in that tomb.  They saw the burial shroud neatly folded and placed on the stone, and they saw the tomb empty and no body.  They saw and they believed.  And here we have the essence of faith in the risen Lord. It cannot depend on appearances and visions. For if that were true, we could not believe.  Faith in Christ is not the result of a special communication, or a special spiritual event in one’s live.  Faith is believing in things visible and invisible as the Creed says.  Faith is a decision to believe, after one has considered the evidence that is there.

Fontgombault Sermons for Easter Vigil and Easter Day: "The Modern World has no reasons to hope - Christians do."

EASTER VIGIL

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

(Fontgombault, April 4, 2015)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

The Church invites us during this holy night to consider a great vista, that of the history of salvation. The key to this history is proffered as soon as the celebrant cuts into the wax of a candle a cross, the alpha and omega letters (first and last letter of the Greek alphabet), and the four numerals of the current year; meanwhile he says:

Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, Alpha and Omega. All time belongs to Him, and all the ages. To Him be glory and power, through every age for ever. Amen. 

The key is Christ, present to all times, present to each human story. The five grains of incense inserted into the wax are the symbol of the sweet spices that were poured into the five wounds to embalm and preserve the body of the Lord. The candle then symbolises Christ in His tomb.

EX ORIENTE LUX - Dominica Paschæ in Resurrectione Domini - A Meditation of Saint Alphonsus on Paradise

Osanna, Sanctus Deus Sabaoth,
superillustrans claritate tua
felices ignes horum malacoth!

L'anima d'ogne bruto e delle piante
di complession potenziata tira
lo raggio e il moto delle luci sante;

ma vostra vita sanza mezzo spira
la Somma Beninanza, e la innamora
di sé sì che poi sempre la disira.

E quinci puoi argomentare ancora
vostra resurrezion, se tu ripensi
come l'umana carne fessi allora

che li primi parenti intrambo fensi.*

Commedia, Paradiso (c. VII)

A VERY HAPPY AND HOLY EASTER TO ALL OUR READERS! 
Salve, Festa Dies: Hail, O Festive Day!