Wisdom from… [Apr 16]

HESYCHIUS OF JERUSALEM (ca. 451): The invincible charioteer

This day brings a message of joy: it is the day of the Lord's resurrection when, with himself, he raised up the race of Adam. Born for the sake of human beings, he rose from the dead with them. On this day paradise is opened by the risen one, Adam is restored to life and Eve is consoled. On this day the divine call is heard, the kingdom is prepared, we are saved and Christ is adored. On this day, when he had trampled death under foot, made the tyrant a prisoner, and despoiled the underworld, Christ ascended into heaven as a king in victory, as a ruler in glory, as an invincible charioteer. He said to the Father: Here am I, O God, with the children you have given me, and he heard the Father's reply: Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. To him be glory, now and for ever, through endless ages. Amen.
(Paschal Homily: SC 187, 66-69.)

Hesychius was a monk who was highly esteemed as a priest and preacher of Jerusalem. He was a defender of orthodoxy and a gifted interpreter of scripture.

ST AUGUSTINE: Christ's Resurrection

Know that our faith is strengthened by the resurrection of Christ. The passion of Christ represents the misery of our present life, while the resurrection of Christ gives us a brilliant glimpse of the happiness of the future life. Let us apply ourselves energetically in the present life, and hope in the future. Now is the time for the painful struggle; then will come the recompense. Those who are lazy about carrying out their work will be brazenly impudent if they expect the recompense.
-- Sermon 233, 1

Prayer. O death, when you seized my Lord, you then lost your grip on me.
-- Sermon 233, 5

ST FRANCIS DE SALES:

To take up our cross and follow Jesus Christ means nothing other than receiving and accepting all the troubles, contradictions, afflictions and mortifications that come our way in this life. We should accept them with complete submission and resignation. We ought not select our own crosses, but we should accept and carry those that are offered to us. In this way we imitate the Savior, Who did not choose His own cross, but humbly took upon Himself the one prepared for Him.
(Sermons 2; O. IX, p. 18)

GK CHESTERTON:

WHATEVER the merits or demerits of the Pantheistic sentiment of melting into nature of 'Oneness' (I think they call it) with seas and skies, it is not and it never has been a popular sentiment. It has been the feeling of a few learned aesthetes or secluded naturalists. Popular poetry is all against Pantheism and quite removed from Immanence. It is all about the beautiful earth as an edge or fringe of something much better and quite distinct. Ballads and carols do not go to the tune of 'One with the Essence of the Boundless World.' Ballads and carols go to the tune of 'Over the hills and far away;' the sense that life leads by a strange and special path to something sacred and separate.
('Daily News.')

The specific contingency of the universe is, like the fragility of blown glass or the transience of musical notes, an essential ingredient in the beauty of its humble grandeur.