This Exclamation is The Greatest and Most Important Declaration of Our Faith and is The Battle Cry for us who were Baptized and Believers By Faith and Brings to Fulfillment and Completion The Battle Cry of St. Michael who cast Satan out of Heaven while crying out, “Who is like unto GOD?!” (And that is how he got his name because that is exactly what the name Michael means). For, truly, Only GOD COULD DO or even THINK of DOING What HE HAS DONE that we Celebrate This Day; LOVE IS SOMEONE WHO IS GREATER And STRONGER Than death and HAS even SANCTIFIED it, Transforming it into the way to Eternal Life.
In order to fully appreciate the grandeur and Glorious Splendor of THE AWESOME LOVE AND MERCY OF GOD IN This Awesome Event That Changed the world Forever, we should look back at where we’ve been. We have been on a long journey as the days have gotten longer day by day; Christmas Came just four days after the darkest day of the year to Give us New Hope To Bring us into the new year. Then came the shortest Ordinary Time of any I can remember. (I think that means Jesus Is Telling us that His Life on earth had a short Time that was Ordinary, and So, Sanctified it, Making our “ordinary lives” something we can Share with Him That He Makes “Extra” Ordinary.) So then Lent began and so began our forty day Journey of Prayer (our relationship with GOD), Fasting (our relationship with ourselves and our bodies as the Temples of The Holy Spirit) and Almsgiving (our relationship with our neighbor). How did you do? I know that I fell short of the bar on this. I have learned, however, that the biggest part of Lent is growing in humility in the Presence of GOD. I have learned that the meaning of humility for a human being is realizing that GOD IS GOD and you are not; so, HE USED this Lent TO SHOW me just how much not HIM I am.
However, when I think about what Lent is, I look at what GOD SHOWED us in Scripture reading at the start of Lent; GOD PUT HIS Bow in the sky as a sign of HIS Friendship with mankind after the flood. When you’re given a wrapped gift, what part do you start with when opening it? Of course! The bow! So, Lent is a great gift that GOD GAVE us to become Close To HIM. Lent is a forty day journey that we take with Jesus, just like Noah and the ark, learning to Trust In God In Radical Dependence. Also, just as Jesus did battle with temptation and the Devil as Noah held up against the raging sea amidst the storm outside, we also had to deal with temptations to “abandon ship”, especially when we fall. But, we also know how awesome Jesus Our Lord Is, that even when we take our eyes off of Him, like Peter did while walking on the Sea of Galilee, and begin to sink, all we have to do is call and reach out to Jesus and He Will Reach out with His Saving Hand, Grab us and Lift and Pull us out. Lent is a time in which we Learn, By Jesus’ Help, To See With His Eyes The Length, Depth, Height and Breadth of GOD’S MERCY For us.
So, just as this Lent began with the reading of Noah’s Ark after the forty days in which the flood destroyed all flesh on the earth and new life for the world began when all who were dwelling within came out, it ends with the goal of Easter, in which Life Burst Forth from Sacred Tomb. So GOD BROUGHT us, even despite ourselves, through the Dark and the turbulent Storm of Death to Burst Forth With Him to the Light and Life of a New Day. In the second reading on the first day of Lent, GOD SPEAKS Through St. Peter that the Flood in Noah’s time corresponds to Baptism, “which Saves [us] now.” This is how we become “born again through water and The Spirit [of God]” as Our Lord Jesus Told Nicodemus that night he met Him in secret out of fear of the Jewish elders. So, if you think about it, He Entered into a Womb Sanctified By Him and Burst Forth from It without disturbing It, and Entered into The Tomb that no one had laid in, Sanctifying it, and though men sealed it to try and keep Him within, He Burst Forth With New Life For the world. This Is What Happened To us when we were Baptized: Paul tells us in the letter to the Galatians that 3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28… for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
4:4 God sent forth his Son, born of woman… so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 7 So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir. (Hahn, Scott; Mitch, Curtis. Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament (p. 1206). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.)
The same Spirit of Christ crying, “Abba, Father” in us also cries, “Mary, Mother!” We just celebrated The Feast of The Annunciation, when Mary Conceived Jesus. This is the New Beginning of mankind. And we are Joined To The New Family of mankind, The Church, In Which GOD And Man Are Reunited, with Mary as Our Mother. So, when Mary Said Her “Yes” to God The Father to Become The Mother of Jesus His Son, She also Said “Yes” to Becoming our Mother, too, through Baptism! We know this with Certainty, For before dying on the Cross, it is to his mother that Jesus entrusted his beloved disciple, representing the Church, and it is to the Church that he entrusted his mother (John 19:26-27). “When He Saw His Mother and the disciple whom He Loved standing nearby, He Said To His Mother, ‘Woman, Behold Your son.’ And To the disciple whom He Loved, ‘son, behold your Mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.” So now, as Our Mother, Mary Participates With GOD In Pouring HIS LOVE Out Upon and Into all of us.
We are actually, metaphysically changed; we Truly Become Joined body and soul into The Family of GOD, The Church, The Mystical Body of Christ and Flesh and Blood With Him. This Adoption Is even greater than any legal adoption, though; It Is more like a marriage that we renew formally together in Church at every Easter Liturgy. This is also the traditional time when new catechumens (converts to the Faith) are Baptized in the sight of all the Baptized believers. And if there are any to be Baptized, the whole congregation renews its Baptismal vows along with the new addition to Christ’s Church, and we profess our faith commitment with them by saying together after every statement of The Faith declared, “I do.” Thus the New and Everlasting Covenant foreshadowed by Noah is ratified, renewed and strengthened together to faithfully continue our walk with The Lord until we make it to The Shores of Salvation…