Tuesday, May 30 : Symeon the New Theologian

Many believe in Christ’s resurrection but few see it clearly. How is it, then, that those who have not seen him are able to adore Christ Jesus as the Holy One, the Lord? As it is written: “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1Cor 12,3), and again: “God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth” (Jn 4,24). How is it, then, that the Holy Spirit presses us to say today [in the liturgy]: “We have seen the resurrection of Christ. Let us adore the Holy one, the Lord Jesus, who alone is without sin”? How is it that it invites us to claim him as though we had seen him? Christ was raised once and for all a thousand years ago, and even then no one saw him rise. Does Holy Scripture mean us to lie? Not on your life! To the contrary, it exhorts us to bear witness to the truth, that truth which reproduces Christ’s resurrection in each one of us, his faithful people, not just once but when, so to speak, the Master in person, Christ, rises within us, clothed in white and shining with the lightening flashes of incorruptibility and divinity. For the luminous coming of the Spirit makes us catch a glimpse, as in his morning, of the Master’s resurrection. Or rather, it grants us the favor of seeing him in person, he the risen one. That is why we sing: “The Lord is God and has appeared to us” (cf. Ps 118[117],27) and, alluding to his second coming, we add: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (v.26)… It is thus spiritually, for their spiritual perception, that he shows himself and lets himself be seen. And when that is brought about in us by the Holy Spirit, he raises us from the dead, he brings us to life and grants that we may see him wholly, living within us, he, the immortal and imperishable one. He grants us the grace of knowing him clearly, he who raises us up with him and causes us to enter with him into his glory.

maronite readings – rosary,team