Glorious Triumph of our Savior

In the Entrance Antiphon for today’s liturgy of Thursday of the Third Week of Easter, we pray: “Let us sing to the Lord, for he has gloriously triumphed.”  In the Collect, we ask the Lord to “let us feel…[His] compassion more readily during these days when, by…[His] gift, we have known…[God’s compassion toward us] more fully, so that those…[the Lord has]  freed from the darkness of error may cling more firmly to the teachings of [His] truth.”

How aware am I that God the Son, Jesus, has “gloriously triumphed” in my life and will continue to triumph in my daily life, alerting me to the good I am invited to do, opening my eyes to His Love at work in my life and in the life of others around me as well as lifting me up from hopelessness, fear, apathy, discouragement, sin itself, deceitful patterns and so on, over and over and over again?  Am I aware that I have truly been “freed from the darkness or error” in my past and that God will do so in my future? Believing in Christ Jesus and humbly acknowledging my weaknesses and sinfulness, repenting of my sins in the sacrament of confession and in communication with those against whom I have sinned puts me on the path to eternal life! What a gift and what a challenge in living this truth day by day, clinging “more firmly to the teaching of [His] truth” every day!

Jesus' Glorious Triumph: its Meaning

The Entrance Antiphon to today’s liturgy invites us to “sing to the Lord, for he has gloriously triumphed.”  We then pray: “The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation, alleluia.”  I was deeply touched by t he word “is”.  God is, not was or will be, but IS my strength and my might; He is my salvation.  The work of God is going on every moment of every day, in every circumstance of my life today and yours!  Jesus has “gloriously triumphed,”  that is He is gloriously triumphing over sin and death, over selfishness and greed, over deceit and jealousy, over anger and moodiness, over faithlessness and hopelessness, over hatred, blindness and deafness to the Spirit in my life right now, right here! Jesus is making a difference now!  I am overcoming evil in my life right now  because Jesus “has gloriously triumphed” in His resurrection, in the sacrificing of His life, in becoming sin for us on Calvary.

Yesterday I took a day off and went to see “Heaven is for Real.”  Heaven and earth are one in the resurrection of Jesus.  Heaven and earth are one in the Eucharist, when the Son of God descends upon our altars every single day to feed us with the Bread of Life, the Living Bread, that wells up into eternity making us more and more life Christ every day, reconciling us to the Father, cleansing the Temple of our souls with this Living Water, this Living Bread!  Alleluia!