Day 11 The purpose of the liturgical season of Lent is to grow in closeness to the Lord through truth, repentance, and the word of God moving into fullness within your heart. Truth of the Spirit with Patti Brunner presents Daily Meditations for Lent. Lenten Logos includes personal revelation for your discernment to grow in your relationship with the Lord during this liturgical season of Lent.
Audio and video.
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit. I am your host Patti Brunner. This is day 11 of our series “Daily Meditations for Lent – Lenten Logos, it’s the Saturday of first week of Lent. Each day during Lent we will share personal revelation for you to discern and meditation from those logos, those words from the Lord.
This first week of Lent we have already been looking at the cross. The Lord told me this, “The Church does need to know that Jesus endured each man’s sin, Jesus endured each man’s suffering so that once and for all death–eternal death–could be overcome.”
The Lord told me this, “The infinity of your salvation met with time on the cross. The sins of the world – for all time – melted into its formation. This cross appeared to be made of natural material: the wood of the cross—the ‘tree’ of life; but know this, it was truly formed by the sin of man.” “My child, the fountain of life and the river, which thus flows, come from the same cross. That is, the redemptive graces that flow from the sacrificial nature of death on that cross have brought salvation to all generations – to all mankind.”
The Council of Trent emphasizes the unique character of Christ’s sacrifice as “the source of eternal salvation” and teaches that “his most holy Passion on the wood of the cross merited justification for us.” And the Church venerates his cross as it sings: “Hail, O Cross, our only hope.”[i]
I invite you to read the Bishops’ pamphlet on the Real Presence. It is available on the www.usccb.org website, The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.pdf (usccb.org) . It includes this: “Jesus the eternal Son of God made his act of sacrifice in the presence of his Father, who lives in eternity. Jesus’ one perfect sacrifice is thus eternally present before the Father, who eternally accepts it. This means that in the Eucharist, Jesus does not sacrifice himself again and again. Rather, by the power of the Holy Spirit his one eternal sacrifice is made present once again, re-presented, so that we may share in it.” [ii]
The Lord told me, “The Children must understand that I died for them. I took their sins to Calvary. And I saw their faces as I prayed at the garden. The world has glossed over the sin that was my burden. Like superman with kryptonite; only the exposure to the sin of the world covered my power and life. I freely exposed my heart to your sin and carried it within my heart because I carried each of you in my heart in love.”
Our parish has a bronze sculpture entitled “The Heart of Jesus” It depicts Jesus, draped in a cloak pulled open to reveal his heart filled with people. He looks tired and the darkness of his face is distressing to most who view it. It seems, to me, to portray the Agony in the Garden and the moment when Jesus took us, with all of our sin into his heart. Our sin, the sin of all generations, surely that would change his appearance this way. It is likely that taking our sin into his heart was more painful to him than the beating He was later to receive. Meditation on the passion of Christ reveals that we became one with him at the Garden of Gethsemane. The effect of sin no longer separated us from God. As He took each of us into his heart, as He freely accepted us, our sin came with us. By Jesus accepting us into his heart we were able to die with him, rise and live with him in his resurrection as He overcame death and sin.
To illustrate the point: We can show the initial relationship between God and Adam by our hands clasped together. To show when Adam sinned and he could no longer be one with God, pull your hands apart. Next, if we place a cross like a bridge to connect our hands it shows how the sacrifice of Jesus reconnects us to God. Using the cross Jesus picks us up and carries us by the cross to our redemption to be united with God.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church Paragraph 827 says, “Christ, ‘holy, innocent, and undefiled,’ knew nothing of sin, but came only to expiate the sins of the people. The Church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal.” All members of the Church, including her ministers, must acknowledge that they are sinners. In everyone, the weeds of sin will still be mixed with the good wheat of the Gospel until the end of time. Hence the Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness: The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace. If they live her life, her members are sanctified; if they move away from her life, they fall into sins and disorders that prevent the radiation of her sanctity. This is why she suffers and does penance for those offenses, of which she has the power to free her children through the blood of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
This is Day 11. Please subscribe and join us each day for Daily Meditations for Lent – Lenten Logos with Patti Brunner. “The event of the Cross and Resurrection abides and draws everything toward life.”[iii] “Prepare for it, ready your heart.” The transcript of this episode is available at PatriarchMinistries.com. Come back tomorrow for more. With the Holy Spirit there’s always more. Amen
[i] Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 617
[ii] [ii] The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist: Basic Questions and Answers Issued by NCCB/USCC, June 15, 2001; The Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.pdf (usccb.org) Republished as pdf on usccb.org 2020
[iii] Catechism of the Catholic Church Paragraph 1085
