Tuesday, June 03, 2014

From this morning's reading

From Mattins:

The LORD is King, be the people never so impatient; * he sitteth between the Cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet.
-- Ps 99

From Romano Guardini's "The Rosary of Our Lady":

Let us stress the words "He began to feel dread and to be exceedingly troubled," and "His sweat became as drops of blood running down upon the ground."  It is the horror of the Redeemer before sin, not only before the Passion and death as such, but before the fact that all this must be endured in expiation for our sins, and that He was meant to take them upon Himself and be responsible for them.  How terrible it  must have been is shown by the other words He speaks in prayer:  "Father, all things are possible to Thee.  Remove this cup from me."  What was to come went against the Redeemer's whole being; not only because death is a revolt against the will to  live, but because sin is a revolt against God.  His third exclamation is "Yet not what I will but what Thou willest." 
The Worst part of sin is its hiddenness.  It hides everywhere: under the pretense that it is something natural, that it is something unavoidable, and that the power, gravity, or tragedy of life is expressed by it.  If we are witnesses here of Christ's fate, our eyes are opened wide to this pretense.