23 August 2008

Fatherly Wisdom-Proclaiming the Lord's Cry

From Gregory the Great, in his "Moral Reflections on Job," speaking of Job's words in Job 13:21-23 as a type of Christ:

Earth has not hidden away [Christ's] blood, for holy Church has preached in every corner of the world the mystery of its redemption.

Notice what follows: "Do not let my cry find a hiding place in you." The blood that is drunk, the blood of redemption, is itself the cry of our Redeemer. Paul speaks of "the sprinkled blood that calls out more eloquently than Abel's." Of Abel's blood Scripture had written: "The voice of your brother's blood cries our to me from the earth." The blood of Jesus calls out more eloquently than Abel's, for the blood of Abel asked for the death of Cain the fratricide, while the blood of the Lord has asked for, and obtained, life for his persecutors.

If the sacrament of the Lord's passion is to work its effect in us, we must imitate what we receive and proclaim to humanity what we revere. The cry of our Lord finds a hiding place in us if our lips fail to speak of this, though our hearts believe in it. So that his cry may not lie concealed in us it remains for us all, each in our own measure, to make known to those around us the mystery of our new life in Christ.

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