ORATION 1
On Easter and His Reluctance.
I. It is the Day of the Resurrection, and my Beginning has good
auspices. Let us then keep the Festival with splendour, Isaiah 66:5 and let us
embrace one another. Let us say Brethren, even to those who hate us; much more
to those who have done or suffered anything out of love for us. Let us forgive
all offenses for the Resurrection's sake: let us give one another pardon, I for
the noble tyranny which I have suffered (for I can now call it noble); and you
who exercised it, if you had cause to blame my tardiness; for perhaps this
tardiness may be more precious in God's sight than the haste of others. For it
is a good thing even to hold back from God for a little while, as did the great
Moses of old, Exodus 4:10 and Jeremiah Jeremiah 1:6 later on; and then to run
readily to Him when He calls, as did Aaron Exodus 4:27 and Isaiah, Isaiah 1:6
so only both be done in a dutiful spirit;— the former because of his own want
of strength; the latter because of the Might of Him That calls.
II. A Mystery anointed me; I withdrew a little while at a Mystery, as
much as was needful to examine myself; now I come in with a Mystery, bringing
with me the Day as a good defender of my cowardice and weakness; that He Who
today rose again from the dead may renew me also by His Spirit; and, clothing
me with the new Man, may give me to His New Creation, to those who are begotten
after God, as a good modeller and teacher for Christ, willingly both dying with
Him and rising again with Him.
III. Yesterday the Lamb was slain and the door-posts were anointed,
and Egypt bewailed her Firstborn, and the Destroyer passed us over, and the
Seal was dreadful and reverend, and we were walled in with the Precious Blood.
Today we have clean escaped from Egypt and from Pharaoh; and there is none to
hinder us from keeping a Feast to the Lord our God — the Feast of our
Departure; or from celebrating that Feast, not in the old leaven of malice and
wickedness, but in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, 1 Corinthians
5:8 carrying with us nothing of ungodly and Egyptian leaven.
IV. Yesterday I was crucified with Him; today I am glorified with Him;
yesterday I died with Him; today I am quickened with Him; yesterday I was
buried with Him; today I rise with Him. But let us offer to Him Who suffered
and rose again for us — you will think perhaps that I am going to say gold, or
silver, or woven work or transparent and costly stones, the mere passing
material of earth, that remains here below, and is for the most part always
possessed by bad men, slaves of the world and of the Prince of the world. Let
us offer ourselves, the possession most precious to God, and most fitting; let
us give back to the Image what is made after the Image. Let us recognize our
Dignity; let us honour our Archetype; let us know the power of the Mystery, and
for what Christ died.
V. Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us. Let us
become God's for His sake, since He for ours became Man. He assumed the worse
that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty
might be rich; 2 Corinthians 8:9 He took upon Him the form of a servant that we
might receive back our liberty; He came down that we might be exalted; He was
tempted that we might conquer; He was dishonoured that He might glorify us; He
died that He might save us; He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who
were lying low in the Fall of sin. Let us give all, offer all, to Him Who gave
Himself a Ransom and a Reconciliation for us. But one can give nothing like
oneself, understanding the Mystery, and becoming for His sake all that He
became for ours.
VI. As you see, He offers you a Shepherd; for this is what your Good
Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep, is hoping and praying for, and
he asks from you his subjects; and he gives you himself double instead of
single, and makes the staff of his old age a staff for your spirit. And he adds
to the inanimate temple a living one; to that exceedingly beautiful and
heavenly shrine, this poor and small one, yet to him of great value, and built
too with much sweat and many labours. Would that I could say it is worthy of
his labours. And he places at your disposal all that belongs to him (O great
generosity!— or it would be truer to say, O fatherly love!) his hoar hairs, his
youth, the temple, the high priest, the testator, the heir, the discourses
which you were longing for; and of these not such as are vain and poured out
into the air, and which reach no further than the outward ear; but those which
the Spirit writes and engraves on tables of stone, or of flesh, not merely
superficially graven, nor easily to be rubbed off, but marked very deep, not
with ink, but with grace.
VII. These are the gifts given you by this august Abraham, this
honourable and reverend Head, this Patriarch, this Restingplace of all good,
this Standard of virtue, this Perfection of the Priesthood, who today is
bringing to the Lord his willing Sacrifice, his only Son, him of the promise.
Do you on your side offer to God and to us obedience to your Pastors, dwelling
in a place of herbage, and being fed by water of refreshment; knowing your
Shepherd well, and being known by him; John 10:14 and following when he calls
you as a Shepherd frankly through the door; but not following a stranger
climbing up into the fold like a robber and a traitor; nor listening to a
strange voice when such would take you away by stealth and scatter you from the
truth on mountains, Ezekiel 34:6 and in deserts, and pitfalls, and places which
the Lord does not visit; and would lead you away from the sound Faith in the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the One Power and Godhead, Whose Voice my
sheep always heard (and may they always hear it), but with deceitful and
corrupt words would tear them from their true Shepherd. From which may we all
be kept, Shepherd and flock, as from a poisoned and deadly pasture; guiding and
being guided far away from it, that we may all be one in Christ Jesus our Lord,
now and unto the heavenly rest. To Whom be the glory and the might for ever and
ever. Amen.
