Monday, 12/7/15
Today we honor St.
Ambrose who had been a catechumen as a boy, but didn’t go on to be baptized,
although his sister became a nun. As a young man he became a very capable
governor of northern Italy where he served in Milan with Gratian, the emperor
of the West.
From 350 to 374, the
church in Milan had been led by Auxentius, an Arian bishop, who repeatedly told
the people that Jesus was no more than a good man. When Auxentius died, Emperor
Gratian told Ambrose to gather the Christians and Arians together, to see if
they could chose a new bishop whom both sides found acceptable.
As both sides were voicing their views,
a boy’s voice rang out, saying, “Let the Governor be our bishop.” All the
people suddenly fell in with the boy’s suggestion, and Ambrose was baptized the
next day, and made a bishop the following day.
Since the people had
not been taught to see Jesus as the Son of God, Ambrose saw a great need to train
people to see Christ as more than human. Now, for years he had been in daily attendance
of the emperor, always genuflecting before him, and serving him with golden
utensils. That gave him the idea
of commanding people to honor the
Blessed Sacrament with all the rituals they followed when coming near the
emperor.
It worked well, with
people immediately catching on to bowing and genuflecting before the Eucharist.
However, they lost all intimacy with Christ. While attending Mass, they had
formally felt they were lying next to Jesus hearing him whispering to them.
Now they heard the usher shouting, “Bow, bow, bow!”
No comments:
Post a Comment