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Office Of Readings | Week 19, Thursday, Ordinary Time | A Reading From The Treatise Of Saint Gregory Of Nyssa On Christian Perfection | We Have Jesus Christ Who Is Our Peace And Our Light
‘Jesus Christ is our peace and our light.’
Saint Gregory of Nyssa draws together two biblical images of Christ—peace and light—and makes them measures of Christian authenticity. He begins with peace, taking his cue from Ephesians 2:14: ‘He is our peace, for he has made both one.’ Gregory treats peace not as an abstract quality but as the practical end of reconciliation. Christ has destroyed the ‘enmity’ between Jew and Gentile, and, more fundamentally, between humanity and God. That enmity, he says, must remain dead; resentment and grudges are signs of calling it back to life.
Gregory applies this both outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly, believers are to be reconciled even with those who oppose or harm them. Inwardly, they are to resolve the ‘civil war’ between flesh and spirit. Here he follows Paul’s teaching that the ‘wisdom of the flesh’ can be brought into obedience to God’s law (cf. Romans 8:6–7). When a person is reconciled within, body and soul aligned in the pursuit of virtue, he or she becomes peace—not merely at peace, but embodying it.
The second image is light. Christ, as ‘the true light’ (John 1:9), is utterly without deceit. His light is refracted through the virtues, which Gregory calls ‘rays of the Sun of Justice’ (cf. Malachi 4:2). These virtues dispel darkness, understood here as sin and moral compromise. Walking in the light means living openly and honourably, with nothing hidden or corrupt. For Gregory, this ‘illumination’ is not only personal; like light itself, it radiates outward, influencing and guiding others.
The theme of holiness completes the picture. If Christ is our holiness (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:30), then holiness must be visible in conduct, not just claimed in words. Holiness is demonstrated when thoughts, actions and desires are free from impurity. Gregory’s point is uncompromising: calling oneself a Christian is only truthful if one’s life reflects the peace, light, and holiness of Christ.
Gregory’s teaching challenges readers to examine their relationships, their inner conflicts, and the moral transparency of their actions. The unity he describes—within oneself, with others, and with God—is not achieved through sentiment but through deliberate transformation in the likeness of Christ.
A Reading From The Treatise Of Saint Gregory Of Nyssa On Christian Perfection | We Have Jesus Christ Who Is Our Peace And Our Light
He is our peace, for he has made both one. Since we think of Christ as our peace, we may call ourselves true Christians only if our lives express Christ by our own peace. As the Apostle says: He has put enmity to death. We must never allow it to be rekindled in us in any way but must declare that it is absolutely dead. Gloriously has God slain enmity, in order to save us; may we never risk the life of our souls by being resentful or by bearing grudges. We must not awaken that enmity or call it back to life by our wickedness, for it is better left dead.
No, since we possess Christ who is peace, we must put an end to this enmity and live as we believe he lived. He broke down the separating wall, uniting what was divided, bringing about peace by reconciling in his single person those who disagreed. In the same way, we must be reconciled not only with those who attack us from outside, but also with those who stir up dissension within; flesh then will no longer be opposed to the spirit, nor the spirit to the flesh. Once we subject the wisdom of the flesh to God’s law, we shall be re-created as one single man at peace. Then, having become one instead of two, we shall have peace within ourselves.
Now peace is defined as harmony among those who are divided. When, therefore, we end that civil war within our nature and cultivate peace within ourselves, we become peace. By this peace we demonstrate that the name of Christ, which we bear, is authentic and appropriate.
When we consider that Christ is the true light, having nothing in common with deceit, we learn that our own life also must shine with the rays of that true light. Now these rays of the Sun of Justice are the virtues which pour out to enlighten us so that we may put away the works of darkness and walk honorably as in broad daylight. When we reject the deeds of darkness and do everything in the light of day, we become light, and, as light should, we give light to others by our actions.
If we truly think of Christ as our source of holiness, we shall refrain from anything wicked or impure in thought or act and thus show ourselves to be worthy bearers of his name. For the quality of holiness is shown not by what we say but by what we do in life.
Christian Prayer With Jesus Christ
Lord Jesus Christ,
You are our peace, breaking down the walls that divide us.
Quell the quarrels in our hearts, heal our grudges,
and reconcile what is torn within us.
Shine upon us with the light of Your truth,
that our lives may reflect Your virtues
and give light to those around us.
Keep us in holiness of thought and action,
so that we may bear Your name with truth
and walk always in the day of Your presence.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Enmity – Deep-seated hostility or hatred; in Scripture, often referring to the state of opposition between humanity and God, or between divided groups.
Flesh and spirit – In Pauline thought, ‘flesh’ refers not simply to the body but to human nature inclined toward sin; ‘spirit’ refers to the human self renewed and led by God’s Spirit.
Wisdom of the flesh – A biblical phrase (cf. Romans 8:6–7) for thinking and desiring according to sinful self-interest rather than God’s will.
Civil war within our nature – Gregory’s image for the inner conflict between sinful desires and the call to virtue.
Sun of Justice – A messianic title from Malachi 4:2 (Hebrew 3:20) describing Christ as the source of righteousness and healing.
Works of darkness – Actions, attitudes, or habits that are morally corrupt or hidden in secrecy, opposed to the light of God’s truth.
Holiness – Separation from sin and dedication to God in thought, word, and deed; not just a status but a lived reality.
In his brief, summary account of Jesus’ appearances following his crucifixion and resurrection, Mark stresses the disciples’ disbelief and their reluctance to accept the fact of the resurrection. Mary Magdalene first tries to share the good news. The disciples do not believe her. The two disciples, who are probably the two who meet Jesus on the way to Emmaus (cf. Luke 24: 13-35), are similarly not believed when they tell of what they have witnessed. Finally, Jesus appears to the eleven apostles, upbraiding them for their lack of belief, before he goes on to command them to preach the Gospel to the whole of creation. The question of belief is closely tied to the mission to evangelize given to the apostles [ … ]
‘Death,’ says His Grace, ‘throws it all apart. For we are not as we should be. Faith requires our adjustment to God’s truth. God’s triumph in a very real sense requires in us the loss of our everything. Which, as with Mary at the other end of Jesus’s life, is God’s truth.’ The Gospel reading is of John 11: 1-45, which is a long passage, and His Grace’s homiletic theme commences in textual wilderness. Our brokenness – in this place – a family home. Our faith, our doubt, our death… The irruption – death, doubt, fear – within our precious scenes and our most intimate places. Our domesticity. His Grace speaks from the chair, as is a bishop’s prerogative, and says: ‘So much is obscure in the Gospels. We’re always reaching through them. We’re never there. Really, we never are. Our knowledge, our understanding, of the Gospels is never complete, and with each reading comes a new revelation. There are always new riches there. Just as there are between all of us, between myself and you. The Gospels are living texts. This is a part of the conversation we have with our own Christianity. It is a part of who we are in our relationship with Jesus. We are in this sense always on the brink. ‘So yes, there is plenty that doesn’t seem to make sense. As one of the order of bishops, we would be lying if we said that weren’t the case. They are not easy texts to encounter, if by that word we may signify something more than a superficial glancing off against, but rather a profound search for the word of God. The Gospels are written by people who had their own ideas, and often didn’t know what had really happened. Luke is quite explicit on this point. His is an investigation, from the explicitly claimed point of view of an historian, rather than that of a first-hand witness, who attempts, so he says, to set out an orderly account, out of the chaos, the sheer muddle, that has been handed down to him. It is possible to imagine Luke researching and composing his account after many years, when there has arisen a desire to know what exactly happened, and this implies a certain call to faith and certain demands of historicity, to historical exactitude. So in these different ways, the people of the first years of Christian faith are in the dark. There is also a decisive need to define the life of Jesus. And people didn’t get Jesus. The whole meaning of Christianity is only now beginning to take root throughout the composition. So much needs to be evangelized. The light shines almost in tentative fashion like that first star, which drew the wise men from the east to our Lord’s cradle. ‘John’s is widely held to be a very late Gospel. There are others who say that John’s Gospel might have been the first to acquire its true shape, because it most fully expresses Jesus, as we know him to be, as members of the Catholic Church. We don’t really know when any of this is being written, but we get a feel in John of a Gospel refined over many years, through a community. So there’s a lot going on there that I’d like you to think about. ‘What I would like to suggest to you is that, while within the Gospels we are often confronted with clues, guesswork, stories that have been handed down through so many people, and so in this sense we might find ourselves to be in the wilderness, this is the very desolate space itself to which we must give ourselves in order to experience Christ’s full redemption in our lives. I suggest it is for God’s glory that we do so. ‘As we become aware of ourselves, in this seminary, we find ourselves in a very secure, comfortable setting, and there are signs of Easter everywhere. Within the very fabric of these buildings, our Lord is risen; our Lord lives. But now this is our Lenten journey, where death enters, where death breaks us. We are to ride into Jerusalem in triumph, and then we are to be utterly broken, all hope gone, our hope extinguished. And really, I suggest to you, it is only by inhabiting this thought, as if we don’t know Easter is there, that our new life can follow, just when we have given up all hope, when every promise that Jesus made to us seems to have been cancelled. ‘And here now we have the story of Lazarus. I should like to suggest to you that we have a very powerful call now. In our very comfortable space, our domesticity, with all this comfort, where so very little might seem to happen each day, so it might seem to you, there is a disturbance within all of this comfort, and that is a disturbance within ourselves, and that is our call to Jesus. I think it is correct to say that our most comfortable places break in the light of Jesus from the inside, in order that we may take the necessary steps to be with Jesus. ‘Faith is not comfortable. I think that we can all receive the message of the rolling away of the rock from the tomb of Lazarus to say something of vital importance to ourselves concerning our openness to God’s love. The rock we roll away can come in all sorts of guises, but we know when we are blocked, and I firmly believe if we are truthful then we know where those blocks might be. ‘Next Sunday, which will be Palm Sunday, we process as it were to Jerusalem, to begin our Holy Week. Now as I speak to you we are on the brink. Even now, I suggest it might be very good for all of us to lay aside what we think we know, to fall apart a little, and so […]
Psalm 115 in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible presents a narrative that contrasts the living God of Israel with lifeless pagan idols. This psalm is part of the ‘Egyptian Hallel’ group, typically read during Passover, and reflects a time when the Israelites, despite facing mockery from neighboring peoples, reaffirm their faith in God [ … }
