Redeem Me, O Lord: From False Altars to the Cross
MASS Rédime me
LESSON1 Daniel 9: 15-19
GOSPEL St John 8: 21-28
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
Beloved in Christ,
Holy Mother Church places upon our lips today the cry of the Introit: “Redeem me, O Lord, and have mercy on me; for my foot hath stood in the direct way: in the churches I will bless the Lord.” It is the voice of the Psalmist; it is the voice of St Clement; it is the voice of every penitent soul in Lent.
We begin at the Collecta in the ancient Basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano, rising within the Roman Forum itself—once the heart of pagan imperial life. The basilica was fashioned from the templum Romuli and the templum sacrae urbis. What had been consecrated to the cult of empire was claimed for Christ and dedicated to the holy physician-martyrs, Cosmas and Damian. The very stones preach conversion: what is diseased may be healed; what is profaned may be restored.
From there the stational pilgrimage proceeds to Basilica of San Clemente, built over the house of the martyr whose name we utter in the Canon of the Mass. Beneath that basilica lie layers of history: a Roman domus associated by tradition with Clement; beneath that, the chilling memory of an altar to Mithras erected in an attempt to profane the Christian gathering-place during persecution. And yet, under Constantine, the Cross triumphed. The altar of false light gave way to the altar of the true Light.
This is no antiquarian detail. It is a parable of the soul.
Under the surface of our own lives lie older foundations: habits, compromises, idols tolerated in the dark. Lent is the descent through those layers. It is the excavation of the heart. What false altars have been erected there? What devotions to self, comfort, ambition, resentment, or impurity still stand where Christ once reigned?
St Clement gathered Christians secretly in his house. “In the churches I will bless the Lord.” The Church, before she was basilica, was assembly; before she was monument, she was sacrifice. And Clement sealed that witness with martyrdom, cast into the sea with an anchor tied about his neck. The world sought to silence him; instead, his name is spoken daily in the Eucharistic prayer. Such is the victory of redemption.
The Epistle gives us Daniel’s great penitential prayer: “We have sinned, we have committed iniquity… O Lord, hear; O Lord, be appeased; harken and do.” Daniel does not blame the Babylonians. He does not excuse the people. He does not dilute guilt. He confesses it.
That is the grammar of Lent.
Notice the humility: “It is not for our justifications that we present our prayers before Thy face, but for the multitude of Thy tender mercies.” Daniel stands before the desolation of Jerusalem and knows that the ruin is deserved. Yet he also knows that mercy is greater than sin.
And the Gospel intensifies the urgency. Our Lord declares: “If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin.” Three times the phrase falls: die in your sin. There is nothing sentimental here. There is no suggestion that unbelief is harmless. To refuse the Light is to remain in darkness; to reject the Redeemer is to remain unredeemed.
“You are from beneath; I am from above.” The distinction is stark. Lent confronts us with it. We cannot belong simultaneously to the world’s logic and to Christ’s truth. We cannot serve the altar and the idol.
Yet the Gospel also contains promise. “When you shall have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall you know that I am He.” The lifting up—His crucifixion—is revelation. The Cross is not only sacrifice; it is disclosure. There we learn who He is: the obedient Son who does always what pleases the Father. And there we learn who we are: sinners in need of redemption.
The Collect makes the point with severe clarity: “Grant… that Thy household, which, to afflict the flesh, abstains from food, may, by following justice, fast from sin.” To fast from food but not from sin is parody. To abstain from meat yet feast on gossip, pride, impurity, or bitterness is contradiction. The bodily fast is medicine; the true fast is moral.
The Preface of Lent tells us why: “By this bodily fast, Thou dost curb our vices, lift up our minds, and bestow on us strength and rewards.” Fasting is not self-punishment. It is reordering. It is the restoration of hierarchy within the soul. Spirit over flesh. Grace over appetite. God over self.
And how tenderly the liturgy gathers the whole communion of saints into this struggle: the Blessed Virgin, St Joseph, Peter and Paul, Clement and all the martyrs, the living and the dead. Lent is never solitary. We descend into the ruins of our heart accompanied by the Church triumphant and suffering. We do penance not only for ourselves but for the desolations of the wider Jerusalem—the Church in her present trials, the world in its confusion.
“In the churches I will bless the Lord.” Clement blessed Him in secret assemblies. We bless Him in open basilicas. But the true church in which He must be blessed is the temple of the soul.
Today, therefore, let us pray with Daniel’s humility, Clement’s courage, and the Psalmist’s trust. Let us allow Christ to descend beneath our false altars and overturn them. Let us not die in our sin—but die to our sin.
For He who was lifted up upon the Cross was lifted up for this: to redeem us.
Rédime me, Dómine, et miserére mei.
Amen.
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