Gibraltar, April 2011. To mark St George’s Day 2011, longstanding Constantinian Order chaplain, The Rt Rev Monsignor Canon Coronato Grima offers this reflection on the Order’s Patron Saint.
The Martyr: supreme embodiment of victory: Tropaiphoros. St George is presented as the quintessential Easter Saint. His is a victory over self, the world and Satan, achieved by becoming one with the Only One, Christ.
Becoming one with Christ is the fundamental vocation of the Church herself as the Bride. St George embodies this fundamental vocation and also is its realisation. He becomes the altar Christus by re-living the redemptive suffering and the humiliating death of Our Lord, the Great Witness, thus acceding to His glorification. By voluntarily laying down his life, he proves that the undermost powerlessness is a function of the uppermost power. This is indeed, perhaps, the major paradox which itself constitutes the Gospel, the Good News: the way down is the only way up; the way of self-denial is the only way to self-realisation; the way to death is the only way to life; the way to the cross is the only way to resurrection; the way to humiliation is the only way to glorification.
The city on a hill and the light on the lampstead materialise only if the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, and the yeast disappears into the flower. Only in this way can the disciple/community of the disciples become the conspicuous, unavoidable and effective signpost they are called to be and meant to be. Indeed the grain of wheat was unceremoniously thrown into the ground and meant to be. The earth opened up to receive the life-giving death and the city on the hill glowed with unsurpassed glory; the light shown with renewed intensity, the virgin mother gave birth and the woman triumphed over the beast (Apoc. 8). At the core of this seemingly physical impossibility lays total obedience to the Father’s will. Luke formulates this simple truth at the outset of his version of the Good News, when the messenger of God declares, what must have been in his own personal experience, “nothing is impossible to God” (1, 37), prompting Mary’s self-definition as the humble slave of the Lord who abides by His will.
Obedience to the Father, the liberating and ennobling attitude, is considered by Paul as “being in Christ” and no longer a mere “following” of the Master. It is a passing from the sequela Christi to the imitatio Christi as testified by the life and the death of the martyr. This “being-in-the-Mast er” is in fact a “being-surrounded by His infinite love and being grasped by his love to me” (2 Cor. 5, 14). It is from this high point that everything needs be considered. This high point is personified in the fearless stand taken by St George.