Christ is Risen indeed.
And what could be more fitting this day than the joyous Easter hymn, “Jesus Christ is Risen Today”? The video below features the amazing fresco of The Resurrection by Piero della Francesca. The Huddersfield Choral Society & Joseph Cullen provide the music.
May the Lord bless you on this Solemnity of His Resurrection!
Featured image top of page: The Resurrection of Christ, by Piero della Francesca, c. 1463-1465
Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep.
These are the opening sentences in the non-scriptural reading in today’s Office of Readings. The author, it seems, is unknown. The liturgy simply tells us that it is “an ancient homily on Holy Saturday.” The description rings true. Holy Saturday is not quite like any other day in the liturgical calendar. We experience a pause after the intense liturgical activity of Holy Thursday and Good Friday. There is a sense of expectancy, and, as the author of the reading above put it, “a great silence and stillness.”
So it seems, to us. If we read on, we see that The King may appear, to us, to be “asleep” but that is not really the case:
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory.
The period between Death and Resurrection is one of stillness and waiting in our world, but Jesus doesn’t rest. And why would Christ, fresh from crucifixion and death, seek out Adam and Eve? It does seem like something strange, doesn’t it? Our homilist shows him telling out first parents:
I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image.
Christ addresses these words here to Adam and Eve, but He also addresses them to us, their descendants. God did not create our first parents in order to hold them “prisoner in hell.” Nor did he create any of us for that purpose. Out of his love for all of us he is calling us away from Death: Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.
“The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory.“
The Harrowing of Hell or Christ in Limbo, by Albrecht Durer, 1510
The picture our homilist paints here of Christ is a reflection of what Jesus says of himself in the Gospels. Consider this passage from the Gospel of Matthew:
If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. (Matthew 18: 12-13)
This is one of numerous passages that show us how intent Our Lord is on gathering us to himself. We often speak of ourselves as “seeking God,” but that’s not really the way it works, we’re deceiving ourselves. The Benedictine Mark Barrett in his book Crossing: Reclaiming the Landscape of Our Lives says:
Biblical images of God – shepherd, farmer, lover – always make God the one who is active. He takes the initiative . . . God is the seeker, and we are the object of the search. This is the strangest lesson of all.
Yes, something strange is happening. While our world seems silent and still, under the surface Our Lord is working out of our view to bring back all his lost sheep. We might want to take some time during the quiet of Holy Saturday to meditate on Christ’s saving action, and prepare ourselves to return to him when the Resurrected Lord comes back for us on Easter Sunday.
Feature image top of page: Christ in Limbo, by Fra Angelico, c. 1450
The Triduum & Easter 2022:
It seems all too easy for us sometimes to see the Apostles, in their bumbling humanity, as almost comic figures. They certainly don’t appear too dignified, for instance, when they argue over which one of them is greatest (Luke 22:24, Mark 9:33, etc.); they look almost like clamoring children, who are clearly missing the point of their Master’s teaching. We see another example in last evening’s Holy Thursday reading from John’s Gospel (John 13:6-10), where Peter just can’t understand what Jesus means when he washes the Apostles’ feet.
Matthew’s Gospel shows us a further instance of Apostolic confusion in its account of the Last Supper. After the Apostles have assembled for the meal with Jesus, the Lord says a remarkable thing: “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” (Matthew 26:21) Were it not so serious a moment, we might be tempted to laugh a little at the Apostles all frantically asking “Is it I, Master?” (Matthew 26:24). On the one hand, you would think that they knew their own hearts, on the other, well . . . maybe they’re on to something.
As it happens, not all of them doubt. Peter confidently asserts, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.” (Matthew 26:33) He’s in for a rude awakening: Jesus gently corrects the man he named “the Rock”, saying “Truly, I say to you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times” (Matthew 26:34). And of course, Peter does just that. The other Apostles, as it turns out, had a better understanding of their own weakness.
Yes, it tempting to put a comic spin on the Apostles’ reactions, but that would be a mistake, and not simply because they are holy people to whom we owe respect. When Jesus says to them, “You will all fall away” (Matthew 26:31), he’s not speaking only to his Apostles, but to all of us who have been his disciples in the millennia since, as well as all those in the years to come. They all betrayed him; we all will betray him; I betray him (is it I, Lord?). Constantly. That’s why we need the Sacrament of Confession.
“Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” (Matthew 26:21)
“The Last Supper” by the Master of Portillo
That’s also why we venerate the Cross and meditate on Christ’s suffering on Good Friday: because on the Cross Jesus died for us, because of our betrayals, because we fall away . . . because it is I, Lord; I fall away, not just three times, but over and over again.
O Jesus, Who by reason of Thy burning love for us
hast willed to be crucified
and to shed Thy Most Precious Blood
for the redemption and salvation of our souls,
look down upon us here gathered together
in remembrance of Thy most sorrowful Passion and Death,
fully trusting in Thy mercy;
cleanse us from sin by Thy grace,
sanctify our toil,
give unto us and unto all those who are dear to us our
daily bread,
sweeten our sufferings,
bless our families,
and to the nations so sorely afflicted,
grant Thy peace,
which is the only true peace,
so that by obeying Thy commandments
we may come at last to the glory of heaven. Amen.
Featured image top of page: Christ Carrying the Cross, by Titian, 1575
The Triduum & Easter 2022:
He said to them, “But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one. For I tell you that this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was reckoned with transgressors’; for what is written about me has its fulfilment.” And they said, “Look, Lord, here are two swords.” And he said to them, “It is enough.” (Luke 22:36-38)
I often find it easy to identify with Peter and the other Apostles when they are slow to catch on to what their Master is saying. Take the passage above, for example, from Luke’s account of the Last Supper. There’s an almost comical quality to their too literal understanding of Christ’s sword imagery. I picture Jesus shaking his head, with just a hint of a wry smile, as he says “It is enough.”
And yet this is a very serious moment. It represents the Lord’s last instructions to his closest associates before he goes out to meet a horrifying death. And later that same evening, Peter uses one of those two swords. Int the Garden of Gethsemane, he mutilates a man in the gang that has come to arrest Jesus. Nobody smiles at that.
“But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one.” (Luke 22:36)
St. Peter Cuts Off Slave’s Ear, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, c. 1300
In the passage below from John’s Gospel, one of the readings at this evening’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper, we see something very similar:
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded.
He came to Simon Peter; and Peter said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not know now, but afterward you will understand.” Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.”
Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but he is clean all over; and you are clean, but not every one of you.” (John 13:3-10)
When he takes on the servile task of washing the Apostles’ feet, Jesus doesn’t simply speak. He acts out his message, in the manner of an Old Testament prophet. He is showing the Apostles through his example that the purpose of their office is to serve, and not to exalt themselves. As Christ came to serve, so must they.
But look what happens next. Jesus notes that Peter does not understand what his Lord is doing. Peter, in turn, confirms it with a curious mixture of pride and humility. He is indignant that his Master should lower himself in this way! Jesus tells him, in effect, that this is the price of discipleship. At this point Peter, thinking that now he gets it, goes to the opposite extreme: in that case, wash everything! As in the passage from Luke, Christ seems, in effect, to shake his head patiently and move on.
There are many other examples like these in the Gospels. All too often, Peter and the other Apostles just don’t understand. Then, when they think they finally do get it, well, no, they still don’t understand. And yet, these are the men Jesus has chosen to carry on his mission.
This tells us something about what it is to be human. None of us can figure it all out on our own. We need the Power of the Father, the Saving Grace of Christ, and the Guidance of the Holy Spirit. That’s why the Peter we see in the Acts of the Apostles is so much more consistent and confident. He has experienced the Power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (see Acts chapter 2). The Peter we see after Pentecost is much more believable as the Rock upon whom Christ will build his Church (see Matthew 16:18).
The washing of the feet also points to the much greater events that are about to unfold. Christ’s death on the Cross was a servile and degrading form of execution. Roman citizens, St. Paul for instance, underwent the more dignified penalty of beheading with a sword. Christ’s self-sacrifice was the ultimate act of Service, because it was all for us:
Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
Who can blame Peter for finding that hard to accept? But eventually he does accept that Christ came to serve, through God’s Grace. I pray that I also, in the commemoration of Christ’s Passion and the glory of his Resurrection, find the grace to understand and to accept His service to me, and to follow his example in my own life.
The Triduum & Easter 2022:
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato:
Passus, et sepultus est. (Nicene Creed)
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis: He was also crucified for us. That brief statement in the Nicene Creed refers to one of the two most important events of all time. The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his Resurrection three days later form the fulcrum of human history.
We commemorate the Crucifixion Friday of this week, Good Friday. Our penitential and liturgical preparation for that event began five weeks ago, on Ash Wednesday. It will build in intensity over the next few days to reach its culmination at the end of the week. Fasting, the Stations of the Cross, and the Veneration of the Cross will mark the Death of Jesus. Next, the silent, watchful waiting of Holy Saturday. Finally, we come to an explosion of joy in the Easter Vigil and the services of Easter Sunday.
Numerous composers over the centuries have looked for ways to invest the bare statement of the Nicene Creed with that intensity. Howard Ionescu of Winchester College gives us two examples. He contrasts Johann Bach in his Mass in B Minor, and Antonio Lotti in his Crucifixus. Bach, he says, “depicts Christ’s suffering in continuous descending chromatic lines, with the voices plummeting to the depths of their vocal range and then hushed to a silence.” Antonio Lotti (whose Miserere we heard last week) goes in a different direction. Ionescu says of his Crucifixus:
Written for 8 voices, each part enters bar by bar starting with the lowest basses, piling up the musical texture with suspensions (musical crunches in the harmony) and creating a piercing intensity by the time the highest voice enters.
Bach’s setting creates a powerful impression of the living spirit departing the body as it dies. Lotti’s composition instead feels like the Divine Soul of Jesus building up to the point where it bursts the confines of its human body.
Both treatments are extraordinarily beautiful and moving musical representations of the Passion and Death of Christ. Bach’s O Sacred Head Surrounded was our final musical selection of Lent last year, however, so we’ll give Lotti the honor this time around. His Crucifixus will be the last music we share on this site until we celebrate the Resurrection next Sunday.
The NMH choir sings Lotti’s Crucifixus in the clip below.
And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:40-41)
One could make a good case that many of the purported reforms of the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council were not a good idea. I admit, I did once compare the so-called Spirit of Vatican II to a rabid raccoon. On the other hand, I’m not a rad-trad, either. Some recent reforms are, in fact, improvements. The restoration of the Easter Vigil to Holy Saturday evening after dark, for instance (it had become customary to celebrate it Saturday morning). Granted, this reform dates from before Vatican II. Pope Pius XII instituted it a few years before the council, in 1955. It was a part, however, of the movement of liturgical reform that culminated in the Mass of Paul VI fifteen years later.
We can see another positive (or at least more positive than negative) change in today’s liturgy. Passion Sunday used to be the Sunday before Palm Sunday (as I discuss at further length here). Now the two liturgical observances share the Sunday before Easter.
The downside of the change is that we have lost the clear demarcation Passion Sunday used to give us between the earlier part of Lent and Passiontide. We gain something, however, from seeing the joyful palm-waving crowd welcoming Jesus and the angry crowd demanding his death in the same liturgy. We see a reflection in today’s mass of the struggle within each of us between the desire for salvation and the allure of sin.
Let’s start with those two crowds. I used to wonder as to what extent both crowds were composed of the same people. If they were the same, what had changed their minds in so short a time? After my last post on the subject, a reader convinced me that the two crowds did largely consist of different members. At the very least, the disciples of Jesus dominate the Palm Sunday crowd; the Sanhedrin and their supporters the mob demanding that Pilate crucify Him.
That’s the literal import of the two events. Scripture works on multiple levels, however. What is the liturgy showing us by putting the two crowds together?
One key to the bigger picture is St. Peter, humble fisherman become fisher of men. As chief Apostle he plays a prominent part in all the Gospel accounts of the events of Holy Week. In this year’s reading, from the Gospel of Luke, we see Jesus telling him:
“Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded
to sift all of you like wheat,
but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail;
and once you have turned back,
you must strengthen your brothers.”
The Lord is entrusting Peter with a critical mission, but there’s a warning here, too. What does he mean by “once you have turned back”? Turned back from what? Peter doesn’t seem to notice, because be immediately blurts out: “Lord, I am prepared to go to prison and to die with you.” If only it were that simple. Peter must have been stunned by Jesus’ response:
“I tell you, Peter, before the cock crows this day,
you will deny three times that you know me.”
And, of course, Peter does just as Jesus says. He does turn back to strengthen his brethren in the end, but he has his ups and downs along the way. He genuinely wants to stand boldly in defense of his Lord, but fails at critical moments. He disavows any knowledge of Christ in response to the questions of a mere servant of the high priest. He and his fellow Apostles can’t stay awake when Jesus most needs their company. And of course, he is nowhere to be found when Christ is dying on the Cross. Matthew and Mark preserve Jesus’ summation of the situation when he finds his biggest supporters asleep on the job: “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41)
We can also see a reflection of ourselves in the two starkly different crowds in today’s separate Gospel readings. There’s a part of us that wants to welcome our Messiah with loud hosannas. There’s a part that, like the religious leaders of the time, fears that embracing Christ will get us into trouble with the human powers-that-be out in the world. There’s also a side of us that we see in both crowds. Both contain a large number of people who are not there from a sense of commitment to one side or the other. They are simply following the mob, they are Jesus’ proverbial man who builds his house on sand (see Matthew 7:26).
The liturgy shows us at the beginning of Holy Week what our challenge is going to be. We all start out with the cheering crowds waving palms. Will we stay with Jesus the whole time? Will we fail for a time, like St. Peter, but turn back to Christ? Will the crowd shouting “Crucify Him!” sway us to their side? Where will we stand in the end?
“Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 46: 53-54)
Many Years ago I taught in a (more or less) Catholic high school. One day a certain student wanted to know how many soldiers were in a Roman legion. Around 6,000, I answered. “Well,” he offered, “Jesus said that if he asked, his Father would send him twelve legions of angels.” I acknowledged that he had (see Matthew, 26:53). The student’s face then broke into a huge grin as he blurted out, “That’s a whole lot of angels!”
I wasn’t sure at the time, and I’m unsure still more than two decades later, what my student was getting at. Was he making a joke of some sort? Did he really admire Christ’s power to command the hosts of Heaven? I do know that Jesus was serious. His point wasn’t the exact number of angels he could summon. Now, I’m sure that the number twelve is meant to correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles, etc., but that’s secondary. Christ’s immediate point was that he had all the power he could want. He had the power to save Himself . . . if he chose.
It will be helpful to look at the context for the comment about legions of angels. Jesus’ affirmation of his authority over angelic armies comes during Matthew’s Passion Narrative. He is in the Garden of Gethsemane with his Apostles. At that moment Judas arrives, “and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people” (Matthew 26:47). Judas identifies Jesus with a kiss,
Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (Matthew 46: 50-54)
Jesus surrenders willingly to the violent mob, not because he can’t free himself, but because he chooses to surrender. He allows the crowd to take him, knowing that it means an agonizing death by crucifixion.
This is a good time to talk about the Passion of Jesus, by the way, because we are now in that part of the Liturgical Year that we call the Passiontide. This is the last two weeks of Lent, when we focus our Lenten observance more explicitly on the suffering and death of Jesus. The transition to Passiontide, unfortunately, is no longer as obvious as it was when we called the Fifth Sunday Passion Sunday. The TLM still follows the the traditional practice; in the ordinary form, however, Passion Sunday has now moved one week later to combine with Palm Sunday.
While it may not be as obvious as in the traditional arrangement, the liturgy is still pointing us more directly in the direction of events of the Triduum. Consider the Gospel reading for this past Sunday, the Woman Caught in Adultery from John’s Gospel (John 8:1-11). As in the Passion narrative we have a violent mob, eager for blood. The difference is, here Jesus does frustrate the crowd’s murderous designs, and he does it without so much as a single cohort of angels.
That’s not the only difference between the two passages. Isn’t it interesting that the woman Jesus saves really is guilty: she was caught in the act. Jesus himself, on the other hand, is totally without sin, and yet he allows himself to be taken. In fact, it is because of her sin (and mine, and yours) that Jesus surrenders his own life.
That doesn’t make sense, without the eyes of faith. But of course, “the wisdom of this world is folly with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19). And in fact, that surrender of his own innocent life is an act of power greater than anything the “wisdom” of this world can imagine. All the legions of angels together can’t match its power. For the sake of sinners such as the adulteress (and me, and you), Jesus Christ conquered Death.
Yes, Christ has freed us from death. The freedom he purchased for us by his own free choice, however, has a purpose. After he tells the woman, “Nor do I condemn you” Jesus adds, “Go and sin no more.” Our liberty in Christ isn’t license. He didn’t suffer and die on the cross in order to enable us to continue our lives of sin. He gave us freedom so that we, too, might freely choose the good. It’s an awesome gift, and an awesome responsibility.
This coming Sunday we will celebrate Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. Over the week that follows we will relive the events of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. Let’s remember that, if he chooses, Jesus can ask his Father for twelve legions of angels. Instead, Jesus chooses to suffer and die: not because he’s guilty, but because we are.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to thy steadfast love;
according to thy abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions. (Psalm 51:1)
And what transgressions they were! King David had used trickery and deceit to send Uriah the Hittite to his death. He had, in fact, murdered his loyal soldier in order to hide his own adultery. Tradition tells us that David composed Psalm 51 as an expression of sorrow and repentance for the wicked deed. We often refer to the psalm as the Miserere (“Have mercy”) because that’s its first word in the Latin Vulgate Bible.
It seems natural to associate King David’s great psalm of repentance with the penitential Season of Lent. As it happens, many composers have written musical settings for the Miserere. The most famous musical treatment of the psalm was composed by Gregorio Allegri in the 1630s. I have posted various performances of Allegri’s Miserere over the last few years (most recently here). Last year I also posted the lesser-known (but still powerfully beautiful and moving) setting by Pergolesi . I’m continuing that tradition this Lent by sharing yet another setting for the Miserere, this one by Antonio Lotti.
Lotti may not be well-known today (at least to those of us who, like me, are not music history experts), but he was (it seems) an important and influential composer and teacher in his day. He lived from 1667-1740. He spent his entire musical career (except for a brief period in Dresden from 1717-1719) at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice as a singer, organist and, eventually, maestro di cappella.
Reliable information about Lotti the man is somewhat spotty. Biographical accounts over the years have contained some documented factual information, with a healthy admixture of less reliable “oral tradition.” For example, biographers have claimed that Lotti influenced the music of J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel. All we know for sure, however, is that Bach and Handel both had copies of Lotti’s Missa Sapientiae. While it’s a reasonable guess that they admired his work, there’s no direct evidence of influence.
There’s also an 1854 biography by Francesco Caffi, which tells us that aspiring musicians sought out Lotti as a teacher. He lists Domenico Alberti, Benedetto Marcello, Giovanni Battista Pescetti, Baldassare Galuppi, Giuseppe Saratelli and Jan Dismas Zelenka as students. And maybe they were. Zelenka, at least, also owned a copy of Lotti’s Missa Sapientiae.
There’s one thing we know for sure about Antonio Lotti. He composed beautiful and moving music. His Miserere, for instance, in which the combined voices of the chorus powerfully express the sorrow and penitence of King David. In the clip below László Matos conducts Prelude Choir Budapest in a performance of the first section of Lotti’s Miserere.
Tough Love and Unconditional Love
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’ (Luke 15:23-24)
Who hasn’t heard, or at least heard of, Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son? I’ve encountered people with no experience of Christianity whatsoever who are familiar with the story of the profligate son and the forgiving father from Luke chapter 15. Jesus’ characters bring to life some universal human experiences. Many of us have been the foolish, headstrong son. We may also have grown up to be the father anxious for the return of his erring offspring. Let’s not overlook the resentful “good” brother. All of us have probably played more than one of these roles at some point in our own lives.
It’s not surprising that Jesus’ story has become so well known. There’s something for everyone there, and many levels of meaning. As it happens, the Parable of the Prodigal Son was this past Sunday’s Gospel reading. When I heard it along with the other readings for the 4th Sunday in Lent, it got me thinking. Specifically, it brought to mind the concept of tough love.
The activist Bill Milliken first popularized the term “tough love” in 1968. Milliken had spent a lot of time working with addicts. He had found that often the best approach was not to shield them from the consequences of their bad choices. Once they had made themselves truly miserable, they were ready to get serious about turning their lives around. Milliken famously characterized the attitude of tough love as:
I don’t care how this makes you feel toward me. You may hate my guts, but I love you, and I am doing this because I love you.
Tough love has enjoyed something of a mixed reception over the years. Many supporters point out, correctly, that individuals intent on following an immoral or self-destructive course generally don’t want to change. Very often they won’t change until the pain their actions cause themselves become unbearable. When we indulge them in order to keep on friendly terms, we’re actually enabling their ruinous behavior.
Critics point out in turn, with some justification, that a strong relationship of trust and love is the most essential thing. Without such a relationship, the tough love approach is likely to do more harm than good. We will simply drive the suffering person away.
The 4th Sunday of Lent’s scripture readings suggest that we need a robust mixture of both approaches. We see the love, for instance, in the reading from from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians:
And all this is from God,
who has reconciled us to himself through Christ
and given us the ministry of reconciliation,
namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
not counting their trespasses against them
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)
The word reconciliation, however, implies a prior separation. How does that separation happen? Take a look at the first reading from Joshua (Joshua 5:10-12). The Hebrews are ready, after forty years in the wilderness, to enter the Promised Land. During that forty years God has fed his people with divine food, manna from Heaven.
No longer. From now on the Hebrews will need to feed themselves from the “produce of the land.” God has built up a relationship of trust and love with them over four decades. He has fed them in much the same way parents feed their children. Now they need to take up adult responsibility.
We know from the books that follow Joshua in the Old Testament that they did not always exercise that responsibility wisely. As a consequence, all the Hebrews eventually suffer subjugation by foreign powers, and exile from the Promised Land. Most of the tribes never return. It’s a harsh lesson. The members of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi who do return, however, have learned the bitter lessons of defeat and exile. They recommit themselves more deeply to the relationship their ancestors enjoyed with their loving Creator. Eventually, the Divine Savior is born in their midst.
This same dynamic plays out vividly in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke, 15:1-3; 11-32). A young man takes advantage of his father’s love, and demands to receive his inheritance immediately. He then goes out on his own, and wantonly squanders his inheritance. Bad choice. He eventually needs to take a job feeding another man’s pigs just to keep from starving to death. He finally “hits rock bottom” and decides to change his life. The repentant son knows that he has destroyed his claim to sonship. At the same time, because of the love and respect he has for his father, he trusts that his father will treat him with compassion.
For his part, the father allows his son to face the consequences of his actions. He doesn’t intervene when the young man is “swallowing up his property with prostitutes,” as the resentful elder brother puts it. Nor does he come to rescue him from the pigsty. The father knows that his son won’t truly understand how bad his choices have been until he faces the full consequences of his actions. It’s only then that he will freely commit himself the right path.
Once the son does finally understand, and decides to turn his life around, the father is waiting. Not only is he waiting, he’s actively on the look-out. The eager father “ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” He restores the son to his place in the family, and throws a big feast in celebration.
The readings from the 4th Sunday of Lent show us a Father who fully embraces tough love, but who is also fully committed to an unconditionally loving relationship. A full commitment to both may seem impossible for us, “but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). He gives us complete freedom to choose our own course. We are free to choose against his wishes. We are free even to choose the eternal desolation of Hell.
But He wants us to choose to come to Him, all of us (1 Timothy 2:4). Once we make that choice He will not only welcome us, He’ll come to meet us. He’ll throw a feast in our honor. As Jesus himself says, “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 5:7).
In a post earlier this week (“Our Goal is The Resurrection: Ain’t No Grave“) I suggested that we could look at the Season of Lent as representing our time of exile in this fallen world. The 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday, is a reminder in the midst of that exile that God has promised us a new life of eternal joy, if we persevere. We might be feeling the tough love right now, but our Father is more than willing to come and welcome us on the road home.
Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning;
exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast. (Introit for the 4th Sunday of Lent)
Why rejoice in the middle of Lent? Isn’t Lent a solemn and penitential season? And haven’t we banned Allelu . . . um, I mean the “A Word” until the Easter Vigil? What’s up with Laetare Sunday?
Good question. Yesterday’s mass opened with the introit at the top of the post, which comes from Isaiah 66:10. The first word of the introit in Latin is laetare, “rejoice,” for which reason we have long called the fourth Sunday Laetare Sunday. On this particular Sunday a priest may wear rose colored vestments (which can look suspiciously like pink to those who are not in the know). It does seem out of place in the middle of Lent.
The primary reason for the (admittedly, subdued) theme of rejoicing on the fourth Sunday of Lent is as a reminder of where we’re heading. We have just passed the midpoint of the penitential season. The Church is reminding us that our goal, the joy of the Resurrection at Easter, is almost in sight. Don’t lose hope!
As always, we can find other levels of meaning. We can look at Lent, for instance, as representing our time of exile in this world. Here we “dwell in the world, yet are not of the world,” as the Letter to Diognetus puts it. The joy-tinged reminder of our goal that we encounter on Laetare Sunday is like the promise of Hope that we find in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. The flash of rose against somber purple is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It’s a distant glimpse of Heaven amidst the gloom of our fallen world.
I chose today’s musical selection with that idea In mind. This is a little unlike my usual music posts. Ok, it’s a lot unlike my usual music posts. A gospel song with banjo, guitars, and mandolin is a clear contrast to the usual classical pieces. Kind of like the difference between bright rose pink and dark purple. In any case, I like the evocative way this song expresses our longing for Resurrection and for the Presence of Jesus as we experience the darkness that surrounds us in this life. Not only that, it really rocks.
This performance is from the Southern Gospel Revival Series. Jamie Wilson sings lead and plays the banjo. Courtney Patton, Drew Kennedy, Ben Hester, Marty Durlam, and Jesse Fox are the backing musicians.
[feature image at top of post from pixabay.com]
