iacobusm Lent and Easter, The Triduum

Something Strange is Happening – Holy Saturday

 Something Strange 

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.

 Jesus Doesn’t Rest 

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

 In Search of the Lost Sheep 

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)

God is Seeking Us

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:

Christ Came to Serve – Holy Thursday
Is it I, Lord? – Good Friday
Have a Blessed Easter! (Jesus Christ is Risen Today)
iacobusm Lent and Easter, The Triduum

Is it I, Lord? – Good Friday

Is it I, Lord?

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.

We All Betray Him

    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

It is I, Lord

     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: 

Christ Came to Serve – Holy Thursday
Something Strange is Happening – Holy Saturday
Have a Blessed Easter! (Jesus Christ is Risen Today)
iacobusm Lent and Easter

Legions of Angels, the Adulteress, and Christ’s Sacrifice

                    Christ and the Adulterous Woman, by Nicholas Poussin, 1653

“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)

 Legions of Angels 

     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.

 

 How Then Should The Scriptures Be Fulfilled ?

The Arrest of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, studio of Giuseppe Cesari, c.1600

     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.

 

 The Passiontide 

     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.

   

 The Guilty And The Innocent 

King of Sorrows, by William Burton Shakespeare, 1897

     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.

 

 

iacobusm Lent and Easter, The Triduum

Is it I, Lord? (Good Friday)

   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 know their own hearts, on the other, well . . . maybe they’re on to something.

“Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” (Matthew 26:21)

“The Last Supper” by the Master of Portillo

     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.  Constantly.  That’s why we need the Sacrament of Confession.

     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.

(Feature image top of page: “Christ Carrying the Cross”, by Hieronymous Bosch c. 1490)

iacobusm Lent and Easter, The Triduum

Christ Came To Serve (Holy Thursday)

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)

“St. Peter Cuts Off Slave’s Ear” by Duccio (c. 1300)

     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.  In the passage above, 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, 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 to mutilate a man in the gang that has come to arrest Jesus; nobody smiles at that.

     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 but 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.  After Jesus notes that Peter does not understand what his Lord is doing, Peter 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, and then 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: Peter and the other Apostles just don’t understand; then when they think they’ve finally got 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. When we see the same Peter acting with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles (see for instance Acts 2:14-36), we see a more consistent and confident Apostle, much more worthy to be the Rock on which Christ builds his Church.

“If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” (John 13:8)

“Christ Washing Disciples Feet” by Giotto (c. 1305)

     The washing of the feet also points to the much greater events that are about to unfold.  Christ’s death on the Cross, a servile and degrading form of execution (Roman citizens, such as St. Paul, underwent the more dignified penalty of beheading with a sword), 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, through God’s Grace.  I pray that I also, in the commemoration of Christ’s Passion and 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.