Wednesday in the Octave of Easter

Readings: Acts 3:1-10; Ps 10:5-9; Luke 24:16-35

It seems fairly obvious from the scriptural accounts of Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances, that the risen Jesus is different from the Jesus his followers experienced before the crucifixion. Certainly, there is continuity- it is the same "person," but one who has changed as the result of the experience of dying and rising.

As a result of this change, his disciples who accompanied him on his journey along the back roads of Galilee, journeyed with him to Jerusalem, and who experienced first-hand the events of his passion and death, had to let go of the earlier Jesus so as to relate to the risen Christ in a new and different way.

You see, dear friends, the mystery of life in Christ is that Christ can live in you. He comes to live in you by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is not a throw-away line. The fact that Christ lives in you by the Holy Spirit’s power is emphasized by the fact that for Monday and Tuesday of the Easter Octave our first Mass readings from the Acts of the Apostles, are taken from the account of the first Christian Pentecost. In our reading from Acts this morning, we see the effects of Christ’s power exercised by Peter in healing the crippled man by enabling him to walk.

Our Gospel reading this morning from Saint Luke’s Gospel, which was written by the same inspired author who wrote Acts, is the scriptural teaching par excellence about relating to the risen Christ in a new way. We relate to the risen Christ in a new way because he relates to us in a new, more powerful way. The Eucharist is the sign and symbol of this new way of relating.

Like Mary Magdalene in yesterday’s Gospel, something that is a feature of many of Jesus’s early post-resurrection appearances, Cleopas and his companion do not recognize Jesus, despite being his disciples. Again, this shows that there is a difference between the resurrected Jesus and Jesus before the crucifixion.

This stranger, who “drew near and walked with them,” schooled them as to how the events of Jesus’s passion and death, which left the two discouraged if not quite in despair, were foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures.¹ They were convinced by this stranger's explanation. It was not until they invited him in, sat at table with him, that they recognized him in the bread blessed and broken.

We, too, this very morning will experience Jesus in the breaking of the bread. This is true whether you’re here in person or participating virtually. Your spiritual, or visual communion, is enough to allow you to recognize Jesus.

Today, the risen Lord invites us to a new relationship with him. Maybe our inability to gather together to celebrate these sacred mysteries due to the pandemic is an exercise in our not clinging to an outmoded, static, relationship with the risen Christ. Maybe through this troubling time, he is calling each of us, which means all of us together, to a new, closer, more dynamic and powerful relationship with him and with one another and, indeed, with the whole world.

What you won’t witness is a magic trick. What we see can only be seen through the eyes of faith, the very same “eyes” with which Cleopas and his companion recognized Jesus Christ risen and alive.

Perhaps the risen Christ bids us to never again take for granted his presence in the Eucharist. Maybe he wants us to realize the power he gives us in and through the Eucharist- a power wrought by the Holy Spirit, who is the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence among us, in us, and through us. When we eat this bread and drink this cup, the risen Lord comes to be present in us even more than he remains present in the tabernacle. His presence in us is meant to be a powerful, dynamic presence.

By receiving Holy Communion, the risen Christ is not content merely to be present in us; he gives himself to us so that through us he can be present to others. His presence is expressed in acts of service, acts of diakonia. Loving care and concern for others is the power of Christ.

I want to end this morning by noting that it was 30 years ago today that I was baptized. At the Easter Vigil of 1990, I was fully initiated into the Church of Jesus Christ. I have to say, that these decades, which constitute most of my adulthood have been a school of learning how to relate to the risen Christ in an ever-new way.

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1 Luke 24:15.^↩

Monday in the Octave of Easter

Readings: Acts 2:14.22-33; Ps. 16:1-2a.7-11; Matt 28:8-15

One of the earliest calumnies against Jesus’s followers was the accusation that they took his body out of the tomb and hid it and then claimed, in the absence of any credible evidence, that he rose from the dead. In our Gospel reading today, the inspired author of Matthew, writing about 50 years later, turns the table on this accusation. We must be careful, however, not to let Matthew's blaming be a cause for religiously-rooted antisemitism.

This attempt at contextualizing should not give rise to religiously-rooted antisemitism. The author of Matthew takes great care in singling out Jewish religious leaders. Besides, it seems all but certain that the author(s) of Matthew, too, is Jewish.

Matthew’s Gospel was written for and in the midst of what we might call a Christian synagogue. In this Gospel we encounter a on-going polemic against the Jewish authorities of the day. Hence, it is not surprise that “the chief priests’ are said to be guilty of bribing the guards, who, it seems, were eyewitnesses of Jesus’s resurrection, to say that the Jesus’s disciples came along while they were sleeping and took his body.¹

In addition to giving them a large sum of money in return for their false testimony, the chief priests also employed an element of blackmail: in exchange for their false testimony, the chief priests and the elders would vouch for the guards if the Roman governor of the unruly governate of Palestine learned of claims of Jesus’s resurrection and started to make inquiries.²

According to Matthew, Jesus only appears to the two Marys after they left the tomb in the wake of their encounter with the angel who informed them that Jesus was not in the tomb but was risen. The Gospel tells us that as a result of their encounter with the angel, the two women were “fearful yet overjoyed.”³ Fearful because they did not really know what it all meant. Overjoyed because just maybe Jesus was not dead but risen as they were told. Could it be?

As the women leave to go and tell the others that Jesus is not dead but alive and that he will meet them in their native Galilee, they run into the resurrected Lord in person. Upon encountering the Risen One, they fall down, embrace his feet, “and did him homage.”⁴ Their doubts, but not the fears, seem to be dispelled. Echoing the words of the angel, the risen Christ tells them “Do not be afraid.”⁵ Still repeating what the angel said, Jesus reiterates: “Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”⁶

But what about us? Those who believe without having the kind of concrete encounter Jesus’s first followers experienced? “Exalted at the right hand of God,” the Risen Lord has “poured” the Holy Spirit “forth.”⁷

The lengthy Scripture reading for this morning’s Office of Readings comes from the beginning of the First Letter of Saint Peter- the same Peter who testifies in our first reading on the day of the first Christian Pentecost. He writes about what is wrought by the Holy Spirit’s power:

Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of [your] faith, the salvation of your souls⁸

More importantly, he writes about just how salvation is achieved. He states that God, the Father, in his “great mercy” given us in and through Jesus Christ has given us

a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by the power of God are safeguarded through faith, to a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the final time⁹

Our salvation is not achieved by our own merits but through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who bore our infirmities, both spiritual and physical. Neither should this rebirth be a cause of pious sentimentalism. Just as the first Christians suffered calumnies such as being accused of faking Jesus’s resurrection, accusations of cannibalism regarding the Eucharist, and, from a pagan perspective, even atheism, we, too, suffer. The pandemic and its effects are more indicative of the kind of suffering we continue to endure, which is common to all of humanity, not specific to Christians.

While we rejoice in our rebirth, “for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ¹⁰

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1 Matthew 28:11-13.^↩
2 Matthew 28:14.^↩
3 Matthew 28:8.^↩
4 Matthew 28:9.^↩
5 Matthew 28:10.^↩
6 Matthew 28:10.^↩
7 Acts 2:33.^↩
8 1 Peter 1:8-9.^↩
9 1 Peter 1:3-5.^↩
10 1 Peter 1:6-7.^↩

Urbi et Orbi- Easter 2020

URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE
OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF
FRANCIS

Easter 2020

Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!

Today the Church’s proclamation echoes throughout the world: “Jesus Christ is risen!” – “He is truly risen!”.

Like a new flame this Good News springs up in the night: the night of a world already faced with epochal challenges and now oppressed by a pandemic severely testing our whole human family. In this night, the Church’s voice rings out: “Christ, my hope, has arisen!” (Easter Sequence).

This is a different “contagion”, a message transmitted from heart to heart – for every human heart awaits this Good News. It is the contagion of hope: “Christ, my hope, is risen!”. This is no magic formula that makes problems vanish. No, the resurrection of Christ is not that. Instead, it is the victory of love over the root of evil, a victory that does not “by-pass” suffering and death, but passes through them, opening a path in the abyss, transforming evil into good: this is the unique hallmark of the power of God.

The Risen Lord is also the Crucified One, not someone else. In his glorious body he bears indelible wounds: wounds that have become windows of hope. Let us turn our gaze to him that he may heal the wounds of an afflicted humanity.

READ THE ENTIRE ADDRESS

Triduum: Easter Vigil

Readings: Gen 22:1-18; Exo 14:15-15:1; Isa 54:5-14; Rom 6:3-11; Matt 28:1-10

Dear friends, without a doubt, this is the strangest Easter Vigil I’ve ever experienced. Nonetheless, despite the worldwide pandemic, Christ is risen. Alleluia.

To our Elect, Rachael, Amber, Stephanie, and Sawyer, I want to send you greetings and express our closeness to you during this Vigil. The Vigil at which you were to be baptized, confirmed, and receive your first Holy Communion. Our message to you is, stay close to Christ. Let him draw you nearer to himself during these trying times. My prayer for you is that you will emerge from these days of isolation and distancing more convinced than ever to clothe yourselves with Christ.

I am struck this evening by the words spoken by the angel to the two women and spoken again by the risen Christ to the same women: “Do not be afraid!”¹ Like the two Marys, who made their way to Jesus’s tomb early in the morning, we, too, “are seeking Jesus the crucified.”² Like them, you, too, might be struck by the seeming absence of the one who was crucified and died.

The absence we experience is not the absence of the empty tomb but that of an event that is 40 days down the road: Christ’s Ascension. Ten days after that we observe Pentecost when we celebrate Jesus’s sending the Holy Spirit upon his followers, something he promised to do. Who is the Holy Spirit if not the mode of Christ’s resurrection presence among us, in us, and through us? In other words, the Holy Spirit is the way Christ is present until he returns.

During the Last Supper, according to Saint John’s account, Jesus says this about the Holy Spirit to his disciples: “But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.”³ The masterworks of the Holy Spirit, of course, are the sacraments. The sacramental center is the Eucharist. Like the one to whom he bears constant witness, the Holy Spirit most often works in overlooked ways.

And so, we are not alone. God has not abandoned us in our hour of need. Instead, he chooses to enter into our suffering and to suffer alongside us. This is exactly what Jesus’s Incarnation is all about. Saint Melito of Sardis noted this in an ancient Easter homily:

For the sake of suffering humanity [Jesus] came down from heaven to earth, clothed himself in that humanity in the Virgin’s womb… Having then a body capable of suffering, he took the pain of fallen [humanity] upon himself; he triumphed over the diseases of soul and body that were its cause, and by his Spirit, which was incapable of dying, he dealt [humanity’s] destroyer, death, a fatal blow⁴

Despite being an important way any sanctification we might realize happens, suffering remains a great mystery. One cannot really listen to hear our first reading from Genesis about Abraham’s willingness to accede to God’s command to sacrifice his only son without being made uncomfortable. Our uneasiness should not be glossed over lightly. Rather, we should let ourselves be shocked and disturbed by it. Like all evil, however, the only way we can make any sense of this episode is by seeing it through the lens of Christ's cross: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”⁵

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, by Hendrick de Clerck, ca. 1575-1600

Nonetheless, suffering remains a great mystery. We need to grasp that God does not cause suffering to realize his purposes. Why should God, who is all good, violate the principle that one may not do evil so that good may come of it?

While Melito's encouraging words may seem like wishful thinking, our Christian hope bids us believe. It bears noting, yet again, that hope lies beyond optimism. Hope is that inexhaustible refusal that arises from the deepest well of our humanity that tells not only that this, too, shall pass but reassures, in the words of Julian of Norwich: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”⁶ Julian went on to note that “These words were said most tenderly, showing no manner of blame to me nor to any who shall be saved.”⁷

Who shall be saved? While it is utterly impossible to give a comprehensive answer to that question, we can be confident in these words of Saint Paul’s, taken from our epistle reading:

For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin⁸

If nothing else, this trying season should help us put away pious sentimentalism, which is a cheap substitute for faith, leading as it does to optimism while unable to produce genuine hope, which is the flower of faith that blossoms into the fruit of charity. Let us, too, surrender our moralism, which holds that God’s lovingkindness is facile and hinges on our relative goodness or badness. This is the kind of thinking that inclines a person so inclined to see in catastrophic events, like this pandemic, God’s punishment for evil. One who does this does not believe in the God of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that Christ bore our infirmities, physical and spiritual, as he hung on the cross. This is the Good News that frees us. This freedom, of necessity, is realized through the vicissitudes of existence. Life, after all, does have meaning!

In a few minutes, we will reach the moment for which all of this tremendously difficult Lent has been a preparation: the renewal of our baptismal promises. Once again, we will reject sin so as live in the freedom God has given us in and through Christ. We will also profess our faith in Christ Jesus, “who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered death and was buried, rose again from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

My sisters and brothers, as we enter into the Octave of Easter, relying on Divine Mercy, let us once again, during our present difficulties, together proclaim, using the words revealed to the Apostle of Divine Mercy, Saint Faustina: “Jesus, I trust in You.”

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1 Matthew 28"5; Matthew 28:10.^↩
2 Matthew 28:5.^↩
3 John 16:13.^↩
4 ICEL, The Liturgy of the Hours: Lenten Season/Easter Triduum/Easter Season, Vol. III, Office of Readings, Holy Thursday, 405.^↩
5 John 3:16.^↩
6 Julian of Norwich, Showings, XXVII.^↩
7 Ibid.^↩
8 Romans 6:5-6.^↩

Interlude: Holy Saturday

Much like Advent, Holy Saturday is representative of the situation in which we find ourselves vis-à-vis our salvation: we are waiting. But we don't wait as though nothing has happened. Indeed, what had to happen has happened, or at least hope bids us believe that it has. It seems to me that I have experienced this for myself, not just once or twice but any number of times and in ways both quiet and dramatic. Aren't these experiences subjective, maybe not able to withstand a withering critique? This is sometimes my fear, as I am sure it is the fear of other people of faith.

Much is made these days of the fact that it was the women among Jesus's disciples who did not run away or abandon him, either on the cross or after he was laid in the tomb. Of course, this overlooks the relative courage it took for Joseph of Arimathea and, if John's account is to be believed, Nicodemus, who was a member of the Sanhedrin, to ask Pilate for Jesus's body so they could mercifully bury it.

As many New Testament scholars and theologians have noted (I call to mind here Cynthia Crysdale's Embracing Travail: Retrieving the Cross Today), unlike Jesus's male followers, because they were counted as literally nobodies, his women disciples didn't face that same danger of themselves being arrested, humiliated, and possibly executed. I mention this only to balance the scales and not to diminish the steadfast faithfulness of the Lord's women disciples. Their faithfulness is demonstrated over and over again, particularly the fact it was the woman who materially supported Jesus and the twelve.

One inescapable fact, no matter which of the four accounts you read (keeping in mind that everything in Mark after the empty tomb is a later interpolation), women were the first witnesses of his resurrection. Indeed, Mary Magdalene is rightly identified as apostula apostulorum- this is highly significant! Getting back to Holy Saturday- the women were the first witnesses because not only did they go to see where Jesus was buried, they remained at his tomb. It seems fairly safe to assert that by hanging around and then coming back early the next morning they did not really know what to expect. It is this aspect that strikes me today: hanging around.

"When nothing we can do makes any difference and we are left standing around empty-handed and clueless," Eugene Peterson wrote, "we are ready for God to create." He continued- "When the conditions in which we live seem totally alien to life and salvation, we are reduced to waiting for God to do what only God can do, create." This is the experience of Holy Saturday. After the high drama of the Last Supper and the Via Crucis, we come to this quiet day unlike any other day of the year. Today almost nothing happens. It is a day of silence during which the memories of the events of the past few days echo in our minds and hearts. It can prompt the question: "Is it really real?" If so, "What does it all mean?"

One thing seems to clear, at least to me, the only the plausible theodicy (explanation of evil in light of the reality of God) is Jesus Christ crucified. Words, even poetic words, fall short of this great mystery. Like Lent itself, Holy Saturday is what Trevor Hudson has dubbed a "time-gift." We are given the quiet and calm of a Saturday, an interlude, to contemplate what we have seen and heard. Like the faithful women, today let us hang about not knowing what to expect and see what God will do at this time of worldwide pandemic.

Triduum: Good Friday

Prelude:

Until my Holy Thursday homily, I hadn't written anything since the coronavirus restrictions were put in place. Beyond not blogging, I have severely restricted my activity on other social media platforms. A big reason for this, frankly, is not really knowing what to say in the face of something this huge. It's okay not to know what to say. But with the Triduum here now and with my adjustment to circumstances, I hope to post more regularly.

Nonetheless, I am glad I took a pause and let reality sink in a bit. I don't mind admitting that I felt completely overwhelmed for about a week. I also realize that especially now there are so many things on-line that many people are positively drowning in options. As I have for the entire 15+ years of this blog, I urge you, dear reader, to take my offerings for what they're worth to you. As I have stated multiple times, if blogging did not benefit me personally, quite apart from the response of others, I wouldn't do it. There's something about seeing one's thoughts in objective form that helps to refine, clarify, and sharpen them.

I long ago gave up weighing in on the controversies of the day be they political, ecclesial, or cultural. Opinions are like bellybuttons; everyone has one. Of course, not all opinions are equal. But nobody's opinion is infallible, unless you are the Supreme Pontiff speaking ex cathedra on a matter of faith and morals. The world hasn't had one of those since 1950!

I don't mind admitting that I like to argue. Arguing is not a bad thing in and of itself. Arguments can be civil and robust. As a recent unpleasant experience showed me (again), most people, thinking their opinion unassailable, do not like to be challenged and take umbrage when anyone deigns to challenge them. Hence, arguing on-line is a waste of time. I don't mind stating my opinion that our loss of the ability to argue is one of the things that plagues us. We seem content to dictate to others what they should think instead of developing the robust ability to think.

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Like a lot of people, I have appreciated Pope Francis's worldwide pastoral care during this unusual time. I particularly benefited from his astounding Urbi et Orbi liturgy, which he celebrated mainly in a rainy and empty Saint Peter's Square. Participating in this virtually was what enabled me to regain my equilibrium. In his homily, the Holy Father said something that spoke to me directly, something that spoke to me about the fruitlessness of too much social media:

The tempest lays bare all our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of thinking and acting that supposedly “save” us, but instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with our roots and keeping alive the memory of those who have gone before us. We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity

Ah, "the antibodies we need to confront adversity"! I need spiritual nourishment, not junk food.

Crucifixion, by Andrea del Castagno, ca. 1450

On this Good Friday, God answers our question: "Where are you in all this?" by pointing us to Jesus on the cross. He is present wherever there is suffering. This is made very clear in two passages from Sacred Scripture: "For it was fitting that he, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering" (Hebrews 2:10) and "he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). Jesus suffers with us, alongside us.

My friends, we are the thieves! Hence, the choice placed in front of us is to mock God's seeming powerlessness or recognize God's act of solidarity with us in our suffering.

Yesterday, I focused on the word "apocalypse," pointing out that it means to unveil something previously concealed. We must ask ourselves, "What are these circumstances revealing in me, about me?" This is a question that can only be answered in silence. What this worldwide pandemic has revealed writ large is our vulnerability, the fact that we're not as strong as we think we are. I say "revealed" because this has always been true, but it is a truth that we hid from ourselves, veiled, as it were.

On this Good Friday, as on every Good Friday, we are invited to overcome our fascination with nothingness and behold the Crucified. As we say as we genuflect before each Station of His Holy Cross- "We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you, because, by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world."

Triduum: Holy Thursday

Readings: Exo 12:1-8.11-14; Ps 11;12-13.15-16bc.17-18; 1 Cor 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

In contemporary Western society, which is very media-driven, we use language in a fairly profligate way. Profligate, you might ask? Profligate means to use recklessly or wastefully. This is exacerbated by the widespread use of social media, which, of course, has its good and bad aspects. One example of this profligacy is the widespread use of the word “apocalypse” and its variants during this time of pandemic.

What “apocalypse” is usually taken to mean in this context is something like “the end of the world.” But we have another perfectly good big word we can use to refer to the end times: eschatological. The word “apocalypse” likely became associated with the end of time by being the name of the last book of the Bible. Even today in some English language translations, instead of “Revelation,” the last book of the Bible is sometimes given the title “Apocalypse.”

As the association indicates, an “apocalypse” is a revelation. Apocalypse means to unveil something previously concealed. In our Gospel this evening, we are faced with a very good example of an apocalypse. Jesus is unveiled as Lord by washing the feet of his disciples (in Saint John’s Gospel there are no apostles, only disciples). As Peter’s vehement response indicates, washing feet is the job of the lowliest of the low. But the “form of God,” according to the Scriptures, is that of a slave.¹

Rather than as set forth by the fevered imaginations of those who inhabit an overstimulated society, Jesus’s Lordship is revealed in ways that go unnoticed by most people most of the time. Even among those who notice, his unveilings are usually underappreciated if not overlooked entirely. The latter is indicative of the attitude, “Is that all?”

Let us examine the Eucharist as an apocalypse, an unveiling, of Jesus as Lord. It is not intuitively obvious to the casual observer that at the words of consecration the bread and wine, by the Holy Spirit’s power, are “transubstantiated” into Christ’s body and blood. There is no physical change in either substance, even at the sub-atomic level. To believe otherwise is to adhere to “physicalism,” which the Church teaches is an inadequate and inaccurate way of understanding the transformation in which we believe.

Jesus Washing the Feet of the Apostles, by Giovanni Stefano Danedi, ca. 1600-1700

What, then, is the “proof” that the bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood? Again, our Gospel for the beginning of the Sacred Triduum provides us a ready-to-hand one. Before setting out the proof, which is quite obvious, it bears noting that in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus’s washing his disciples’ feet serves as the “institution narrative.” In other words, unlike the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., Mark, Matthew, and Luke), in John Jesus does not take bread, bless and break it, and then bless wine giving it to them and saying: “This is my body. This is my blood.”²

The evidence that the bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood is that it makes those who partake of it his very Body. It is the life of Christ’s Body, which is lived in service, that is, diakonia, that provides convincing evidence to the world. This is summed up beautifully by the opening words of a traditional hymn, usually sung on Holy Thursday: Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est (“Where charity [and love are], God is present there”).³

The take-away this evening should be as obvious as the proof: serve others selflessly. Not only during times of extreme crisis, like the one we’re experiencing now, but all the time, there are people who need your help. In Christian parlance, this is called love of neighbor. The point of Jesus’s Parable of the Good Samaritan is relevant here: “Turn yourself into a neighbor.”⁴

“There is no need to speculate about who your neighbor is,” Tomáš Halik insists.⁵ “By overcoming your selfishness,” Halik continues, “by being close to people- particularly in their need- you can turn people into your neighbors…”⁶ This, too, is an apocalypse, an unveiling, something the does not and cannot happen by means of apologetics.

Tomorrow, on Good Friday, we will commemorate and, dare I say, celebrate the ultimate unveiling of Jesus as Lord and God: his crucifixion. You might object: “Wait a minute! What about his resurrection?!” But in the calculus of our redemption, there can be no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. As Friedrich Nietzsche observed: “only where there are tombs are there resurrections.”⁷

My dear friends, Jesus is our Passover. “Through him, and with him, and in him,” we pass from death to life.⁸ Let us resolve to live the new life we received when we emerged from the waters of baptism, the life which is sustained by the Eucharist for which we now hunger and thirst more than ever. Living this new life means serving others in Jesus’s name for the sake of God’s kingdom. “Where charity [and love are], God is present there.”⁹

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1 Philippians 2:5-7.^↩
2 Matthew 26:26-30; Mark 14:22-26; Luke 22:14-20.^↩
3 Roman Missal, “Thursday of the Lord’s Supper,” sec. 14.^↩
4 Tomáš Halík, Patience with God: The Story of Zacchaeus Continuing In Us, trans. Gerald Turner, 99.^↩
5 Ibid.^↩
6 Ibid.^↩
7 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, XXXIII, “The Grave Song,” trans. Thomas Common.^↩
8 Roman Missal, “The Order of Mass,” Eucharistic Prayer III, sec. 114^↩
9 Ibid., “Thursday of the Lord’s Supper,” sec. 14.^↩