Triduum- Good Friday

The Crucifixion, by Giotto (b. 1267 or 1277 - d. 1337 CE). Part of a cycle of frescoes showing the life of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. Scrovegni Chapel (aka Arena Chapel) in Padua, northern Italy. From c. 1304 to c. 1315

"He mounted the Cross to free us from the fascination with nothingness, to free us from the fascination with appearances, with the ephemeral."

Servant of God Msgr. Luigi Giussani

Since Good Friday was my last post last year prior to taking a long hiatus, I am re-posting the same Good Friday post. I've been posting this on Good Friday with different paintings of the Lord's Crucifixion for years.

Triduum- Holy Thursday

Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet, by Jacopo Tintoretto (1519-1594)

“Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” (John 13:8)

"In his person, the deacon makes it clear that the liturgy must have concrete consequences in the world with all its needs, and that work in the world that is done in the spirit of charity has a spiritual dimension" Herbert Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology, 270.

Since Holy Thursday and Good Friday last year were my last posts for a good, long while, and nearly the of Καθολικός διάκονος, I am re-posting the same Holy Thursday post.

Monday of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 27:1-3.13-14; John 12:1-11

A lot of people in Bethany were curious to see Lazarus, the man Jesus raised from the dead. Just as earlier in John’s Gospel, the people of Cana sought out Jesus because He turned water into wine at the wedding feast there. In both cases something more subtle and more profound occurred.

If you remember, after returning to Cana from Jerusalem, people followed Jesus around hoping to see Him perform another marvelous deed. He was sought out by a distraught father, who wanted the Lord to come home with him and heal his son, who was in danger of death. In that instance, Jesus healed the man’s son without going to his house. He said the word and, as the man found out from his servants after journeying more than day to reach home, the boy was healed.

This miracle was not accessible to those who were hanging about to witness a miracle. The boy’s healing, while perhaps as sudden as it was mysterious, probably did seem all that miraculous to those who were there when he was healed. Only Jesus and the man knew.¹

The profoundly subtle event in our Gospel today is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, the same one who was intent to sit at Jesus’ feet while her sister complained she wasn’t helping, anoints Jesus’ feet with costly oil.² Judas takes exception to this. He doesn’t even point out that the costly oil could’ve been sold and given to the poor out of self-righteousness. As a thief, according to this Johannine narrative, who has been stealing from the common purse, he says this in a manipulatively.

Don’t get me wrong, selling luxury items and giving the money from their sale to the poor is a laudable thing. After all, the Lord Himself tells us that the poor will always be with us. This is not a throwaway line, let alone a justification for ignoring the poor by seeing their plight as God-ordained. Rather, it is something of an indictment.

Why will there always be poor people? Here’s a clue: it isn’t because the number of people, even now, outstrip the good earth’s abundance. In other words, there is enough to go around and then some. The failure lies in how the earth’s bounty is distributed. No matter the economic system, distribution of the earth’s goods favors the powerful. Economics is all about the problem of scarcity. This begets competition. “Get yours while supplies last!”

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Once the distinction between wants and needs is blurred or, as in advanced modern societies, is obliterated, we find ourselves far from God’s kingdom, as the story Jesus tells about the rich man and Lazarus not so subtly demonstrates.³

So, the reason there will always be poor people is not because God decrees that they should be poor. Rather, it is due to our fallenness and sinfulness. Because God does not coerce but invites, encourages, and exhorts, you and I are free to act as we will in this regard. In doing so, each of us should keep in mind Jesus’ teaching. After all, it is He who will return to judge the living and the dead.

Dorothy Day, a truly American saint (though not yet canonized), founder of the Catholic Worker movement, which, though still extant, is in dire need of revival, wrote about a Holy Thursday she experienced: “The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for him.”

Day continues that recognizing Jesus in the poor “is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love.” Therefore, she concludes, “The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.”⁴ Let’s never forget, Deus caritas est- “God is love.”⁵

So where does this leave us with Mary’s extravagant gesture? On the side of Judas? Was she right to anoint the Lord’s feet with costly oil and dry them with her hair? Well, was she in the right when she chose to sit at His feet while her sister scurried about getting things ready? These are, of course, rhetorical questions. Mary’s prophetic gesture was not grasped by those who witnessed it.

As the Lord noted, Mary’s seemingly over-the-top devotion, which occurs well before Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, pointed to His death and burial. While I can never repay the debt I owe to Him, I can see and serve Jesus in the poor after the manner of Mary. The Lord’s identification with the poor is not a mere metaphor. It is a true identification. This why Mother Teresa called the poor Jesus in a “distressing disguise.”

Making a nod to our first reading from Isaiah, which is one of five so-called “Servant Songs” found in deutero-Isaiah, Saint Oscar Romero noted, “As we draw near to the poor, we find we are gradually uncovering the genuine face of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh.”⁶

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1 John 4:43-54.^↩
2 Luke 10:38-42.^↩
3 Luke 16:19-31.^↩
4 This and the preceding two quotes from Dorothy Day.“The Mystery of the Poor.” Plough online, 21 March 2015.^↩
5 1 John 4:8.16.^↩
6 Oscar Romero. The Violence of Love, 203. Compiled and translated by James R. Brockman, S. J. ^↩

Passion Sunday- Procession

I only gave this short homily after reading the Gospel for the Procession at our last Mass for Passion Sunday.

Reading: Luke 19:28-40

The procession we are about to undertake is not just something that happens before Mass, like a prelude, or an added-on extra. It is part of the Passion Sunday liturgy, an integral part. Mass has begun. Liturgy is our way of participating, even now, in the Paschal Mystery referenced at the start of our gathering.

Processing is different from just walking. A procession has a distinct destination. Our ultimate destination, of course, is eternal life with Christ. Our procession today is the procession of Jesus' triumphal entry into the holy city, which culminates with entering the Temple. Our church building symbolically represents the Temple just as we represent those hailing and lauding Jesus and Father Andrzej symbolically represents Christ.

Today, if you're processing without a palm branch, you're not processing. It makes no sense to process without a palm branch. These branches are blest, making them sacramentals. As such, they are signs and symbols of your own recognition of Jesus as Messiah, Savior, and Lord. Far from being incidental to this part of the Passion Sunday liturgy, the palm branches are an essential element of it.

During this procession, the sound that should be heard is our joylful singing- All glory, laud, and honor to You, Redeemer King. If we don't cry out, maybe the stones will.

Sisters and brothers,
like the crowds who acclaimed Jesus in Jerusalem,
let us go forth in peace

"You Just Walk on In"

Earlier this week I ran across the blog of the brother of someone with whom I attended high school. I know, "Luke, I am your father's brother's former roommate." But, I make connections where I am able. What can I say?

I am not going to name the person or the blog. Reading this person's reason for blogging, I was thrown back a bit on how confusing life often is and also back on my own reasons for continuing this very small-time online effort. Couple this with reading Kierkegaard and George Pattison on Kierkegaard and you have a invitation to just write something. So, here I go.

I don't write because I think I have it all figured out. I write to help me figure things out. Perhaps more acuurately, I write just see what my own viewpoint is after some reflection. The metaphor I have most often used to describe my own reason for blogging is that is has served me as a vehicle of growth over the years.

At least for me, growth is not a steady progression. It is more of a two-step. I am no expert in dancing. The only dance I ever really learned how to do was the polka: 1-2-3, turn; 1-2-3, turn, etc.

Seeking meaning is important. But this seeking is just that, seeking. Answers, for the most part, are provisional. What is it I seek? Well, truth, I suppose. Or, if you want to play amateur metaphysician: Truth.

Seeking the truth usually makes me realize how off my preconceptions are. By this, I don't mean always wrong, through sometimes they are. Usually very incomplete and somewhat myopic.

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Kierkegaard railed against the philsophical and theological systematizers of his day- Hegel being his chief but by no means only target. Kierkegaard priviledged reality over theory. Reality can't be confined to a system.

When I consider the pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio, I see this same dynamic at work. His approach is very Ignatian. Since he's a Jesuit, this should come as no surprise.

Religion can either broaden your view or narrow it. True religion, it seems to me, should broaden you, opening you up to people, to reality. Faith is not a shortcut to the truth. Anglican theologian John Macquarrie was very good on this point. At the root of a truly Catholic, that is, universal perspective, is the idea that faith and reason have the same source, namely God. And so, ultimately, the two cannot stand in opposition.

How one sees things is a matter of perspective. What premises lead you to your conclusions? What presuppositions to bring to the matter at hand? Are you willing to admit, especially to yourself, that you may be wrong or at least not entirely correct?

I suppose scripture and tradition, which, at least on a Catholic view, together constitute divine revelation stand in relation to each other in similar way as do faith and reason. Revelation constitutes the content of faith. And so, this is what Catholics bring to the table in the often dialectical encounter with reason.

Nonetheless, like Kierkegaard, I remain a convinced Christian, a Catholic Christian, albeit one with some noticeably Lutheran tendencies. Like, Kierkegaard, I am convinced that subjectivity, what might more poetically be called "the heart," is what matters most. This is not some unconditioned subjectivity, not by a long stretch!

Perhaps stretching things a bit (but only a bit), "heart" aligns with spirit as used by Paul. In this Pauline sense, spirit is opposed to flesh. In the apostle’s writings, flesh is not body. Spirit is not opposed to body. Together these form a God-created unity.

As Christians we're not dualists- although dualism has been a distorting feature of Christianity since its beginning. “Flesh” in these passages is a translation of the Greek word sarx. Greek for body is soma. Sarx, then, is something like an impulse, urge or craving as opposed to true desire- that for which you really and truly long.

Your heart is the criterion by which you judge. This requires ruthless honesty with yourself. This is hard because we are masters of self-deception. It is also difficult because the flesh exercises its pull on us in a variety of ways.

Our traditio for this final Friday of Lent is Brother Tom singing "Don't Knock." Next Friday, which is Good Friday, is not Lent. It is part of the Triduum, which is its own liturgical season.

Fifth Sunday of Lent- Homily for Third Scrutiny

Readings: Ezekiel 37:12-14; Ps 130:1-8; Romans 8:8-11; John 11:1-45

“Lazarus, come out!”¹ Today, my dear Elect, Christ addresses these words to you. You see, the scriptures cannot be read merely as tales of incredible things that happened a long time ago. If the inspired words of the Bible aren’t somehow addressed to us, then what good are they?

Take our first reading from Ezekiel. Contextually, it is addressed to ancient Israel. God promises to bring them back from exile. Just as Israel experienced God in their exodus from Egypt, by their return from exile, they will come to know, yet again, that the LORD is God.

To a degree, scriptures must transcend context. Exile is life apart from God. Perhaps the main effect of exile is alienation. The hallmark of what we might call “existential alienation,” a state of being all too familiar in our day, is meaninglessness. Returning to God, which, Saint Augustine tells us, is also a return to oneself, ends alienation.² You don’t so much return to God as God gently pulls you to Himself.

This is why the apostle, in our reading from Romans, insists that it is necessary for the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead, to dwell in you: to give you life. This life in the Spirit is what Saint Augustine, in his letter to Roman widow Proba, called the life that is truly life. To Proba, who was wealthy and influential, Augustine wrote:

It becomes you, therefore, out of love to this true life, to account yourself desolate in this world, however great the prosperity of your lot may be. For as that is the true life, in comparison with which the present life, which is much loved, is not worthy to be called life, however happy and prolonged it be…³

The “true life” is life in the Spirit, which is a gift from God, a gift you, our Elect, are preparing to receive through the life-giving Easter sacraments. As you emerge from baptism, Jesus says,

Chastin, come out!      Ty, come out!      Emily, come out!
Seth, come out!      Brianna, come out!      Austin, come out!      Sharon, come out!

But as you move toward baptism be aware of something Friedrich Nietzsche noted: “only where there are graves are there resurrections.”⁴

This insight of Nietzsche’s draws our attention to a part of our lengthy Gospel reading that is normally overlooked. After being notified of the illness of His good friend, Lazarus, and after delaying two days, Jesus says to His disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”⁵ Why Judea? Judea is where Bethany is, where Lazarus lives with his sisters Martha and Mary. They must go because Lazarus has died.

Jesus’ disciples make a reasonable objection: “Rabbi,” they say to Him, “the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you want to go back there?”⁶ His answer is a prolonged “Yes.”⁷

The Raising of Lazarus, by Léon Bonnat, 1857 (photo: Public Domain)

Doubting Thomas gets a bad rap for his refusal to believe that Jesus was resurrected based on the say-so of his fellow disciples. Let’s be real, if someone, even someone you trusted, told you that someone who you knew was dead had come back to life, how likely would you be to believe it? It’s incredible.

What happens next in today’s Gospel, I think, redeems Thomas from his bad rap and his unbelieving rep. In response to Jesus’ determination to return to Judea where he and his followers would be in danger, it is Thomas who says, “Let us also go to die with him.”⁸

The cross is the doorway to eternal life. To be called forth, you must first die. Thomas certainly seems to grasp the latter half of this. The main paradox of being a Christian is that to truly live you must die.

Especially in our time and in our culture, it’s quite common to leap to the happy conclusion. But just as between today and Easter lies our commemoration the Lord’s Passion and death, so between now and resurrection lies death and not merely physical death. As we sing in a verse of a popular Lenten hymn:

As you did hunger bear and thirst,
So teach us, gracious Lord,
To die to self, and so to live
By your most holy word⁹

While it is important, like Thomas, to know what it means to die with Christ, it is more important to learn what it means to live in Him, which is to live for Him, which means letting Him live through you. As Saint Paul wrote to the Galatians:

I have been crucified with Christ;
yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me¹⁰

Not just to our Elect, but for all Christians: your new life should be different from your old one. For those of us already baptized, confirmed, and communed, Lent is a time during which we prepare to renew our own baptismal promises, to renounce sin and so live in the freedom of the children of God.

Do you think Lazarus lived the same way after being raised from the dead?

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1 John 11:43.^↩
2 Saint Augustine. Confessions, Book VIII, Chap X.^↩
3 Saint Augustine. Letter 130 (AD 412), Chapter 2.^↩
4 Frederich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra. Second Part, XXXIII, “The Grave Song.”^↩
5 John 11:7.^↩
6 John 11:8.^↩
7 John 11:9-15.^↩
8 John 11:16.^↩
9 "Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days."^↩
10 Galatians 2:19b-20.^↩

"...once you have recovered..."

I am still reading my way through the twenty-second chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel using The Jerusalem Bible. It's interesting to read a short section and then just reflect on it. Today's section was one that comes after Jesus tells the Twelve that one of them will betray Him (Luke 22:31-34). The Lord does not designate which one it might be. This causes these men to wonder amongst themselves, "Who is it?"

Between the short section about His betrayal and the one I read and reflected on today is the section where Jesus settles the dispute about which of them is the greatest. This section contains Jesus' words "I am among you as the one who serves" (Luke 22:27). Stated a bit more literally, the Lord tells them, "I am among you as a deacon."

After this, turning to Peter, Jesus tells him that Satan desires to "sift all of them like wheat"- to crush them into powder and scatter them. The Lord then reassures Peter by telling him that He has prayed for him, assuring him that his faith would not fail. Then Jesus makes an elliptical statement telling Peter than once he has turned back, he needs to strengthen his brethren.

As readers, we know to what Jesus is referring: Peter's denial (something He makes explicit in this passage after Peter pledges loyalty come what may). The Jersualem Bible uses the word "recovered" as in" "...I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail, and once you have recovered, you must strengthen your brethren."

Among the insights to be gleaned from these inspired words is that faith is a gift from God, a grace, a supernatural virtue. In other words, it isn't merely a choice made by someone, anyone, to believe. Faith comes from God and is fortified and nourished by God. Christ nurtures and nourishes your faith through the sacraments, which are privileged and sure means of God's grace. As the Concluding Prayer for Friday in the Fifth Week of Lent has it:

O God,
who have prepared fitting helps for us in our weakness,
grant, we pray,
that we may receive their healing effects with joy
and reflect them in a holy way of life

This, too, anticipates not only Peter's betrayal but the Lord's forgiveness of his betrayal. The tenth verse of Psalm 51, the Miserere, the penitential psalm prayed on Fridays throughout the year as the first psalm of Morning Prayer, sets this in relief beautifully:

You will let me hear gladness and joy;
the bones you have crushed will rejoice

Crushed, but not ground into powder and scattered- restored and recovered, not disintegrated.

When I survey the wonderous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride