THE PASCHAL SERMON OF ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
If any of you is devout and a lover of God,
enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast.
If any of you is a wise servant,
enter with delight into the joy of your Lord.
If any of you have labored long in fasting,
now receive your recompense.
If you have wrought from the first hour,
today receive your just reward.
If you have come at the third hour,
keep this feast with thanksgiving.
If you have arrived at the sixth hour,
have no misgivings, you shall in no wise be deprived.
If you have delayed until the ninth hour,
draw near, and fear nothing.
If you have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
be not alarmed at your tardiness;
for the Lord, who is jealous of His honor,
will accept the last even as the first.
He gives rest unto the one who comes at the eleventh hour,
even as unto him who has worked from the first.
He shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first;
to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts.
He both accepts the deed, and welcomes the intention,
He honors the act and praises the offering.
Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord,
and receive your reward, both the first and also the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival.
You sober and you heedless, honor the day.
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
and you who have ignored the fast.
The table is fully laden; let all feast sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy the feast of faith;
receive all the riches of loving-kindness.
Let no one bewail his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
for pardon has shone forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
for the Savior's death has set us free:
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.
By descending into hell, He made hell His captive.
He sickened it when it tasted of his flesh.
Isaiah, foretelling this, cried:
“Hell was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions."
Hell was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell before the Unseen.
O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown.
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.
Christ is risen, and life reigns.
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
WAITING FOR GOD
Holy Saturday
I don’t like to wait. When I go to the grocery store, I’ll sometimes spend more time wandering the checkout lines to find the shortest one than I will picking out my groceries. I’ve left to highly-touted restaurants because there was a 15 minute wait—and spent half-an-hour finding someplace else to eat. I don’t like waiting—and will waste precious time to prove it!
But I’m not alone, nor is the phenomenon new. In Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, written in the 1830’s, the Frenchman observed that Americans are constantly in a rush, whether the goal is to get wealthy or simply finish their dinner: “With them it’s a matter of gobble, gulp and go,” he wrote. Our evolving techno-culture is based on getting our needs (or perceived needs) met immediately. So we have instant coffee, instant food (just add water), instant information via the internet—which also gives us instant and unprecedented access to the latest news and research on any topic two or three may gather around. De Tocqueville wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
But as important as our new instant world seems, it comes at a cost we don’t even know we’re paying. It may take a bit of living for us to realize what matters and what doesn’t (and a distressing number of us never make the discovery, regardless of the age chiseled on our tombstone when it’s all over). I sat for a day-and-a half with the wealthiest man I’ve ever known as he died—alone but for me—in his dark hospital room. He’d made his fortune and beat up on a lot of people along the way, who smiled and thanked him until his will was finalized and the doctors said it would all shortly be over. From that time, everybody left him. Sometimes we talked and sometimes we waited in silence. An hour or two before he died, he squeezed my hand and began to cry. “You know, Father, I’ve lived eighty-five years, and I’ve spent all these years running around doing things, making money, building my estate. Until yesterday I’ve never really just been quiet long enough to think about my life. I don’t have a single friend. Nobody loves me. I’m going to die alone.” While I’ll keep the conversation that followed private, what I’ve shared with you is tragedy enough. He never waited on God until the end—just in time to realize he’d misspent one of his most precious gifts—time.
Our life in Christ grows slowly. The Lord nurtures us over time through hardships and mercies, prayers and pains, joys and sorrows; sicknesses and health, fun and fear, terrors and imaginings, temptations, trials and tumults. There are times to act and times to wait—days of quiet and days of busyness. Both are necessary for our growth in Grace—God’s life in us.
Holy Saturday is a day of waiting—not bored, drumming your fingernails waiting, or excited, child-like waiting for Christmas morning—but the patient, quiet waiting of a farmer whose crops are slowly approaching harvest-time. Days of waiting are days given to us for “recollection,” for remembering and assessing. The Forty Days are freshly passed. How are you different than you were before they began? Is your prayer more focused? Do you know a bit more about how you sin and what you can do about it? Are you more willing to give up something of your own to benefit another person (not just money—will you give up, for someone else’s sake, what you want to do because it’s good for us not to always get what we want? Are you willing to do it ungrudgingly, with a smile so they don’t know what you’re doing?)? These are questions for today, while we wait for our Lord.
Patient, quiet waiting is prayer. Our hearts are turned to God and we put ourselves at His disposal.
I don’t like waiting because there’s at least a tacit, perhaps even unintended, message being given to the person who waits. “You can wait, because other things matter more than you or your time.” If you want to know just what I’m talking about, go stand in line to apply for a driver’s license. You’ll see just how important you are.
We need to learn how to wait on God. He DOES matter more than me and my time. He’s my Creator, I’m His creature. I can wait. And if I do, if I really wait, putting myself at His disposal, I discover how freeing it is not to be the Center of Everything. When I find out I don’t matter all that much, I also find out how much I do matter. I can quit being the Object Deserving of All Attention and become the recipient of His love.
Most wonderfully, when I learn to wait for God, I discover He’s been waiting for me the whole time. I haven’t been alone, I’ve just been too busy to notice.
Holy Saturday, today, wait for Him. At some point you’ll realize you’re waiting with Him.
I don’t like to wait. When I go to the grocery store, I’ll sometimes spend more time wandering the checkout lines to find the shortest one than I will picking out my groceries. I’ve left to highly-touted restaurants because there was a 15 minute wait—and spent half-an-hour finding someplace else to eat. I don’t like waiting—and will waste precious time to prove it!
But I’m not alone, nor is the phenomenon new. In Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, written in the 1830’s, the Frenchman observed that Americans are constantly in a rush, whether the goal is to get wealthy or simply finish their dinner: “With them it’s a matter of gobble, gulp and go,” he wrote. Our evolving techno-culture is based on getting our needs (or perceived needs) met immediately. So we have instant coffee, instant food (just add water), instant information via the internet—which also gives us instant and unprecedented access to the latest news and research on any topic two or three may gather around. De Tocqueville wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
But as important as our new instant world seems, it comes at a cost we don’t even know we’re paying. It may take a bit of living for us to realize what matters and what doesn’t (and a distressing number of us never make the discovery, regardless of the age chiseled on our tombstone when it’s all over). I sat for a day-and-a half with the wealthiest man I’ve ever known as he died—alone but for me—in his dark hospital room. He’d made his fortune and beat up on a lot of people along the way, who smiled and thanked him until his will was finalized and the doctors said it would all shortly be over. From that time, everybody left him. Sometimes we talked and sometimes we waited in silence. An hour or two before he died, he squeezed my hand and began to cry. “You know, Father, I’ve lived eighty-five years, and I’ve spent all these years running around doing things, making money, building my estate. Until yesterday I’ve never really just been quiet long enough to think about my life. I don’t have a single friend. Nobody loves me. I’m going to die alone.” While I’ll keep the conversation that followed private, what I’ve shared with you is tragedy enough. He never waited on God until the end—just in time to realize he’d misspent one of his most precious gifts—time.
Our life in Christ grows slowly. The Lord nurtures us over time through hardships and mercies, prayers and pains, joys and sorrows; sicknesses and health, fun and fear, terrors and imaginings, temptations, trials and tumults. There are times to act and times to wait—days of quiet and days of busyness. Both are necessary for our growth in Grace—God’s life in us.
Holy Saturday is a day of waiting—not bored, drumming your fingernails waiting, or excited, child-like waiting for Christmas morning—but the patient, quiet waiting of a farmer whose crops are slowly approaching harvest-time. Days of waiting are days given to us for “recollection,” for remembering and assessing. The Forty Days are freshly passed. How are you different than you were before they began? Is your prayer more focused? Do you know a bit more about how you sin and what you can do about it? Are you more willing to give up something of your own to benefit another person (not just money—will you give up, for someone else’s sake, what you want to do because it’s good for us not to always get what we want? Are you willing to do it ungrudgingly, with a smile so they don’t know what you’re doing?)? These are questions for today, while we wait for our Lord.
Patient, quiet waiting is prayer. Our hearts are turned to God and we put ourselves at His disposal.
I don’t like waiting because there’s at least a tacit, perhaps even unintended, message being given to the person who waits. “You can wait, because other things matter more than you or your time.” If you want to know just what I’m talking about, go stand in line to apply for a driver’s license. You’ll see just how important you are.
We need to learn how to wait on God. He DOES matter more than me and my time. He’s my Creator, I’m His creature. I can wait. And if I do, if I really wait, putting myself at His disposal, I discover how freeing it is not to be the Center of Everything. When I find out I don’t matter all that much, I also find out how much I do matter. I can quit being the Object Deserving of All Attention and become the recipient of His love.
Most wonderfully, when I learn to wait for God, I discover He’s been waiting for me the whole time. I haven’t been alone, I’ve just been too busy to notice.
Holy Saturday, today, wait for Him. At some point you’ll realize you’re waiting with Him.
Friday, April 2, 2010
THE KING OF GLORY
Good Friday
Today is the climax of Lent. Our exercises, fasting, prayers, and giving of alms, our Lenten abstinences from chocolates and television programs have focused on “giving something up” for the sake of Him “Who took our nature upon Him.” All you’ve done (and even what you‘ve failed to do) comes together today. As His disciple, you’ve been denying yourself, picking up your Lenten Cross and following Him. That journey has brought us to Golgotha hill.
We’ve noted along the way that you and I are Jesus’ disciples, and not too different from His disciples of old. They often didn’t understand what He was talking about or what He expected of them. Neither do we. They said they wanted to follow Him—Peter insisted at the Last Supper he’d follow Jesus even if it cost him his life—but when their time came, they ran away from Him. So do we. We see them in the Gospels, jealous of each other, bickering among themselves, pretending to understand what He’s said to them, but falling short time and again.
Every church service this season focuses on our sins. We insist that “we have erred, and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts,” but do we really believe it? We kneel beside each other and say we’re sinners, but how do we react if someone says we’ve done “what we ought not to have done?” If someone accuses us, our insides seethe. I’ll admit to being a sinner—at least I’ll admit to “respectable” sins—but how dare you agree? We do indeed follow Apostolic tradition, but not always in ways we want to remember.
If Jesus’ disciples, then and now, are weak and unsure of themselves, He was—and is—neither. He told them repeatedly He was going to Jerusalem to die, but they either argued with Him or listened to His words in sullen incomprehension. Not only did He know what lay before Him on His journey, He alone knew what His death meant—for Him as a Man, for Him as Lord of His Church, and for Him as the Eternal Son of the Everlasting Father. Even after all these centuries His words still baffle us.
When the Lord speaks about His upcoming death, He calls it His “glorification.” During His last few days with His disciples, He reiterates “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Since childhood I’ve heard the Passion Gospels read during Holy Week; over and over I’ve heard Jesus’ words: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Thy Name.” I’ve heard priests talk in many sermons about our Lord’s death and its importance, but nobody ever explained how Jesus was being glorified by getting pushed around, spitted on, kicked, slapped, made fun of, beaten to a pulp, stripped naked before friends and foes alike and finally crucified. Where’s the glory in all that? I don’t see it.
That’s because I see with “carnal” vision. I see with my heart fixed firmly in this world, with its fallen values and dim understandings. The oldest depictions of the crucifixion, those up until the middle of the Middle Ages, showed the Lord Christ on the Cross, but written on the sign above His head wasn’t the historical “INRI” (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum) but instead the placard reads “The King of Glory.” This isn’t because they were ignorant of the original words on the card; they were, rather, proclaiming what those words meant. Jesus, the Crucified, is by His crucifixion the King of Glory. How?
Jesus’ true glory is hidden not because it’s invisible but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see, any more than His first disciples, the path the Royal Road takes: where it goes, I don’t want to follow. His glory, He said, was to do the will of Him Who sent Him. In Jesus, true God and perfect Man, God the Trinity brought fallen Adam to glory. In Christ our corrupted nature is restored. That restoration came through Jesus’ willingness to pick up His Cross and walk it up the hill.
Adam’s sin wasn’t that he ate what he shouldn’t have, but that he relished and embraced the words of the tempter: “You can be like God.” “Why play second fiddle?” the devil whispered. Adam chose himself over God his Creator (just as you and I do all the time) and broke the bonds of love. Jesus Christ chose the bonds of love over everything—in the desert, His perfect humanity rejected the tempter’s promises—on Golgotha He gave up everything, even His life, to restore us to the men and women God created us to be. “Don’t you know,” St Paul asks, almost incredulously, “that as many of us as have been baptized into Jesus Christ have been baptized into His death?” Christ’s glory is invisible to those who want to cling to the tempter’s words. “It’s okay. You can still be all you can be, go ahead. You deserve it.” Christ’s glory is the glory of Heaven revealed on earth; the glory of self-giving love. On this fallen earth, the self-giving love the Father has for the Son and which (Who, actually, but that’s for another time) the Son has for the Father reveals its depths in the Cross. That love exists from and to eternity, but here’s the glory: God doesn’t leave us out of it. He wants to include you and me (creatures that we are) in that Eternal Trinity of love. To include us in His self-giving love, He has to break us and burn out of us every trace of selfishness. He is preparing us for an eternity with Himself.
“Whoever loves his life will lose it,” the Lord says. “Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Cryptic words which only make sense if we, like Jesus, embrace the Cross. “If anyone serves me,” the Lord continues, “he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be.” To follow Jesus is to walk in His way, up the hill to die.
Next time you are hurt or afraid, next time you’re wrongfully—or even rightly!—accused, next time you feel injustice or the sorrow of life, when bad things come, deserved or not, pick up the sorrow and pain. It’s your Cross, personally crafted. It is dreadful, terrible, and only you can fully appreciate the pain it brings. But it’s your one sure and certain path to glory—and to an unending love none of us can imagine.
“I have been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.”
Today is the climax of Lent. Our exercises, fasting, prayers, and giving of alms, our Lenten abstinences from chocolates and television programs have focused on “giving something up” for the sake of Him “Who took our nature upon Him.” All you’ve done (and even what you‘ve failed to do) comes together today. As His disciple, you’ve been denying yourself, picking up your Lenten Cross and following Him. That journey has brought us to Golgotha hill.
We’ve noted along the way that you and I are Jesus’ disciples, and not too different from His disciples of old. They often didn’t understand what He was talking about or what He expected of them. Neither do we. They said they wanted to follow Him—Peter insisted at the Last Supper he’d follow Jesus even if it cost him his life—but when their time came, they ran away from Him. So do we. We see them in the Gospels, jealous of each other, bickering among themselves, pretending to understand what He’s said to them, but falling short time and again.
Every church service this season focuses on our sins. We insist that “we have erred, and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts,” but do we really believe it? We kneel beside each other and say we’re sinners, but how do we react if someone says we’ve done “what we ought not to have done?” If someone accuses us, our insides seethe. I’ll admit to being a sinner—at least I’ll admit to “respectable” sins—but how dare you agree? We do indeed follow Apostolic tradition, but not always in ways we want to remember.
If Jesus’ disciples, then and now, are weak and unsure of themselves, He was—and is—neither. He told them repeatedly He was going to Jerusalem to die, but they either argued with Him or listened to His words in sullen incomprehension. Not only did He know what lay before Him on His journey, He alone knew what His death meant—for Him as a Man, for Him as Lord of His Church, and for Him as the Eternal Son of the Everlasting Father. Even after all these centuries His words still baffle us.
When the Lord speaks about His upcoming death, He calls it His “glorification.” During His last few days with His disciples, He reiterates “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Since childhood I’ve heard the Passion Gospels read during Holy Week; over and over I’ve heard Jesus’ words: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Thy Name.” I’ve heard priests talk in many sermons about our Lord’s death and its importance, but nobody ever explained how Jesus was being glorified by getting pushed around, spitted on, kicked, slapped, made fun of, beaten to a pulp, stripped naked before friends and foes alike and finally crucified. Where’s the glory in all that? I don’t see it.
That’s because I see with “carnal” vision. I see with my heart fixed firmly in this world, with its fallen values and dim understandings. The oldest depictions of the crucifixion, those up until the middle of the Middle Ages, showed the Lord Christ on the Cross, but written on the sign above His head wasn’t the historical “INRI” (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum) but instead the placard reads “The King of Glory.” This isn’t because they were ignorant of the original words on the card; they were, rather, proclaiming what those words meant. Jesus, the Crucified, is by His crucifixion the King of Glory. How?
Jesus’ true glory is hidden not because it’s invisible but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to see, any more than His first disciples, the path the Royal Road takes: where it goes, I don’t want to follow. His glory, He said, was to do the will of Him Who sent Him. In Jesus, true God and perfect Man, God the Trinity brought fallen Adam to glory. In Christ our corrupted nature is restored. That restoration came through Jesus’ willingness to pick up His Cross and walk it up the hill.
Adam’s sin wasn’t that he ate what he shouldn’t have, but that he relished and embraced the words of the tempter: “You can be like God.” “Why play second fiddle?” the devil whispered. Adam chose himself over God his Creator (just as you and I do all the time) and broke the bonds of love. Jesus Christ chose the bonds of love over everything—in the desert, His perfect humanity rejected the tempter’s promises—on Golgotha He gave up everything, even His life, to restore us to the men and women God created us to be. “Don’t you know,” St Paul asks, almost incredulously, “that as many of us as have been baptized into Jesus Christ have been baptized into His death?” Christ’s glory is invisible to those who want to cling to the tempter’s words. “It’s okay. You can still be all you can be, go ahead. You deserve it.” Christ’s glory is the glory of Heaven revealed on earth; the glory of self-giving love. On this fallen earth, the self-giving love the Father has for the Son and which (Who, actually, but that’s for another time) the Son has for the Father reveals its depths in the Cross. That love exists from and to eternity, but here’s the glory: God doesn’t leave us out of it. He wants to include you and me (creatures that we are) in that Eternal Trinity of love. To include us in His self-giving love, He has to break us and burn out of us every trace of selfishness. He is preparing us for an eternity with Himself.
“Whoever loves his life will lose it,” the Lord says. “Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Cryptic words which only make sense if we, like Jesus, embrace the Cross. “If anyone serves me,” the Lord continues, “he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be.” To follow Jesus is to walk in His way, up the hill to die.
Next time you are hurt or afraid, next time you’re wrongfully—or even rightly!—accused, next time you feel injustice or the sorrow of life, when bad things come, deserved or not, pick up the sorrow and pain. It’s your Cross, personally crafted. It is dreadful, terrible, and only you can fully appreciate the pain it brings. But it’s your one sure and certain path to glory—and to an unending love none of us can imagine.
“I have been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me.”
Thursday, April 1, 2010
WE, TOO, ARE HIS DISCIPLES
Maundy Thursday
For three years, the Lord Jesus lived with His disciples. Today was the last of those days—though none of them knew it. He’d warned them time and again and done all He could to prepare them for what was coming, but when the day finally arrived, they were as uncomprehending as ever. His last few hours with them and that which gives today its name—maunde—“commandment”—the New Commandment to “Do This in Remembrance”—“to love one another as He had loved”—were, in their view, little different than all the other days which preceded it. Don’t judge those fellows too harshly. Even with the much-vaunted benefit of hindsight, we, His disciples too, remain almost equally uncomprehending after 2000 years.
The disciples were like teen-agers—quintessential “sophomores”—one of the most fun words in our language. Remember its derivation? A “sophomore” is from Greek: sophos—“wise” (sophisticated) and moros—“fool” (moron). The classic sophomore is the know-it-all much more impressed by himself than anyone else could ever be.
On the night in which one of His friends would betray Him, our Lord drew them close around Him. While all the Evangelists give us an account of that night, none is so rich as that of St John. St John devotes five chapters of his Gospel—five out of twenty-one—to the words and events surrounding the Last Supper, and every time he mentions the disciples in those pages, St John depicts them as hearing but not understanding, seeing but not comprehending, what’s going on around them. He wraps Himself in a towel and washes their feet. Most submit dumbly to this, but Peter bombastically refuses. “Lord, I will never allow You to wash my feet!” he exclaims, no doubt pulling back. Jesus has to stop what He’s doing and explain Himself before He can finish. Even when Judas skulks away from the Table to arrange for the Lord’s arrest, the others had no idea about where He was going or what he was doing. At the most solemn moment of the Supper, when He took Bread and broke it and passed among them the cup brimming with His Blood, they must have eaten and sipped in silent curiosity.
We contrast ourselves, perhaps unconsciously, to them. How could they have failed to understand?
But we are at least at blind as they, knowing what happened to them and believing the Lord to be Who He Is. Even more heart-rending for the Lord Jesus than Judas scurrying off must have been Peter’s brash promise: “Even if all the rest of them forsake You, You can count on me. I will never leave you!” Within a few hours, Peter would repeatedly deny that he even knew who Jesus was. We shake our heads, but how many times have we done the same? How often have we followed others in doing things we know are contrary to what the Lord Christ would have us do? Every one of the Lord’s disciples, from the first twelve to the most recent, has fallen short of our calling. We have no more right to judge each other than we do to judge them. We’ve all failed Him. How many times have we knelt before His altar, His Sacrament fresh in our mouths, when our hearts and even our minds were elsewhere? What room do I have to judge anybody else, when I’m guilty?
Tonight, as we gather to celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the church will be decked in its finest hangings, resplendent with its best vestments, clouded (I hope) with so much incense you won’t be certain who’s next to you in the pew. The music will be among the best musicians have ever written since musicians have been writing music and even the sermon should be succinct and to the point. We offer the Mass in thanksgiving and celebration of the Mass itself. Bells will be rung and we’ll sing the Gloria in Excelsis one last time before Easter. We will taste how gracious the Lord is—and then watch His altar be stripped and His church denuded. The cantor will intone Psalm 22: “My God, My God, look upon Me: why hast Thou forsaken Me?” This is a night when joy is turned on its head. When we leave the church, it’s stripped bare, left dark, empty and silent as a tomb: not unlike the uncomprehending disciples—and not too much unlike us.
But there’s this: somewhere, off in a small corner of the church, a Light still shines. At the Altar of Repose, even through this dark night, candles glow before the Presence of the Lord Who’s yet to leave His disciples—then or now. Regardless of how often we fail Him, how often His words fall on our deaf ears, how often we pretend we don’t know Who He Is—He’s with us.
Tonight, after the incense has cleared and all the other lights are out, spend a few minutes with Him. Tonight, in the silence, don’t ask Him for anything. Be with Him. Tell him that you, too, are His disciple—and you’re grateful.
May He grant you a most blessed night.
For three years, the Lord Jesus lived with His disciples. Today was the last of those days—though none of them knew it. He’d warned them time and again and done all He could to prepare them for what was coming, but when the day finally arrived, they were as uncomprehending as ever. His last few hours with them and that which gives today its name—maunde—“commandment”—the New Commandment to “Do This in Remembrance”—“to love one another as He had loved”—were, in their view, little different than all the other days which preceded it. Don’t judge those fellows too harshly. Even with the much-vaunted benefit of hindsight, we, His disciples too, remain almost equally uncomprehending after 2000 years.
The disciples were like teen-agers—quintessential “sophomores”—one of the most fun words in our language. Remember its derivation? A “sophomore” is from Greek: sophos—“wise” (sophisticated) and moros—“fool” (moron). The classic sophomore is the know-it-all much more impressed by himself than anyone else could ever be.
On the night in which one of His friends would betray Him, our Lord drew them close around Him. While all the Evangelists give us an account of that night, none is so rich as that of St John. St John devotes five chapters of his Gospel—five out of twenty-one—to the words and events surrounding the Last Supper, and every time he mentions the disciples in those pages, St John depicts them as hearing but not understanding, seeing but not comprehending, what’s going on around them. He wraps Himself in a towel and washes their feet. Most submit dumbly to this, but Peter bombastically refuses. “Lord, I will never allow You to wash my feet!” he exclaims, no doubt pulling back. Jesus has to stop what He’s doing and explain Himself before He can finish. Even when Judas skulks away from the Table to arrange for the Lord’s arrest, the others had no idea about where He was going or what he was doing. At the most solemn moment of the Supper, when He took Bread and broke it and passed among them the cup brimming with His Blood, they must have eaten and sipped in silent curiosity.
We contrast ourselves, perhaps unconsciously, to them. How could they have failed to understand?
But we are at least at blind as they, knowing what happened to them and believing the Lord to be Who He Is. Even more heart-rending for the Lord Jesus than Judas scurrying off must have been Peter’s brash promise: “Even if all the rest of them forsake You, You can count on me. I will never leave you!” Within a few hours, Peter would repeatedly deny that he even knew who Jesus was. We shake our heads, but how many times have we done the same? How often have we followed others in doing things we know are contrary to what the Lord Christ would have us do? Every one of the Lord’s disciples, from the first twelve to the most recent, has fallen short of our calling. We have no more right to judge each other than we do to judge them. We’ve all failed Him. How many times have we knelt before His altar, His Sacrament fresh in our mouths, when our hearts and even our minds were elsewhere? What room do I have to judge anybody else, when I’m guilty?
Tonight, as we gather to celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the church will be decked in its finest hangings, resplendent with its best vestments, clouded (I hope) with so much incense you won’t be certain who’s next to you in the pew. The music will be among the best musicians have ever written since musicians have been writing music and even the sermon should be succinct and to the point. We offer the Mass in thanksgiving and celebration of the Mass itself. Bells will be rung and we’ll sing the Gloria in Excelsis one last time before Easter. We will taste how gracious the Lord is—and then watch His altar be stripped and His church denuded. The cantor will intone Psalm 22: “My God, My God, look upon Me: why hast Thou forsaken Me?” This is a night when joy is turned on its head. When we leave the church, it’s stripped bare, left dark, empty and silent as a tomb: not unlike the uncomprehending disciples—and not too much unlike us.
But there’s this: somewhere, off in a small corner of the church, a Light still shines. At the Altar of Repose, even through this dark night, candles glow before the Presence of the Lord Who’s yet to leave His disciples—then or now. Regardless of how often we fail Him, how often His words fall on our deaf ears, how often we pretend we don’t know Who He Is—He’s with us.
Tonight, after the incense has cleared and all the other lights are out, spend a few minutes with Him. Tonight, in the silence, don’t ask Him for anything. Be with Him. Tell him that you, too, are His disciple—and you’re grateful.
May He grant you a most blessed night.
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