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.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
IN REMEMBRANCE
Wednesday in Holy Week
Tomorrow the Three Great Days begin. The Sacred Triduum is the heart of the Christian’s year. The Liturgies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Even convey the whole of the Scriptures, the Creeds and the Sacraments, the whole of our Faith, in those Three Days. The Night of the Eucharist and the Lord’s Betrayal, the Day of His Sacrificial Death and Burial, the Saturday Preparation leading to the Night that bursts to Life with Fire and Light, these solemnities are rightly called celebrations and “remembrances.”
“This is My body, which is given for you,” the Lord Jesus said to His disciples on the night in which He was betrayed. “Do this in remembrance of Me. Likewise, after supper He took the cup…” He commanded His disciples then as He commands His disciples now: “Do this in remembrance of Me.” As the Prayer of Consecration continues during the Mass, the priest says: “having in remembrance His blessed passion and precious death, His mighty resurrection and glorious ascension…” Remembrances are being made. But there are some more than interesting things to consider about these “remembrances.” They point to the coming Three Days and why these Great Days matter in the lives you and I live.
In Greek, the word we translate as “remembrance” is ANAMNESIS. It was an old word before the writers of the New Testament used it. If you look at the word a minute, you’ll see a word you already know: AMNESIA—and that helps a bit to understand the word. Amnesia is to lose memory. It’s not just to forget something for a bit, but to lose something for good. “Anamnesia”—anamnesis—is to regain the memory which was lost. Plato used it that way repeatedly. In Plato’s theory, anamnesis described the process whereby something which had been lost (in his case, knowledge,”) is restored. The translators of the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, developed the word a bit further, giving it a specialized meaning. They used the word to describe the “memorial sacrifice” offered by the Priests and Levites in the Temple. When the four Gospel-writers recorded Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, they each chose this word; for them, it had a special meaning.
When you and I “remember” something, we're performing a mental exercise. We “stop and think.” Where did I put my keys? What was that fellow’s name? Why did I come into this room? Sometimes, we sit and “remember” with friends. We think back to things we share. Common memories strengthen common bonds. Is that what we’re doing at Mass? Are we collectively “remembering” Jesus? Is He present with us because we call Him to mind? If we remember harder or better is He more present? Did we lose Him (amnesis) and, by remembering, find Him again (anamnesis)?
When Jesus gave His disciples the Bread no longer bread and the cup now filled with His Blood, He obviously didn’t add, “Do this and please, try hard to remember Me.” His words mean something else. We are indeed remembering, but much more importantly, so is Someone Else.
I love the subtle differences between the Eastern Churches and our own. One I find most intriguing is their “remembering.” We pray, “having in remembrance His blessed Passion and precious Death, His mighty Resurrection and glorious Ascension, …” At the same place in the Eastern Mass the priest prays: “Remembering… all that came to pass for our sake, the Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the Enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious Coming, we offer unto Thee these Gifts…” They “remember” something that hasn’t yet happened! The Liturgy sees “the second, glorious coming” of our Lord, an event in the future, as part of that which “came to pass for our sake.” How is this? The answer hinges on who’s doing the remembering.
The most important “rememberer” at the Mass isn’t the priest (or even the MC who usually remembers a lot of things for the priest!) but God. The Mass doesn’t depend on how well we remember, but on God, Who never forgets. In Him, the past, present and future are one. The Mass isn’t a memory device for forgetful Christians, but the way God lifts us to Himself. In God, Christ’s Christmas Incarnation, His Good Friday Sacrifice, His Easter Day Resurrection, His Glorious Ascension and Second Coming are all one. Christ, the eternal Son, is forever offering Himself to His Father. This has been His gift—His eternal Self-Giving—since before creation. On earth, full of selfishness and all its subsequent sorrows, this Self-Giving took the form of death on the Cross. The Body broken on Golgotha is the Body now in Heaven, and present with us in the Sacrament of the Altar: each a sacrifice of Self-Giving Love. This is what God, the Three-in-One, “remembers” with us at Sunday Mass.
During these coming Three Days, He draws us into His “remembering” by making us participants. At the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday, we don’t just recall the disciples at the Lord’s Table. We ARE the disciples with Him at His Table. When we “creep” to the sanctuary during the Friday Liturgy, shoes removed and bodies bowed, to kiss His Cross, we are with Him on Golgotha. Saturday night, as the New Fire is struck and the Paschal Proclamation is sung, the Night illumined with hundreds of candles is unlike any other night—for Christ is Risen, and so are we.
These are our High Days, Days of Remembrance. Yes, we remember the mighty acts that brought about our salvation. But it’s God’s Remembrance, always present with us to create, redeem, and sanctify, that IS the Feast.
God bless each of you with His Grace for this Triduum. May He lift us to Himself during these holy days and “remember” us at the coming Paschal Feast—the one that will never end.
Tomorrow the Three Great Days begin. The Sacred Triduum is the heart of the Christian’s year. The Liturgies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Even convey the whole of the Scriptures, the Creeds and the Sacraments, the whole of our Faith, in those Three Days. The Night of the Eucharist and the Lord’s Betrayal, the Day of His Sacrificial Death and Burial, the Saturday Preparation leading to the Night that bursts to Life with Fire and Light, these solemnities are rightly called celebrations and “remembrances.”
“This is My body, which is given for you,” the Lord Jesus said to His disciples on the night in which He was betrayed. “Do this in remembrance of Me. Likewise, after supper He took the cup…” He commanded His disciples then as He commands His disciples now: “Do this in remembrance of Me.” As the Prayer of Consecration continues during the Mass, the priest says: “having in remembrance His blessed passion and precious death, His mighty resurrection and glorious ascension…” Remembrances are being made. But there are some more than interesting things to consider about these “remembrances.” They point to the coming Three Days and why these Great Days matter in the lives you and I live.
In Greek, the word we translate as “remembrance” is ANAMNESIS. It was an old word before the writers of the New Testament used it. If you look at the word a minute, you’ll see a word you already know: AMNESIA—and that helps a bit to understand the word. Amnesia is to lose memory. It’s not just to forget something for a bit, but to lose something for good. “Anamnesia”—anamnesis—is to regain the memory which was lost. Plato used it that way repeatedly. In Plato’s theory, anamnesis described the process whereby something which had been lost (in his case, knowledge,”) is restored. The translators of the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, developed the word a bit further, giving it a specialized meaning. They used the word to describe the “memorial sacrifice” offered by the Priests and Levites in the Temple. When the four Gospel-writers recorded Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, they each chose this word; for them, it had a special meaning.
When you and I “remember” something, we're performing a mental exercise. We “stop and think.” Where did I put my keys? What was that fellow’s name? Why did I come into this room? Sometimes, we sit and “remember” with friends. We think back to things we share. Common memories strengthen common bonds. Is that what we’re doing at Mass? Are we collectively “remembering” Jesus? Is He present with us because we call Him to mind? If we remember harder or better is He more present? Did we lose Him (amnesis) and, by remembering, find Him again (anamnesis)?
When Jesus gave His disciples the Bread no longer bread and the cup now filled with His Blood, He obviously didn’t add, “Do this and please, try hard to remember Me.” His words mean something else. We are indeed remembering, but much more importantly, so is Someone Else.
I love the subtle differences between the Eastern Churches and our own. One I find most intriguing is their “remembering.” We pray, “having in remembrance His blessed Passion and precious Death, His mighty Resurrection and glorious Ascension, …” At the same place in the Eastern Mass the priest prays: “Remembering… all that came to pass for our sake, the Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection on the third day, the Ascension into heaven, the Enthronement at the right hand of the Father, and the second, glorious Coming, we offer unto Thee these Gifts…” They “remember” something that hasn’t yet happened! The Liturgy sees “the second, glorious coming” of our Lord, an event in the future, as part of that which “came to pass for our sake.” How is this? The answer hinges on who’s doing the remembering.
The most important “rememberer” at the Mass isn’t the priest (or even the MC who usually remembers a lot of things for the priest!) but God. The Mass doesn’t depend on how well we remember, but on God, Who never forgets. In Him, the past, present and future are one. The Mass isn’t a memory device for forgetful Christians, but the way God lifts us to Himself. In God, Christ’s Christmas Incarnation, His Good Friday Sacrifice, His Easter Day Resurrection, His Glorious Ascension and Second Coming are all one. Christ, the eternal Son, is forever offering Himself to His Father. This has been His gift—His eternal Self-Giving—since before creation. On earth, full of selfishness and all its subsequent sorrows, this Self-Giving took the form of death on the Cross. The Body broken on Golgotha is the Body now in Heaven, and present with us in the Sacrament of the Altar: each a sacrifice of Self-Giving Love. This is what God, the Three-in-One, “remembers” with us at Sunday Mass.
During these coming Three Days, He draws us into His “remembering” by making us participants. At the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday, we don’t just recall the disciples at the Lord’s Table. We ARE the disciples with Him at His Table. When we “creep” to the sanctuary during the Friday Liturgy, shoes removed and bodies bowed, to kiss His Cross, we are with Him on Golgotha. Saturday night, as the New Fire is struck and the Paschal Proclamation is sung, the Night illumined with hundreds of candles is unlike any other night—for Christ is Risen, and so are we.
These are our High Days, Days of Remembrance. Yes, we remember the mighty acts that brought about our salvation. But it’s God’s Remembrance, always present with us to create, redeem, and sanctify, that IS the Feast.
God bless each of you with His Grace for this Triduum. May He lift us to Himself during these holy days and “remember” us at the coming Paschal Feast—the one that will never end.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
THE FRUITFUL CROSS
Tuesday in Holy Week
The struggle against sin, once genuinely entered into, is fierce. There’s no let-up, no “time-off,” for the soul turning from its own selfishness to the Lord Christ. It’s a contest which will engage us for the rest of our lives.
But the contest is neither dark nor tiring. “My yoke is easy,” coaxes the Lord, “and My burden is light.” After a good, vigorous Lent, we might fairly accuse the Lord of using His words loosely. Fasting till we can feel it; almsgiving that makes a dent in our bank balance; praying whether we feel like it or not—this is “easy?” Struggling with sin until have “shuffled off this mortal coil” admittedly sounds less enticing than a Caribbean cruise. There are no doubt many who never consider crossing the threshold of a church door because of the invisible sign over the door: “Abandon all joy, ye who enter here.”
They have cause for feeling the way they do. I have been in many churches where there is a “forced” sense of camaraderie, where people laugh about things not really very funny, where “joy” is almost force-fed. Hymns are catchy, with a little marimba beat, there’s a purposeful intention to make parish programs compete with activities in the secular world, where every sermon has to have at least two jokes (safely and blandly drawn from books like Jokes Every Minister Can Tell). Of course, I’ve been in many parishes of the other kind, too, where visitors are greeted by long faces from the pews silently warning “don’t expect a kind word till you’ve earned it,” dreary Victorian dirges that cause one to look for the door before reaching the end of the second verse, and homilies that don’t challenge but congratulate. Neither is fun, neither is joyful because both are fake. The Gospel has been left safely in the lectionary.
Joy isn’t something we can produce. It’s a gift. It’s not the gift of a witty rector or clever curate (those things are good); it’s the fruit of prayer and penitence. Joy runs deep and clear, an underground fountain that bubbles and gurgles up to refresh the souls of those who know to drink from it. God gives His gifts freely where they’re sought, but His grace isn’t cheap.
Our parishes are always looking for programs. “What can we do to bring them in?” There’s a whole industry built around “church-building,” with books full of every evangelistic idea imaginable: “Cooking Your Way to a Large Congregation,” “Tag-Team Evangelism!” “Church Growth in 49 Easy-To-Follow Steps!” I’ll tell you what I’ve never seen: a program suggesting that, before a parish resorts to “get-large-quick” schemes, it concentrates of prayer and repentance to pave the way for whatever pleases the Lord (the titled Owner of the Church Catholic).
Jesus told us to follow Him. He didn’t say what we’d pass along the Way, only that we’d be carrying a Cross and at the End of the journey we’d be with Him and made like Him. What if His Church dared pick up its Cross?
The current scandals of the Roman Church aren’t sounding her death knell; they’re the Cross Christ has given her to carry in this generation—one she should embrace to heal not only herself, but the sins and sorrows of those wounded all around. Cagey lawyers will save archdiocesan properties, but is the Lord of the Poor arraigned with the bar? The pathetic character of the Anglican Churches, of whatever sort, can be embraced as gift, a Cross to bring men and women together to trudge after Jesus, their gazes fixed on Him instead of reputation and place; or they can continue bickering and backstabbing until the sanctuary floor looks like the body-clogged stage in the last scene of Hamlet. What would happen if the Roman Church truly embraced poverty and followed after Jesus in the highways and hedges? What would happen if she freed itself of her stacked bullion and Swiss accounts? If Anglican bishops, priests and deacons insisted on practicing real humility and charity (as their Lord commands), what would become of the sickening stench of the church’s rancor? What would happen if people came to church and found Jesus Christ not only in the Sacrament of the Altar but truly alive in the hearts of His people? If God’s One Holy Catholic Church was united in prayer and penitence, would there be any empty spaces in our pews? The crowds would be such that people wouldn’t fit in the aisles.
As long as our faith is our hobby, what we do on Sundays because we’re “religious,” the world not only tolerates us but thinks we’re probably worthwhile. Cicero was personally an agnostic but he was all in favor of people being “religious” and filling the temples. “Keeps ‘em in their place; keeps crime levels low.”
“My yoke is easy,” the Lord insists. “My burden is light.” Light compared to what?
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere! That’s what the Lord has been waiting for us to ask.
If I don’t follow Jesus, I sleep in Sundays, do what I want when I want (as long as it doesn’t get me into trouble), answer to nobody but myself (except my boss, my spouse, the people I want to impress, the people I owe money to, the people who owe money to me, and any repair/delivery or installation people who tell me to be available from 8 AM till 5 PM on whatever day is convenient for them), I’m the Master of My Own Fate (as long as I don’t get sick/fired/arrested/bamboozled or flim-flammed/shown up by somebody else/robbed/beaten/hit by a train—or die) and Captain of My Own Soul (as long as it’s a single-person dingy on a very pleasant day). Left to ourselves, we can be selfish (“independent”), grasping (“looking out for #1”), self-absorbed (“glamorous”), vengeful (“standing up for my rights”), gluttonous (“connoisseur” or “pig,” as desired), libertine (“open”) and lazy (“comfortable”)—and we call this freedom instead of slavery. “I can be myself!” we boast, thinking we’re “being ourselves” when we do whatever the next thing is that drifts past our consciousness.
Jesus says—“Be who I made you to be. Put my easy yoke on and break yours intolerably heavy one. You don’t even know who you are. You’re more than a collection of whims and random interests. I created you to be My friend.”
“Whoever serves Me,” Jesus told His disciples, “must follow Me.” To follow Him is to carry a Cross and this week, His way goes up Golgotha, to die. But Sunday, in the midnight darkness, His Light will blind the world—and turn it upside down. If you’ve followed Him to Golgotha, He will keep you close for that “Great, Gettin’ Up Mornin’.”
The struggle against sin, once genuinely entered into, is fierce. There’s no let-up, no “time-off,” for the soul turning from its own selfishness to the Lord Christ. It’s a contest which will engage us for the rest of our lives.
But the contest is neither dark nor tiring. “My yoke is easy,” coaxes the Lord, “and My burden is light.” After a good, vigorous Lent, we might fairly accuse the Lord of using His words loosely. Fasting till we can feel it; almsgiving that makes a dent in our bank balance; praying whether we feel like it or not—this is “easy?” Struggling with sin until have “shuffled off this mortal coil” admittedly sounds less enticing than a Caribbean cruise. There are no doubt many who never consider crossing the threshold of a church door because of the invisible sign over the door: “Abandon all joy, ye who enter here.”
They have cause for feeling the way they do. I have been in many churches where there is a “forced” sense of camaraderie, where people laugh about things not really very funny, where “joy” is almost force-fed. Hymns are catchy, with a little marimba beat, there’s a purposeful intention to make parish programs compete with activities in the secular world, where every sermon has to have at least two jokes (safely and blandly drawn from books like Jokes Every Minister Can Tell). Of course, I’ve been in many parishes of the other kind, too, where visitors are greeted by long faces from the pews silently warning “don’t expect a kind word till you’ve earned it,” dreary Victorian dirges that cause one to look for the door before reaching the end of the second verse, and homilies that don’t challenge but congratulate. Neither is fun, neither is joyful because both are fake. The Gospel has been left safely in the lectionary.
Joy isn’t something we can produce. It’s a gift. It’s not the gift of a witty rector or clever curate (those things are good); it’s the fruit of prayer and penitence. Joy runs deep and clear, an underground fountain that bubbles and gurgles up to refresh the souls of those who know to drink from it. God gives His gifts freely where they’re sought, but His grace isn’t cheap.
Our parishes are always looking for programs. “What can we do to bring them in?” There’s a whole industry built around “church-building,” with books full of every evangelistic idea imaginable: “Cooking Your Way to a Large Congregation,” “Tag-Team Evangelism!” “Church Growth in 49 Easy-To-Follow Steps!” I’ll tell you what I’ve never seen: a program suggesting that, before a parish resorts to “get-large-quick” schemes, it concentrates of prayer and repentance to pave the way for whatever pleases the Lord (the titled Owner of the Church Catholic).
Jesus told us to follow Him. He didn’t say what we’d pass along the Way, only that we’d be carrying a Cross and at the End of the journey we’d be with Him and made like Him. What if His Church dared pick up its Cross?
The current scandals of the Roman Church aren’t sounding her death knell; they’re the Cross Christ has given her to carry in this generation—one she should embrace to heal not only herself, but the sins and sorrows of those wounded all around. Cagey lawyers will save archdiocesan properties, but is the Lord of the Poor arraigned with the bar? The pathetic character of the Anglican Churches, of whatever sort, can be embraced as gift, a Cross to bring men and women together to trudge after Jesus, their gazes fixed on Him instead of reputation and place; or they can continue bickering and backstabbing until the sanctuary floor looks like the body-clogged stage in the last scene of Hamlet. What would happen if the Roman Church truly embraced poverty and followed after Jesus in the highways and hedges? What would happen if she freed itself of her stacked bullion and Swiss accounts? If Anglican bishops, priests and deacons insisted on practicing real humility and charity (as their Lord commands), what would become of the sickening stench of the church’s rancor? What would happen if people came to church and found Jesus Christ not only in the Sacrament of the Altar but truly alive in the hearts of His people? If God’s One Holy Catholic Church was united in prayer and penitence, would there be any empty spaces in our pews? The crowds would be such that people wouldn’t fit in the aisles.
As long as our faith is our hobby, what we do on Sundays because we’re “religious,” the world not only tolerates us but thinks we’re probably worthwhile. Cicero was personally an agnostic but he was all in favor of people being “religious” and filling the temples. “Keeps ‘em in their place; keeps crime levels low.”
“My yoke is easy,” the Lord insists. “My burden is light.” Light compared to what?
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere! That’s what the Lord has been waiting for us to ask.
If I don’t follow Jesus, I sleep in Sundays, do what I want when I want (as long as it doesn’t get me into trouble), answer to nobody but myself (except my boss, my spouse, the people I want to impress, the people I owe money to, the people who owe money to me, and any repair/delivery or installation people who tell me to be available from 8 AM till 5 PM on whatever day is convenient for them), I’m the Master of My Own Fate (as long as I don’t get sick/fired/arrested/bamboozled or flim-flammed/shown up by somebody else/robbed/beaten/hit by a train—or die) and Captain of My Own Soul (as long as it’s a single-person dingy on a very pleasant day). Left to ourselves, we can be selfish (“independent”), grasping (“looking out for #1”), self-absorbed (“glamorous”), vengeful (“standing up for my rights”), gluttonous (“connoisseur” or “pig,” as desired), libertine (“open”) and lazy (“comfortable”)—and we call this freedom instead of slavery. “I can be myself!” we boast, thinking we’re “being ourselves” when we do whatever the next thing is that drifts past our consciousness.
Jesus says—“Be who I made you to be. Put my easy yoke on and break yours intolerably heavy one. You don’t even know who you are. You’re more than a collection of whims and random interests. I created you to be My friend.”
“Whoever serves Me,” Jesus told His disciples, “must follow Me.” To follow Him is to carry a Cross and this week, His way goes up Golgotha, to die. But Sunday, in the midnight darkness, His Light will blind the world—and turn it upside down. If you’ve followed Him to Golgotha, He will keep you close for that “Great, Gettin’ Up Mornin’.”
Monday, March 29, 2010
THE PERFECT MAN
Monday in Holy Week
Our Lord was, and will always be, the Perfect Man. He took our broken humanity and healed it, uniting it to His Divinity. At Mass, when the priest pours the wine and water into the chalice at the offertory, he prays a sublime prayer, written by Pope Gregory the Great fourteen hundred years ago:
“O God, Who didst wondrously create, and even more wondrously didst renew the dignity and nature of man, grant by the mystery of this water and wine, that He Who was partaker of our humanity, may make us partakers of His divinity.”
Not only, St Gregory wrote, did He create our humanity, He renewed it. He re-shaped what we damaged. He did this first in Himself, but the Lord Jesus continues “renewing the dignity and nature of man” in each one of us. This renewal comes at a cost. God took humanity into Himself. In Christ, God became one of us. Taking our broken humanity into Himself, He healed it, not by saying some magic words but by applying spiritual remedies.
The Cross is that remedy in its most stark form. Christ gave Himself to the Cross to confront all the worst in our nature and tear it from us. He didn’t want to die. He was the only one of us Who didn’t have to. When He prayed, as Perfect Man, that “this cup pass from Him,” He wasn’t simply praying not to die. He was, as Perfect Man, praying not to take the consequences of our sinfulness into His humanity.
When I sin, I turn from God. It may not feel like it. It may feel like I’ve just expressed my honest feelings or indulged myself a bit too much or taken what I should, by rights, have been given. Sin doesn’t “feel” like sin most of the time, it doesn’t seem serious, because we’re so used to it.
We see the truth of sin, its soul-searing cost, in Christ’s cry of agony from the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It’s a quote from the Psalter—even in His pain at carrying the cost of sin, Christ sobs the words of Scripture—a cry of abandonment. “I cry day and night,” the Psalm goes on, “but Thou dost not answer.” A few words later it concludes, faithful even in despair, “Yet Thou, O Lord, art enthroned on the praises of Israel.” In Christ, the cost of sin is confronted head on. He gave His Heart to be the battleground, and there, its stranglehold on us is met and broken.
That battle continues in us. In every one of us the fight goes on, we just don’t know it most of the time. We’re used to losing the battles, because we think we’re fighting different ones! When somebody contradicts you, how do you feel? Irritated, resentful, maybe threatened. Who’s the enemy? The fool who doesn’t accept what you’ve said hook, line and sinker. What to do? Attack, passively if necessary, make them regret what they’ve done. The pseudo-psychological result? I’ve protected my turf and affirmed my self-worth. The spiritual result? I’ve turned a chance to follow Jesus (Who didn’t open His mouth to His accusers) into another tedious exercise of self-centeredness.
Through Holy Week, we hear in Scripture and see in the Liturgy the meaning of the Cross revealed. We can go for the cheap thrill and get worked up about how tragic this all was, how painful those nails must have been, and what rats those Pharisees were. We can shed wet tears that Jesus went through this for us and feel guilty that we’re such terrible sinners. Then Easter comes and we can gorge ourselves with chocolate until whatever the next holiday is (Cinco de Mayo, I think).
We don’t have to be chocolate Christians. We can embrace our own Cross in Holy Week, pick it up and follow the Lord. No need to work up some safely-distanced guilt, sorry for what He went through a long time ago, something we can pick up and drop off each year during Holy Week. How about if we each accept guilt for just the sins we commit? Accept it and get rid of it—confess it, have it forgiven—and then be men and women of faith and live with its consequences without whining. If we follow the Lord with our Cross, it means not so much feeling bad for what we’ve done as being willing to accept that you don’t admire me as much as I do; to accept that when I give my money to charity, I don’t get some unexpected reward in return, I just have less money, and that’s good because I love money too much. A faithful plodding after Jesus will eventually allow us to see many of the things we love aren’t lovable; the things we want aren’t desirable; the glamorous people we admire aren’t admirable. Following Jesus sets us free—not just from the tinny noises of the world, but from our slavery to ourselves. It doesn’t matter, that much, what I think. What I want really isn’t very important. This isn’t because we don’t matter: just the opposite. It’s because you and I are much more than our shifting opinions and occasional wants. We’re the sons and daughters of God, created in His image and intended for His fellowship.
The cost of that fellowship is the Cross—His and ours. But what does that fellowship promise? St Gregory’s prayer reminds us: “grant that He Who was partaker of our humanity, may make us partakers of His divinity.” Easter without end. It’s worth the plod.
Our Lord was, and will always be, the Perfect Man. He took our broken humanity and healed it, uniting it to His Divinity. At Mass, when the priest pours the wine and water into the chalice at the offertory, he prays a sublime prayer, written by Pope Gregory the Great fourteen hundred years ago:
“O God, Who didst wondrously create, and even more wondrously didst renew the dignity and nature of man, grant by the mystery of this water and wine, that He Who was partaker of our humanity, may make us partakers of His divinity.”
Not only, St Gregory wrote, did He create our humanity, He renewed it. He re-shaped what we damaged. He did this first in Himself, but the Lord Jesus continues “renewing the dignity and nature of man” in each one of us. This renewal comes at a cost. God took humanity into Himself. In Christ, God became one of us. Taking our broken humanity into Himself, He healed it, not by saying some magic words but by applying spiritual remedies.
The Cross is that remedy in its most stark form. Christ gave Himself to the Cross to confront all the worst in our nature and tear it from us. He didn’t want to die. He was the only one of us Who didn’t have to. When He prayed, as Perfect Man, that “this cup pass from Him,” He wasn’t simply praying not to die. He was, as Perfect Man, praying not to take the consequences of our sinfulness into His humanity.
When I sin, I turn from God. It may not feel like it. It may feel like I’ve just expressed my honest feelings or indulged myself a bit too much or taken what I should, by rights, have been given. Sin doesn’t “feel” like sin most of the time, it doesn’t seem serious, because we’re so used to it.
We see the truth of sin, its soul-searing cost, in Christ’s cry of agony from the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It’s a quote from the Psalter—even in His pain at carrying the cost of sin, Christ sobs the words of Scripture—a cry of abandonment. “I cry day and night,” the Psalm goes on, “but Thou dost not answer.” A few words later it concludes, faithful even in despair, “Yet Thou, O Lord, art enthroned on the praises of Israel.” In Christ, the cost of sin is confronted head on. He gave His Heart to be the battleground, and there, its stranglehold on us is met and broken.
That battle continues in us. In every one of us the fight goes on, we just don’t know it most of the time. We’re used to losing the battles, because we think we’re fighting different ones! When somebody contradicts you, how do you feel? Irritated, resentful, maybe threatened. Who’s the enemy? The fool who doesn’t accept what you’ve said hook, line and sinker. What to do? Attack, passively if necessary, make them regret what they’ve done. The pseudo-psychological result? I’ve protected my turf and affirmed my self-worth. The spiritual result? I’ve turned a chance to follow Jesus (Who didn’t open His mouth to His accusers) into another tedious exercise of self-centeredness.
Through Holy Week, we hear in Scripture and see in the Liturgy the meaning of the Cross revealed. We can go for the cheap thrill and get worked up about how tragic this all was, how painful those nails must have been, and what rats those Pharisees were. We can shed wet tears that Jesus went through this for us and feel guilty that we’re such terrible sinners. Then Easter comes and we can gorge ourselves with chocolate until whatever the next holiday is (Cinco de Mayo, I think).
We don’t have to be chocolate Christians. We can embrace our own Cross in Holy Week, pick it up and follow the Lord. No need to work up some safely-distanced guilt, sorry for what He went through a long time ago, something we can pick up and drop off each year during Holy Week. How about if we each accept guilt for just the sins we commit? Accept it and get rid of it—confess it, have it forgiven—and then be men and women of faith and live with its consequences without whining. If we follow the Lord with our Cross, it means not so much feeling bad for what we’ve done as being willing to accept that you don’t admire me as much as I do; to accept that when I give my money to charity, I don’t get some unexpected reward in return, I just have less money, and that’s good because I love money too much. A faithful plodding after Jesus will eventually allow us to see many of the things we love aren’t lovable; the things we want aren’t desirable; the glamorous people we admire aren’t admirable. Following Jesus sets us free—not just from the tinny noises of the world, but from our slavery to ourselves. It doesn’t matter, that much, what I think. What I want really isn’t very important. This isn’t because we don’t matter: just the opposite. It’s because you and I are much more than our shifting opinions and occasional wants. We’re the sons and daughters of God, created in His image and intended for His fellowship.
The cost of that fellowship is the Cross—His and ours. But what does that fellowship promise? St Gregory’s prayer reminds us: “grant that He Who was partaker of our humanity, may make us partakers of His divinity.” Easter without end. It’s worth the plod.
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