Communio – Page 528 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

“GOOD FRIDAY”

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky.
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

Christina Rossetti

Church visits on Holy Thursday

It is customary to visit the special altars created for the reserved Eucharist after the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the birth of the holy priesthood and the giving of the Eucharist as the supreme gift Love to the Church. There we spend time in prayer for ourselves and for those we’ve promised to pray. Keeping watch is an act of love and penance with the goal of remaining close to the Lord. From time immemorial we learn how to keep vigil by making visits to three or seven nearby churches as a “mini-pilgrimage.” Tradition tells us that Saint Philip Neri is credited with popularizing the Roman practice of a pilgrimage to seven churches to keep people attentive to the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist, plus to keep them out of trouble. The point of this pious and noble exercise is to keep vigil with the Lord as the disciples tried to do so in the Garden of Gethsemani before the Lord’s arrest. I will be visiting at least three perhaps seven churches. One can’t always find the churches open into the night even on Holy Thursday.

Pope Benedict’s homily for Holy Thursday 2009

Qui, pridie quam pro nostra omniumque salute pateretur, hoc est hodie, accepit panem: [Who, the day before he suffered for the salvation of us and of all — that is, today — he took the bread:] these words we shall pray today in the Canon of the Mass. “Hoc est hodie” [“That is, today”] – the Liturgy of Holy Thursday places the word “today” into the text of the prayer, thereby emphasizing the particular dignity of this day. It was “today” that He did this: he gave himself to us for ever in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. This “today” is first and foremost the memorial of that first Paschal event. Yet it is something more. With the Canon, we enter into this “today”. Our today comes into contact with his today. He does this now. With the word “today”, the Church’s Liturgy wants us to give great inner attention to the mystery of this day, to the words in which it is expressed. We therefore seek to listen in a new way to the institution narrative, in the form in which the Church has formulated it, on the basis of Scripture and in contemplation of the Lord himself.

The first thing to strike us is that the institution narrative is not an independent phrase, but it starts with a relative pronoun: qui pridie. This “qui” connects the entire narrative to the preceding section of the prayer, “let it become for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ, your only Son, our Lord.” In this way, the institution narrative is linked to the preceding prayer, to the entire Canon, and it too becomes a prayer. By no means is it merely an interpolated narrative, nor is it a case of an authoritative self-standing text that actually interrupts the prayer. It is a prayer. And only in the course of the prayer is the priestly act of consecration accomplished, which becomes transformation, transubstantiation of our gifts of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. As she prays at this central moment, the Church is fully in tune with the event that took place in the Upper Room, when Jesus’ action is described in the words: “gratias agens benedixit – he gave you thanks and praise”. In this expression, the Roman liturgy has made two words out of the one Hebrew word berakha, which is rendered in Greek with the two terms eucharistía and eulogía. The Lord gives thanks. When we thank, we acknowledge that a certain thing is a gift that has come from another. The Lord gives thanks, and in so doing gives back to God the bread, “fruit of the earth and work of human hands”, so as to receive it anew from him. Thanksgiving becomes blessing. The offering that we have placed in God’s hands returns from him blessed and transformed. The Roman liturgy rightly interprets our praying at this sacred moment by means of the words: “through him, we ask you to accept and bless these gifts we offer you in sacrifice”. All this lies hidden within the word “eucharistia”.

Continue reading Pope Benedict’s homily for Holy Thursday 2009

…one must not sleep during this time…the sacred Triduum is upon us

How marvelous, and at the same time amazing, is this mystery! We can never meditate this reality sufficiently. Jesus, though being God, did not want to make of his divine prerogatives an exclusive possession; he did not want to use his being God, his glorious dignity and power, as an instrument of triumph and sign of distance from us. On the contrary, “he emptied himself” assuming our miserable and weak human condition –in this regard, Paul uses a quite meaningful Greek verb to indicate the kenosis, this descent of Jesus. The divine form (morphe) is hidden in Christ under the human form, namely, under our reality marked by suffering, poverty, human limitations and death. The radical and true sharing of our nature, a sharing in everything except sin, leads him to that frontier that is the sign of our finiteness –death. But all this was not the fruit of a dark mechanism or a blind fatality: It was instead his free choice, by his generous adherence to the salvific plan of the Father. And the death which he went out to meet –adds Paul– was that of the cross, the most humiliating and degrading that one can imagine. The Lord of the universe did all this out of love for us: out of love he willed to “empty himself” and make himself our brother; out of love he shared our condition, that of every man and every woman. In this connection, Theodoret of Cyrus, a great witness of the Eastern tradition, writes: “Being God and God by nature and having equality with God, he did not retain this as something great, as do those who have received some honor beyond their merits, but concealing his merits, he chose the most profound humility and took the form of a human being” (Commentary on the Letter to the Philippians, 2:6-7).

Pope Benedict XVI, Wednesday General Audience, 8 April 2009, excerpt

Stanley L. Jaki, OSB, RIP

The Reverend Dom Stanley L. Jaki, O.S.B., died April 7th, in Spain after suffering a heart attack in Rome without knowing it. After arriving in Madrid to visit friends he was taken to the hospital for treatment but died days later. He was a monk and priest of the Archabbey of Saint Martin, Pannonhalma, Hungary. He entered the archabbey in 1941, professing solemn vows in 1944 and was ordained a priest in 1948. Like many other Hungarian priests, Jaki immigrated to the USA during Soviet persecution.

Father Jaki trained as a physicist and devoted his life to the history and philosophy of science and theology rather than scientific research. His intellectual work was ground breaking in connecting Catholic theology and science, and the only one to do so for many years. Jaki earned a doctorate in theology from Sant’Anselmo (Rome) in 1950 and another doctorate in (astro)physics from Fordham University in 1957. Since 1965 he has taught at Seton Hall University and honored as Distinguished Professor of Physics in 1975. After retiring he kept active by holding court, giving lectures and writing, often cantankerously.

Father Jaki was well-known for his writings on science and religion. He delievered the prestigious Gifford Lectures from 1974-1976, later published under the title of The Road of Science and the Ways to God. In 1987 Dom Stanley was award the Templeton Prize. He is considered one of the best scholars on the thought of Cardinal John Henry Newman in the U.S. His publishing record show he published 7 books and numerous articles on Newman.

“Although the world was God’s creation and, as such, to be profoundly respected, the world itself possessed no intrinsic divinity,” Father Thomas G. Guarino, professor of theology at Seton Hall, stated. “Father Jaki’s work elucidated the notion that in understanding the very laws of the physical universe, science naturally opened out toward the affirmation of faith.”

A website devoted to Father Jaki

Not only the Passion but the Resurrection

Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, reminds us of this: ‘We must observe not only the day of the Passion, but the day of the Resurrection as well. Thus, we will have a day of bitterness and a day of joy; on the one let us fast, on the other let us seek refreshment…During this Sacred Triduum…Christ suffered, rested and rose from the dead. Of that three day period he himself says: ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Epistle 23).

Our Lenten observances, indeed our whole life of faith, have been a preparation for this celebration of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, our redemption from sin. May all of us bear witness to this joy in our daily lives; not only now but all through the year. And may our celebration of the Triduum be a time to reflect on our redemption through Christ, the eternal gift to us sinners from God the Father.

Are we living in post-Christian America?

In the April 13, 2009 issue of Newsweek, Jon Meacham wrote the article, “The End of Christian America,” exploring the idea that we are living in a time where many of those who identified themselves as Christians are now saying that they are skeptical about religion. Some have gone beyond skepticism and rejected religion altogether. In his article Meacham points out something that I find startling indeed: since 1990 the percentage of Americans who no longer claim a religious affiliation as risen from 8 to 15%. Plus, this group of religious non-affiliated has risen in the Northeast. Is this trend pointing to a real crisis or is Meacham creating havoc for the Church? Are Americans accepting secularlity over salvation? Are Christians to blame?

Certainly, experience shows that in many places, including religious houses, the liturgical rites and preaching are often so bad that one can understand why people leave the Church. How often do we go to Church encountering an unprepared priest, altar servers with little dignity and training and the poorly proclaimed Scriptures? Never mind the foolishness that passes for adequate, never mind “superb,” catechetical formation and social outreach to the poor, the sick and the elderly. Where is the formation in the faith for the adults, teens and children based on Scripture and Tradition and not some minister’s ideology? Is Christ only a one-day-a week event? Let’s ask a question about the credibility of the witness: do the priests really believe in Christ, sin, grace, salvation, Mary, etc? What about those who take religious vows: are they really living according to the mind of the Church AND constitutions of their particular order? The Church in recent times is famous for answering questions that are not being asked by the faithful.

If the Church wants to slow down or reverse the secularization of our culture then it needs holy and competent men and women, clergy and laity alike, who will live the faith in a serious manner. The gospel needs to be preached in such a way that is faithfully and poignantly breaks open the word of the Word AND the lives the liturgical rites. Salvation is a question of content and beauty.

Spy Wednesday

Today we recall the words Jesus spoke to Judas at the Last Supper, “The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” (Matthew 26:24). Judas has become is synonymous with the act of betrayal. In the Inferno, Dante places Judas in the very lowest circle of Hell, being devoured eternally by a three-faced, bat-winged devil:

When we had gotten far enough along
that my master was pleased to let me see
the creature who was once so fair of face
he took a step aside, then brought me to a halt:
‘Look there at Dis! And see the place
where you must arm yourself with fortitude.’
Then how faint and frozen I became,
reader, do not ask, for I do not write it,
since any words would fail to be enough.
It was not death, nor could one call it life.
Imagine, if you have the wit,
what I became, deprived of both.
The emperor of the woeful kingdom
rose from the ice below his breast,
and I in size am closer to a giant
than giants are when measured to his arms.
Judge, then, what the whole must be
that is proportional to such a part.
If he was fair as he is hideous now,
and raised his brow in scorn of his creator,
he is fit to be the source of every sorrow.
Oh, what a wonder it appeared to me
when I perceived three faces on his head.
The first, in front, was red in color.
Another two he had, each joined with this,
above the midpoint of each shoulder,
and all the three united at the crest.
The one on the right was a whitish yellow,
while the left-hand one was tinted like the people
living at the sources of the Nile.

Beneath each face two mighty wings emerged,
such as befit so vast a bird:
I never saw such massive sails at sea.
They were featherless and fashioned
like a bat’s wings. When he flapped them,
he sent forth three separate winds,
the sources of the ice upon Cocytus.
Out of six eyes he wept and his three chins
dripped tears and drooled blood-red saliva.
With his teeth, just like a hackle
pounding flax, he champed a sinner
in each mouth, tormenting three at once.
For the one in front the gnawing was a trifle
to the clawing, for from time to time
his back was left with not a shred of skin.
‘That soul up there who bears the greatest pain,’
said the master, ‘is Judas Iscariot, who has
his head within and outside flails his legs.
‘As for the other two, whose heads are dangling down,
Brutus is hanging from the swarthy snout —
see how he writhes and utters not a word! —
‘and from the other, Cassius, so large of limb.
But night is rising in the sky. It is time
for us to leave, for we have seen it all.’ (Canto XXXIV)

According to the pious legend, the tree upon which Judas hanged himself was the Cercis siliquastrum, also called the “Judas Tree.” It is a beautiful tree, native to the Mediterranean region, which produces brilliant deep pink flowers in the spring; the flowers are said to have blushed in shame after Judas’s suicide.

What moves us is Jesus Christ

The Easter Message 2009

His Beatitude, Archbishop Fouad Twal
Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem

We have arrived at the doorstep of Holy Week, the great week, which is the summit of the Christian year. During this blessed week, God gives us the grace to relive the event of our salvation: with Jesus, and in Jesus, we pass from death to life, we strip off the old man in order to clothe ourselves with the new man. This week is the synthesis of our entire Christian life.

Let’s be clear about this. The account of the Passion, of the Death and the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus does not just relate to historical events already completed, events that we drag out from a dusty tome in order to give pious remembrance to them, but which nonetheless remain outside of the real drama and tragedies that are being played out in our lives. No, in these feasts we find ourselves on the inside of the drama, the same drama that is being played out within us. We are participants in the mystery of salvation, and the mystery of salvation is accomplished in us! This is because we recognize ourselves very well in each one of the characters of the Pascal event: in Jesus and his suffering, those same sufferings that each one of us must undergo in the course of our lives: hunger, betrayal, exhaustion, injustice… in Peter, so impulsive and generous, but ever so vulnerable; in Judas and the apostles; in Pilate and in the chief priests, who judge and strike out without mercy; in the crowd that now is cheering and then roaring in its hate; in the Virgin Mary, whose heart is pierced by a sword, but who accompanies Jesus along his way of the cross and stays by his side in the most dramatic moments in a total and confident abandonment; in the soldiers who mock him, strike him and are completely indifferent to the sufferings of the Christ; in Veronica and the other holy women who weep and attempt to assuage the sufferings of his Mother; in Simon the Cyrene and Joseph of Arimathea; in the good thief who calls on Jesus and manages, in the very last moments of his life, to snatch for himself paradise itself… In the course of our lives, we are in turn each one of these characters.

But the One who attracts us most of all, who touches us, moves us and transforms what is inside of us, this is Jesus the Christ. It is He. During all this Holy Week, we must never allow ourselves to take our eyes off of Him… For it is towards Jesus that we have to turn our eyes and hearts “to know him and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by being conformed to his death, if somehow [we] may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Phil 3:10-11)

Here we have Jesus, the Messiah, the one who we cheered so much just a few days ago on Palm Sunday, who staggers out of Pilate’s house bearing upon his shoulders the heavy cross. His path moves through those narrow, winding and steep streets of Jerusalem. We follow this scene, but from a distance; in this way no one notices our presence… We are too afraid of ending up like him, suffering and dying. The soldiers shout and strike the Lord in order to stir up within him the last dregs of energy that he has left. Look, Jesus falls. To see our Lord fall, the same one who we beheld in all his glory on Mount Tabor… Three times he falls, but struggles up again and just barely manages to continue on his “via crucis.”

He finally arrives at Golgotha, and there is crucified between two criminals. Mary his mother is near him, with two other women. John is there also. What a terrible sight. It is too much to bear… Our hearts are torn between compassion and revulsion – compassion for the Master who suffers this martyrdom though “he has done nothing wrong.”(Is 53:9) On the contrary: “He always went about doing good.”(Acts 10:38). How things have turned around, that this Lord here, who so many times showed his power in words, lets these men have their way with him and stands there mute “like a sheep before its shearers.” This Lord here who so many times revealed his power in gestures, hangs there impotent… We too sometimes are tempted to say with the chief priests: “Let him come down from the cross now! Save yourself, you who saved so many others! (Mt 27:42)

Seeing Jesus on the cross really puts our faith to the test. He performed so many signs during his public ministry… but this time, where is the sign? What can be the meaning of all this? And here is Jesus shouting out in a loud voice: “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mt 27:26) Then he expires. He is dead. It is finished.

Why stay here to watch this, to look upon this pitiful failure? Let’s go home.

Today is Holy Saturday. It is all emptiness. The Lord is dead. Our fondest hopes have taken flight and departed. We are gathered here with the apostles and their disciples, and we brood over our sadness, our disappointment but also our shame and our guilt at not having “been up to the task.” The only comfort that we find in our midst comes from Mary his Mother. She suffers, you can see that, but at the same time she is at peace. She invites us to believe, to hope against all hope. Jesus can neither be deceived nor deceive us. The truth will come to light. When? How? And what has all this been for? This is the day of “why’s”, but still no answer comes. Still there is Mary whose mother’s heart beats with an unutterable premonition. Mary believes with her whole heart, with her whole soul and with all her strength. We do as she does.

Resurrection Sunday: We have trouble believing what Mary Magdalene and the women have come to tell us. They say that they have seen the Lord alive! They say that we are to wait for him in Galilee. Women’s talk, nothing more…

And yet… And yet, if it’s true…

Here are Peter and John racing to the tomb. We follow them. Our hearts are pounding in our chests… What has happened? Has someone taken his corps off somewhere? The Romans? The Sanhedrin? No, no we have an inkling that something else has happened. The fragments and half phrases of the Lord, which were lying dormant in us, rush back to our memory. “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” (Mt 17:22) Are not those the same words that the angels spoke to the women? But whatever can it mean to “be raised” from the dead? In the tomb, the corps has disappeared! And this cannot have been a robbery since, just as the women and Mary Magdalene confirmed, everything is in its place: there is the shroud, empty on the inside, in the very same place where the corps had been lain… there is the cloth that surrounded the Lord’s head, collapsed in on itself…

Could the women, then, have been telling the truth? The Lord, who was dead, could he be alive? With the eleven disciples, we hurry on to Galilee, to the mountain that Jesus mentioned. The Lord is waiting for us in Galilee. Galilee, our Church, our home, it is there that we performed our service; Galilee, that is the place where the Lord sent us to be joyous witnesses of His death and resurrection.

We come to the mountain. The Lord is there! Yes, it is really him! He is different and yet the same. Yes, it is really us! The same, and yet so different. With Thomas we cry out: “My Lord and my God!” With Mary, we say with our whole heart: “Rabbi.” Yes, Christ is risen! He is truly risen!

The adventure now continues. Or rather, it now begins again, all new! For ourselves, for
our country, for our Church. Salvation has been accomplished and must be proclaimed to all men. Once again, Easter has taken place in our Churches, in our houses, in our towns and villages, in our parish communities, monasteries and convents, in our souls and our hearts, on the beautiful faces of all of our dear pilgrims and tourists. Halleluiah rings out once again far and wide!

This is our feast! And participating in our joy, Jesus says to each one: “I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

What is certain: the Source of new life is in Christ

Go in the footsteps of Christ, He is your end, your way and also your prize. Life is a journey, certainly. But it is not an uncertain journey without a fixed destiny; it leads to Christ, the end of human life and history. On this journey you will meet with him who gave his life for love, and opens to you the doors of eternal life. (Pope Benedict XVI to the Madrid youth)