Easter Joy

Well you can't very well write about Good Friday and not write about Easter! I spent the weekend with a good friend in Binghamton, so am just getting around to writing a bit tonight.

On my drive back from Binghamton, this prayer entered my heart: "Lord, let me see myself in the Light of Your Resurrection." Our ideas about our lives and our very personhood are too often determined by others, when the only Person who can speak who we are is God. A God who knows the realities of human existence, but who offers the final Word - LIFE. There is joy, humility and peace here. The joy of knowing that humanity is resurrected in Christ, and that by His stripes, I am healed. 

I went to Easter Sunday Mass at my friend's church, and although I knew no one else besides my friend, I felt totally at home and welcomed. People had friendly faces and friendly spirits (oh that it were so in every Catholic parish!). But it soon became clear that we chose to sit near a family with a toddler who was NOT having it. "I want down. I want get down!" the little guy wailed and squirmed in his grandfather's arms, almost to the point where he squirmed right out of his little pants. 

Yeah it was annoying because I had to work really hard to focus on the homily. But I also felt like I understood that kid really well. Like, sometimes I just want to wail and squirm out of the arms of the Lord when He's asking me to do something I don't like or don't get. Sometimes he's just asking me to be still and rest in Him. Okay, most of the time that's what He's asking me! He only holds me in love, but when I fight Him, I make it harder for myself (and often for others around me).

My prayer for the Easter Season and the coming year is for all of us to allow Him to hold us and not to wail and squirm and demand to do life our own way. God is the only one who knows us perfectly, and He's the only one who can speak who we are. But we have to let Him. 

Take Up Your Cross

In my Good Friday tradition, I am starting my day with scripture. Yesterday at the Holy Thursday Mass of the Last Supper, we heard from the Gospel of John. Today, I'm reading the Gospel of Luke, in particular the Passion Narrative. Here's what has struck me this morning: 

As they led him away they took hold of a certain Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country; and after laying the cross on him, they made him carry it behind Jesus.   (Lk 23:26)

I realized after meditating on this passage that for most of my life, whenever I heard the phrase "take up your cross," it evoked an image of me dragging the impossibly heavy burdens of life around the world on my own, with Jesus far off on a hilltop, looking down and giving me the thumbs up sign. I know, that's ridiculous. 

But really, in a culture that emphasizes individualism and self-reliance, it's not too surprising that this is how many of us think of "taking up our crosses."  Like we have to muscle it ourselves and hope God is noticing. That recalls a line from Jesus Christ Superstar (Simon Zealotes): "Christ, you know I love you; did you see, I waved? I believe in you and God, so tell me that I'm saved." There's a very human desperation in all of this.

But what results from this self-reliance in suffering? Substance abuse, isolation, workaholism, depression, addictions to sex, food, exercise, escapism, and abuse of others in our lives. 

Jesus wants us to make an act of will so that we choose to engage our suffering. But he doesn't want us to try to go it alone. He wants us to share that burden with Him, or rather, in a sense, we are sharing His burden. It becomes OUR burden, and He lightens the load by a) giving meaning to our suffering (for the salvation of souls), and b) accompanying us with His love, drawing us into deeper relationship with Him. 

The supernatural grace with which He infuses us will transform us (not just "cover" us). In this way, He uses the suffering we experience to divinize us, to make us more like Him - if we let Him. This is not the old pious saying that "suffering is good for the soul," a vacuous comment that is neither compassionate nor true. This is God taking the sting out of death.

Death's sting is removed because we enter into eternal life with Jesus when we enter into his Passion and carry our crosses with Him. Our loads will be lightened because we share them with the Saviour; we ourselves will be resurrected in spirit when we die and in body on the last day - this He has promised us. But to begin with, we must share the burdens of life with Him, inviting Him into deep communion - or rather, responding to His invitation to deep communion. In this way, we share in the Pascal Mystery.

Triduum 2016 - Holy Thursday

In the Gospel of John, Yeshua tenderly washes the apostles' feet, then sits down and asks them, "Do you know what I have done for you?" (Jn 13:12) At the time, Simon (Cephas/Peter) and the apostles didn't really catch on to what was going on. But eventually, they did. And so can we.

Jesus (Yeshua) has shown us that we are to be servant leaders; we are to serve our brothers and sisters in humility and love - just as He did. In Holy Thursday Mass, we have the "washing of the feet" to commemorate this act. But what does it really mean, and why did Jesus wash the disciples' feet, not just serve a meal or do some other act of service?

We must do two things to unpack this gesture - one is the examine the physicality of it, and the other is to remember Jesus' time and place. Jesus took off his outer garment and wrapped a towel around his waist. Taking off an outer garment can symbolize getting ready to work (akin to "rolling up one's sleeves"), and it is also a gesture of intimacy, of removing a layer that separates one person from another. In this wood cut image, you can see Jesus' posture: He is on his knees, He is bent over. The posture itself is one of humility and even deference (imagine, the God who created the universe is hunched over in service to His most cherished creation!).

The other thing to know is that people in ancient Palestine didn't get pedis on a regular basis (duh!). They walked barefooted or with sandals in roads filled with dust, mud, and dung.  It was a form of welcome and hospitality to have one's feet washed when one entered a home - but it was the gentile servants who did this act, not the host. So washing their feet - a dirty job reserved for non-Jewish servants - was not the most pleasant task. However, He did it with Love, and He did it with a heart to show us how we must serve one another - in humility, in perfection, in true charity (caritas). Our High Priest serving His people, as we are called to be a priestly people serving each other.

Some translations say "...what I have done to you?" We have been washed by God, caressed and made clean, in a precursor to the water that will flow from Messiah's side (the waters of Baptism) along with His Precious Blood (His Love for us outpoured for our redemption). Although the disciples are already "clean" (except for the one who will betray Jesus), they are still in need of KNOWING this. And knowing that their job will be to bring the Good News and Baptism to others in service to others. This kind of knowing is tied to physicality--feeling the Master's own hands cleansing their rough, worn skin. He tends to our souls with His own hands, His own outpouring of Love, so that we may be with Him in Eternity.

As I've said elsewhere on this blog, Jesus touched people; He physically touched people in healing and in teaching. He used parables of real life, experiential lessons in the Kingdom of God embedded in the very Creation we share. And in this same way, His touch brought home the lesson and the example of how we are to care for each other. 

As I write this, Bl. Mother Teresa comes to mind, how she touched the unwanted and the dying, caring for them, saying that in each of them, she was touching and caring for Jesus, himself.

We have been made ready to follow Him as humble servants of each other, thereby loving God in our service. When we feed the hungry, comfort the grieving, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, we are rendering this to God, who is alive in every one of us. For we are One Body in Christ.

Jesus transformed the Passover sedar into communion with Him, and with the Trinity, when he instituted the Eucharist. This is My Body...this is My Blood. These aren't symbols of his body and blood, these are His very SELF given to us in love beyond human comprehension. He says with this Gift, Be one with Me, as I am one with the Father, and you shall be one with each other in Me. Abide in me, He asks us, begs us to accept Him so that we may have Life.

Last night, Holy Thursday Mass and reposing of the Blessed Sacrament was simple and beautiful at St. Peter's parish, where I worship. Despite feeling unwell most of the week, I was able to stay in the "Garden" with Jesus for a little while after Mass. I will forever associate this with my first experience on Maundy Thursday in the Garden at St. Jude's Anglican Church in Burbank. It was that first Holy Thursday after my reversion/Resurrection experience that I felt the presence of Christ, nearer than my own breath, as I ventured to stay with Him in the Garden of my soul, wearied and broken as I was (and am).

How Jesus suffered in His Agony... "He told them, 'My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.'" Matt 26:38