Saturday, March 30, 2013

Alleluia! He is Risen!



Easter Vigil

This is what it is all about. Tonight we celebrate the very reason for our existence. When you strip away all the externals, all the smells and bells, the only thing that is left is the fact that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Not was risen but is risen. Without that key event in human history there would be no hope for humanity. It is something that we remember and something that we live today. 

Ours is not a dead faith. We do not simply remember events that happened in the past. Jesus Christ is yesterday, today, and forever. The resurrection is now. The resurrected Christ is as alive to us today as he was to the apostles. Without that reality where would we be? If all we do is remember the past where is our hope? Jesus must be alive to us every day or we have nothing but a ghost.

Can you imagine what it was like for the apostles to see Jesus alive again, in the flesh that first time? Can you imagine their confusion, their fear, and their joy? What must it have been like to embrace him once again, to feel his breath upon them, to hear his voice telling them to not be afraid? They were not simply remembering him as he had been, they were living him again. It was an experience that completely changed their lives. 

It wasn’t Jesus’ life that changed them forever, it was his death and resurrection. If Jesus had not been raised they would have just gone on with their everyday lives, perhaps a bit more cynical and jaded about the unfairness of the world. Instead, they became the most powerful evangelists the world has ever known. Just because they knew the risen Christ.

Is it the same with us? Do we really know that Christ is alive for us, here, today? Do we just believe in the stories of an ancient god or is that god truly alive? If we had heard all those wonderful stories of our faith history that we just heard tonight, and not heard the story of the resurrection, would that have been enough for us to change our lives as the apostles did? All those stories are history, but the resurrection is His story. Jesus Christ must be alive if we are to be alive. 

And Jesus is all about life. Jesus was not raised from the dead so that God could show off his great power. Jesus was raised from the dead so that we too would never die. That breath of life is what sustains us and keeps us going every day of our lives. And it is that breath of life that we are compelled to proclaim to the world. The good news of everlasting life.

Alleluia! He Is Risen!

Friday, March 29, 2013

Holy Wood




Good Friday

Behold the Wood of the Cross, On Which is Hung our Salvation

Every Good Friday we practice a peculiar form of devotion. We venerate the cross, usually with a kiss. This practice goes back to the 5th century in Jerusalem, after St. Helen is said to have discovered the true cross of Christ and brought it back to Rome. Since that time Christians have venerated probably the most heinous torture device ever devised by man. It must seem strange to non-Catholics to see us bend down and kiss a piece of wood. We ourselves may feel awkward doing it. It doesn’t seem natural. We’d rather pray before a beautiful statue or painting, not a symbol of death.

We don’t like the cross. We don’t like to confront our own suffering and death. We don’t like to be reminded of the example Jesus set for us on Calvary. Jesus didn’t like the cross, either. He asked his Father to take that particular cup from him. It is the only time in scripture where Jesus asked his Father to not do something. But he embraced the cross when it became clear that it was the Father’s will that he do so. 

We don’t understand the cross, but Jesus did. He didn’t see it as an instrument of humiliation. He saw it as the path to his ultimate glorification. He didn’t think of it as a method of torture. He saw it as a way to draw our own sufferings into his and so give them great meaning and purpose. He didn’t see a means of execution. He knew that through his death he would destroy death forever. He did not see it as the end of life, but the beginning of eternal life. Without his death there could be no resurrection.

Jesus said that if we are to be his followers we are to pick up our crosses and follow him. He never said we had to die with him, only treat our daily crosses as he treated his. Once Jesus accepted the will of his Father to pick up that cross, he used it as a tool for conversion and ultimately the salvation of the world. We are called to do the same. 

Consider the people who were affected by Jesus’ Way of the Cross. There was Pilate’s wife. The women of Jerusalem. Veronica. Simon of Cyrene. The Roman Centurian. The Good Thief. The Beloved Disciple. Mary and the women at the foot of the cross.  All were changed forever by what they experienced that day. It wasn’t Jesus’ words that necessarily changed their lives, it was the action of the cross. 

If we are to be his disciples we must pick up our cross daily and follow him. It is through our individual crosses that we can change the world. Our example in how we handle the suffering in our lives can be the most powerful conversion tool in the world, far stronger than our words of testimony. Jesus’ detractors wanted to see him humbled in the dust. They did not want him to get up and continue on. They wanted to see him defeated. They were watching to see how he would react. 

People are watching us, just as the crowds watched Jesus. People who are hostile to our faith watch most closely of all. They are waiting for us to stumble and fall, and they want us to stay on the ground. How will we react?

Who are the people in our own Vias Delorosas? Can our own submission to the will of our Father cause someone to be so disturbed that they choose to believe? Can those who pray for us find strength in our weakness? Can the stranger who helps us when no one else will be left with an indelible mark of our humility on their hearts? Will the reluctant unbeliever be inspired by our cross to go out and help others? Will the incorrigible sinner come to the Lord for mercy for the first time in his life? Will those who persecute us ultimately come to believe that Jesus truly is the Son of God? Will our own families and those closest to us draw strength from our strength?

Suffering is a part of life. We will all be touched by it in some way or another. How we deal with our suffering will determine its ultimate value. Will we allow it to wear us down and destroy us, or will we see it as Jesus saw his, as a tool to bring souls to salvation? 

It all comes down to the cross. Will we embrace it or reject it? Behold the wood of the cross. Without it there can be no salvation. 

O come, let us adore.

Holy Poverty



Holy Thursday

Pope Francis has quickly set out a major theme of his papacy, that of focusing on the poor. He says the church must both serve the poor and be poor itself. He speaks of two kinds of poverty – material poverty and poverty of spirit. Tonight we see Jesus being truly poor, and giving us the example to be the same. Jesus uses the most extreme example of servility – washing the dirt and grime of the streets off someone’s feet – to show us how we are to view and treat others.

Archbishop George Niederauer once said that Eucharist is what takes place on the top of the altar; foot washing is what happens underneath the altar. Both the Eucharist and foot washing are sacrifices, and one cannot take place without the other. Jesus feeds us with the real food of bread and wine yet we are most fully fed spiritually with his body and blood.

Tonight Jesus shows us, his disciples, that his sacrifice was one of great service. He took the place of the lowliest slave in service to his friends just before he gave them himself in the most intimate way possible, as real food and drink. And he then gave himself to them completely the next day when he suffered and died for our sins. 

There is a wonderful prayer in the Rite of Marriage that prays, “For the hungry poor and the hungry rich”. Everyone hungers, some for food and some for something more. Even the richest people in the world need Jesus, oftentimes more so than those who go to bed hungry every night. Jesus once told the rich young man that in order to live the kingdom of God he must first sell all he had and give it to the poor. Jesus wasn’t telling him that his possessions were in and of themselves bad, but that his attachment to them was keeping him from seeing that the true path to salvation is in serving others. Our attachment needs to be to people, not things.

When we meet the physical needs of someone, we also meet their spiritual needs, don’t we? No matter how small the gesture, we are showing them that someone cares, that there is hope, and that they have value, no matter how many possessions they may have. With Jesus, both the giver and the receiver are fed. Wonderfully, it is in service to others that we ourselves are served. When we meet the physical needs of others, are own spiritual needs are filled, whether we are aware of it at the time or not. What Jesus is telling us tonight is that if we serve others consciously aware that it is our duty to do so as disciples, we reap even greater grace and its benefits. And the chief result of serving others is peace. 

I think perhaps Pope Francis was thinking of this when he chose his name. St. Francis was the saint of holy poverty, not just poverty in goods but poverty in spirit. As it says in his wonderful prayer:

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.