Third Sunday of Easter Year C
It’s strange but also true, that the most painful memories are usually the ones that stick, no matter how much you try to forget them. It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scars to show for happiness.
In today’s Gospel passage, we see both the memory of St Peter and the memory of the reader being invoked. But it is not just mere sentimentality that is being stirred here. Such memory is needed to understand the progression in Peter’s spiritual journey. On the eve of his Master’s death, Peter descends a path that almost leads to his destruction, a cause of great shame and guilt, a memory that he would rather choose to forget. And yet, our Lord does not wish for him to forget. This is so because our Lord does not wish to give up on him. Through the use of memory, our Lord begins the slow process of rehabilitation and restoration.
Chapter twenty-one of the Fourth Gospel seems like a strange addendum since the evangelist appears to have signed off at the end of Chapter twenty. This chapter begins with Peter going out to fish with some of the other apostles. His motivation is uncertain. By going back to his pre-disciple profession and way of life, is he trying to erase the memory of the years he had followed the Lord? Whatever may be the reason for this decision, it ends in futility. They fish all night and catch nothing, and then our Lord appears in the early morning on the shore and tells them to cast the net on the other side, and they take in a miraculous catch. The entire scene could only be described as déjà vu, at least it should for Peter. The same scenario had happened before. All this hearkens back to Peter’s original call to follow Jesus in the Gospel of St Luke, when at first he had said “depart from me for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). But there is a difference on this second occasion. At the beginning of his vocation, Peter wanted to flee from the Lord out of fear, but now, he longs to be united with Christ out of love.
If the first part of the story is an invitation to recall his initial vocation, the second part of the story recalls and recapitulates Peter’s greatest failure and disillusionment. Right at the very centre of today’s lengthy gospel story is the poignant scene of Jesus sitting on the shore cooking and warming Himself beside a charcoal fire. Even if you are not a student of Biblical Greek, you may be interested to note that the word used for that charcoal fire, anthrakia, only appears here and in another place in John’s Gospel; John 18:18. This other scene takes place in the courtyard of the High Priest, precisely at the point where Peter denied Jesus.
The fire evokes once again the scene of denial, the scene where Peter once stood by the fire and said, “I am not his disciple.” The past comes rushing back. Perhaps we can even imagine hearing the cock crowing. On the one hand, we see a Peter who is courageous and bold - he wants to be near his Lord in His hour of need. But Peter is terrified, also. He is in danger and knows it. And as he sits near the fire, Peter's courage gives way to fear. Now, our Lord provides Peter with another opportunity. Three times Peter had denied Christ from fear near a charcoal fire; three times he must profess Him in love near a charcoal fire, and three times will our Lord confer a new pastoral ministry on Peter. All of this is untying the knots by which Peter had bound his own soul. Wounded memories are dug up in order to be healed.
So, this dramatic scene turns out to be a story of memory and restoration. Confronting the Risen Jesus is not easy, especially for those who have betrayed Him. Standing in the light of the charcoal fire, Peter must first remember his failure and then own it. For Peter to move forward, his past must be assimilated with the present, to prepare him for the future. Peter had to recall both life-defining joyful moments as well as painful ones of failure and defeat, to be reborn in the light and new fire of the resurrection faith. He had to recall, to be recalled for duty. There is no other way.
Our faith, our Sacramental celebrations, the call to holiness and perfection are built on the foundation of our ability to remember. That is why the greatest affront to our faith, is the assault on our ability to remember. Modernists, who only believe in the efficacy of modern ideas and innovation, will claim that our history and traditions are antiquated and that these need to be abandoned, if we are to make any progress. They wish to erase the past in order to rewrite the future. Today, the liturgy, the Church’s sacred doctrines and even Sacred Tradition itself, are under assault. If the Church and her members lose the ability to remember, we will lose sight of the fundamental essence of our faith and mission.
What many modern people fail to acknowledge is that our humanity is defined and enhanced by our capacity to form and then transmit personal memories. I've learned over the years that guilt is one of the hardest things to bear. That may be the reason why we deliberately choose to suppress memories. By forgetting, we attempt to banish the guilt that comes with that memory to the dark recesses of the mind. But guilt itself cannot help us conquer sin. Guilt is the burglar alarm of our conscience, and while it can ring incessantly, it cannot heal. We cannot be healed, if we are unable to remember. Notice, how mistakes are often repeated when we do not learn from our history. Only the love of Jesus for us and our love for Jesus, can heal us. And He can only heal us when we are prepared to remember. This is what St John meant when he said, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear …” (1 John 4:18)
And so, we are invited to gaze deeply into the flames – we see in the flames not only a reflexion of our worst failures but also, the future path of our redemption. Though tempted to look away, we must return our gaze to the fire that burns brightly before us. The fire may reveal the dross hidden in our hearts, but the fire also dispels the darkness of the night. In the burning flames of God’s love, we recognise both the wounds caused by our sinfulness, and the healing offered by Christ. As we look into the flames, we see our Lord looking back at us. In the flames, in the memories of our past faults and failures, we see Him forgiving our offenses, taking our penalty, healing our wounded souls, and restoring us to communion with God. In the flames, we will discover our healing, at the hands of Jesus.
Second Sunday of Easter Year C (Divine Mercy Sunday)
Last week’s Gospel began with Mary Magdalene heading towards the tomb of Christ early in the morning on the first day of the week, “while it was still dark.” Nothing much has changed in a week. In fact, our Gospel for today seems to have been caught in a time loop. We are still on that “same day, the first day of the week.” Our liturgical perception of time during the season of Easter may have something to do with this. Eastertide may be made up of 50 days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, but we have traditionally called this whole season “the great Sunday" as if it was a single event and a single day.
But it is not just the day which counts. It is now evening and darkness has descended on the whole city of Jerusalem and its surroundings. The imagery of darkness serves as a theological inclusion and conclusion for the events on Easter Sunday. The day begins in darkness and ends in darkness. The Light of the World has emerged in an everlasting dawn, but the world remains clueless and in the dark. The darkness signifies the absence of Christ and their own hopelessness. Despite news of the empty tomb and rumours of possible sightings of the Risen Lord, the disciples remained terrified of the authorities and the mob, and made sure the doors were closed, locked and secured.
Our Lord had already assured His disciples of His return: “I will come back to you” (John 14:28) and “you will see me” (John 16:16). But His seemingly tragic death seems to have erase any memory of these promises. Our Lord now fulfils these promises as He “came and stood among them.” The locked doors didn’t stop Jesus. Nothing could. Not the gates of Hades, nor the stone which enclosed the tomb and certainly not the four walls and shuttered windows and doors of the upper room.
Our Lord came and stood with them. He greeted them with a peace that only He alone could give and then, He gave them their mission: “As the Father sent me,” He said to them, “so am I sending you.” What did that mean? Our Lord is drawing His disciples into His own mission. Our Lord has spoken of Himself as the envoy of the Father, who has been sent to reveal the mystery of the Father and accomplish His saving work. Now, our Lord draws them into the circle - the Church’s mission is an extension of the work of the Father and the Son in the world. It is a mission of expiation of sin and reconciliation. They are not to remain trapped in that room. This is what happens when the Lord breathes His Spirit upon them while saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” This is John’s presentation of the Pentecost. By incorporating the disciples into His own mission, our Lord also gives them the authority to take away people’s sins, just as He is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
But the story does not end there. There is a missing link - Thomas. The next week, the disciples were in the same room, locked-in once more. Thomas hadn’t been there the first time. He alone had the courage to step outside that room. But his sense of great loss had impacted his faith which remained trapped in self-doubt and confusion. He had spent the week telling the others he’d never believe it until the Lord showed up and proved it was really Him. And so, at the end of the week, our Lord came again, and invited Thomas to touch and see the wounds in His hands and His side: the scars which proved His identity, the wounds that revealed His love.
If this story seems to be exclusively about the Eleven till this point, there is no doubt that what the Lord says next, is meant for all of us: “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.” This beatitude moves our attention to later generations of Christians, including us who are reading this story. We may not have encountered the Lord in the same way as the Eleven Apostles, we may not have seen Him first-hand but that does not make our faith in the Risen Lord any less genuine or valuable. Some come to believe in the Lord by seeing Him and by being able to touch Him. Others come to faith by listening to the Gospel. This is what St John intended as he wrote these closing words: “These are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing this you may have life through his name.”
Two thousand years have passed since that first Easter, but we are still united with the characters who were present at the tomb and in the upper room. This is because Easter is a promise and foretaste of eternity, of fullness of life that never ends. Ironically, we also seem to struggle with feelings of befuddlement and confusion, grappling with the experience of the seeming absence of God, especially during the long dark spiritual winter of this pandemic, just as the early Christians attempted to make sense of the empty tomb. Many of us are like the disciples in today’s Gospel, locked behind closed doors, initially because we were forced to do so by the authorities and their public health mandates but subsequently, it became a matter of personal choice, crippled by the fear of the dreaded enemy that could kill us or our loved ones. Although the lockdowns have now ended, many have continued to observe self-imposed quarantines.
During the height of this pandemic when our Churches were shuttered, Catholics could only hope to be sustained through spiritual communion and by tuning in on one among a vast array of online Masses. But virtual Mass is not an adequate substitute, given the incarnate nature of our faith: the real matter of the sacraments we receive, the sacramentality of our church buildings, and the faces of the people of God. We are an embodied people with an embodied faith, and God desires to feed us with the Eucharist, the physical Bread of Life. That reality can’t be replicated through a screen. Both Thomas and our Lord understood this and that explains the reason for Thomas’ demand to touch, and our Lord’s offer to be touched. For Thomas, seeing and touching the Lord in the flesh beats hearing about it virtually.
Today, our Lord declares once again to all: “Peace be with you.” With these words, our Lord is reminding us that there is no room for fear, distress, or self-pity for a community of believers in the Resurrection. Our Churches are reopened and our doors unlocked. It is now time for you to reopen the doors of your heart and believe once again, in the power of the Risen Lord. The dangers and risks of this virus has not magically disappeared, although with vaccinations and therapeutics, things have become more manageable. But again, life is fraught with dangers and risks. Faith is not throwing caution to the wind but helps us resist throwing in the towel to our fears. If you are willing to take this challenge, you would soon discover the wonders which the Resurrection can reveal to you. The Resurrection unmasks evil, heals broken hearts, vanquishes fear, and ignites a contagious hope that fills human hearts in the midst of adversities, sufferings, natural disasters, and pandemics. It bestows a strength that is far beyond the contingencies and consequences of any war, pestilence, tsunami, or any other natural or biological threat to the human family. Believe in His promise: “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
Easter Sunday 2022
One of the terms that has come back into vogue and has made its way into political vocabulary of late, is “gaslighting.” Gaslighting involves the perpetrator trying to convince the target (the one being gaslighted) that what he perceives is not actual reality. By convincing the target to doubt himself / herself, the gaslighter gains power through distortion, lies, and misinformation. Soon the target may come to depend on the gaslighter for “truth”, since the target no longer trusts his own senses, perceptions, or even basic reasoning ability. That’s basically the premise of the 40s movie “Gaslight” which gave rise to this term.
It may be argued by many, especially critics of Christianity, that the Church has been gaslighting her members and the world, with the story of the resurrection and the explanation behind the empty tomb. Since the empty tomb raises more questions than it can provide answers, these critics argue that the Church has jumped on this opportunity to manipulate the truth about Jesus Christ, in order to exert mind-control over her members and perpetuate the biggest gaslighting lie for centuries.
Yes, there was gaslighting involved surrounding the events that took place at Easter, but not in the way that the critics of Christianity would imagine. First, the enemies of Jesus who wanted to suppress the movement He had built during His lifetime, had decided to spread rumours and even concoct fake news that the body of Jesus had been stolen by His own disciples, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. Second, Mary Magdalene sought to gaslight, albeit unintentionally, the rest of the disciples by declaring: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb … and we don’t know where they have put him.” Thirdly, the followers of our Lord, including the women, had gaslit themselves into believing that our Lord was truly dead. Despite what He had told them, to prepare them for this moment, and despite them seeing the empty tomb and the burial clothes left behind (now why would the body snatchers take the body but leave behind the embalming clothes), their minds were firmly locked in this conclusion that the Lord had truly died and that His cause had come to a definite end.
And yet, the empty tomb and the discarded burial clothes stand as bulwarks against this myriad display of gaslighting, thus refusing to allow the truth of the resurrection to be buried. They demand an explanation. They cast doubts on the various theories and rumours surrounding this event. They cast doubts on the doubts of all, who were trying to grapple with the mystery of the empty tomb. What could have happened? What does this mean?
Though there was no breakthrough for Mary Magdala and Peter, at this stage at least, a chink can be seen in the doubting shield of the beloved disciple. He alone “saw and he believed.” What was the nature and level of this belief? We are not told. But perhaps we can speculate that he has begun to doubt his own doubts and preconceived notions. He alone began to see something within the darkness of the empty tomb. For others, the empty tomb was just a mystery to be solved or a cul de sac with no way through.
But in truth, the empty tomb had its own reality to reveal. For some, the empty tomb was a source of disappointment. But for us believing Christians, the empty tomb is the sign par excellence of our hope and the path to life. The empty tomb is the irrefutable proof of God’s victory over death and sin. Here is the irony: when He was present and alive, His own disciples did not grasp His true identity. But now, after His death and in His physical absence in the empty tomb, they finally begin to make sense of all His words and deeds.
So, when the Risen Lord finally appeared to them, it changed everything. That is: His rising blew it all up. The gaslighting was finally exposed for what it is - a lie. The Light got in and everything was exposed. There was no going back. There is no longer any need to keep speculating and asking, “What happened?” We only need to ask, “What now?” Everything they had experienced, seen, and learned in the years, months, weeks, days, and hours leading up to our Lord’s arrest, torture, trial, and crucifixion was thrown into stark relief once He appeared to them post-death, very much Alive. And this transformed them, utterly. Borrowing another expression from pop-culture, they were finally “red-pilled.”
The objections to the Resurrection are not based on the evidence, and in this sense, they are the real attempts at gaslighting. Remember that famous aphorism: “the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence”? Not being able to produce archaeological evidence of the corpse or remains of Christ is no proof that He did not exist, nor can it disprove that He rose from the dead. In fact, the absence of the corpse, may be one of the biggest proofs that our Lord did rise from the dead. To believe in the resurrected Christ is a very reasonable faith. To deny the Resurrection, one must either stick his head in the sand or take a blind leap into the dark. It’s like standing before a mob-wrecked burning building and exclaim: “mostly peaceful.”
In the days and weeks and years and centuries that followed, most of the Twelve apostles and thousands of Christians were martyred when the gaslighting by the State wasn’t enough to suppress this truth. They became victims of the same cowardly State that killed God, and they went to their deaths fearlessly preaching the Resurrection. Propagating this new faith, even in the most inoffensive and peaceful manner, garnered contempt, opposition and cruel deaths. Yet, this faith they zealously did propagate, and all these miseries they endured undismayed, nay rejoicing. As one after another was put to a miserable death, the survivors only continued their work with increased vigour and resolution proclaiming their Easter faith: Christ has Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
So we must remember: our Lord’s Resurrection isn’t just an invitation to celebrate by throwing Easter parties for kids with Easter eggs. It is an invitation to uphold the dangerous and subversive truth of our faith against a legion of forces that wish to suppress that truth by gaslighting and by any other means. From the time of the Resurrection and even until now, the world is full of stories that cast doubts upon the power of God’s love. In a world that is sealed in tombs by false stories about Jesus and His love for us, we are sent to speak the truth that will set those around us free, so that they too can “follow the path to life” and rejoice in the fullness of joy, in the presence of Risen Love.
Our faith in the Resurrection may sometimes feel daunting and our testimony at times even be weak and terrifying. But it is, nevertheless, an electrifying call to rally against the powers of death which cannot beat God but will not ever stop trying. No matter what the world throws at us, no matter how much the world seeks to bury the truth and attempt to gaslight us and convince us that we are deluded, we will stand confidently and courageously with the Lord as we proclaim with Christians of past centuries: Christ has Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!
Easter Vigil in the Holy Night 2022
Today we conclude this shortest and yet most intense and sacred time in our Church’s liturgical calendar - the Paschal Triduum. And though it may seem to be an ending, it is actually a beginning of many things. This should not surprise us as we had affirmed at the start of tonight’s liturgy, that Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of all things. Beginnings and endings are not two realities but one in Christ. As T. S. Eliot poignantly writes: “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (The Four Quartets, “Little Gidding”).
Everything about this vigil’s liturgy, “the mother of all vigils,” speaks of beginnings and endings, which takes us on a journey from birth to rebirth, from creation to re-creation, from darkness to light, from death to life. From the blessing and procession of the Paschal candle, the singing of the Easter proclamation to our marathon set of readings, we are pulled into this journey of transformation, not as mere spectators but as participants. Our Gospel begins with these words: “on the first day of the week, at the first sign of dawn…” This is an extraordinary text – so subtle and sophisticated. But it begs the question: what does it mean? The answer is found at the beginning, in the first reading. We are, therefore, asked to contrast the first line of our Gospel passage with the first line of our first reading from Genesis, the very beginning of our story of salvation: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
The first day of the week mentioned in the Gospel, corresponds to the first day of creation in Genesis; and the rays of the dawning sun matches the first act of creation, where God created light out of darkness. Tonight’s liturgy, which began in darkness is also shattered by the light of the Paschal candle.
John’s recapitulation of the creation narrative goes on. In Genesis, God creates the first human being, the first man, but at Easter, our Lord Jesus emerges from the womb of the tomb to be the firstborn of the new creation.
God created all things, including man, and when He was finished, He looked at all He had made, and declared that it was “very good.” His original creation, however, was sullied and damaged. Once Adam chose to go against God’s Will, sin entered God’s created world, and sickness, decay, and death were introduced to humanity. God’s creation has suffered sin’s effects ever since.
Fast-forward to the time of Jesus’ life on earth. God the Son, the Word of God, entered humanity as a child born of Mary, without a human father. He was fully God and fully man. His mission was to defeat the sin and death which had entered humanity through Adam. This second Adam lived a sinless life, was condemned and executed as a criminal, and was buried in a tomb. Three days later, He rose from the dead! He was resurrected! His resurrection was the first phase of God’s new creation. God created a new kind of human existence—a human body which was raised from the dead and transformed by the power of God into a body that is no longer affected by death, decay, and corruption. Pope Emeritus Benedict described the resurrection of Christ as “something akin to a radical evolutionary leap, in which a new dimension of life emerges, a new dimension of human existence. Indeed, matter itself is remoulded into a new type of reality. The man Jesus, complete with His body, now belongs totally to the sphere of the divine and eternal.”
But then, there is the second phase in God’s plan of recreation. As Christians and as part of God’s new creation through our baptism, we can look forward to the time when, upon Christ’s return, He will raise our bodies from the dead! We will receive resurrected bodies like His. Our bodies will not have the weaknesses they have now but will have the full power the human body was meant to have. In these resurrected bodies, we will clearly see humanity as God intended it to be.
God’s new creation will not end with the resurrection of our bodies but goes beyond that. The third phase will involve all of creation being renewed as well. When Adam sinned, God cursed the ground. The world was no longer the sublime place God made it to be. Sin changed that. But because of Christ’s death and resurrection, His victory over sin and death, God will renew the entire world - He will remake it into “a new heaven and a new earth.”
The new creation which we speak of, is not just some static and unchanging reality. As part of the new creation, God’s Spirit is regularly renewing us, changing us, helping us to put on the mind of Christ. Dear Catechumens, today is not the end of your journey. It is not graduation day. It is an ending of a period of preparation, but this is only a beginning. As you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you, you will continually grow and mature in your spiritual lives in order that you may be renewed and become more Christlike.
Each year, we recapitulate this Easter story and each year it recreates us. It returns us to the ground of our being. We are asked to die to ourselves so that we may be reborn in Christ. And though we may sometimes feel as if we are caught up in a maelstrom with our world spinning out of control, remember this: the forces of chaos and death did not triumph over Jesus and His community. On the contrary, it is Christ who emerged the clear victor. And because of this, we are given the chance to start over. Every Easter, we are reminded that we can bring all that befalls us to be reintegrated, redeemed, and recreated as we bring it back to our living source: Christ yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega; All time belongs to Him and all the ages, to Him be glory and power, through every age and for ever. Amen.
Good Friday 2022
From the beginning of the Gospel, our Lord’s earthly life has been moving toward this moment, His “hour”: the divinely appointed time when He will pre-eminently reveal the Father’s love and accomplish His work of salvation, and the Father will reveal the Son in His glory. Every teaching or discourse of His, every “I am” statement which He has made, every sign-miracle which He has done, will find its ultimate meaning in what our Lord does today. Our Lenten preparation has been anticipating this “hour” too and today, it has finally arrived.
The “hour” of our Lord’s passion is the great showdown between light and darkness, death and life, God and Satan. It is for this reason the Passion begins with the only mention that the cohort and the guards that came to arrest Jesus were carrying “lanterns and torches” apart from weapons. John the Evangelist, artfully uses this detail in spinning a tale of irony. The darkness does not always seem dark. Satan is far more subtle. He produces counterfeit light in contrast to the true Light of the World, which is Jesus. That is why this scene takes place in the cover of night. Our Lord Himself and His motley band of disciples have no need for artificial lighting or torches because He is the Light of the World. The enemies of our Lord, on the other hand, have to carry “lanterns and torches” because they have no light of their own.
John’s Passion Narrative, while in many ways similar to the Synoptic accounts, has several theological emphases.
First, the kingship of Jesus is prominent. This is what He announced to Pilate: “I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.” But, His is “not a kingdom of this world.” Yes, Jesus is the sovereign Lord, who is in complete control over the events of His Passion, since “the Father had put everything into His power” (John 13:3). Because He is in full control, the events of His Passion happen only because He allows them to happen. In answer to Pilate’s claim that he has the power to release Him or crucify Him, our Lord responds: “You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above” (John 19:11).
Second, the emphasis on our Lord’s kingly sovereignty and power, underscores the freedom with which He goes to the cross. Our Lord was not caught by surprise by the arresting party but as the Evangelist tells us, “knowing everything that was going to happen to him” (John 18:4), He willingly submitted to His Passion. Our Lord had earlier said, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again” (John 10:18). By freely going to the cross, our Lord offers His life as a perfect gift of love, given to the Father for the world’s salvation. Love is never accidental or forced. Our Lord is the unblemished Victim, the perfect sin Holocaust, who doesn’t play victim. That’s the irony of His victimhood. In today’s culture, where so many like to play victim to solicit pity and sympathy whilst being unwilling to make sacrifices for others, our Lord’s example is truly counter-cultural. He shows us what true sacrifice means.
Third, by freely laying down His life in obedience to the Father, our Lord reveals the infinite depths of the Father’s love and mercy toward sinners. Love is not just defined by passionate feelings or nice platitudes. Love is costly but not in the way that most of us would understand. Most people show the depth of their love in the form of expensive gifts. God shows His love by sacrificing the life of His only Son, a sacrifice which the Son makes freely because of His love for the Father.
Perceiving the revelation of divine love in the cross where our Lord Jesus died, requires faith, and John invites us to view the Passion with the eyes of faith through his use of irony. On the spiritual level, the situation is exactly the opposite of what it is on the natural level. On the surface our Lord’s death on the cross seems to be defeat and humiliation, but in fact, it is God’s victory and triumph. Through the cross, God takes on and overcomes sin and death with His infinitely greater merciful love.
Here then, is the paradox of faith. Christ, as He dies, brings life to us, who are already dead. Sin has placed a death sentence over our heads. But as the world watches the apparent defeat of Christ, we are actually seeing a greater victory. The very thing that carries the stench of death, our Lord’s crucifixion, is the source of new life. As Christ dies, our sins are lifted from us. Our separation from God is removed forever. Our failures are replaced by His victory. Our weakness is replaced by His strength. Our dead lives are reborn and given new life again, through His dying. But remember that “our victory,” is never ours to boast about, it is His victory given to us. We have failed but He has not. We are weak but He is strong. We have often been overcome by evil; He has not. This is the reason why we must pause here on Good Friday and stand beneath that Cross. This is the “hour” where all will be revealed!” It is here that we must make our final stand!
Maundy Thursday 2022
One can’t help but laugh at the 180 degrees turn of St Peter, from refusing to accept the Lord’s offer to wash his feet, to clamouring for a full-body bath! First, he starts with this: “You shall never wash my feet.” We may even suspect that his refusal was just fake shocked indignation at best, or false humility at worst. And as for the turnaround, doesn’t it seem to be some form of histrionic over-exaggeration on his part? “Not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!” In both instances, St Peter had misunderstood our Lord’s intention and the significance of His action. And in both instances, his incomprehension and misstep had given our Lord an opportunity to make a teaching point.
Let us look at the first response given by our Lord to Peter when he refused to allow his feet to be washed: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.” A superficial reading of this statement may lead us to conclude that our Lord was just asking Peter and all of us to imitate His humility in serving others. This may be the message at the end of the passage, where our Lord says: “If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you.” But the words of our Lord in His response to Peter’s refusal to have his feet washed, goes further than that. This text is more than just a call to emulate our Lord’s example.
What is this thing which makes us “in common” with our Lord? In other words, what does it mean to have “fellowship” with Him? It is clear that it cannot just mean menial service, but rather the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross. This statement actually highlights the relationship between the foot-washing and the cross. The foot-washing signifies our Lord’s loving action and sacrifice on the cross. If foot-washing merely cleans the feet of the guest who has come in from the dusty streets, our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross will accomplish the cleansing of our sins which we have accumulated from our sojourn in this sin-infested world. Peter must yield to our Lord’s loving action in order to share in His life, which the cross makes possible.
The foot-washing may also be a deliberate echo of the ritual of ablutions, washing of hands and feet, done by the priests of the Old Covenant, before they performed worship and offered sacrifices in the Temple. This may explain Peter’s further request to have both his feet and head washed by the Lord. Without him knowing, he may have inadvertently referred to his own ordination as a priest of the New Covenant. It is fitting that the washing of feet occurs while the Apostles are entrusted with the Eucharist.
While Peter finally agrees to let the Lord wash his feet after our Lord had framed His answer in this way, Peter again misunderstands because he thinks that the Lord is talking about the literal washing of different body parts. Again, well-intentioned but not understanding, Peter suggests that the Lord wash more of his body - why stop with his feet when he could also have his hands and head washed too? The naïveté of Peter is amazing. The point is not how much of the body the Lord physically washes, but what the humble gesture of foot-washing signifies: the sacrifice on the cross. Our Lord’s action on the cross suffices to make us “clean all over.”
Viewing this through sacramental lenses, we may then understand the second set of response to Peter’s request to have a full body wash: “No one who has taken a bath needs washing, he is clean all over.” Our Lord was not just making a common-sense statement that those who are clean have no need for further cleansing, but an allusion to the sacraments which leave an indelible mark on their recipients, two in particular - baptism (confirmation) and Holy Orders. Our Lord’s words resonate with two popular Catholic axioms: “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic” and “once a priest, always a priest.” There is no need for re-baptism or re-ordination even if the person had lapsed. What is needed is confession.
This second set of words also points to the efficacy and sufficiency of what our Lord did on the cross. Christ’s bloody sacrifice on Calvary took place once, and it will never be repeated, it need not be repeated because it cannot be repeated. To repeat His sacrifice would be to imply that the original offering was defective or insufficient, like the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament that could never take away sins. Jesus’ offering was perfect, efficacious, and eternal.
But how about the Holy Mass? Isn’t this “repeating” the sacrifice of Christ on the cross? This is what Protestants falsely accuse us Catholics of doing with little understanding of the theology of the Mass. The Holy Mass is a participation in this one perfect offering of Christ on the cross. It is the re-presentation of the sacrifice on the cross; here “re-presentation” does not mean a mere commemoration or a fresh new sacrifice each time the Mass is celebrated, but making “present” the one sacrifice at Calvary. The Risen Christ becomes present on the altar and offers Himself to God as a living sacrifice. Like the Mass, Christ words at the Last Supper are words of sacrifice, “This is my body . . . this is my blood . . . given up for you.” So, the Mass is not repeating the murder of Jesus, but is taking part in what never ends: the offering of Christ to the Father for our sake (Heb 7:25, 9:24). After all, if Calvary didn’t get the job done, then the Mass won’t help. It is precisely because the death of Christ was sufficient that the Mass is celebrated. It does not add to or take away, from the work of Christ—it IS the work of Christ.
Baptism is not just some initiation ritual that has been handed down to us through the centuries and neither is the Eucharist a mere historical event that happened two thousand years ago and is now being memorialised and re-enacted by the community. St Thomas Aquinas teaches: “The sacraments of the Church derive their power specially from Christ’s Passion.” The Risen Jesus acts in the Church’s Sacraments to communicate the saving power of His passion. Peter could not understand all this at the Last Supper and that is why the Lord tells Him: “At the moment you do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.” He had to wait for the Lord’s resurrection before He came to understand the actions of our Lord and their significance. We are more privileged. We have the witness of the Church who has seen the Risen Lord in the flesh.
When the Lord tells us: “I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you,” it is not just the ritual of foot-washing that He is asking us to emulate. Our Lord is most certainly pointing to His work of salvation on the cross which He offers to us as a gift. The right response we must make is to receive this gift and yield to His actions in our lives, to say ‘yes’ to Him and the transforming power of His graces which is channeled to us through the Sacraments. Some people continue to resist Christ because they do not consider themselves sinful enough to require Him to wash them in Baptism or the Sacrament of Penance. Others have the opposite problem: they stay away because they are too ashamed of their lives or secret sins. To both, our Lord and Master gently but firmly speaks these words as He did to Peter: “If I do not wash you, you can have nothing in common with me.”
Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
The most visible accoutrement for this Sunday is the palm branch, and for good reason. The palm branch was a symbol of triumph and of victory in the ancient world, and in Jewish tradition. But having paid closer attention to the first Gospel taken from Luke, it is at least a little ironic to refer to this Sunday as “Palm Sunday.” Actually, only John (12:13) mentions “palm branches.” Matthew mentions “branches from the trees”, while Mark describes them as “leafy branches.” Luke mentions nothing about any foliage. So, if you didn’t manage to get your hands on a nice leafy palm, don’t complain.
Be that as it may, why “palms?” It was a common custom in many lands in the ancient Near East to cover the path of someone thought worthy of the highest honour. The Hebrew Bible reports that Joshua was treated this way. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew and John report that people gave our Lord this form of honour. In Matthew/ Mark they are reported as laying their garments and cut branches on the street, whereas John more specifically mentions palm fronds. Luke mentions only garments being spread on the road as a kind of ancient red-carpet reception to our Lord whom the people feted as their Messianic King.
As mentioned earlier, the palm as a symbol of victory predates both Jewish and Christian tradition. But in Christian iconography, the palm has taken on a radically new meaning of being a symbol of martyrdom. This association may have arisen from the natural habitat of palm trees. To travellers in the arid desert, palm trees were beacons of hope because of their association with oases and life. Where you find a palm tree in a desert, you are bound to find a water source. But it is not just the water that sustains the traveller but the fruits or dates from the palm tree. It was thought, that at the time the palm tree produced its fruits it died, hence it was meant as a sacrifice, as well as a symbol of the resurrection.
So, there is no contradiction between the earlier symbol of victory with the later Christian symbolism for martyrdom. For isn’t martyrdom victory of the spirit over the earthly and the flesh, as well as a symbol of rebirth and of immortality, which is victory over death? And isn’t this the paradoxical lens in which we must view the Lord in today’s liturgy? Although the Son of God appeared to be the least among men, He was born to be a king in the most admirable way. Though He was feted as an earthly king as He entered Jerusalem, it would only be from the throne of the cross where He will be revealed as King of the Universe in all His glory.
If Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem had been the peak and culmination of our faith story, would we be Catholic, would we even be here, would we have the crucifix on the walls of this church and our homes, would we prayerfully process to partake of His body and His blood, would the name of Jesus even be remembered after 2000 years? And the answer is simply ‘no’. Today, is not the climax of the story. We had an early teaser of the climax in our lengthy Passion Gospel reading but even then, the death of our Lord would be the anti-climax. What we experienced today, is but a pale shadow of what will happen next week, although today’s celebration seems openly public, God chose to have the resurrection of Christ at Easter experienced in mystery and in secret, only to be made known through the testimonies of those who have seen and touched the Risen Lord in the flesh.
But the Palms that you received remain a vital and meaningful part of our lives, and this is not just confined to Palm Sunday. They are more than ‘those Catholic things’ that we twist or braid and hang on the wall or behind a special picture and forget about. These palms are part of both our entry Gospel as well as the great account of our Lord’s Passion. But they are also a part of our story – yours and mine.
Two months ago, you were invited to bring the palms you received last year back to church. Six weeks ago, those palms were burnt outside this church. The resulting ashes were then further pulverised to prepare them for use on Ash Wednesday. Those ashes, made of palms we had with us for a year, reminded us of our mortality, our sinfulness and our need for reconciliation, conversion, and prayer. They remind us of the vanity and fragility of human glory. One day you are a hero in the eyes of others. Another day, you can descend into zero.
Today we begin again with new palms. These new palms should lead us to the question of how we have changed since we had ashes from those triumphal palms sprinkled on the crown of our heads. What have we learned since Ash Wednesday? How are we different, are we better people because of the efforts we put into this Lenten season?
Lent is bracketed, bookended, by palms; the loss, burning and destruction of them at its onset and then, the new green leaves this day, near the end. Ultimately that is what this sacred season is about, burning away, clearing out, purifying and cultivating something new.
Take the palm branches with you today; let them be a reminder that we are entering the holiest week of the year. The week that begins with the false triumphal entry into Jerusalem, ends with the true triumph over death at the cross. These palms challenge us to remember our role in our Lord’s Passion – that those great sufferings endured by our Lord were endured for each of us. They are our badge of honour, not trophies of success in human terms, but a reminder that we are called to share in the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. We are indeed called to be “martyrs,” “witnesses” as the Greek root “martyron” suggests.
Five weeks ago, we heard: Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return. Those ashes on our heads have washed off, but these palms can stay with us, offering mute testimony and calling us to not forget who we are – sinners in need of our Lord’s grace, and what we can be – sinners who have placed our lives in the hands of our loving God. Reminders that it is in humility that we will find true glory, in death can we discover eternal life. Please take these palms with you today. Because in a sense, just like those palms, each of us this day also holds our future in our hands. Will we only choose to walk the path of human glory or follow our Lord faithfully on the way to the Cross?
.jpg)
