Weekly Reflections
Third Sunday of Easter, April 23, 2023
How do I recognize the presence of Jesus in my life?
Gospel: Luke 24: 13–35
Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.
How do I recognize the presence of Jesus in my life?
Luke 24: 13–35
Now that very day two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?” And he replied to them, “What sort of things?” They said to him, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. LBut we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but him they did not see.” And he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures. As they approached the village to which they were going, he gave the impression that he was going on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the eleven and those with them who were saying, “The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!” Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
Music Meditations
- I Will Walk the Presence of God—Chris deSilva
- One Bread, One Body--John Michael Talbot
- You Are Near--Dan Schutte
Opening Prayer
Lord, I know I walk with you, but I do not always recognize you. Help me to find you through prayer and the scriptures, and especially through service to those who might need my help and comfort. Trust me to do for others what you do for me.
Companions for the Journey
From “First Impressions”, A service of the Southern Dominican Province:
Some people who go through a crisis, like a sudden illness, or the death of a loved one, will struggle in their faith and wonder: “Where is God?” “Has God abandoned me?” Or even, “Why is God doing this to me?” When people in crisis hear the Easter accounts, like today’s gospel, they get a case of the, “If only’s...” “If only I had been there with those frightened disciples when Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst, then I would have strong faith.” “If only I had seen his wounded hands and feet, I would have shared with him my own hurts.”
“If only I had watched him eat that baked fish by the side of the lake, I would have told him of my own hunger.” Luke’s account of the disciples’ encounter with Jesus on the road is certainly one of the most beautiful in the New Testament. It is a story of two people who were so focused on the past they couldn’t see what was right before their eyes. With the death of Jesus their world collapsed. Walking away from Jerusalem they were also walking away from their dreams. They were going back into darkness, as they tell the stranger who has joined them, “It is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” They weren’t just speaking about the time of the day. They were returning to their old lives, it seemed nothing had changed and things appeared pretty dark for them. When Jesus joined them on their journey Luke tells us, “...their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.” What caused their blindness? Why didn’t they recognize the one they had been following, with whom they had shared their lives? Maybe it was because they had their own idea of what they wanted Jesus to be, some kind of king, or a warrior on a mighty stallion who would vanquish the Romans. “We were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel.” But Jesus was right there in front of them, in the flesh, to show he was alive. Wasn’t that enough? Apparently not, since they didn’t recognize him.
Luke wrote his gospel between the years 80-90. The Emmaus account Is in the last chapter of his gospel. Neither he, nor his contemporaries, had experienced the risen Christ the way the first disciples had. Like us, they hadn’t seen him in the flesh. Like us they needed reassurance that Christ was truly risen from the dead and was among them. Like us, life sometimes overwhelmed them, leaving them with questions, confusion and doubts. Luke needed to show his contemporaries how their faith could be strengthened; how Jesus wasn’t a past-tense phenomenon, merely a great historical figure now long gone. We have walked the road to Emmaus. We know how long it is; how it twists and turns; how it doubles back on itself; how confusing it can be; how we can feel lost, even forgotten. The road to Emmaus is a road of fallen expectations. Haven’t there been times in our lives when we have said, “If only I had....” Or, “I wish I hadn’t....”? When we even uttered the words of the dejected travelers, “We were hoping....” When a marriage didn’t last… a personal goal never realized... a child went off the deep end... an illness severely limited our capabilities. Times like these, the words of the two disciples are ours as well, “We were hoping....” By the way he tells his story Luke is helping his contemporary Christians and us see the risen Christ with us. Notice the important elements: Jesus begins by explaining the Scriptures to them. In other words, the biblical Word of God is proclaimed and explained so that new insight is given to the disciples. Then, as we do in worship, after having the Word of God opened for them, the needy disciples gather around the table with Jesus where bread is blessed, broken and given to them. In both this gospel and the Acts of the Apostles (his second volume) Luke uses the term, “the breaking of the bread” -- which was, and still, is a term used for the Eucharist. Luke is describing the encounter with the resurrected Christ in terms of the community’s liturgical experience. With them our “eyes are opened” and we meet the risen Lord when we gather to hear the Word of God and “break the bread” together.
Weekly Memorization
Taken from the gospel for today’s session…
Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.
Living the Good News
What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?
Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:
Reflection Questions
Meditations
A Meditation in the IgnatianStyle/Imagination:
Read the story of the journey to Emmaus (Luke 24: 13-32) Try to imagine what the apostles have been doing and how they have been feeling over the last two days. Then picture yourself in their place as they walk down that road to Emmaus. What do you see? hear? What are your feelings about all that has happened? Picture the scene as a strange man walks up to you and begins to ask about your feelings. How would you respond? Why do you not recognize Jesus? Imagine your feelings as you share the story of what the women told you, and then again as Jesus talks to you. Imagine the moment of surprise and joy as you recognize Jesus. How do you feel about seeing Jesus "alive"? Talk to Jesus as you would if you had actually been there that day, telling him of your sadness and then your happiness.
A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions:
T.S. Eliot, in part II of “Four Quartets”, wrote: We had the experience, but missed the meaning, And approach to the meaning restores the experience In a different form, beyond any meaning we can assign to happiness. Recognition of Jesus was not a magic act that was indisputable proof of his divinity, nor was it only open to those with brains or money, or religious position. Walter Burghardt, S.J. commented that recognition of Jesus was only open to believers. What, then, is needed, is grace freely offered and a response on the part of the believer. Note that even Jesus’ special friends could not recognize Jesus for much of their journey What is the difference between seeing and recognizing? Have I ever had an experience, the importance of which was lost on me at the moment, but which I understood much later? We each have different ways to come to recognition: the beauty of MemChu; a community of shared belief and prayer life; love of spouse, child, friends, parents, even pets; the selflessness of health workers and first responders, the kindness of another; the joy exhibited by a young child; memories of loved ones. Has this ever happened in my spiritual experience? Spend a little time thinking of the ways in which you might come to recognize God’s love and the presence of Jesus in your midst.
A Meditation in the Dominican style/Asking Questions:
Adapted from Sacred Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits:
In looking at this Gospel, we see that all the ingredients of the Christian life are here. Where do you find yourself in this scenario? – Running away from where Christ is to be found. We do it all the time. – Meeting Jesus in the unexpected place or person or situation. How many times does this happen and we do not recognize him, or worse mistreat him? – Finding the real meaning and identity of Jesus and his mission in having the Scriptures fully explained. Without the Scriptures we cannot claim to know Jesus. Yet how many Catholics go through life hardly ever opening a bible? – Recognizing Jesus in the breaking of bread, in our celebration of the Eucharist. The breaking and sharing of the bread indicates the essentially community dimension of that celebration, making it a real “com-union” with all present. – The central experience of Scripture and Liturgy draws us to participate in the work of proclaiming the message of Christ and sharing our experience of it with others that they may also share it. – The importance of hospitality and kindness to the stranger. “I was hungry… and you did/did not feed…” Jesus is especially present and to be found and loved in the very least of my brothers and sisters.
A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/ Action:
Can I see the face of Jesus wherever I look— in the sick and the dying? in the health care workers? in the grocery store clerks? in those defying safe-distance protocols? in the person whose political views I despise? In the homeless? In the people who don’t look like me, speak like me, pray like me? I spend this week making sure that I can find the face of Jesus in everyone I meet—without exception!
Poetic Reflection:
Could you imagine yourself in this situation?
THE SERVANT GIRL AT EMMAUS
(A PAINTING BY VELASQUEZ)She listens, listens, holding her breath. Surely that voice is his--the one who had looked at her, once, across the crowd, as no one had ever looked? Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her? Surely those hands were his, taking the platter of bread from hers just now? Hands he'd laid on the dying and made them well? Surely that face-- The man they'd crucified for sedition and blasphemy. The man whose body disappeared from its tomb. The man it was rumored now some women had see this morning, alive? Those who had brought this stranger home to their table don't recognize yet with whom they sit. But she is in the kitchen, absently touching the winejug she's to take in, a young black servant intently listening, swings round and sees the light around him and is sure.
Denise Levertov from The Stream and the Sapphire
Literary Reflection:
How does this poem by Thom Gunn reflect what the apostles needed after Jesus’ death? How does it reflect what we may need when we have lost someone?
THE REASSURANCE
About ten days or so After we saw you dead You came back in a dream. I'm all right now you said. And it was you, although You were fleshed out again: You hugged us all round then, And gave your welcoming beam. How like you to be kind, seeking to reassure. And yes, how like my mind To make itself secure.
Closing Prayer
Stay with me Lord, for it is toward evening. The busy world is hushed, the fever of the day is over, and the work of my day is done. As you walked with me, beside me every minute today, be with me in my rest. Give me comfort and repose this day. I hope to do the same for others I need along the way.
Second Sunday of Easter, April 16, 2023
Faith in Jesus might be hard-won, but it strengthens us for the journey of life
Gospel: John 20: 19–31
Peace be with you.
Faith in Jesus might be hard-won, but it strengthens us for the journey of life
John 20: 19–31
In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you,’ and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’ After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained. Thomas, called the Twin, who was one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord,’ but he answered, ‘Unless I can see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe.’ Eight days later the disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. The doors were closed, but Jesus came in and stood among them. ‘Peace be with you,’ he said. Then he spoke to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hand; put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving any more but believe.’ Thomas replied, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him: You believe because you can see me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. There were many other signs that Jesus worked in the sight of the disciples, but they are not recorded in this book. 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.
Music Meditations
- Wonderful Merciful Savior—Selah
- All Things Bright and Beautiful—John Rutter
- Make me an instrument of your peace—John Michael Talbot and others
- You are my hiding place—Selah
Opening Prayer
Jesus, I let you whisper to me: “you will be blessed if you decide to believe”. And you alone know how hard it is sometimes to believe in your goodness, your mercy, and your power over sin and death. You alone know how afraid we are to trust in others, and even in your presence in our lives, sustaining us. Lord, I want to believe. Help my unbelief.
Companions for the Journey
Father Paul Crowley, S.J. taught theology in the Religious Studies Department, Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries and at the Jesuit School of Theology. His teaching also brought him to Stanford University and the Weston School of Theology, now the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, as a visiting professor. He was a prolific writer with numerous award-winning publications, with books on Karl Rahner, Robert McAfee Brown, pluralism in the Church, and faith and suffering. Paul was very active in his profession, having served as editor-in-chief of the prestigious journal of the Society of Jesus, Theological Studies, and as a member of its board. He also held appointments on the boards of the Catholic Theological Society of America, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, and Jesuit School of Theology. He was good friend of the Catholic Community at Stanford, and devised two courses taught at Stanford through the Catholic Community at Stanford. This homily was posted on April 19, 2020, several months before his death from cancer on August 7, 2020:
When I was a boy, the first Sunday after Easter was known as “Low Sunday.” The previous Sunday had marked the greatest feast in the Christian year, in the Christian faith, and thus, anything following it had to be anticlimactic. Or so the thinking seemed to go. Yet, the Gospel was the same, John’s story about the doubting Thomas, and like today, Easter extended from Easter Sunday all the way to Pentecost. This year in particular, the moniker “Low” might seem appropriate enough. Easter itself felt “low” due to the shelter-in-place orders most everyone has all been faithfully observing. In fact, things are so low at this point in the Covid-19 catastrophe, that what we celebrate on Easter and in this season might get lost in the overall sense of panic that has beset many of us. For we were celebrating—remembering—the fact that in Jesus, God acted in and through suffering and death to conquer it and bring about a new creation. And that this new creation is the foundation of our hope: That even in the midst of the worst suffering, and in the face of death itself, God’s grace is constantly on offer. It is tempting to attribute this Easter faith to a Christianized version of a myth of eternal return, or a theological gloss on the obvious wonder of new life springing forth from winter’s hardened earth and appearance of death. But that is not what this is about, lovely as those images are, and even helpful in inspiring a sense of possibility, a future. For the death that was conquered in the Resurrection of Jesus was a real, bodily death. And that body was itself an outward expression of the fact that God had entered fully into the human condition in Jesus (that other feast we celebrate in December, the Incarnation). What the Incarnation tells us is that our human natures are made for this union with God, accomplished fully in Jesus, and analogously accomplished in us through a lifetime of grace ever abounding. Aquinas reminds us that the finality of a human life is in union with God, and that that human life includes the body. Of course, we are not speaking of a union of a physical body with God—an absurdity—but of the whole of our persons, symbolized by the body, in God. What makes Christian faith in the Resurrection a real thing—what anchors it—is not the sheer will to believe. It is, rather, that there is something to be discovered in this embodied existence, where Christ dwelt, with all its suffering, with the ineluctability of death: that God is found there; God resides there. And that the human, human nature, is entrée into the full reality of God. The conditions for union with God, completion in God, are set even before we are aware of that fact—or even if we are never made aware of it. But those with the gift of faith are aware of this fact, and that makes all the difference as we face death. When Jesus quite often counsels his disciples to “fear not,” he is pointing to a profoundly challenging dimension of this faith, of believing: that we can let go of our fears, even in the midst of the most terrifying suffering, because God is radically present in the realities we inhabit and is there to lead us through all of this harrowing directly into a more intense union with himself. But, accepting that is not an easy thing. In today’s Gospel, Thomas is reaching for that kind of faith. He wants to touch the wounds of Christ, not for empirical evidence of the Resurrection in a modern scientific sense, but in order to connect the Jesus he sees with the fact that Jesus is, as John reminds us at the start of his Gospel, the Word made flesh. It is this very Word-made-flesh that has now been raised from the dead. Thomas wants the complete experience of this fact—a somatic experience of the completeness of God’s work in Jesus as God’s promise for him. And his response is not one of a modern sceptic (I now have evidence, and so I’ll give it some credence); it is rather one of worship, of adoration, before the manifestation of the power of God’s love: “My Lord and my God!” For before this fact, this unity between Incarnation and Resurrection, there is a unity between our own embodied existence and God’s desire for us, his constant self-offer. We are made for this unity, this glory—for Resurrection understood as the finality of our embodied existence, the completion of our human natures in God. All that said, the suffering and death we are witnessing and will continue to witness in the Covid-19 pandemic are overpoweringly real. They admit of no sugar-coating. But no death admits of sugar-coating, especially when it is tinged with human sinfulness, as in warfare or violence. But even here we are challenged, as Thomas was, to find the reality of God—in the suffering and dying, in their bodies breaking down, in the overwhelming fatigue and frustration of generous health-care workers, in researchers looking for answers, and even in the dark recalcitrance of some “leaders” in the face of truth. If we are suffering ourselves in some real physical way, especially when it involves pain, this can make the challenge even greater. We are not disposed toward the search. We simply want to retreat, to escape. As well we might and sometimes should. But none of that empties the Resurrection of its meaning; in fact, what we are witnessing and many undergoing only reinforces it. We are now focused on our embodied lives, lives shared across artificial boundaries, and finding among ourselves a common set of hopes and ideals. Like Thomas, we want to touch others where they have been most grievously wounded. We are seeking to overcome fear, and to face the darkness in which we stand, especially through gestures of love. Some of us believe that in so doing we are walking the pathways of hope, of entry into a new creation—a new order for the human race. Or that we are at least rediscovering the patterns that are possible but too easily forgotten when we also lose sight of the full meaning of our shared embodied existence, of the transcendence of the human spirit reaching toward God, and of God’s reaching toward us in the very heart of the sufferings (and joys) that we undergo.
Weekly Memorization
Taken from the gospel for today’s session…
Peace be with you.
Living the Good News
What action can you take in the next week as a response to today’s reading and discussion?
Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions or the meditations which follow:
Reflection Questions
- Those disciples were in a locked room because they were afraid. Are there doors to my heart that are locked?
What role does fear and self-preservation play in my tendency to lock myself away spiritually or emotionally?
What role does fear of change play in my unwillingness to let others in, even Jesus? - Did you ever make a promise that you ultimately were unable to fulfill?
How hard was it to face the one you disappointed?
Was your relationship ever the same? - If you were in Jesus’ place, what would you have said to those followers (like Peter, and like Thomas) who said they would follow him to his death? And didn’t?
Did Jesus’ response surprise you? - Scholars have said that the shalom means much more than the word “peace” What does the word shalom mean to you?
- How do you define mercy?
Where, in this passage, is there evidence of God’s mercy? - Have you ever been called upon to receive mercy from someone else?
How hard was it to do so? - Have you ever been called on to extend mercy to someone else?
Was this mercy grudging, or condescending, or even insulting toward the recipient? - What is the role of understanding and compassion in extending mercy?
Where is the power dynamic in giving/receiving mercy?
Did Jesus reflect that? - Jesus greeted the disciples in the gospel twice with the words “peace be with you”. What is “peace” for me?
Has there ever been a lack of peace in my life?
Is there a lack of peace now?
How do I deal with his?
Thomas was called “the twin”. Could that refer to both his trusting and his skeptical self?
Can we be both believing and disbelieving at the same time? - When Thomas was separated from the community, he found faith more difficult. Has this been my experience?
- Is it sometimes difficult to trust the assertion/testimony of another?
Can I sympathize with Thomas? - Do you think Jesus was judging Thomas?
What is the role of judgement in the practice of mercy? - Like Thomas, do I ever place conditions on my faith/belief?
Am I open to where God’s spirit may be recognized?
Is it enough to say “I believe”? or “My Lord and My God”? - What in my personal life tests my faith?
What strengthens it?
What weakens it? - Is there a climate of unbelief in our society?
What in our culture undermines trust/belief?
What supports it? - Who, in your experience, has not had proof to back up her belief, trust and optimism, but forged ahead anyway?
Are we asked to do this in our own daily lives in any way?
What does your relationship with Jesus do to sustain you in your fear and lack of trust/belief that, in the words of Julian Norwich: “All will be well”? - The emphasis on the wounds of Jesus in this gospel reinforces our recognition of the humanity of Jesus. Is it hard for me to identify with Jesus’ true humanity?
Do I really believe that Jesus is like us, with wounds of love, wounds of hate, and signs of suffering? - What do I see as “wounds” the Church (the body of Christ) has received from the world, past and present?
What do I see as the “wounds” the Church has inflicted on itself?
What do I see as the “wounds” the Church has inflicted on others? - “Blessed are those who have not seen, but believed”
Does this imply somehow that we should have no doubts, or is this praise perhaps for John’s community who have never seen Jesus but believe in him, even despite their doubts and fears?
By extension, could it apply to us who have not seen, who may have doubts, yet choose to believe in the ultimate goodness that is Jesus? - Do you sympathize with Thomas or you find fault with his doubts?
- What do you think was the reason Jesus showed Thomas his wounds?
Do you think this shared experience brought Thomas closer to trusting and believing Jesus? - Have you ever been reluctant to show another your personal “wounds”?
Why? - Can sharing one’s woundedness ever be manipulative?
How do we avoid this tendency when imparting or receiving information about wounds that have been sustained?
Is it hard? - This story is a major example of how Jesus broke into the lives of his friends. Can I let him break into mine?
Meditations
A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:
Freely adapted from “Sacred Space”, a service of the Irish Jesuits:
I imagine that I am one of the disciples there in the room when Jesus first appears. How shocked am I? Am I fearful? Comforted? Does everyone in my community “see” that this is really the resurrected Jesus? Does it happen to each of us all at once, or is there a different pace of recognition for each of us? In my role as disciple in the upper room, am I at all hesitant to believe what I am seeing? How do I feel when Jesus says: ”Peace be with you”? What does it feel like when Jesus breathes on me and tells me to receive the Holy Spirit? Do I have any idea what he is talking about? When Thomas returns, do I rush to tell him what excitement he has missed? How do I feel when he rejects my testimony and demands some sort of proof? Do I feel this is this a rejection of Jesus or a rejection of my own personal experience of Jesus?
When Thomas actually does encounter Jesus himself, he seems to forget his former need for proof. Did Jesus look into his heart and see the need that was there? Why do I think Jesus shows Thomas, and the rest of us his hands and his side? Do I feel connected, through those wounds, to our shared history?
In my own life, do I ever feel that my experience of Jesus is special to me, and feel superior to those whose belief is harder won or even non-existent? In my own faith experience, do hope that God looks beyond my first reaction, my hasty words, and sees the need in me for love, for reassurance, for comfort? I sit quietly in Jesus’ presence and listen for his voice, being open to whatever he offers me. I resolve to give Jesus not just my intellectual belief, but to give him my heart, because he has already given me his.
A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action:
From “Justice Bulletin Board,” by Barbara Molinari Quimby, Director of Social Justice Ministries, Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, N.C.:
When I came across these meditations that Pope Francis prepared for a spiritual retreat in 2016, I thought that each of us could find help for our own spiritual journey toward being recreated in the image of Jesus, an image of mercy.
1st Meditation:
Nothing unites us to God more than an act of mercy… for it is by mercy that the Lord forgives our sins and gives us the grace to practice acts of mercy in his name.
Mercy impels us to pass from personal to the communal. We see this in the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, a miracle born of Jesus’ compassion for his people and for others. Something similar happens when we act mercifully: the bread of mercy multiplies as it is shared.
Mercy joins a human need to the heart of God, and this leads to immediate action. We cannot meditate on mercy without it turning into action… Mercy engages our whole being – our feelings and our spirit – and all other beings as well.
Mercy gets its hands dirty. It touches, it gets involved, it gets caught up with others, it gets personal.
2nd Meditation:
Saint Bernard has two fine sermons on the Lord’s wounds. There, in those wounds, we find mercy. Bernard pointedly asks: “Do you feel lost? “Are you troubled? Enter into the wounds of the Lord and there you will find mercy.”
3rd Meditation:
Being merciful is not only “a way of life”, but “the way of life.”
Poetic Reflection:
Malcolm Guite wrote a wonderful poem about how Thomas’s experience is also ours:
“St. Thomas the Apostle”
“We do not know… how can we know the way?”
Courageous master of the awkward question,
You spoke the words the others dared not say
And cut through their evasion and abstraction.
Oh doubting Thomas, father of my faith,
You put your finger on the nub of things
We cannot love some disembodied wraith,
But flesh and blood must be our king of kings.
Your teaching is to touch, embrace, anoint,
Feel after Him and find Him in the flesh.
Because He loved your awkward counter-point
The Word has heard and granted you your wish.
Oh place my hands with yours, help me divine
The wounded God whose wounds are healing mine.
Poetic Reflection:
This is a lovely meditation on a poem by Denise Levertov, late a professor of English at Stanford University, who converted to Catholicism while she was here in her sixties and who wrote a Mass for the Day of St. Thomas (also called Mass for the Sunday of St. Thomas). The poem is taken from a book called The Stream & the Sapphire, which chronicles Levertov's journey from unbelief to faith.
From the blog “Eleison”:
Especially on this Sunday I am reminded of the poem “St. Thomas Didymus” by Denise Levertov. In her poem she exquisitely expresses both Thomas’ doubt as well as the beautiful revelation of the risen Lord. She draws a parallel between Thomas’ doubt and the epileptic’s father who exclaimed, “I believe Lord, help my unbelief.” Often, like Thomas, I struggle with doubts of my own. I often doubt that God will tend to me and provide for me as I walk the narrow way, stewarding my sexuality. I fear loneliness, rejection, isolation, and unhappiness as the result of my celibacy. However, I find much comfort in knowing that like Thomas I can express and speak aloud my doubts and like Thomas not be rejected for my doubt but met by the Risen Lord so I may cry, “You are my Lord and my God.”
“St. Thomas Didymus”
by Denise LevertovIn the hot street at noon I saw him
a small man
gray but vivid, standing forth
beyond the crowd’s buzzing
holding in desperate grip his shaking
teethgnashing son,
and thought him my brother.
I heard him cry out, weeping, and speak
those words,
Lord, I believe, help thou
mine unbelief,
and knew him
my twin:
a man whose entire being
had knotted itself
into the one tight drawn question,
Why,
why has this child lost his childhood in suffering,
why is this child who will soon be a man
tormented, torn twisted?
Why is he cruelly punished
who has done nothing except be born?
The twin of my birth
was not so close
as that man I heard
say what my heart
sighed with each beat, my breath silently
cried in and out,
in and out.
After the healing,
he, with his wondering
newly peaceful boy, receded;
no one
dwells on the gratitude, the astonished joy,
the swift
acceptance and forgetting.
I did not follow
to see their changed lives.
What I retained
was the flash of kinship.
Despite
all that I witnessed,
his question remained
my question, throbbed like a stealthy cancer,
known
only to doctor and patient. To others
I seemed well enough.
So it was
that after Golgotha
my spirit in secret
lurched in the same convulsed writhings
that tore that child
before he was healed.
And after the empty tomb
when they told me He lived, had spoken to Magdalen,
told me
that though He had passed through the door like a ghost
He had breathed on them
the breath of a living man-
even then
when hope tried with a flutter of wings
to lift me-
still, alone with myself,
my heavy cry was the same: Lord,
I believe,
help thou mine unbelief.
I needed
blood to tell me the truth,
the touch
of blood. Even
my sight of the dark crust of it
round the nailholes
didn’t thrust its meaning all the way through
to that manifold knot in me
that willed to possess all knowledge,
refusing to loosen
unless that insistence won
the battle I fought with life.
But when my hand
led by His hand’s firm clasp
entered the unhealed wound,
my fingers encountering
rib-bone and pulsing heat,
what I felt was not
scalding pain, shame for my obstinate need,
but light, light streaming
into me, over me, filling the room
as if I had lived till then
in a cold cave, and now
coming forth for the first time,
the knot that bound me unravelling,
I witnessed
all things quicken to color, to form,
my question
not answered but given
its part
in a vast unfolding design lit
by a risen sun.
Closing Prayer
Lord of mercy, be with me in my daily life. Help me to extend mercy, forgiveness, acceptance and “shalom” to others as you have done so to me. Keep me open to the new truths about yourself that you are revealing to me each day, if I can but listen. Help me to share my wounds and help me to acknowledge the wounds of others, just as you did for Thomas.
Holy Saturday, April 8, 2023
Jesus as the final intervention of God in human history (so far)
Gospel: Matthew 28:1-10
Holy Saturday
Mt 28:1-10 Jesus as the final intervention of God in human history (so far):
Gospel:
1 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb.
2 And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.
3 His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow.
4The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men.
5Then the angel said to the women in reply, “Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.
6 He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ Behold, I have told you.”
8 Then they went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce this to his disciples.
9 And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.
10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
Reflections:
From “First Impressions” 2023, a service of the Southern Dominican Province:
Easter makes quite a difference, doesn’t it? When Jesus was condemned and executed terror and trembling seized the disciples. Without Jesus what would they do? Where was their future? What would happen to them as his followers? They had experienced a life-shattering earthquake; the ground on which they stood was no longer secure. They buried Jesus in a grave; but along with his body they had buried their dreams and hopes for the future.
Matthew says the angel who descended to the now-empty grave had an appearance like lightning and “his clothing was white as snow.” The angel’s message to the women, “Do not be afraid I know you are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said.”
There is the hope for us, “He is risen from the dead.” Now Jesus lives forever with God in the fullness of life which he shares with us. Even when Jesus suffered and died he did not fall out of God’s hands. Neither do we when our plans and expectations die and we need to start anew. With the resurrected One the deepest longings of our heart will be
satisfied. “Do not be afraid,” is not a pat on the back and “There, there everything is going to be okay.” It is an encouragement for our life here, backed by the risen Jesus. He gives us the confidence that our
lives are not without purpose and will not fail at the end. Believing that gives us the courage to leave what is dead behind and live in a new life now. At the Easter vigil we renew our baptismal promises. With Jesus’ resurrected life in us we can work for life here and now: foster life in the downtrodden; preserve life in the defeated; protect life in
the unborn and vulnerable; promote life for the under-employed and under-educated and whatever else we feel called to do in our new life. Today, God has taken the side of life and, as friends of God, so will we.
Resurrected life begins now, at this time and in this place we find ourselves. We see signs of Jesus’ resurrected life wherever people bravely take up the cross of Jesus in self-sacrificing service. It is present and active when people, who have not spoken to each other for years, reconcile with one another and try again to be with and support
each other. Resurrected life shows itself whenever people put aside their selfish interests and reach out to help and console those in need. Resurrected life comes forth when Christians speak up for decency, just treatment, human dignity and against current prejudices. Today resurrected life stirs us to proclaim at this Eucharist, “When we eat
this Bread and drink this Cup we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.” Every Eucharist celebrates
Easter and is a source of hope, encouragement and strength for us. The Eucharist is when the angel’s
words, “Do not be afraid!” take flesh in us. And, “He is risen,” sends us out to live a resurrected life.
Tonight in our vigil readings we began with the story of creation, which shows God at work in building a universe, step-by-step. “Let there be…” And, “Let us make....” Finally, the human creature is made in God’s
image, male and female. All was made by God and all was good. Then human sin and failure entered the world, culminating in the flood and the first covenant made between God and the surviving humans. This pact was
a personal promise, a commitment on God’s part, to a continuing creation.The readings showed our ancestors in faith, summed up in Abraham, who was the first to hear the promise and the first to accept it in faith.
The story continued describing the Israelites deliverance from slavery and travels through the desert led by God’s hand-picked deliverer Moses. As we heard tonight, the story of our ancestors is much like our own
with times of glory and times of struggle; of deep faith and insolent
infidelity; worship of other gods and returning to God.We have not always been faithful to the covenant with God, but God has been faithful with us. The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us; he has died on the cross for us and been raised from the dead. Now he leads us by his word, charged with new life and feeds us with his body
and blood. Jesus Christ is our permanent covenant by which we are called to new and eternal life.
Hearing the stories tonight of our ancestors in faith should stir us to reflect on our own story of faith. When have we been lost and wandering in the desert of our own making? What brings us to this place at this
moment of our lives. Have we, like them, traveled by straight and crooked ways; through dark and hidden passages and also been illumined by the light? Who have been our supportive companions and friends along the journey? Who have been witnesses to the light when we were searching?
Galilee was a particular place “back then.” But for us Galilee can be any place we find ourselves today that bind us to a way of thinking; or to choices we have made. For us Galilee can be a place of disappointment, physical, emotional, or spiritual pain. The angel promises us that the risen Christ goes ahead of us to our Galilee. There our fears and anxieties can end and we can find new life with new beginnings. Just as the angel promised the women -- in Galilee.
All this to say that the angel has spoken the truth, not only to the women, but to us. “Do not be afraid… He has been raised from the dead and He is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him. Behold I have told you.”
Have I discovered new life after a deep loss or disappointment?
Who helped me find it?
How can I bring the Risen Christ to another person suffering loss, or death?
It is said that eternal live does not begin at death. It exists now and we are experiencing eternal life now.
Do I believe this?
Meditations:
A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Memory:
From Sacred Space, a Service of the Irish Jesuits:
We might be surprised that the Gospels, which describe the Passion in such minute detail, do not describe the Resurrection at all. Today’s reading speaks of the empty tomb, and describes when the Risen Jesus met his friends. Jesus tells the apostles to return to Galilee, it is there they will meet him, when they are back in their ordinary life. I too can only encounter Jesus and the power of his Resurrection in my ordinary life. The invitation of Jesus is to go to Galilee and there 'they will see me'. It's the same invitation he gives to us. 'Galilee' can be the neighborhood, the family, the prayer space, the poor, and the many moments we find ourselves aware of Jesus' presence. Prayer is one of them; prayer will heighten our awareness of times we met the Lord. Go back in your own memory to when God was close, and be grateful. Allow God in prayer tell you to 'go and see'.
Literary reflection:
This from Father Michael Kennedy, S.J., has something to say to us about the resurrection:
Musings
from
Michael©
****
Stuck In Our Own Tombs
(Easter, 2008)
****
Another Lent has
Come and gone and another
Holy Week has come and gone
And another Triduum has also
Come and gone and now finally
It is Easter and the whiners
Are out in force to again
Try to belittle Easter egg
Hunts and also even try
To minimize the Easter
Bunny claiming that
Somehow the bunny
And the hunts are
Not holy enough
****
And yet
The delight of
Children hunting for
Beautiful or ugly Easter eggs
Runs the risk of making Easter
A celebration of joy instead of
A wake honoring an apparently
Still dead Jesus since rather
Than having us do the dying
And rising this Holy Week
We probably acted as if
We were watching Jesus
Undergoing the passion
Again so we kept him
Company in prayer
****
But if we believe
Jesus was just doing it over and
Over again we ignore that He did
Not stay in the grave and rather
Than accept His and our new life
We just stay stuck in
Our own tombs
****
MJK
©Michael J. Kennedy 2007
Music Meditations:
Roll Away the Stone
Hendel’s Messiah
Holy God, we praise thy name
Good Friday, April 7, 2023
It is NOT finished
Gospel: John 18:1—19:42.
Good Friday
John 18:1-19:42. It is NOT finished
Gospel:
Chapter 18
1.After he had said all this, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron valley where there was a garden into which he went with his disciples. 2.Judas the traitor knew the place also, since Jesus had often met his disciples there, 3.so Judas brought the cohort to this place together with guards sent by the chief priests and the Pharisees, all with lanterns and torches and weapons. 4.Knowing everything that was to happen to him, Jesus came forward and said, 'Who are you looking for?' 5.They answered, 'Jesus the Nazarene.' He said, 'I am he.' Now Judas the traitor was standing among them. 6.When Jesus said to them, 'I am he,' they moved back and fell on the ground. 7.He asked them a second time, 'Who are you looking for?' They said, 'Jesus the Nazarene.' 8.Jesus replied, 'I have told you that I am he. If I am the one you are looking for, let these others go.' 9.This was to fulfil the words he had spoken, 'Not one of those you gave me have I lost.' 10.Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. 11.Jesus said to Peter, 'Put your sword back in its scabbard; am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?' 12.The cohort and its tribune and the Jewish guards seized Jesus and bound him.
13.They took him first to Annas, because Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year. 14.It was Caiaphas who had counselled the Jews, 'It is better for one man to die for the people.' 15.Simon Peter, with another disciple, followed Jesus. This disciple, who was known to the high priest, went with Jesus into the high priest's palace, 16.but Peter stayed outside the door. So the other disciple, the one known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the door-keeper and brought Peter in. 17.The girl on duty at the door said to Peter, 'Aren't you another of that man's disciples?' He answered, 'I am not.' 18.Now it was cold, and the servants and guards had lit a charcoal fire and were standing there warming themselves; so Peter stood there too, warming himself with the others. 19.The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. 20.Jesus answered, 'I have spoken openly for all the world to hear; I have always taught in the synagogue and in the Temple where all the Jews meet together; I have said nothing in secret. 21.Why ask me? Ask my hearers what I taught; they know what I said.' 22.At these words, one of the guards standing by gave Jesus a slap in the face, saying, 'Is that the way you answer the high priest?' 23.Jesus replied, 'If there is some offence in what I said, point it out; but if not, why do you strike me?' 24.Then Annas sent him, bound, to Caiaphas the high priest. 25.As Simon Peter stood there warming himself, someone said to him, 'Aren't you another of his disciples?' He denied it saying, 'I am not.' 26.One of the high priest's servants, a relation of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, 'Didn't I see you in the garden with him?' 27.Again Peter denied it; and at once a cock crowed.
28.They then led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the Praetorium. It was now morning. They did not go into the Praetorium themselves to avoid becoming defiled and unable to eat the Passover. 29.So Pilate came outside to them and said, 'What charge do you bring against this man?' They replied, 30.'If he were not a criminal, we should not have handed him over to you.' 31.Pilate said, 'Take him yourselves, and try him by your own Law.' The Jews answered, 'We are not allowed to put anyone to death.' 32.This was to fulfil the words Jesus had spoken indicating the way he was going to die. 33.So Pilate went back into the Praetorium and called Jesus to him and asked him, 'Are you the king of the Jews?' 34.Jesus replied, 'Do you ask this of your own accord, or have others said it to you about me?' 35.Pilate answered, 'Am I a Jew? It is your own people and the chief priests who have handed you over to me: what have you done?' 36.Jesus replied, 'Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. As it is, my kingdom does not belong here.' 37.Pilate said, 'So, then you are a king?' Jesus answered, 'It is you who say that 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.' 38.'Truth?' said Pilate. 'What is that?' And so saying he went out again to the Jews and said, 'I find no case against him. 39.But according to a custom of yours I should release one prisoner at the Passover; would you like me, then, to release for you the king of the Jews?' 40.At this they shouted, 'Not this man,' they said, 'but Barabbas.' Barabbas was a bandit."
Chapter 19
"1.Pilate then had Jesus taken away and scourged; 2.and after this, the soldiers twisted some thorns into a crown and put it on his head and dressed him in a purple robe. 3.They kept coming up to him and saying, 'Hail, king of the Jews!' and slapping him in the face. 4.Pilate came outside again and said to them, 'Look, I am going to bring him out to you to let you see that I find no case against him.' 5.Jesus then came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said, 'Here is the man.' 6.When they saw him, the chief priests and the guards shouted, 'Crucify him! Crucify him!' Pilate said, 'Take him yourselves and crucify him: I find no case against him.' 7.The Jews replied, 'We have a Law, and according to that Law he ought to be put to death, because he has claimed to be Son of God.' 8.When Pilate heard them say this his fears increased. 9.Re-entering the Praetorium, he said to Jesus, 'Where do you come from?' But Jesus made no answer. 10.Pilate then said to him, 'Are you refusing to speak to me? Surely you know I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?' 11.Jesus replied, 'You would have no power over me at all if it had not been given you from above; that is why the man who handed me over to you has the greater guilt.' 12.From that moment Pilate was anxious to set him free, but the Jews shouted, 'If you set him free you are no friend of Caesar's; anyone who makes himself king is defying Caesar.' 13.Hearing these words, Pilate had Jesus brought out, and seated him on the chair of judgement at a place called the Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha. 14.It was the Day of Preparation, about the sixth hour. 'Here is your king,' said Pilate to the Jews. 15.But they shouted, 'Away with him, away with him, crucify him.' Pilate said, 'Shall I crucify your king?' The chief priests answered, 'We have no king except Caesar.' 16.So at that Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
They then took charge of Jesus, 17.and carrying his own cross he went out to the Place of the Skull or, as it is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, 18.where they crucified him with two others, one on either side, Jesus being in the middle. 19.Pilate wrote out a notice and had it fixed to the cross; it ran: 'Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews'. 20.This notice was read by many of the Jews, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the writing was in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. 21.So the Jewish chief priests said to Pilate, 'You should not write "King of the Jews", but that the man said, "I am King of the Jews". ' 22.Pilate answered, 'What I have written, I have written.'
23.When the soldiers had finished crucifying Jesus they took his clothing and divided it into four shares, one for each soldier. His undergarment was seamless, woven in one piece from neck to hem; 24.so they said to one another, 'Instead of tearing it, let's throw dice to decide who is to have it.' In this way the words of scripture were fulfilled: They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothes. That is what the soldiers did. 25.Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. 26.Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, 'Woman, this is your son.' 27.Then to the disciple he said, 'This is your mother.' And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. 28.After this, Jesus knew that everything had now been completed and, so that the scripture should be completely fulfilled, he said: I am thirsty. 29.A jar full of sour wine stood there; so, putting a sponge soaked in the wine on a hyssop stick, they held it up to his mouth. 30.After Jesus had taken the wine he said, 'It is fulfilled'; and bowing his head he gave up his spirit. 31.It was the Day of Preparation, and to avoid the bodies' remaining on the cross during the Sabbath -- since that Sabbath was a day of special solemnity -- the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken away. 32.Consequently the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with him and then of the other. 33.When they came to Jesus, they saw he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs 34.one of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water.
35.This is the evidence of one who saw it -- true evidence, and he knows that what he says is true -- and he gives it so that you may believe as well. 36.Because all this happened to fulfil the words of scripture: Not one bone of his will be broken; 37.and again, in another place scripture says: They will look to the one whom they have pierced.
38.After this, Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a disciple of Jesus -- though a secret one because he was afraid of the Jews -- asked Pilate to let him remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission, so they came and took it away. 39.Nicodemus came as well -- the same one who had first come to Jesus at night-time -- and he brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. 40.They took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, following the Jewish burial custom. 41.At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been buried. 42.Since it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there."
Reflection for Good Friday from a 2008 homily:
The last words of Jesus, according to the writer of the last canonical Gospel, were the cryptic: "It is finished".
What is finished?
I think it depends on your perspective.
Let us, in our mind's eye, gather around the cross and observe the reactions of those intimately connected to the fateful events of that day.
For the High priests, this is the end, or so they think, to all those incendiary speeches, dangerous gatherings of people who are beginning to question the authority of the temple, and who are beginning to see the high priests as collaborators in a system which kept the peace with Rome, but did so on the backs of the poor and marginalized. It is an end to a public relations nightmare in which Rome once again looks at this corner of the world as a hotbed of discontent and sedition. The traitor is dead.
It is finished; FINALLY!
Soldiers on a hill, obeying orders from above. Nasty job to pull. But somebody has to. Wretched day. Hot. Humid. Cloudy. Storm brewing. Anybody for a quick game? Thirsty! Listen to that one. He's thirsty! If you are the king of the Jews, get out of this one — if you can. A bad job; but it's over now. Another day, another shekel. (1.)
It is finished:
Two thieves, each with a different reaction on their last day on earth: One is desperate for life, disappointed when Jesus can't pull off the final miracle. "I knew you were a fake!" The other, sensing something larger than life is happening here: "This man has done nothing wrong." But for each of them, there is no coming down from that cross alive.
It is finished.
The crowd dwindles. The shouting subsides. Wagging their heads they snort and chuckle. Destroy the temple! Who did he think he was? Rebuild it in three days! He fancied himself at playing Solomon. Good riddance, I say. That was a good one.
But it's finished now.
Somewhere in the shadows lurks a free man. Released from prison his first day out of jail. Barabbas delivered from bondage! His term of sentence?
It is finished.
Off in the distance on the palace balcony stand Pilate and his wife. A nightmare come true, but after all — I didn’t really know him. It wasn’t as though he were somebody important. What's done is done. " What I have written I have written," And that's that.
It is finished (2.)
The disciples--men and women, many of whom have been expecting a radical change in the religious philosophies and the social structures at the hand of Jesus surely realize that it is finished, and not in a good way, on that fateful afternoon when Jesus dies. "I left my family, my good life as a fisherman to follow him. I thought we had every chance of success. I was going to be his right hand person in his new kingdom. He is the only one who understood everything I ever did. What now? I guess it's back to the job of trying to make a living fishing. That 's it. We failed.
It is finished." (3)
What is finished?
When I was a child, I heard over and over again in one version or another: Jesus' job, to die for our sins, is finished. Jesus had to die in order for humanity to be restored to God's favor. Jesus' death settled the debt we owed by sinning, and opened up the gates of heaven for us once more. When Jesus' death is understood in light of salvation spirituality, his was a necessary sacrifice for all mankind. The reasoning, according to St Anselm in 1097, goes something like this: the human race has sinned, from Adam on down, and all crime must have punishment. Therefore, God must require a punishment, a price, before God can forgive our sins or crimes. God's anger will only be appeased by human sacrifice. This human sacrifice must be unblemished and perfect, so no one other than Jesus, the God-Man will be adequate. Jesus died for my sins. The payment has been made, the debt has been satisfied. (4.) Jesus came to save us. And that job is finished.
Sorry folks, I just don't buy it. For many of us, both in and out of the Christian communion, this notion of substitutionary atonement is more of a stumbling block than a help. For many of us, this reasoning flies in the face of our understanding of God as Abba, a loving daddy. What parent would demand the death of a son or daughter as payment for disobedience? Not a normal one.
Oh yes, Jesus came to save us, but not in the way we expected
Jesus became human to show us how to save ourselves from ourselves. He came to give us a vision of how life could be if it were ordered according to the principles of God instead of principles of humans. Jesus came to show us how to love. How to heal, and how to forgive. And this is what he did from one dusty corner of Israel to other. This is what he preached when he spoke of the laborers in the vineyard, or the Prodigal Son. This is what he did when he refused to counter violence with violence in his last hours on this earth. The legacy Jesus left is there for all of us to recall, recounted every time we pick up a gospel reading. . Too often we look on Jesus' death as a one-time solution to all that ails the earth. Too often we pray to God for an end to war, or poverty or injustice, expecting God to make it happen without any change or effort on our part. God has chosen since the beginning of time, to work in and through humans, and if the kingdom of heaven is to be attained, it must be through our own efforts, using the words and works of Jesus as a lodestar.
And when he died on that dark and dreadful day, his part in the drama we call the History of the Earth was over. It was finished. God or no God, by becoming fully human, one in solidarity with all of humanity, it was ordained that he would die--and the manner of his dying showed those who suffer: "I will suffer with you." He had done all he could to leave behind a legacy of love and mission. Unfortunately, the world Jesus left behind is a broken, messy world, riddled with sin and selfishness, and the project of healing is an interactive one between God and us. It is our job to do our part to finish what Jesus started.
And it that sense, it is not finished.
Look around folks.
We got trouble, right here in River City.
Right here on our small planet, we are busy killing one another and have been doing so since the days of Cain and Abel. When we speak of war casualties, --which in this war, numbers 4300 and counting- we rarely count the losses to our "enemy". When we speak of deterrents, we don't always stop to consider that our little planet has enough weapons of mass destruction stockpiled to annihilate every person on this earth. On our small planet, we are punching holes in the ozone layer, polluting the oceans with oil spills and ruining rivers and streams with industrial waste. Some animals, driven out of their habitat by encroaching civilization and industrialization, starve or are killed for profit. Currently, there are over 1000 species of birds and mammals that are facing extinction. And let us not forget that the collateral damage of war is the scorching of Mother earth itself.
IT IS NOT FINISHED!
Right here in this land of the free, last time I looked, bigotry and prejudice were alive and well. Stories of discrimination and hate crimes against Blacks, Asians, gays, women, Jews, Muslims; against "those people" who are not like us--these stories are in the newspaper and on the daily news every day. Every day!
Right here in this prosperous country, the younger you are, the more vulnerable you are. Among industrialized countries, America is the first in military technology, in military exports, in defense expenditures, in millionaires and billionaires, in health technology, but 17th in efforts to lift children out of poverty, 18th in infant mortality, last in protecting our children against gun violence. As our country has grown richer, our children have grown poorer. (5.)
Every 40 seconds a child is born into poverty. Every minute a child is born without health insurance. Every three minutes a child is arrested for drug abuse. Every six minutes a child is arrested for a violent crime. Every eighteen minutes a baby dies. Every two hours a firearm kills a child or youth.
Every day in America 8189 children are reported abused or neglected. (6.)
Every day.
IS SO NOT FINISHED!
Right here in our own small town, today and tomorrow people are surging or sending surrogates into the grocery stores to provision for the Easter feast as if it were the last banquet. As we exit the stores we don't even see the people sitting outside on an upended box with crudely lettered cardboard signs saying: "Homeless. Out of Work. Please help." As darkness closes in, small groups of desperate people arrange their meager bundles for another night in the open. The homeless shelters are full, the lines at St. Anthony's get longer and longer. Right here in our small town, many of the elderly have to make a choice between food and medication, between food and heat. Right here.
IT IS NOT FINISHED!
And we pray to God to fix it.
"Please God, give us peace. Stop people from fighting with us. Please God, stop people from polluting the earth. Please God, end discrimination and poverty and safeguard the most vulnerable. "
I ask you, is this the best we can do to love one another as Jesus has loved us? I think we can do better.
Jesus is no longer with us, and in the words of St Theresa of Avila: " God has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on the world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the earth. "
Instead, Let us pray to God to fix us:
Jesus, Man of Peace,
Give us the wisdom to look beyond military power and brute force to see that the collateral damage of war is often the life of an innocent child, or somebody's mother or hundreds and thousands of homeless and dislocated souls living in refugee camps.
Lord of Consolation,
I want to see with loving eyes all those lonely and hopeless
ones who have no one to talk to, who are locked in their own misery, who are too old to matter to anyone any more. Give me eyes of compassion to look at the faces behind the faces that I meet every day. Help me to see as fellow travelers those tucked into homes lighted for the evening, and in the homeless who arrange their bundles at the end of the day. Give me ears to hear the voices of the needy and the non-voices of silent desperation. Help me to have the courage and the energy to spend something of myself on their behalf Give me a heart that cares and words to heal.
Jesus, brother and friend, you left us an awesome and difficult task--It is not finished.
I am not finished.
I have barely begun.
1. adapted from God Has A Story Too by James A. Sanders, Elizabeth Hay Bechtel Professor of Intertestamental and Biblical Studies at the School of Theology, Claremont, California, and Professor of Religion at Claremont Graduate School. He is also the author of Torah and Canon.. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Paul Mobley. God Has A Story Too was published in 1979 by Fortress Press, Philadelphia
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Crossan, John Dominic and Borg, Marcus: The Last Week, p139
5. Walter Burghardt: To Be Just is to Love, 190
6. Ibid
Meditation: Exaltation of the Cross
Sept. 14, 2008
Catherine Wolff
My early school days were spent at St. Agnes Grammar School up in San Francisco. I’m old enough that seeing a movie was a major treat in those days, and the nuns who ran St. Agnes must have invested all their savings in the one movie we had in our library – a Spanish film that came out in the mid-1950’s called The Miracle of Marcellino.
My memory of the exact plot is a bit sketchy –Marcellino was a poor little orphan who had been taken in by the monks in a very austere monastery, and there was an episode having to do with a scorpion bite, and a miracle involving bread and wine. But I do have vivid, enduring memories of the conversations that Marcellino would have with Jesus. He was a lonely little boy who visited the chapel regularly to pray out loud in front of a crucifix that seemed to be at least 15 feet tall. After awhile Jesus, from way up on the cross, started talking back in a deep, rich, sorrowful voice. It was a great comfort to Marcellino but it was absolutely terrifying to me as a 6 or 7-year-old. I was worried that any number of crucifixes that hung all over Catholic 1950’s San Francisco would start speaking to me, but really what was most disturbing was that Jesus was somehow still hanging on the cross, now, today.
Now this was in the days just before Vatican II, when there was still considerable emphasis on the cross as ransom for sin, and on our personal and collective culpability in Jesus’ suffering and death. The story of the cross was told in terms of the sacrifice necessary for the redemption of our sins, one that we find in the Synoptic Gospels. This was a story that implied that God was deeply offended, that he required appeasement, recompense, and that since no mere human could make up for the estrangement that we humans had chosen, God had to send His own son to make amends, and to require of Him the ultimate sacrifice of death.
But there is another way to understand the cross. If we consider God’s love to be the real basis for hope, instead of the terrible ransom of Jesus’ life, we can tell another version of the story. It starts with creation itself, where God begins to reveal Himself, freely and forgivingly, as we see in today’s first reading about his care for his hungry and confused people wandering in the desert. And in this story creation is not an event that is contained in the past but is actually ongoing in history, ongoing in our hearts.
The next phase in this unfolding revelation of God’s love is the Incarnation. This is not a desperate salvage job, where God has to intervene in human history to help set it right. We already see him intervening continuously throughout the Old Testament, through the covenant which He kept so lovingly and faithfully and His People kept so badly.
The Incarnation is God breaking directly, physically, into history in human form in the person of Jesus. In fact, the great Franciscan Duns Scotus made a powerful argument that the Incarnation is God’s primary redemptive act. He said that the Incarnation was first and foremost in God’s mind from the beginning. It could not have been dependent on, or occasioned by, any action of humans, especially sin.
The language of John’s Gospel, which we hear today, does not stress Jesus’ death as ransom, sacrifice, atonement, as the Synoptic Gospels do. In John and Ephesians, in Duns Scotus and Karl Rahner, the crucifixion is part of Jesus’ glorification, not only a sacrifice but a manifestation of the lengths to which God is willing to go to bring us closer to him.
All of Jesus’ work was redemptive, all of it ennobled our human nature he took on for us -- his healing, his teaching, and as we heard from Paul today, his obedience unto death, even death on a cross. Jesus was a prophet in a long tradition that believed in the power of suffering to atone for wrongdoing, and because he was so faithful to God’s will, he come to understand that he was to die, and that his death was a sacrifice for others.
Jesus resolutely accepted his fate, and his faithfulness persisted throughout his terrible suffering and into his death. But so did the Father’s outpouring of love. We know that because Jesus was raised from the dead, and we are given new life in the Kingdom that came about as a result.
And yet that Kingdom is often so difficult to realize. We still suffer. You do, I do. I think of my long walk with my brother down the road to his death from brain cancer. I think of my friend Mary who has carried her schizophrenic brother for twenty years now. I wonder where so many Katrina victims are – they never came home again. And when I see pictures of children in Darfur it seems as though much of humankind is still nailed to a cross.
How can we find hope in our suffering, in the suffering of Jesus on the cross? How can we come to comprehend the reality that the cross contains not only the suffering but also the incarnation and the exaltation of Jesus? That it contains not only failure and scandal and pain but also victory and the promise of eternal life? Jesus already triumphed, and yet you and I here today are not yet capable of living fully in the Kingdom he established.
We are more like the Hebrews wandering around in the desert, complaining about wretched food and ravaged by serpents. In the rather mysterious passage we heard earlier, Moses had to appeal to God who told him to make an image of the serpent, mount it on a pole, and to have everybody who had been bitten look at it, and as a result, actually live. God had his people confront that which terrified them, and in doing so they were healed.
In fact, Jesus recalls that very event in the gospel we heard today -- He tells us that as Moses raised up the serpent for his people, the Son of Man is also lifted up so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. The Son of Man lifted up on the cross is a dreadful sight to see. It requires us to confront not only Jesus’ suffering but our own demons, and our own suffering borne in His body.
This is a powerful lesson of the cross – that we cannot turn away from suffering. We must assume our crosses as faithfully as Jesus did; we must suffer in order to be healed. In being healed we will be able to accept Jesus’ reassurance that the cross is the occasion for the great manifestation of God’s love for us, not a condemnation of the world but a promise that the world is saved.
Reflection Questions:
What, in my life, is still unfinished business?
What can I do to bring certain anxieties, sorrows and guilts to a peaceful and holy conclusion?
What can I learn about handling unfairness from this gospel?
What can I learn about dignity?
Meditation:
Spend some time with the Gospel of John, maybe comparing it to the same events recorded in Matthew’s Gospel from Palm/Passion Sunday on April 5..
You may want to intersperse some music between the sections (see below).
Then take a look at two homilies from 2008 from community members, delivered at two different services.
Finally, just spend some time with Jesus…..
Music Meditations:
Were You There When They Crucified My Lord—(CTCatholicCorner,4PM Media, Mahalia Jecson, Pegasis and others)
What wondrous love is this—(Fernando Ortega, Sabine Murza,)
Pie Jesu by Faure—Kathleen Battle
Going Home, by Dvorak, sung by Bryn Terfel
Holy Thursday, April 6, 2023
Service to others is the hallmark of a disciple of Jesus
Gospel: John 13: 1-15
Service to others is the hallmark of a disciple of Jesus
John 13: 1–15
Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.
The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.” Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.” For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”
So when he had washed their feet [and] put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
Reflections and Meditations
Reflection Questions:
- Normally, in Jesus’ time, a slave would be ordered to wash the feet of guests. What does it tell me that Jesus choose to perform this humiliating act?
- Jesus’ claim to power confused the disciples, because he used his power to perform an act of service.
How do I view power?
Is it always a bad thing?
What have I done for others with whatever powers I possess? - How does it feel to be the recipient of another’s efforts, kindness, largesse ?
Does it seem demeaning?
What mindset can I adopt in order to summon up genuine, gracious acceptance - Peter was reluctant to submit to having Jesus see how dirty his feet were. It was demeaning.
What dirty little secrets have I withheld from others?
What dirty little secrets do I think I have hidden from Jesus?
A Meditation in the Ignatian Style/Imagination:
Imagine that you are one of the twelve settling in for a Passover meal with Jesus. Does this night seem special to you? Where is it being held? Who prepares and serves the meal? What are you eating/drinking? Are there any women present? What of the old stories of the first Passover stand out for you? How do you and your companions view Jesus this evening? Does he seem any different? What do you make of the exchange with Judas, and then with Peter? Do either of them make you uncomfortable? Is there anything in the conversation that puzzles you? What is the message that you take away from the evenings activities, or are you puzzled by the curious events? Do modern readers, who know the outcome of that fateful evening, view the events differently? What message in contained in this story for modern readers? What message is there in that story for me?
Music Meditations
- Servant Song—Sevantofthelion
- Whatsoever You Do—Robert Kolchis
- The Call—John Bell