The Feast of the Ascension of Christ is the feast of His Going Away. The old and delightful iconography of the feast makes a point of it: the Lord Jesus feet are protruding from a cloud that has removed Him from their sight. He’s outta here.
He’s outta here, though, for a reason—rather, for several reasons: all of them good but one demands some pondering.
You know that after His Resurrection, the Lord Christ came and went as He pleased, to the extent that He walked into rooms with thick walls and locked doors, appeared and unappeared as He wanted, and, as I’ve mentioned, His friends were often initially unsure as to Who He was when He did show up. Scripture tells us repeatedly they took Him for a ghost, so He walked and talked with them in the sunlight, sat down and ate with them, gave them His hands still marked with nail prints to poke their fingers through. Whatever had happened to Him, this was no ghost. On that certainty they were willing to bet their lives—which, as the matter of fact, every one of them did.
They knew that He’d been dead “as a doornail,” to use that great old Latin phrase. Now not only was He alive, He was alive beyond what they understood “being alive” to mean. Their Lord, Who’d wrestled with death and won, was surely here now would set everything to rights. Forty days after His Resurrection, He met one last time with His disciples (they didn’t know it would be a Very Long Time before they would see Him again). “When they had come together,” St Luke tells us, “they asked Him, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ ”
They still didn’t get it. They were hoping the Lord Who created the heavens and earth would raise an army and kick the Romans out of Palestine. They didn’t understand He was calling them to overturn not only the Roman world, but every human thing that puts itself in the place of God.
So Jesus led them to the top of the Mount of Olives. There, “as they were looking on,” says St Luke once again, “He was lifted up and a cloud took Him out of their sight.” He was gone.
He wouldn’t walk on the Galilean seashore anymore, pray with them in Gethsemane, no more would they hear Him spin out a parable. He was gone. Why?
If He remained with them, their faith, and ours, would have focused on the Amazing Man who died and came back to life. He might have globe-trotted like the Dalai Lama, or ended up 24/7/365 healing the sick, raising the dead and in continual demand as a marriage and family counselor.
He left them so the Truth He’d planted, the One Church He founded, could come to be. No more would His hands be the only hands to heal, His voice the only one to pronounce forgiveness or teach His followers to pray. His hands, His voice, His love, all of which a thirsty world still craves, now come to that world through us.
His disciples looked up longingly toward the cloud, but He was gone. He didn’t stay because His kingdom is not of this world: our hearts, as His disciples today, aren’t meant to be focused here any more than theirs were. The Only-Begotten Son became one of us to lift our gaze from the beauty we can see to the Beauty our unresurrected eyes cannot see. One Day, He will come again, in glory we cannot imagine and power we cannot comprehend. He will come for us.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
“We Have Seen the Lord!”
On Easter morning, Mary Magdalene encountered the resurrected Lord in the garden outside His tomb. She didn’t recognize Him and took Him for a yardworker.
The evening of that same day, two of the Lord Jesus’ disciples, walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus seven miles off, met a Stranger Who walked and talked with them. Though their “hearts burned within as He opened the meaning of the Scriptures,” they didn’t know Who He was.
After those first days, the disciples returned to Galilee, their homeland. Again and again they saw Him, but didn’t recognize Him.
Yet, when the Lord spoke Mary Magdalene’s name, when He blessed and broke bread at the Emmaus Inn, when He called to His disciples from the shore of the Galilean lake, they did know Him. They knew who He was, not by how He looked, but by what He did.
They didn’t recognize Him because He looked different. His body was changed. Not by the scourging and nails, the bruises and cuts, but by His Resurrection. The Lord’s body was no longer subject to cuts and nails and bruises. His transfigured body was the body of the New Adam, the First-born from the dead. The Lord Jesus emerged from the tomb with the body He had so long before intended for us—for Adam and Eve—an immortal body, no longer in the clutch of suffering or death. “Jesus took a body subject to decay,” wrote St Athanasius the Great, “that our decaying bodies would be clothed with immortality.”
When Adam chewed the pomegranate (or ate the proverbial apple) from the Tree of Good and Evil, he forfeited the chance to eat from the Tree of Life. Both his body and soul, made for immortality, began to change. Having turned from perfect communion with God, the thing for which he was created, Adam unwittingly chose decay, suffering and death. It’s the choice every son of Adam and daughter of Eve (excepting one), has made ever since.
Christ took our nature to change our nature. Again, St Athanasius: “He became like us to make us like Him.” He took our mortality to give us His immortality.
That immortality is not a “spiritual” immortality, a ghost-like survival of the soul after death. The Creed is insistent: “I believe…in the resurrection of the body.” Your body. Mine. We aren’t souls trapped in bodies, as Buddhists believe; in us, the spiritual and earthly meet. It’s that way on purpose. God made us that way. He intends for us an immortality of body and soul. It’s what God meant for us all along. Adam and Eve, and you and I, flubbed it. So God became one of us, to lift us to Heaven. The upcoming feast of the Ascension is a feast of the lifting up of our humanity to God.
Christ’s body changed after His Resurrection. He is now, as St Paul says, “the man of Heaven.” His Resurrection transfigured His body from an earthly one to a heavenly one. One day, pray God, your body—and maybe even mine—“will be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” to be like His. No longer will we be subject to suffering or pain, but that’s the least of it. We’ll be changed to what we were intended to be, not what we’ve made of ourselves. And the Gospel truth—the Gospel Joy—is this: on that Day, we’ll see Him, and recognize Him, and know Him as He is—and He will call us by name, because He knows us, too.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
The evening of that same day, two of the Lord Jesus’ disciples, walking from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus seven miles off, met a Stranger Who walked and talked with them. Though their “hearts burned within as He opened the meaning of the Scriptures,” they didn’t know Who He was.
After those first days, the disciples returned to Galilee, their homeland. Again and again they saw Him, but didn’t recognize Him.
Yet, when the Lord spoke Mary Magdalene’s name, when He blessed and broke bread at the Emmaus Inn, when He called to His disciples from the shore of the Galilean lake, they did know Him. They knew who He was, not by how He looked, but by what He did.
They didn’t recognize Him because He looked different. His body was changed. Not by the scourging and nails, the bruises and cuts, but by His Resurrection. The Lord’s body was no longer subject to cuts and nails and bruises. His transfigured body was the body of the New Adam, the First-born from the dead. The Lord Jesus emerged from the tomb with the body He had so long before intended for us—for Adam and Eve—an immortal body, no longer in the clutch of suffering or death. “Jesus took a body subject to decay,” wrote St Athanasius the Great, “that our decaying bodies would be clothed with immortality.”
When Adam chewed the pomegranate (or ate the proverbial apple) from the Tree of Good and Evil, he forfeited the chance to eat from the Tree of Life. Both his body and soul, made for immortality, began to change. Having turned from perfect communion with God, the thing for which he was created, Adam unwittingly chose decay, suffering and death. It’s the choice every son of Adam and daughter of Eve (excepting one), has made ever since.
Christ took our nature to change our nature. Again, St Athanasius: “He became like us to make us like Him.” He took our mortality to give us His immortality.
That immortality is not a “spiritual” immortality, a ghost-like survival of the soul after death. The Creed is insistent: “I believe…in the resurrection of the body.” Your body. Mine. We aren’t souls trapped in bodies, as Buddhists believe; in us, the spiritual and earthly meet. It’s that way on purpose. God made us that way. He intends for us an immortality of body and soul. It’s what God meant for us all along. Adam and Eve, and you and I, flubbed it. So God became one of us, to lift us to Heaven. The upcoming feast of the Ascension is a feast of the lifting up of our humanity to God.
Christ’s body changed after His Resurrection. He is now, as St Paul says, “the man of Heaven.” His Resurrection transfigured His body from an earthly one to a heavenly one. One day, pray God, your body—and maybe even mine—“will be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” to be like His. No longer will we be subject to suffering or pain, but that’s the least of it. We’ll be changed to what we were intended to be, not what we’ve made of ourselves. And the Gospel truth—the Gospel Joy—is this: on that Day, we’ll see Him, and recognize Him, and know Him as He is—and He will call us by name, because He knows us, too.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Forty Days for Easter
For forty days after His Resurrection, from Easter morning till Ascension Day, Christ was with His Disciples. We celebrate the forty days, calling them Eastertide. Through the season we sing Easter hymns, exchange the ancient Easter greeting, “Christ is risen! Alleluia!” and are anciently free from days of fasting and abstinence.
Lent was the time for fasting and penitence; now is the time for joy. In the Gospel appointed for the Third Sunday after Easter, the Lord Jesus says so plainly. Speaking to His disciples at the Last Supper, He tells them “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
Happiness and joy aren’t the same thing. We’re happy when we find a steak restaurant where “medium rare” really is medium rare, when we receive a letter from an old friend, telling us we’re loved and missed, when we watch as a mama duck teaches her ducklings how to fly. I’m happy when I find my reading glasses. Life is rich with occasions of happiness and flashes of delight.
Christian Joy is something different. Happiness and delight are discoveries—they come and go—but joy is a deep, underground spring, always there, constantly flowing if rarely perceived. Joy and peace are intimates, profoundly related. If happiness lightens our spirit, our anima, joy graces the soul.
Joy is not a sudden discovery but an abiding gift. St Paul counts it as a high gift of the Holy Ghost. “Your joy,” the Lord Christ says to His disciples, “no man takes away from you.”
He was telling them this, on the night in which He was betrayed, because their joy was about to be snatched from them. Within a few hours, He’d be arrested. They would abandon Him and run away in terror. He’d be beaten and mocked, tortured and killed. His broken body would be buried. His shivering disciples would go into hiding. His words about joy were driven from their minds by iron nails and shrapnel-tipped Roman whips.
Then-Easter.
Forty days of Easter, forty days of being with the One Who was dead and now is alive. During those forty days He taught them and their minds began to understand what He’d been saying to them all along. He healed their guilt, freeing them from their sorrow. He taught them the Faith they thought they already knew, breaking the Bread with them and opening the Scriptures to them. Those forty days of Easter became the foundation of the rest of their lives.
They can be the foundation of the rest of ours, too. No less than them, we’re His disciples. We sometimes are as clueless as they were to the meaning of His words. Like them, we sometimes run away and hide for fear.
The most abiding gift of those forty days of Easter was joy. The disciples came to see, some maybe gradually, some maybe all at once, but all with a certainty, that their Lord, Jesus, the Victor over death, had not only overcome death and hell Himself, but He’d destroyed its power over them, too—over all who would ever be His disciples. You and I and “as many as have been baptized into Christ” are free. Not only free from death, but called to joy.
The Joy of Christians is Jesus Christ Himself. Not a sentimental, saccharine joy that gushes about how meek and mild He must be, and so we’ve got to be milquetoasts, too. Joy is no effeminate or adolescent virtue. It’s the virtue of those who’ve been squeezed through the wringer, put out to dry, and who’ve found grace in the breath of the breeze in which they were hung. Joy comes from knowing with a certainty that we belong to God, He’s doing with us what He wants and nothing else matters. That is “the peace of God which passeth understanding,” the pax God holds for all, and the joy which is the Spirit’s high gift.
That’s a feast of forty days, joy a lifetime can’t adequately celebrate.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Lent was the time for fasting and penitence; now is the time for joy. In the Gospel appointed for the Third Sunday after Easter, the Lord Jesus says so plainly. Speaking to His disciples at the Last Supper, He tells them “I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.”
Happiness and joy aren’t the same thing. We’re happy when we find a steak restaurant where “medium rare” really is medium rare, when we receive a letter from an old friend, telling us we’re loved and missed, when we watch as a mama duck teaches her ducklings how to fly. I’m happy when I find my reading glasses. Life is rich with occasions of happiness and flashes of delight.
Christian Joy is something different. Happiness and delight are discoveries—they come and go—but joy is a deep, underground spring, always there, constantly flowing if rarely perceived. Joy and peace are intimates, profoundly related. If happiness lightens our spirit, our anima, joy graces the soul.
Joy is not a sudden discovery but an abiding gift. St Paul counts it as a high gift of the Holy Ghost. “Your joy,” the Lord Christ says to His disciples, “no man takes away from you.”
He was telling them this, on the night in which He was betrayed, because their joy was about to be snatched from them. Within a few hours, He’d be arrested. They would abandon Him and run away in terror. He’d be beaten and mocked, tortured and killed. His broken body would be buried. His shivering disciples would go into hiding. His words about joy were driven from their minds by iron nails and shrapnel-tipped Roman whips.
Then-Easter.
Forty days of Easter, forty days of being with the One Who was dead and now is alive. During those forty days He taught them and their minds began to understand what He’d been saying to them all along. He healed their guilt, freeing them from their sorrow. He taught them the Faith they thought they already knew, breaking the Bread with them and opening the Scriptures to them. Those forty days of Easter became the foundation of the rest of their lives.
They can be the foundation of the rest of ours, too. No less than them, we’re His disciples. We sometimes are as clueless as they were to the meaning of His words. Like them, we sometimes run away and hide for fear.
The most abiding gift of those forty days of Easter was joy. The disciples came to see, some maybe gradually, some maybe all at once, but all with a certainty, that their Lord, Jesus, the Victor over death, had not only overcome death and hell Himself, but He’d destroyed its power over them, too—over all who would ever be His disciples. You and I and “as many as have been baptized into Christ” are free. Not only free from death, but called to joy.
The Joy of Christians is Jesus Christ Himself. Not a sentimental, saccharine joy that gushes about how meek and mild He must be, and so we’ve got to be milquetoasts, too. Joy is no effeminate or adolescent virtue. It’s the virtue of those who’ve been squeezed through the wringer, put out to dry, and who’ve found grace in the breath of the breeze in which they were hung. Joy comes from knowing with a certainty that we belong to God, He’s doing with us what He wants and nothing else matters. That is “the peace of God which passeth understanding,” the pax God holds for all, and the joy which is the Spirit’s high gift.
That’s a feast of forty days, joy a lifetime can’t adequately celebrate.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Saturday, April 28, 2012
“He Descended into Hell…”
We say this every time we recite the Apostles Creed, but what in the world does it mean? Why would the Lord Jesus descend into hell? What did He do while He was there? God going to hell sounds too strange and paradoxical to have any real meaning. Yet there it is, in the middle of the Creed, set amidst the most essential Christian beliefs.
Take a look at the picture above. This was the standard depiction of Easter in every Christian Church for a thousand years. It’s not the picture we’ve become used to, of Christ rising at sunrise, victorious from His tomb. The old ikon doesn’t show Easter morning at all. For 50 generations, our Christian ancestors knew the Easter Feast began not at sunrise, but in the midnight depths of hell, where Christ the Lord descended to crush death and destroy every human fear.
That’s what the ancient Easter ikon depicts. Christ has descended to hell. He’s knocked down its doors (notice the shape they fell into), broken its chains and shattered its locks (see them laying in the blackness). He stretches out his hands to an old man and woman, lifting them from their graves. They’re Adam and Eve, our first father and mother. Around them stand other figures of the Old Testament, particularly the prophets. They look on in adoration, rejoicing that the Day they so long ago predicted has come at last.
Christ descended into hell. He submitted His humanity to the death common to us all so His divinity could break the grip in which death held every one of us.
St John Chrysostom said:
“Hell took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and was crushed by what it could not see.”
It was necessary for Christ to descend into hell, as it was necessary for Him to be born, necessary that He be tempted, necessary for Him to be crucified, necessary for Him to rise from the dead, appear to His disciples and commission them as His Apostles, to ascend in His glorified humanity to Heaven, necessary for Him to send on His Church the Holy Ghost. His birth, death, descent to hell, resurrection and ascension are all one thing: the way He redeemed mankind.
Christ descended to hell because that’s where we're all headed without Him. Since Adam, every single one of us had made the same choice Adam did: we choose ourselves over God, selfishness over generosity, sin over holiness. What we don’t grasp is that in making those choices, we’re choosing death over life. The ikon shows Christ lifting Adam and Eve from death; in lifting them, He lifts us from death, too.
The great sixth-century bishop and poet, Venantius Fortunatus, in his hymn The Royal Banners, depicts Christ on the Cross, not as a suffering victim, but as a victorious King: “God is reigning from the Tree.” Christ descended into hell not as its victim but its Conqueror.
What is death and hell to you and me? To us, who share the redeemed humanity of Christ (that’s what your baptism really means), death has the same power a third-grade bully holds over an adult. Christ has risen and we are free. Rejoice for these fifty days—and live a life worthy of that which Christ has given you. Always and in all things rejoice. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia,—Fr Gregory Wilcox
Sunday, April 8, 2012
THE PASCHAL SERMON OF ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM
If any of you is devout and a lover of God,
enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast.
If any of you is a wise servant,
enter with delight into the joy of your Lord.
If any of you have labored long in fasting,
now receive your recompense.
If you have wrought from the first hour,
today receive your just reward.
If you have come at the third hour,
keep this feast with thanksgiving.
If you have arrived at the sixth hour,
have no misgivings, you shall in no wise be deprived.
If you have delayed until the ninth hour,
draw near, and fear nothing.
If you have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
be not alarmed at your tardiness;
for the Lord, who is jealous of His honor,
will accept the last even as the first.
He gives rest unto the one who comes at the eleventh hour,
even as unto him who has worked from the first.
He shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first;
to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts.
He both accepts the deed, and welcomes the intention,
He honors the act and praises the offering.
Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord,
and receive your reward, both the first and also the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival.
You sober and you heedless, honor the day.
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
and you who have ignored the fast.
The table is fully laden; let all feast sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy the feast of faith;
receive all the riches of loving-kindness.
Let no one bewail his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
for pardon has shone forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
for the Savior's death has set us free:
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.
By descending into hell, He made hell His captive.
He sickened it when it tasted of his flesh.
Isaiah, foretelling this, cried:
“Hell was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions."
Hell was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell before the Unseen.
O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown.
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.
Christ is risen, and life reigns.
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.
enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast.
If any of you is a wise servant,
enter with delight into the joy of your Lord.
If any of you have labored long in fasting,
now receive your recompense.
If you have wrought from the first hour,
today receive your just reward.
If you have come at the third hour,
keep this feast with thanksgiving.
If you have arrived at the sixth hour,
have no misgivings, you shall in no wise be deprived.
If you have delayed until the ninth hour,
draw near, and fear nothing.
If you have tarried even until the eleventh hour,
be not alarmed at your tardiness;
for the Lord, who is jealous of His honor,
will accept the last even as the first.
He gives rest unto the one who comes at the eleventh hour,
even as unto him who has worked from the first.
He shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first;
to the one he gives, and upon the other he bestows gifts.
He both accepts the deed, and welcomes the intention,
He honors the act and praises the offering.
Wherefore, enter ye all into the joy of your Lord,
and receive your reward, both the first and also the second.
You rich and poor together, hold high festival.
You sober and you heedless, honor the day.
Rejoice today, both you who have fasted
and you who have ignored the fast.
The table is fully laden; let all feast sumptuously.
The calf is fatted; let no one go hungry away.
Enjoy the feast of faith;
receive all the riches of loving-kindness.
Let no one bewail his poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one weep for his iniquities,
for pardon has shone forth from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
for the Savior's death has set us free:
He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it.
By descending into hell, He made hell His captive.
He sickened it when it tasted of his flesh.
Isaiah, foretelling this, cried:
“Hell was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions."
Hell was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell before the Unseen.
O Death, where is thy sting?
O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown.
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.
Christ is risen, and life reigns.
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave.
For Christ, being risen from the dead,
is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Quo Vadis?
I have a good friend whose wife is slowly succumbing to Alzheimer’s. What’s more, she knows it. She struggles every day to combat its pernicious impact on their lives and has learned a lot of coping mechanisms, but every time I speak to my friend, she has just a little more trouble than the time before.
She’s his boon companion and a delightfully gentle woman—the love of his life. He’s a retired marine colonel, tough as nails, but her influence on him over the decades has—not softened him, but—enabled him to view life and the world with kindness. He goes to daily Mass and makes regular retreats with the Benedictines in Gethsemani, Kentucky. I am lucky to have him as my friend.
I’ve prayed daily for and about the both of them for years. I don’t ask the Lord anymore for answers to my questions. Why this terrible thing came to them is beyond my understanding. What I can do is pray for them and ask the Lord to make their burden bearable and to give me some small share of their load. That’s easy, since they’re 1,500 miles away.
The other night I was saying my prayers and remembered the two of them before God. I prayed as I usually do, asking the Lord to help the two of them to bear it and still be assured of the certainty of His love. I asked Him to allow me to bear some small part of their burden. I was immediately struck: “Is that what you really want? How far will you go to share their heartache?”
I was shocked—and scared. What would God ask of me? What would I really be willing to do for my good friends?
Those who know me know I have a stony heart, but I pride myself (in the worst way) on my intellect. I can think of nothing worse than Alzheimer’s which robs you of the mind. Until the other night I never seriously considered the possibility that I would come down with it. For me, surrounded with a lifetime’s collection of books, many as dear to me as the closest of friends, with my cherished memories and intellectual joys, what would it be to have it all slip into oblivion? Could I ever be as brave and noble as my good friend’s wife? What does it mean to have the companion of a lifetime slowly slip away—not to die, but to seem to disappear? The two of them are walking a dreadful road to Calvary. They walk it with the Lord Jesus, but it’s hard for me to imagine a Way of the Cross more painful.
When I compare all my sufferings and sorrows to theirs, I’m ashamed to call anything that has ever happened to me “suffering.” The Lord said “To whom much is given, of him much is required.” When we say to Jesus that we want to follow Him, to be His disciples, He tells us unequivocally to pick up our Cross and start after Him. We don’t know what our Cross will look like, but it will be heavy and costly. It will also be full of Grace.
As I look at my friends, I am full of admiration for the love and patience they show each other. I’ve never seen a more unselfish picture of Love—not just the love a married couple has for each other; through this terrible trial, this Cross they both carry, their love has transcended the natural affections. It’s the Love of Jesus you see alive in them. Their hard, daily struggles are unvarnished signs of Grace.
During Passiontide we consider what it means for us to follow the Lord Christ on the Way of the Cross. Hidden around us are those who are actually doing it. They lovingly pick it up every day and continue on the Way to Calvary. The pain and suffering of our lives can be stuff to whine about; we can think of going to Friday night Stations as walking the Way of the Cross, but if we ask the Lord, not for suffering but for Grace to follow Him, we’ll each discover our own Cross. It’s been custom-made, just for you. It’s probably been lying around and you’ve averted your gaze for years. I don’t blame you one bit.
“But to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.”
She’s his boon companion and a delightfully gentle woman—the love of his life. He’s a retired marine colonel, tough as nails, but her influence on him over the decades has—not softened him, but—enabled him to view life and the world with kindness. He goes to daily Mass and makes regular retreats with the Benedictines in Gethsemani, Kentucky. I am lucky to have him as my friend.
I’ve prayed daily for and about the both of them for years. I don’t ask the Lord anymore for answers to my questions. Why this terrible thing came to them is beyond my understanding. What I can do is pray for them and ask the Lord to make their burden bearable and to give me some small share of their load. That’s easy, since they’re 1,500 miles away.
The other night I was saying my prayers and remembered the two of them before God. I prayed as I usually do, asking the Lord to help the two of them to bear it and still be assured of the certainty of His love. I asked Him to allow me to bear some small part of their burden. I was immediately struck: “Is that what you really want? How far will you go to share their heartache?”
I was shocked—and scared. What would God ask of me? What would I really be willing to do for my good friends?
Those who know me know I have a stony heart, but I pride myself (in the worst way) on my intellect. I can think of nothing worse than Alzheimer’s which robs you of the mind. Until the other night I never seriously considered the possibility that I would come down with it. For me, surrounded with a lifetime’s collection of books, many as dear to me as the closest of friends, with my cherished memories and intellectual joys, what would it be to have it all slip into oblivion? Could I ever be as brave and noble as my good friend’s wife? What does it mean to have the companion of a lifetime slowly slip away—not to die, but to seem to disappear? The two of them are walking a dreadful road to Calvary. They walk it with the Lord Jesus, but it’s hard for me to imagine a Way of the Cross more painful.
When I compare all my sufferings and sorrows to theirs, I’m ashamed to call anything that has ever happened to me “suffering.” The Lord said “To whom much is given, of him much is required.” When we say to Jesus that we want to follow Him, to be His disciples, He tells us unequivocally to pick up our Cross and start after Him. We don’t know what our Cross will look like, but it will be heavy and costly. It will also be full of Grace.
As I look at my friends, I am full of admiration for the love and patience they show each other. I’ve never seen a more unselfish picture of Love—not just the love a married couple has for each other; through this terrible trial, this Cross they both carry, their love has transcended the natural affections. It’s the Love of Jesus you see alive in them. Their hard, daily struggles are unvarnished signs of Grace.
During Passiontide we consider what it means for us to follow the Lord Christ on the Way of the Cross. Hidden around us are those who are actually doing it. They lovingly pick it up every day and continue on the Way to Calvary. The pain and suffering of our lives can be stuff to whine about; we can think of going to Friday night Stations as walking the Way of the Cross, but if we ask the Lord, not for suffering but for Grace to follow Him, we’ll each discover our own Cross. It’s been custom-made, just for you. It’s probably been lying around and you’ve averted your gaze for years. I don’t blame you one bit.
“But to as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.”
Friday, March 23, 2012
Passiontide & Holy Week
The last two weeks of Lent, from Passion Sunday (the Fifth Sunday in Lent) until Holy Saturday (the day before Easter), are called Passiontide. The second week of Passiontide, called Holy Week, includes some of the principal days of the Church Year: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Vigil of Easter (Easter Even). The three main days of Holy Week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday often go by their ancient Latin title, the Triduum Sacrum (the Three Holy Days).
From New Testament times, Christians specially observed Easter. While every Sunday recalled the Lord’s Resurrection, by the end of the first century, Christians also kept a spring-time Easter celebration near the date of the Jewish Passover. Beginning a few centuries after the birth of Christ, many Christians traveled to Jerusalem from across the Mediterranean world to re-live the Lord’s last few days on the sacred sites themselves. The ceremonies associated with Holy Week have their origins in the worship of the churches in Jerusalem during those early days of pilgrimage.
The Lenten color used in most churches today on vestments and hangings is purple. But in medieval English churches—and still today in quite a few churches in England—the Altars and churches are hung in what is called “the Lenten Array,” unbleached linen with decorations (often the “symbols of the Passion”) colored with blacks, reds and dark oxblood. It’s customary for the weeks of Passiontide to veil all the crosses, holy pictures and statues within the church. In medieval England, these veils were placed not just during Passiontide, but for the whole of Lent. Another custom, almost completely vanished, is the Lenten sanctuary veil. This giant veil was hung at the Altar rail entirely blocking the view of the sanctuary. When the sanctuary veil was used, it was drawn back during Mass just enough to let the congregation see the Altar.
The services of Holy Week include the blessing and procession of palms on Palm Sunday. The Passion Gospel (according to St Matthew) is read, the clergy and people taking the various “parts.” The Mass of Maundy Thursday celebrates the Lord’s institution of the Eucharist. After the Mass is concluded, it’s customary for the priest to wash the feet of his parishioners; then, the Altar and appointments of the church are all stripped while Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”) is chanted and all leave the church in silence. On Good Friday, special readings and collects precede the unveiling and veneration of the Cross. Ancient practice forbids the celebration of the Mass from Maundy Thursday until the first Mass of Easter. The Holy Saturday services begin in the evening, with the blessing of the New Fire, the blessing of the Paschal candle, the Paschal Procession and the singing of the Exultet, an ancient Easter Proclamation.
Pope St Leo the Great, in a sermon he preached in AD 457, said, “We not only know about the reconciliation of the world wrought by the Son of God by hearing of these past events, but through the power and work of God, we ourselves experience these things through the mystery of the Liturgy and Sacraments.” For us, these services are not remembrances of the past, but the Saving Acts of God present with us now.
The services of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are some of the most ancient and beautiful of the Church Year. They will all be celebrated at St Joseph’s this Passiontide. They are the perfect prelude to the grand festivities of Easter Day. I hope you will join in as much as you can.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
From New Testament times, Christians specially observed Easter. While every Sunday recalled the Lord’s Resurrection, by the end of the first century, Christians also kept a spring-time Easter celebration near the date of the Jewish Passover. Beginning a few centuries after the birth of Christ, many Christians traveled to Jerusalem from across the Mediterranean world to re-live the Lord’s last few days on the sacred sites themselves. The ceremonies associated with Holy Week have their origins in the worship of the churches in Jerusalem during those early days of pilgrimage.
The Lenten color used in most churches today on vestments and hangings is purple. But in medieval English churches—and still today in quite a few churches in England—the Altars and churches are hung in what is called “the Lenten Array,” unbleached linen with decorations (often the “symbols of the Passion”) colored with blacks, reds and dark oxblood. It’s customary for the weeks of Passiontide to veil all the crosses, holy pictures and statues within the church. In medieval England, these veils were placed not just during Passiontide, but for the whole of Lent. Another custom, almost completely vanished, is the Lenten sanctuary veil. This giant veil was hung at the Altar rail entirely blocking the view of the sanctuary. When the sanctuary veil was used, it was drawn back during Mass just enough to let the congregation see the Altar.
The services of Holy Week include the blessing and procession of palms on Palm Sunday. The Passion Gospel (according to St Matthew) is read, the clergy and people taking the various “parts.” The Mass of Maundy Thursday celebrates the Lord’s institution of the Eucharist. After the Mass is concluded, it’s customary for the priest to wash the feet of his parishioners; then, the Altar and appointments of the church are all stripped while Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”) is chanted and all leave the church in silence. On Good Friday, special readings and collects precede the unveiling and veneration of the Cross. Ancient practice forbids the celebration of the Mass from Maundy Thursday until the first Mass of Easter. The Holy Saturday services begin in the evening, with the blessing of the New Fire, the blessing of the Paschal candle, the Paschal Procession and the singing of the Exultet, an ancient Easter Proclamation.
Pope St Leo the Great, in a sermon he preached in AD 457, said, “We not only know about the reconciliation of the world wrought by the Son of God by hearing of these past events, but through the power and work of God, we ourselves experience these things through the mystery of the Liturgy and Sacraments.” For us, these services are not remembrances of the past, but the Saving Acts of God present with us now.
The services of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are some of the most ancient and beautiful of the Church Year. They will all be celebrated at St Joseph’s this Passiontide. They are the perfect prelude to the grand festivities of Easter Day. I hope you will join in as much as you can.—Fr Gregory Wilcox
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