Thursday 28 March 2024

Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper

Readings: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14; Psalm 115; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-15

Have you ever tried to get a dog to look at the moon? Whatever you do or say the dog is more likely to look at your finger. Dogs don't seem to get it, the difference between the sign that points to something and the thing to which it points.

Human beings do get it. We understand signs and symbols because we know how language works. We know for instance that just re-enacting the ritual of foot washing once a year is not what Jesus intended when he told his disciples to imitate his example. To think we were doing what he asked just by miming this action would be like looking at the finger instead of the moon.

He does, of course, say: 'If I, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other's feet.' As I have placed myself completely at your service, you should serve one another with comparable generosity. We call today Maundy Thursday from the Latin 'mandatum', commandment. The commandment in question is that the disciples are to love one another as Jesus has loved them. The foot washing illustrates it, dramatically.

All the many ways in which love serves others are included in what is meant by the washing of feet. For some people it literally involves foot washing -- in hospitals and homes for the elderly it means giving this tender service to the sick and the aged. In accidents and disasters, or in times of war, it may mean washing away not just the dirt and tiredness of the day but mud and blood. It may mean binding and healing wounds, comforting the sorrowful, lending a hand to the over burdened, helping out and being available. There is an infinite number of ways in which we can fulfil this command.

But there is more to be said. Jesus is not just an ethical teacher giving us an example, illustrating his teaching, as it were, with an acted parable. Sometimes people try to reduce the Christian religion to this, the moral teaching of a very good man. We believe him to be a lot more than that and his teaching therefore to have far more radical significance.

During the foot washing Jesus took off his outer garment and he put it on again. Early Christian teachers saw in these simple and necessary actions signs of something mysterious, even earth shattering.

Jesus emptied himself and was exalted. He stepped down and was taken back up. He had come from God and was returning to God. He humbled himself taking the form of a servant. He humbled himself further by dying on the cross. He even translated his love into bread and wine, 'placing himself in the order of signs', as the Welsh poet David Jones puts it. The eternal Word steps down from his seat of glory to wash the feet of creatures he has made.

Peter, as so often, says he does not get it and refuses to have his feet washed. But then you will have nothing in common with me, Jesus tells him. Peter, ever impulsive, says 'okay, then wash my hands and my head as well'.

To have a part in Jesus, to belong to him, to have something in common with him: …this thought leads us to the other symbolic action of the last supper, the one we re-enact every day, the blessing of the bread and the cup. Whenever we eat this bread and drink this cup, St Paul reminds us, we are proclaiming his death. For the bread is a communion with the body of Christ and the cup a communion with his blood.

Our participation in the Eucharist makes it possible for us to love in the way he commands. If he were just an ethical teacher we would have the guidance of his teaching and the inspiration of his example. But he is also our Lord and Master, our Saviour and Redeemer, and so we have much, much more.
Through faith and the sacraments of love he shares his life with us so that we come to live by his Spirit. The love with which he has loved us is now in us so that we may love one another with that selfsame love.

Human pride, for the most part, does not get it. We look at fingers and miss the moon. But human pride is undone by the humility of God. Jesus' way of humility and service finally shows us what love is. In the three-day celebration of his life-giving death and resurrection we are invited to be witnesses of his glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full not only of truth but also of grace.

This homily was first published on Torch, the preaching website of the English Dominican province.

Wednesday 27 March 2024

Wednesday of Holy Week


As children we called this day 'Spy Wednesday'. This is the day Judas spent looking for Christ, seeking an opportunity to betray him. In a few days time we will hear about Mary Magdalene, also looking for Christ, seeking the one they have taken away.

We like to think of ourselves as people 'looking for Christ', seeking to find and recognise him in the varying circumstances of our lives. Judas and Mary both searched for him. Why are we doing it, then, what is our motive? What do we want to do with him when we find him? Hopefully our motivation is closer to Mary's, it is because we have come to love him, than it is to Judas's, it is because we want to use, even abuse, him somehow.

In the course of our lives we lose Christ from time to time and that is an opportunity for us to reflect on why we seek him in the first place. Where we feel sure we will find him - creation, the Bible, the neighbour, the liturgy, the life and work of the Church, the Eucharist - at times these fill us with a sense of his presence, and at other times they leave us cold. The spiritual life is a series of losses and findings of Christ. This is how the Song of Songs has been described, that great mystical text, like a game of hide-and-seek, that children and lovers like to play, pretending to lose the one we love so as to experience the excitement of finding him again.

In our life of faith it does not always feel like a game. It is played out for real, as we lose and find him again and again. But the purpose of this is that we come to know why we are seeking him. Like the disciples in today's gospel, we are unsure as to whether we are the one who will betray him. Do I seek him because I love him or to re-assure myself about something? Do I seek him because I want simply to be with him or because I want to use him somehow, his life, his teaching, his power, for purposes that are not consistent with his life or his teaching or his power?

The losing and the seeking and the finding will continue until we learn this: it is Christ who is seeking us and all we need is to know how to receive him, to welcome him, to open the door to his knock, to be grateful and joyful in his saving love.

Tuesday 26 March 2024

Tuesday of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 49:1-6; Ps 70; John 13:21-33, 36-38

There is a twofold drama, things happening with meaning at two levels. On one level, the 'human' one, we see how the events of Holy Week affect different characters in the drama and how their own actions cause those events to happen. On another level things are happening 'as it is written', or 'as the scriptures foretold'. What is enacted in these events is not just the political climax of the career of Jesus of Nazareth. Through the messy, unjust, and cruel execution of a good man, things hidden from the foundation of the world are revealed, the mystery of an eternal love that binds the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.

Today, at the human level, we are presented with a contrast between Peter and Judas. Why does one find his way back to repentance and forgiveness and the other, it seems, does not? The difference is that Peter, even in his sinful betrayal and rejection, continues to look to Christ, remembers Christ, whereas Judas cannot now believe in the possibility of forgiveness.

At this level today's readings may be taken as an encouragement to pray that in our sin we will be like Peter rather than Judas, that we will believe always in the possibility of forgiveness, and that we will not fall into despair or give up hope.

What about the other level, on which the eternal and divine mystery is revealed? How can it be that God's will is achieved in spite of human sinfulness? We have to think of God as an artist or composer in whose work for us our shadows and betrayals are somehow integrated. Fulton Sheen spoke about the bum note sounded by an instrument in the orchestra that can never be unplayed. The only solution is for the composer to take this note and make it the first note in a new movement.

Julian of Norwich wrote that sin is 'behovely', a word that means fitting, appropriate, even convenient. Against the darkness which we create, and even within the darkness we create, the light shines more gloriously. For Julian, sin's fittingness comes from the mercy it calls forth - it allows us to see how deep is God's mercy.

Not that sin is no big deal. Are we to sin that grace might abound, Paul asks. Don't be ridiculous, he says (or words to that effect). Are we to sin so that God can show more mercy, Julian asks. Not at all, she says, to ask that question shows that you have not yet understood what sin is.

Or rather it shows that we have not yet understood what love is, and so are unable to understand the burden we have asked Him to carry. It is love that helps us understand what sin is, not the other way round. Love takes us deeper into the mystery of betrayal, making us sensitive to another's pain, giving us an inkling of the wound sin causes. Judas' efforts are exhausted and neither will Peter have the strength he needs. It becomes clear that we can only know what love is (and so what sin means) if we allow ourselves to be taught by Christ, the one whom the Father glorifies in the darkest night of this world.

Monday 25 March 2024

Monday of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-7; Ps 26; John 12:1-11

The first half of Holy Week offers us a three part liturgy of the Word. Each day we read one of Isaiah's 'Songs of the Servant' (the fourth is read at the Good Friday liturgy). The gospel readings these days are centred on Judas and his betrayal, comparing his treatment of Jesus with that of others in their circle, Mary of Bethany (Monday), Peter (Tuesday), and the Eleven (Wednesday). In three scenes, then, this first act of Holy Week presents us with a deepening sense of tragedy, through acts of love, disappointment, doubt, and betrayal.

Mary is on the side of light. She understands - so Jesus says - his way to glory, the kind of Messiah/Servant he is to be. She is ready at least to some extent for the hour of his glorious kingship on the Cross. Judas is increasingly under the power of darkness, failing to understand, and losing a sense of loving Jesus.

Mary's perfume fills the whole house. This seems to be John's way of saying 'wherever the gospel is preached, what she has done will be told in memory of her'. The perfume of her act will accompany the preaching of the gospel everywhere.

The most striking characteristic of her act is its extravagance: it is exaggerated, unnecessary, wasteful (as Judas, with some justice, indicates). But it anticipates the extravagance we will witness in the second half of Holy Week, the extravagance of God's love poured out in the sacrifice of Christ. Mary's extravagant love of Jesus continues to strengthen the faith of believers, for it helps us to appreciate the extravagant love that is the world's salvation.

The requirements of justice are extravagant, as Mary understands. There are many references to justice in the readings today. Sometimes we think of it as cold and blind, strict and merciless. But the justice of which Jesus is the sun is a justice that has reached the heart. It is a matter of words and actions originating in a heart that loves and is merciful. Mary shows her heart today as Jesus' heart will be shown on Friday, the heart of our 'most human God'. He has not forgotten the poor but is remembering them in each step of his via dolorosa. He becomes the poorest one of all, experiencing the most radical poverty of humankind, so that we might become rich from him, anointed with his endless mercy, his constant forgiveness, his everlasting love.

Sunday 24 March 2024

Palm Sunday Year B

READINGS


Mark’s account of the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus is simple, even austere. It flies along from moment to moment, summarizing the events that took place over a period of twenty-four hours, from the preparation for the Passover to the burial of his body. It provides the schema for the more elaborated accounts we find in the other three gospels. 

Because his account is so succinct, it is even more interesting to consider things that are found only in Mark’s account and are not picked up by the others.

One of these is the use of the term ‘Abba’ in Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. It was accepted for a long time that this Aramaic term was an intimate form of address for a father by his child, something like ‘daddy’ or ‘dad’. More recently scholars have been questioning this interpretation. In any case wherever it occurs in the New Testament it is always in combination with the Greek term for father, pater (here at Mark 14:36 and in Paul’s two uses of it, Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6).

There are many other references to Jesus praying to his father and it may be that Mark wants to stress the intimacy of that relationship in the moment in which it is put to its severest test. The other points at which Aramaic terms are recorded in the gospels all involve strong emotional reactions in Jesus. Paul then teaches us that the relationship Jesus had with the Father is one we are all invited to share. The inability of his disciples to stay with Jesus through the agony in the garden, however, will be familiar to us already from our experiences of trying to remain faithful to his teaching.

Mark’s account of the passion is spread out across the watches of the night. In a number of acts the drama unfolds, between dusk and dawn, moving on then to the other events of Good Friday. The book of Exodus described the night before the crossing of the Red Sea as 'a night of watching by the Lord' (Exodus 12:42) who, like an anxious parent, a vigilant sentry, or a protective guardian, watches over his loved one. That was the original vigil, kept by God, as he watched over his child Israel. Mark’s account of the passion presents us with another night of watching by Abba, Father, who will never abandon his Son, but will raise him up to sit at his right hand in the kingdom of the glory that is coming.

Another incident recorded in Mark and nowhere else involves a young man wearing only a linen cloth that is pulled from him as he escapes, naked, from the garden. Mark offers no explanation, nor does he identify the young man. Linen clothes are associated with the priesthood and with the liturgies of the Temple. We are told that all his disciples abandoned him except this young man who was also following him. Perhaps it is John, the beloved disciple, whom John’s gospel will tell us was at the cross with Mary, the mother of Jesus.

There is a verse in the prophecy of Amos, speaking of God’s judgement on Israel, which says that 'the bravest of warriors will flee naked on that day' (Amos 2:16). 'That day' is the day of the Lord’s judgement of his people. Perhaps this is what we are meant to see in this strange moment recorded by Mark, a fulfillment of this prophecy. It will seem in what follows that Jesus is the one being judged, whereas in reality his trial and execution is the revelation of God’s justice and, by contrast, the condemnation of human injustice.

Perhaps the young man is a heavenly and angelic figure, leaving Jesus for the moment, only to appear later at the tomb. Where the naked Jesus had been wrapped in a linen cloth, a young man now appears clothed in white, telling the women that Jesus is risen from the dead. Perhaps he is a figure marking the transition from the end of Jesus’ earthly life to the beginning of his Risen Life. And in doing so prefiguring the reborn Christian who will descend, naked, to be baptized and rise with Christ to be anointed and wrapped in the white garment of his new dignity.

In spite of its simplicity and its pace there are many points in Mark’s passion narrative which encourage us to stop, and to ponder.

Saturday 23 March 2024

Lent Week 5 Saturday

Readings: Ezekiel 37:21-28; Psalm: Jeremiah 31:10-13; John 11:45-56

The reading from Ezekiel summarises the ways in which the people of Israel knew that the Lord was still with them, that he was still on their side. He had given them a land and now, after the exile, they were to be restored to it. He had taken them from among the nations to make them one people and now he would do this again. He had given them laws and statutes that would guarantee their fidelity to the covenant. He would give them a leader, a new David who would be both prince and shepherd. He would dwell with them in a sanctuary, in a new temple, in which His glory would once again be present.

These gifts - the land, being a nation, laws and statutes, a leader, a sanctuary - made real the covenant whereby Israel was God's people and the Lord was Israel's God. It was in these gifts that the shared life of the covenant was to be seen.

The Jewish leaders feared that Jesus was a threat to all this. They feared that the Romans would come and take away their land and destroy their nation. They feared another fall of Jerusalem, another loss of everything, a new exile. And for reasons that remain unclear they feared that the teaching of Jesus would provoke it. 'Better', prophesied the high priest Caiaphas, 'that one man die for the people rather than the whole nation be lost'.

Paradoxically, Caiaphas gave believers in Jesus one of the most powerful statements of the meaning of his death: he died for the nation and to gather into one the scattered children of God. He died for all, in other words. Paradoxically also, it was precisely through this death that the promises treasured by Ezekiel and the other prophets were brought to fulfillment.

On one level it might seem that the fears of Caiaphas and others were justified: soon after the Temple was destroyed, the land was lost, and the nation was scattered. But before that, and separate from it, a new land was established which was no longer geographical but spiritual (for a worship of God in spirit and in truth). A new sanctuary was set up which was no longer a building but the body of Jesus from which saving waters flowed. A new nation was born which is the Church, made up of Jews (the first nation) and the Gentiles (the scattered children of God). A new leader rose up who is both prince and shepherd. The everlasting covenant of peace was sealed in his blood. A new law was given which did not dissolve the old one but which brought it to perfection, its demands (the great commandment) being written directly on the human heart.

'I will be their God and they will be my people'. This communion, this shared life, was always the goal of the covenant. Through many vicissitudes, through trials and errors, through triumphs and losses, through times of fidelity and times of apostasy - the desire persisted for a definitive sealing of this covenant.

'Will he come to the Passover feast?' is the question with which today's gospel reading ends. Will the Lamb be present for the feast? How could they have known that this ancient ritual, and the covenant it remembered, were to be fulfilled and transformed beyond anybody's imagination? So that now, in these coming days, two thousand years later, millions of people all over the world will read about the land and the temple, about the law and the nation, about the sacrifices and the promises, and they will see these things as promised also to them.

The promise remains valid and is now true at all times for all men and women: 'I will turn their mourning into joy, I will console and gladden them after their sorrows'.

Friday 22 March 2024

Lent Week 5 Friday

Readings: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 18; John 10:31-42

We return to the comparison between the experience of Jeremiah and that of Jesus. We heard about it some days ago and here it is again. There are many similarities but there are also some striking differences. They are both preachers of the Word of God. They both seek to serve the cause of truth and justice. They are both betrayed or abandoned by friends, and left alone to suffer persecution from their enemies.

One striking difference is this: whereas the Lord fights as a mighty champion alongside Jeremiah, the Lord fights as a mighty champion in Jesus. Believe the works, Jesus says in today's gospel, so that you may realize and understand 'that the Father is in me and I am in the Father'. 'God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself', St Paul will say later. A second striking difference, presumably following on from the first, is that Jeremiah's understandable cry for vengeance is not repeated on the lips of Jesus. 'Let me witness the vengeance you take on them', prays Jeremiah. It is a very understandable prayer. Pope Francis said that someone who laid a hand on his mother could expect a punch from him.

The way in which the divine power works in Jesus is different. It is not a simple moralistic correction of the understandable reactions of Jeremiah and Francis. It is not simply saying, in the words of Jesus, if you suffer oppression, persecution, and violence, instead of giving the perpetrator a punch, try to 'turn the other cheek'. It is saying that vengeance as exercised by God - whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts - will take a radically different form to vengeance as exercised by human beings. Through the works of Jesus, everything is being taken up into a new dispensation in which all human relationships will be transformed.

'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do'. This will be Jesus' prayer concerning his persecutors, his only remark about them from the cross. It gives us a glimpse, not of divine weakness in the face of human violence, but of the divine power when confronted with human violence. Because God is love, and His characteristic action is to create, the vengeance of God, like any other of God's actions, must have those characteristics - it can only be loving and creative. And so it will be that God will take vengeance on his enemies who have killed his Son by raising his Son from the dead, establishing for all men and women, even for those enemies who kill him, a kingdom of peace, justice, reconciliation and love. Imagine a world in which reconciliation becomes possible, forgiveness becomes natural, and new beginnings take the place of endless retribution.

'Many began to believe in him' is how today's gospel reading concludes. It is a start and if we can even say this much - I have begun to believe in him - we are doing well. We are on the right road. Through faith in him the Spirit of Jesus comes to dwell also in us, not just to struggle alongside us but to work within us, praying in us when we do not know how to pray, pouring the love of God into our hearts, making us to be 'gods', creatures participating in the divine nature.