Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

Adversity calls forth, perfects, improves…and proves…the presence of virtue in our lives.

For example, I might think myself physically strong, but until I successfully lift something significantly heavy, I’m not convinced or sure that I really am strong. Or, I might think I’m a pretty good golfer, but when my scores are consistently higher than 110, I’m not really a good golfer, am I? And I might think I’m courageous, but unless courage is called forth from me, I really can’t say for sure that I really am courageous. Get it?  Adversity presents opportunities that can demonstrate, and prove, the reality and authentic presence of virtue.

Well, today our Scripture readings are encouraging us to appreciate, understand and adopt the virtue of love. “Love one another” is our Master’s directive. So what is this “love”? Here’s a pretty good definition: LOVE IS “desiring the Good for the other without counting the cost to one’s self.” Yes, Love is a movement of my interior being which longs for another/others to be God-like, no matter how hard it is for me to assist them in accomplishing this holiness or goodness.

A few caveats: first, I know that I love lots of various people throughout my everyday life, and I’m also aware of their love for me, but that’s easy–there’s no challenge really to love those who love us, is there? Second, consider how we love when it’s not easy; when it’s dangerous, painful, costly, uncomfortably, etc. What about when someone really and truly hates you? What if someone gossips about you? What if someone tells a hurtful thing about you–whether true or not–to others in order to harm you? What if someone hates you so deeply that they avoid all contact or interaction with you? Now THAT’s adversity! And that’s when love is proven and perfected in us.

As I grow a bit older, I have been blessed with a few opportunities to experience such instances of adversity and I’ve finally been able to love. How? Clearly not by my own inner strength or core goodness…it’s just too hard. But, realizing (and depending on) Christ’s ongoing forgiveness of my sins, my faults, my limitations…and grateful for His love, I am then able to share what I already possess: Christ’s love.

Yes, His command is that we love one another…”as I have loved you”. Here’s the challenge: when adversity strikes, am I able to truly love as Christ loves? If so, thank the Good Lord! If not, this is our invitation to accept–AND SHARE–the love Christ has for each and every one!

So, as we close out this Easter Day, we might be wondering: beyond the marvelous, glorious gifts of salvation from sin (the crucifixion of Jesus) and redemption (the resurrection of Christ from the dead), are there other affects borne from the Paschal Mystery…affects that we can experience even now in our everyday?  All we need do is ponder the Sacred Scriptures we hear proclaimed this weekend in our Sacred Liturgies.

Yes, on this Second Sunday of Easter–the last day of the Easter Octave–we see various, literally, tangible affects shared with the community of believers after Christ’s Resurrection:  “Peace” given to the disciples; faith “proven” for a doubting Apostle; singularity of mind and heart within the people who have faith; trusting generosity among sisters and brothers…all in the name of the Risen Christ.

Alleluia!

Easter Vigil in the Holy Night (2012)

Since last SundayPalm Sunday of the Passion of the Lordand flowing profoundly during these last days, each of us have been struck by very physical happenings and experiences:

• from walking and waving palm branches commemorating His entrance into that Holy City, to the oils being blessed and shared with us, that we might be anointed with His balm throughout our days;
• from the Lord washing our feet in loving service, to receiving His Body and Blood as food for eternity;
• from reposing with Him in the garden, to going out with Him to Calvary where He was offered to death on a tree;
• from His broken body taken down from the Cross to being laid in a tomb…His last breath spent, His last act completed…or so it seemed.

All of these physical happenings have had their effect on us: we moved, we walked, we heard, we sang, we saw, we prayed, we listened, we pondered and we made silence.  The experiences of these last days have haunted us, enriched us, and blessed us.  And now?  …now:

• we awake to see a glorious, holy fire roaring in the dusk;
• we watch as His Light illumines the darkness that surrounded us;
• we hear as stringed instruments and pipes announce He is Risen;
• we wash in the waters of baptism, renewed and refreshed;
• the balm of this great news anoints our hearts with the consolation and joy that, “He has been raised from the dead!”;
• our eyes see the newness of His Church;
• our nostrils smell the sweetness of our praise;
• our souls leap with every key and strum of our choir!

Yes, He is Risen!  And as powerful and strange as these last days have been, how powerfully new our future days can now be.  You see, only now do we have a hopeborne of faiththat we, too, will never die.  Christ, by His rising, has now changed forever the course of all human history: He, now, has become the gateway for our own eternal life.  He became a man so that by dying a man’s death, He would be one with us.  His nature is thus so bound up with ours.  And Hethe manrose, by His power as God, and in His nature bound with ours, He invites us to rise with Him.  How wondrous a gift…a gift that brings a final experience for each of us who believe: we experience a deep, a humbling, a most powerful gratitude for the gift of life offered eternally for each of us who believe.

Finally, recall that the first apostles heard the encouragement of the three women who visited the angel at the tomb, re-told in tonight’s gospel.  From that great news, too, we now hear Him beckoning, we now see Him alive, we now offer Him praise and thanksgiving for the dawn of eternal life has risen.

Alleluia!

A triptych is an artistic series of three panels that fold together, work together simultaneously to demonstrate a singular beauty.  They are often able to open and close, revealing even more depth of meaning.  You may have seen one before: maybe of Christ’s crucifixion in the center, with Mary his mother on one of the winged side panels, and John the Evangelist on the other winged side.

Anyway, years ago when I was in seminary, Pope John Paul II gave a stirring reflection on the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Suppera reflection replete with depth and imagery.  He spoke of the evening’s ritual and Scriptures as a kind of triptych:

with the Institution of the Eucharist in the center panel (tonight’s second reading), flanked by the Old Testament’s pre-figuration in the paschal lamb on one wing (tonight’s first reading), and brotherly love and service on the other winged side (tonight’s gospel story).

You see, what Christ is doing on this night, was pre-figured in the Old Testament Passover feast heard in our first reading.  And when He celebrates it on this very evening, He replaces the one-year old lamb and offers Himself in its stead.  Absolutely: no animal flesh or blood would be able to save us from the Passover of death, rather One like us would need to offer His flesh and His blood; God would have to offer His own Son in order to expiate sin, in order to restore the just friendship between God and Man.  And so the third part of the triptych, would then be the results of the pre-figurement and the fulfillment: that, loving service would now be His followers’ aim, purpose and mission…in order to bring His saving work to all.

So, it appears a natural question comes to mind tonight: has it worked?  Has what was pre-figured…has what was fulfilled…has what was commanded had any effect in us?  In other words, have we gained at all from Christ’s evening Supper?

John’s gospel stated, “He loved His own in the world, and He loved them to the end.”  The Eucharist now, is the permanent sign of God’s love, the love that sustains our journey to full communion with the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.  Yes, His actions that night continued His saving work…we have the evidence of His great love, and we see that love blossom when we live out the mystery during these three days…and always.

As we pause this evening to adore the Blessed Sacrament in its repose, and as we meditate on the mystery of the Last Supper and the self-emptying gift of service offered to us by Christ Jesus, may each of us feel immersed in the ocean of Love that flows from God’s heart.

As we began our Masses outside today, and heard the gospel story of Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem, and have now recalled the dark betrayal, passion, suffering, and ultimate death of Christ in a communal narrative, one might wonder, “What are we doing, really?”, or rather “why are we doing all of this?”  Clearly, parents of younger children are most probably hearing such questions from their children this morning.  Yes, it’s good for us to consider what we’re really doing at the opening of Holy Week and throughout these next sacred days.

But, in order to answer questions such as these, it’s good for us to recall what Jesus Christ does during Holy Week and why He does them.  The Lord enters into Jerusalem and endures the events of Holy Week in order to celebrate Passover.  Not merely the Passover of His ancestors, but His own Passover.

Jesus is commemorating the Israelites’ bondage in Egyptian slavery, and their Passover to freedom; their hopeless darkness and their Passover to light and new-found hope in Yahweh; their suffering and Passover into healing; their sin and Passover into God’s mercy; their death, and Passover into new life found in God alone.

And as Jesus commemorates that ancient, holy history, He Himself also enters into all those realities of Passover: He takes upon Himself darkness, hopelessness and sin, suffering despair and death…all so that He might Passover such things and enter into the light, the freedom, the hope and the new life of His Resurrection at Easter.

So, returning to our children’s question, “what are we really doing?’, we are entering into our own Passover with Christ.  We bring our lives and we enter into Passover: from our particular sinfulness, we then Passover into God’s mercy; from our bondage and slavery to so many things, we then Passover to freedom as God’s daughters and sons; from our despair, we Passover into renewed faith; from our selfishness, we Passover into faithful generosity; from our darkness, we Passover into God’s gift of Light; and from our death, we Passover into the New Life of the Risen Christ.

Let us ‘Passover’ well this week: take advantage of all of the glorious and loving works of the Lord Jesus this passion-tide, that our Holy Week might be fruitful and we might all receive the blessings of the Risen Lord who is coming.

God love you.