The Paschal Candle is a symbol of the Risen Christ which we place as a flaming sign of his presence next to the scripture readings and our altar at the Easter Vigil. Jesus Christ, who enlightens and empowers our world, helps us understand the mystery of his death and resurrection during the Easter Season.
In blessing the candle we proclaim it a sign of “Christ, yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega. All time belongs to him and all the ages, to him be glory and power, through every age and for ever. Amen.”
We marked the small cross on the candle with red wax markings and prayed “ By his holy and glorious wounds, may Christ the Lord guard and protect us. Amen”
The candle will burn in our chapel next to scripture readings and the altar where we offer bread and wine throughout the Easter Season. The Risen Christ is with us.
Sr. Andrew of Crete describes Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem today as his enters the “dark regions” of our fallen world where so much evil dwells:. “Let our souls take the place of the welcoming branches” strewn before the Lord, the saint tells us, and humbly take part in his journey, with the children who cried out: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Office of Readings, Palm Sunday)
Why not take the palm blessed in church today and put it on a cross in your homes to welcome this great mystery?
We’re not spectators in this story. Instead, we are invited into it. Our involvement is more than just listening or going to church services. Our involvement should change us.
Think of those who were changed that day by the passion of Christ. There was Simon of Cyrene, who came from work in the fields hardly expecting to be caught up in a stranger’s tragedy. He saw God in the suffering man whose cross he helped bear. Can we, who so often ignore the sufferings of others, become more aware of what others are going through and walk with them ? If we do, we heard this story.
There was the thief crucified with Jesus. He’s called a “revolutionary” in one of a translations today. How about a “terrorist,” or any term that describes the lowlife of society. He cried out in the dark for forgiveness and was heard. Can we believe in a God so merciful that he can forgive us, that he can forgive anybody, caught in a life of failure and sin?
This is a story meant to give hope to those who don’t believe they are any good at all. If we can believe in mercy so great, then we have heard this story.
There was Joseph of Aramithea who bravely goes to the powerful Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus to bury it. Before this he seems a wishy-washy religious leader. If we find ourselves less cowardly in speaking up to the powerful of our own world, then we have heard this story.
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” How easily we fall into believing our world forsaken, that God is nowhere near us! If we can believe God’s care never fails, not matter what, then we have heard this story.
Mary, his mother, and the holy women, the disciple John, and yes, Peter and others who deserted him were there that day. What they experienced then, they never forgot. They remembered the raw suffering, the cruel death, the unmeasured sadness. But they saw God’s love in the One who was arrested and condemned, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and who rose again on the third day.
If we too are touched by the overwhelming love of God we see here, then we have heard this story.
Finally, this story does not end in a tomb. Death itself, the mystery we all face, is conquered when Jesus rises from the dead. When we hope we will live in him who died and rose again, we have heard this story.
Listen to this story this holy week. The Lord speaks “with a well-trained tongue, a word to the weary that will rouse them.”
The crooked oak, the tall Norway spruce and other trees that surround us were touched with sunlight this morning. We don’t need a bell tower; they serve that purpose.
I discovered on Google books a few days ago an old study of plants and trees by Richard Folkard, Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics, London 1884 that’s a treasure of information.
From the beginning human beings saw plants, flowers and trees as more than just things; they were involved in their lives and the stories of their religion. Folkard traces the attribution of plants, flowers and trees:
“In the dark ages the Catholic monks , who cultivated with assiduity all sorts of herbs and flowers in their monastic gardens , came in time to associate them with traditions of the Church , and to look upon them as emblems of particular saints . Aware , also , of the innate love of humanity for flowers , they selected the most popular as symbols of the Church festivals , and in time every flower became connected with some saint of the Calendar , either from blowing about the time of the saint’s day , or from being connected with him in some old legend.”
“But it was more especially upon the Virgin Mary that the early Church bestowed their floral symbolism … The poetry no less than the piety of Europe has inscribed to her the whole bloom and colouring of the fields and hedges . The choicest flowers were wrested from the classic Juno , Venus , and Diana , and from the Scandinavian Bertha and Freyja , and bestowed upon the Madonna , whilst floral offerings of every sort were laid upon her shrines . Her husband , Joseph , has allotted to him a white Campanula , which in Bologna is known as the little Staff of St. Joseph . In Tuscany the name of St. Joseph’s staff is given to the Oleander : a legend recounts that the good Joseph possessed originally only an ordinary staff , but that when the angel announced to him that he was destined to be the husband of the Virgin Mary , he became so radiant with joy , that his very staff flowered in his hand.”
“A Catholic writer complained that at the Reformation” Foukard continues, “ the very names of plants were changed in order to divert men’s minds from the least recollection of ancient Christian piety ; and a Protestant writer of the last century , bewailing the ruthless action of the Puritans in giving to the ” Queen of Beauty ” flowers named after the ” Queen of Heaven , ” says : Botany , which in ancient times was full of the Blessed Virgin Mary , is now as full of the heathen Venus . ”
The monks were good catechists, but their work today is largely ignored. There’s hardly a trace of the Catholic tradition in Wikipedia’s listings of trees and plants.
So I sent for seeds for white Campanula, the Lupine, and others I found in Foukard’s book. I hope I can tells the stories the old Catholic monks told. They’re stories that should be told.
Our gospel readings for the final weeks of Lent are taken mostly from St. John’s Gospel. Unlike the synoptic gospels which picture Jesus’ ministry occurring mainly in Galilee, John’s Gospel sees Jerusalem as the place where Jesus reveals himself. Instead of going from town to town in Galilee, Jesus goes from feast to feast in Jerusalem.
His miracles and his teaching in the temple in Jerusalem proclaim his replacement of the Jewish feasts. He is the new Sabbath. He heals a paralyzed world as he heals the paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda on a Sabbath. (John 5: 1-18) On the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7-8 ), which supply most of our gospel readings for the 5th week of Lent, Jesus reveals himself as the living water come down from heaven and the light of the world. His cure of the man born blind during that feast is a sign he is the world’s light.
On Friday this week, as he celebrated the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, a winter feast, Jesus is challenged over his claim to be the new Temple. He teaches in the temple this Saturday as the Feast of Passover draws near. In the reading from John 11:45-56 Caiaphas, the high priest, makes the fateful prophecy that one man should die instead of a whole people perishing. In response, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. The whole people will die and rise with him.
The gospel readings Tuesday- Saturday of this week contain Jesus’ important claims to be greater than Abraham. He is God’s Son, “I Am”. He will be condemned for this claim.
The Pool of Siloam was a spring-fed pool where Jewish pilgrims washed before going up to the temple in the time of Jesus. Water from the pool, a sign of life, was poured on the altar by priests during the days Feast of Tabernacles, a popular Jewish autumn feast. Toward the end of that feast Jesus gave sight to the man born blind and told him to wash in the pool.
Excavations uncovered the pool in 2004.
Pool of Siloam, Wiki Comons
The long discourses of Jesus in the temple from John’s Gospel (Jn 7:1- 10:19:21), which we read these days of Lent, should be read in the light of this feast and the miracle he worked then.
The feast, originally an agricultural feast, became a feast that recalled the journey of the Jews through the desert when they lived in tents and were tested by its harsh conditions.
They were children of Abraham and Moses. Jesus calls his hearers, then and now, to accept him as greater than Abraham and Moses. He is God’s Son. He is the living Water who brings life, the Bread that brings life forever. Lifted up in the desert, he draws all to himself. He calls from partial faith to full faith. Even those who put him to death, he calls to forgiveness.
The Victor's Place 