Tag Archives: Passionists

The Easter Tree

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san clemente copy

The Cross  flowers at Easter time. There’s a flowering cross brimming with life  in the great apse of the church of San Clemente in Rome. Its branches swirl with the gifts God gives. It brings life, not death. Humanity is there, signified in Mary and the disciple John. We are there in the doves resting on it. Creation itself is there, drawing new life from it. The hand of God makes it so.

The sacraments offered in this sacred place bring life-giving graces to us.

An early preacher Theodore the Studite  praises the mystery of the cross:.

“How precious the gift of the cross, how splendid to contemplate! In the cross there is no mingling of good and evil, as in the tree of paradise: it is wholly beautiful to behold and good to taste. The fruit of this tree is not death but life, not darkness but light. This tree does not cast us out of paradise, but opens the way for our return.

“This was the tree on which Christ, like a king on a chariot, destroyed the devil, the Lord of death, and freed the human race from his tyranny. This was the tree upon which the Lord, like a brave warrior wounded in his hands, feet and side, healed the wounds of sin that the evil serpent had inflicted on our nature. A tree once caused our death, but now a tree brings life. Once deceived by a tree, we have now repelled the cunning serpent by a tree.

“What an astonishing transformation! That death should become life, that decay should become immortality, that shame should become glory! Well might the holy Apostle exclaim: Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world!”

San Clemente, Rome

See Children’s Prayers here for a children’s version of the Easter Tree.

Easter Saturday: We’re Slow, like the Apostles

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Like the apostles we’re slow to understand the mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The two disciples going to Emmaus are not the only ones slow to understand– we’re slow too.

Peter, who preaches to the crowds in Jerusalem at Pentecost, certainly was slow to understand. He speaks forcefully at Pentecost, forty days after the Passover when Jesus died and rose from the dead, but the days before he’s speechless. It took awhile for him and for the others who came up with Jesus from Galilee to learn and be enlightened about this great mystery..

Mark’s accounts of Jesus resurrection appearances, read on the  Saturday of Easter week, stresses the unbelief of his disciples. They were not easily persuaded.

For this reason, each year the Lord refreshes our faith in the resurrection, but it’s not done in a day. We need time to take it in, like the first followers of. Jesus, and for that we have an easter season of forty days. Just for starters.

The disciples are slow to understand the mission they’re to carry out because it’s God plan not theirs, a plan that outruns human understanding. A new age had come, the age of the Holy Spirit, and they didn’t understand it. The fiery winds of Pentecost had to move them to go beyond what they see, beyond Jerusalem and Galilee to the ends of the earth.

The Holy Spirit also moves us to a mission beyond our understanding. Luke says that in the Acts of the Apostles. “The mission is willed, initiated, impelled and guided by God through the Holy Spirit. God moves ahead of the other characters. At a human level, Luke shows how difficult it is for the church to keep up with God’s action, follow God’s initiative, understand the precedents being established.” (Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles)

“You judge things as human beings do, not as God does,” Jesus says to Peter elsewhere in the gospel. We see things that way too.

Peter’s slowness to follow God’s plan remained even after Jesus is raised from the dead. He doesn’t see why he must go to Caesaria Maritima to baptize the gentile Cornelius and his household. (Acts 10,1-49) It’s completely unexpected. Only gradually does he embrace a mission to the gentiles and its implications. The other disciples are like him; God’s plan unfolds but they are hardly aware of it.

One thing they all learned quickly, though, as is evident in the Acts of the Apostles. Like Jesus, they experience the mystery of his cross, and in that experience they find wisdom.

Readings here

Wednesday of Holy Week

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Readings

The gospels tell us little about the twelve disciples of Jesus. Peter is the best known;  Jesus gave him a special role and also lived in his house in Capernaum.

Then, there’s Judas. Matthew’s gospel has more information about him than any other New Testament source and so we read his gospel  on “Spy Wednesday,”  the day in Holy Week recalling  Judas’ offer  to hand Jesus over for thirty pieces of silver.(Matthew 26,14-25)

“Surely it is not I?” the disciples say one after the other when Jesus announces someone will betray him. And we say so too, as we watch Judas being pointed out. With Peter also we say we will not deny him. But the readings for these days caution us that there’s a communion of sinners as well as a communion of saints.

We are never far from the disciples who once sat at table with Jesus. We’re also sinful. We come as sinners to the Easter triduum, which begins Holy Thursday evening and ends on Easter Sunday. We  hope for the mercy Jesus gave to those who left him the night before he died.

“We who wish to find the All, who is God, must cast ourselves into nothingness. God is “I AM; we are they who are not, for dig as deeply as we can, we will find nothing, nothing. And we who are sinners are worse than nothing.
“God, out of nothing created the visible and invisible world. The infinite Good, by drawing good from evil through justifying sinners, performs a greater work of omnipotence than if he were to create a thousand worlds more vast and beautiful than this one. For in justifying sinners, he draws them from sin, an abyss darker and deeper than nothingness itself.” (St. Paul of the Cross, Letter 248 )

O God, who willed your Son to submit for our sake

to the yoke of the Cross,

so that you might drive from us the power of the enemy,

grant us, your servants, to attain the grace of the resurrection.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son. Amen.

Tuesday of Holy Week

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Readings
The gospels from Monday to Thursday in Holy Week take us away from the crowded temple area in Jerusalem where Jesus spoke before many of his avowed enemies. These days he eats at table with “his own.” In Bethany six days before Passover he eats with Martha , Mary and Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead. Mary anointed his feet with precious oil in a beautiful outpouring of her love.

The gospels for Tuesday and Wednesday bring us to the table in Jerusalem where he eats with the twelve who followed him. Love is poured out here too, but these gospels describe a love with great cost. “I tell you solemnly, one of you will betray me,” Jesus says to them. Friends that followed him abandon him. Judas dips his hand into the dish with him and then goes out into the night. Peter will deny him three times; the others flee. Jesus must face suffering and death alone.

Are we unlike them?

Does a troubled Jesus face us too, “his own,” to whom he gave new life in the waters of baptism and Bread at his table. Will we not betray or deny? Are we sure we will not go away? The gospels are not just about what’s past; they’re also about now.

We think the saints exaggerate when they call themselves great sinners, but they know the truth. That’s the way St. Paul of the Cross described himself in his account of his forty day retreat as a young man:

“I rejoiced that our great God should wish to use so great a sinner, and on the other hand, I knew not where to cast myself, knowing myself so wretched. Enough! I know I shall tell my beloved Jesus that all creatures shall sing of his mercies.” (Letter 2)

Almighty ever-living God,

grant us so to celebrate the mysteries of the Lord’s Passion

that we may merit to receive your pardon.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son.

 

Monday of Holy Week

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Lent 1


Readings

As Holy Week begins, today’s gospel brings us to  a meal in Bethany  honoring Jesus after the resurrection of Lazarus. Raising Lazarus from the dead is the great sign in John’s Gospel preparing for the death and resurrection of Jesus. Lazarus symbolizes the human family God reaches out to save through the death and resurrection of his Son. (John 12,1-11) Jesus eats this meal with “his own.” His last meal will be a Passover supper.

Martha serves the meal. Lazarus newly alive, is at the table. But the one drawing most attention is their sister Mary. Sensing what’s coming, she kneels before Jesus and anoints his feet with precious oil and dries them with her hair. “And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.”

The precious oil, signifying her love and gratitude, also anoints Jesus for his burial. Our gospel makes only a passing reference to evil:  Judas, “the one who would betray him,” complains that the anointing is a waste, but his voice is silenced. Believers honor the one they love.

Lazarus is the brother of us all who “sit in the shadow of death.” Mary expresses the gratitude of us all.

An artist friend of mine painted this picture of Mary anointing Jesus. How fitting that Holy Week begins with this gospel. We’re called to follow Mary and kneel and pour out the oil of our love on him. His life was poured out for us.

The Anointing. Duk Soon Fwang

“May the holy cross of our good Jesus be ever planted in our hearts so that our souls may be grafted onto this tree of life and by the infinite merits of the death of the Author of life we may produce worthwhile fruits of penance.” (St. Paul of the Cross,Letter 11)

Let my prayer rise up before you like incense,
The raising of my hands like an evening offering. Ps 141
We thank you with Mary of Bethany for your love and your promise of life. May we love you in return and believe in your promise.

Morning and Evening Prayer here.

Children’s Prayers here.

Friday, 5th Week of Lent

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Readings

John’s Gospel on these last days of Lent and into Holy Week portrays Jesus as a pilgrim celebrating Jewish feasts in Jerusalem. So different than the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, which concentrate on his ministry in various towns of Galilee. 

In Jerusalem on a Sabbath day, probably a Passover Sabbath, Jesus heals a paralyzed man at the pool at Bethsaida. (John 5). The Father never rests from bringing life to the world, and so his Son does not rest from bringing life on the Sabbath.  At a Passover Feast (John 6), Jesus calls himself the true Bread from heaven, the manna that feeds multitudes. On the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7-9) Jesus reveals himself as the light of the world and living water. On the Feast of the Dedication (John 10) celebrating the rededication of the temple after its desecration, Jesus claims to be the true temple, dwelling among us and making God’s glory known. Finally, the Feast of Passover is introduced in John 11, when Lazarus is raised from the dead. Jesus dies and rises on the feast.

Jesus acts and teaches during the Jewish feasts, John’s Gospel insists. He still acts and teaches as we celebrate the liturgy today, with its feasts and seasons.

Recent archeological work at the southerly approach to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem has uncovered a major stairway lined by purification baths from the time of Jesus. The wide stairway suggests that pilgrims came large numbers to the temple at the time. The Jewish writer Josephus, supports this suggestion. He claims many Jews came from all parts of the Roman Empire as pilgrims to the Holy City in Jesus’ time.. 

Jesus was one of them. He announced his mission to the world during the feasts. He was the fulfillment of the feasts: “ the light of the world. “

The Jewish leaders and many of their followers sought to silence him and were ready to stone him, because “many began to believe in him.” But “Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained until the announcement about his friend, Lazarus. 

Returning to Jerusalem for the Passover, he raised Lazarus from the dead and then faced the mystery of his own death and resurrection. In John’s gospel, all the bitter events of Jesus’ Passion are suffused with glory. John’s gospel, more than the others, find glorious signs in the passion of Jesus. We read his gospel on Good Friday.

Realists that we are, we find it hard to find God’s glory and power revealed in suffering. We find it hard to see anything but absurdity in the sufferings of our times.That’s why John’s Gospel may be an important guide today. “Look for the signs,” it says.  If we believe God is with us, there are signs of glory and a promise of resurrection, even in suffering and death.

The world is caught in a storm, like the disciples caught in their boat at sea. We need to know God is not asleep.   

Lead me on, Lord, through your holy signs,
especially the sign of your Cross.
Show me the glory I don’t see.

Wednesday, 5th Week of Lent

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Readings
Those listening to Jesus in the temple area claim to be “descendants of Abraham.” (John 8,31-42) They’re children of Abraham. They have a splendid temple to worship in and ancient traditions to live by, and so they ask: “ Why should we listen to this man? We have Abraham.”

But “If you were the children of Abraham you would be doing the works of Abraham,” Jesus says. Abraham was a nomad who found God’s promises revealed from place to place. He discovered God’s plan in time. So must we.

John’s gospel was written well after the temple and Jerusalem itself were destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Jews and Jewish Christians at this time, “descendants of Abraham”, were in a time of radical transition. Many may have longed for the restoration of ancient structures now gone and the surety they found in them.

Jesus reminds them, and us, that Abraham, “our father in faith,” ventured on paths unknown.

Does their time sound like ours ? We’re called to have Abraham’s faith, a mystic faith. In our first reading today from the Book of Daniel three children thrown into the fiery furnace in Babylon, their land of exile, sing in the flames. They have Abraham’s faith.

Is God telling us to do that today? Sing in the flames and God will lead us on to the beautiful unknown.

Two centuries ago, St. Paul of the Cross urged those who sought his advice to hold on to the Unchanging One we meet “in spirit and truth.” God will be our guide..

“Jesus will teach you. I don’t want you to indulge in vain imagery over this. Freely take flight and rest in the Supreme Good, in God’s consuming fire. Rest in God’s divine perfections, especially in the Infinite Goodness which made itself so small within our humanity.” (Letter 18)

O God, you are my God,
For you I long.
My body pines for you,
Like a dry, weary land without water. (Ps 63)

You guide our steps into the unknown. Lead us on.

Tuesday, 5th Week of Lent

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Readings
In our gospel today (John 8:21-39) Jesus speaks again in the temple area during the Feast of Tabernacles to those opposing him. The time is short; the Light guiding the world has appeared, but he “is going away” and those who reject him will die in their sins.

Are we detached observers listening to this gospel, watching others challenged long ago? We’re challenged now to answer the question: Who is Jesus Christ?

He is “I AM,” a divine title his enemies find blasphemous, but believers find true. In Hebrew it means “He who is always there.” Later in John’s gospel, Thomas bows before Jesus and says “My Lord and my God,” as he recognizes that the One lifted up on the cross is indeed “I AM.”

Our graphic above presents the Cross as a place of healing. In our first reading for today Moses places a serpent on a pole to heal the people on their desert journey.We reverence the One lifted up on the Cross.. He is “I AM,” true God, sent by the Father, “who so loved the world that he sent his only Son.” He was lifted up on a Cross and will always be there as a sign God is with us in our woundedness, our suffering and death..

In an early letter to Bishop Count Peter Garangi, who worked to establish the Passionists as a new congregation in the church, St. Paul of the Cross emphasized the importance of the mystery of the passion and death of Jesus as a revelation of God.

“So many believers live in forgetfulness of how much our Divine Savior did and suffered; they sleep in a swamp of evil. We need zealous workers to awaken them from their sleep in darkness and the shadow of death by the trumpet of God’s word and by meditating on the Passion of Jesus Christ, so that God be glorified by many who will be converted and pray and lead a holy life.” (Letter 266)

Do we live in forgetfulness?

Lord Jesus Christ,
Draw me to your cross
And show me your wounds, your bitter death, your triumph over the tomb.
God with us, always there,
God who shares our humanity,
God who loves us so much
help me keep you in mind,
save me from forgetfulness.

Monday, 5th Week of Lent

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Readings


On the Feast of Tabernacles, according to John’s Gospel. Jesus claims to be the light of the world and living water, two symbols of this feast. His enemies fiercely dispute his claims. “As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just…” Jesus says. (John 5:30)

In our reading about Susanna, adultery is not the only issue to be judged. Gender injustice is also on the table. Jewish religious law said if a woman were caught in the act of adultery and two men witnessed it, she could be stoned to death or strangled. The system obviously led to abuse; two witnesses paid by a vengeful husband might give false testimony and have her stoned to death. The story of Suzannah tells us two men could also plot a rape. The woman becomes a victim and the man avoids blame.

Two old men, judges with lots of power, think they can do anything they want. Abuse of power, combined with lust, is still behind many of our sexual crimes today. It’s found in the workplace, in politics, in the celebrity and sports world, and also unfortunately in the world of religion. 

Suzannah refuses to give in to their advances, and she finds a champion in Daniel who faces up to the powerful men. Her story calls for standing up for truth and fighting against abuse of power wherever we find it.  

Lord,
let me judge others fairly with your eyes, your heart and your mind.
Help me work for a world that is right and just.
Give me the grace to know myself.

Saturday, 4th Week of Lent

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Readings
The lenten readings from John’s gospel for today and the next week of lent (chapters 7-10) describe Jesus‘ activity in Jerusalem during the eight- day Feast of Tabernacles, the popular autumn feast that brought many visitors to Jerusalem to celebrate the grape harvest and pray for rain. Water was brought into the temple courtyard from the Pool of Siloam and lighted torches were ablaze during the celebration.

Arriving late for the feast, Jesus taught in the temple area and revealed who he was, using the images of water and light. His cure of the blind man, in the 9th chapter of the gospel, is a sign of the light he bestows on a blind world.

Yet, some don’t see. Those hearing him are divided; some want him arrested, some believe, some question his Galilean origins and his upbringing as a carpenter’s son. How can he be the Messiah, a teacher in Israel?

From Nazareth to Jerusalem Jesus met unbelief. Why didn’t all see and believe? People doubted him then; they  doubt him now. Even his disciples are slow to believe. “How slow you are to believe…”Jesus says to the two on the way to Emmaus.

But the Word continues to teach in our world and instruct disciples weak in faith. His mission is not ended. That’s why it’s important to stress the great miracles that dominate John’s narrative: the meeting with the Samaritan woman that brings her to faith, the cure of the paralyzed man at Bethseda, the cure of the man born blind, the raising of Lazarus. They tell us of God’s pursuit of humanity, despite its blindness and deafness.

Saints like Paul of the Cross knew that. However fierce the opposition, the Word of God, Jesus Christ, brings light and life.

“All the works of God are now attacked by the devil, now by human beings. I now have both at once. Don’t be dismayed when contrary factions and rejections arise, no matter how great they are. Be encouraged by the example of St. Teresa who said that the more she was involved in enterprises for the glory of God, the more difficulties she experienced.” (Letter 1180)

The Lord is my light and my salvation,
Whom should I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life,
Of whom should I be afraid?