Good Friday

Readings: Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Psalm 30, Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9, John 18:1-19:42 

In the face of death we all become mute. We have no words adequate to this reality that goes beyond our personal experience. On Good Friday more than ever we are in this difficulty: faced with the death of the Son of God, what is there to say? How can we speak when the Word itself is dead? 

But we have his words, from the cross, of which the Gospel of John records three, and from these words we can learn something about the meaning of this death, we can have an impression of how Jesus himself experienced and lived his death.

'Woman, behold your son.' 'Woman' is the title that Jesus gave to his mother in the second chapter of the Gospel of John, at the wedding at Cana. And there are many links between the miracle of the water turned into wine and the moment of Jesus' death on the cross. That was the first sign given by Jesus and his death on the cross is his last sign. At the wedding in Cana he revealed his glory to his disciples and on the cross he manifests his glory to the world. At Cana he said that his hour had not yet come. We know that hour of which he spoke is the time of his passion and death, the moment in which he is to pass from this world to the Father. When he says to Mary, 'behold your son', he is saying to her, 'this is what you were asking of me at Cana, to be this bridegroom to Israel, providing the wine of the Holy Spirit'. 'Behold your mother' is then spoken to the Beloved Disciple but considering the first part of this double word it is actually the designation of Mary, the New Eve, as the Mother of the Church, the one to whom the Lord entrusts his disciples in the heart of the Paschal Mystery.

'I thirst.' This is the second word of Jesus from the cross. The miracle at Cana already invites us to think about the deeper thirst, not just that for water or for wine, but the thirst for truth, for love, for justice, perhaps even our thirst for God. Jesus often spoke about a water that he has come to give to us: 'whoever drinks the water I shall give him shall never thirst,' he said to the Samaritan woman. After teaching in the temple he said, 'whoever is thirsty let him come to me and drink ... he who believes in me ... streams of living water will flow from within him.' This he said, John explains, referring to the Spirit. Now, from the cross, Jesus himself says, 'I thirst.' It is the thirst of a dying man, of course, but also the thirst of the Incarnate Word, the thirst of the Eternal Son, his desire for the love of the Father, and so that those whom he loves might participate in that love, in the communion of divine love. When the soldier pierced his side, immediately there came out blood and water. In the moment in which Jesus gives his life, all his power, all his love, his thirst creates a spring of spiritual and supernatural life which is the life of the Church.

'It is finished.' This is the last word of Jesus according to the Gospel of John. Everything is done. The time is fulfilled. The work is done. He remained faithful to the will of the Father, showing the world the glory of the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. 'Bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.' It is the moment of his death. He has entered into the darkness of death. The world is once again formless and empty, darkness covers the abyss. But the Spirit given by Jesus hovers over the chaotic waters of our so deeply disturbed world ...

You will find here another reflection for Good Friday

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 of Holy Week

Readings: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Ps 68; Matthew 26:14-25

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 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 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.

Palm Sunday Year A

Readings: Matthew 21:1-11; Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22; Philippians 2:6-11; Matthew 26:14-27:66

Crucifixion was a form of execution devised by human beings to get rid of rebels, thieves, murderers and nuisances. The electric chair, the gas chamber, shooting, beheading, stoning, strangling, poisoning, lethal injection: human beings have used their imaginations to invent many ways for the judicial elimination of other human beings.

Crucifixion has a special place because it involved a slow and painful death for the unfortunate person, as well as maximum value as a public display, and therefore as a deterrent to others. The person was stripped, stretched, totally exposed and vulnerable to the blows, insults, spits and ridicule of onlookers.

Because the cross and the crucified Christ have such a secure place among religious symbols, and in our own religious awareness, it may be that they do not any more seem strange, weird, scandalous, or shocking. We can forget that the cross was an instrument of torture and death, that the crucifix represents a dead human body nailed to wooden beams.

Saint Paul very quickly pointed out that the language of the cross is illogical and paradoxical, a sign of God's foolish wisdom and of God's vulnerable power. Christianity is not a morbid religion which is preoccupied with suffering and death. It is a religion whose heart is love. Because the crucified Christ is all about love, his cross is a symbol of hope. His death is the prelude to new life. As the Easter Liturgy puts it, the tree of death on which he died has become the tree of life for us.

The image of the crucified Christ is venerated, as is the wood of the cross, because they represent the way in which salvation came into our world. The cycle of violence and reprisal, the impossibility of forgiveness and reconciliation, the ever-deepening darkness which can lay hold of sensitive and vulnerable spirits, the apparently inevitable cruelty of the world: all of these things are stopped and broken open by the event of the crucifixion of Jesus.

Here is one who does not respond to violence with violence, and who establishes God's kingdom of long-suffering love. By his wounds we are healed. Here is one who intercedes for forgiveness for those who killed him and who, because he is the Son, thereby reconciles the world to the Father. Here is one who has entered the deepest darkness which can afflict human beings. Here is one who does not summon armies to his aid but offers only the gentleness and compassion of loving: an apparently fragile thing, easily disposed of ... yet vindicated and endorsed by the power of God who is love. This is the human face of God, 'an obstacle', 'a madness', says Saint Paul, 'but to those who have been called, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God'.

We already experience something of this power of the crucified Christ in our own human attempts to love, no matter how poor and imperfect. Love always means opening up to the suffering of the one who is loved, sharing it with him or her, becoming vulnerable to suffering and pain which is not our own. The strength to be vulnerable in that way is strength indeed. It is the strength of the Lamb who was slain but who thereby turned history around, who transformed human experience, who is worthy to receive glory and honour and power.  To love is a wise foolishness and a vulnerable power. It is the only atmosphere in which human beings really flourish.

We are called to take up our own cross and to follow this crucified Christ: Try to imitate God and follow Christ by loving as he loved you, giving himself up in our place as an offering and a sacrifice to God (Ephesians 5:1-2).

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'.