Bracing for Impact

Holy Thursday–Mass of the Lord’s Supper
    When I served as the Administrator of St. Joseph parish in Adrian, before Bishop Boyea assigned me as pastor, I still kept the same dentist in Williamston I had had growing up.  On 24 November 2014, I had morning Mass, and then started the drive up M-52 to get to Williamston for my appointment.  It had snowed recently, and there was maybe an inch on the ground, the roads were clear, except in the middle of the two-lane road and on the shoulders.  The sun was out and it was mostly clear skies.

My car after the accident

    Just after I left the village of Stockbridge, heading north on a straight stretch of road at around 55 mph, there was a Chevy Tahoe traveling south.  All of the sudden, the Tahoe started to slide into my lane, and I knew what would happen next.  I closed my eyes out of reflex as the moment of impact came, and tensed up, bracing for impact (which is, ironically, one of the worst things you can do if you know you’re going to be hit).  When I opened my eyes I was facing west, between 10 and 20 feet into a field on the east side of M-52.  All my airbags had deployed, and I could not feel any major injuries.  While I was taken to the hospital for evaluation, I had no major injuries, though my car was totaled.
    I knew something bad was going to happen, and I braced myself.  Tonight, as we begin this Sacred Triduum, these three holiest of days, I invite us this year to look to our Lord to see what He did as something not just bad, but awful, prepared to happen.
    In the Gospel tonight we simply hear about the washing of feet.  But, between Palm Sunday and Good Friday’s Passion Narratives, we know what else happened.  The Lord instituted the priesthood (which we celebrated liturgically this morning at the Chrism Mass) and the Eucharist.  He then went to the Garden of Gethsemane, not too long of a walk from the Upper Room, and there prayed so intensely that blood dripped from his body.  As the night progressed, Judas, one of His hand-picked Apostles, His closest friends, betrayed Him, and the Jewish soldiers took Jesus to the house of the High Priest for questioning.
    What a dramatic shift!  It’s like the weather in Michigan: going from 70 degrees one day to 30 degrees that night.  Christ had the joy of being with His closest friends and telling them that they would share in His power to change bread and wine into His Sacred Body and His Precious Blood.  But none of them quite understand.  And then, as He goes off to pray, the three closest of the closest–Peter, James, and John–all fall asleep, perhaps emotionally overwhelmed themselves in confusion of having their feet washed and eating what looked like bread, but that Christ had assured them was His Body.  
    The mental anguish was so much that Christ lost blood while praying to His Father, hoping that there could be another way to save humanity, but entrusting Himself in obedience to the will of the Father.  And then that moment, a moment He saw coming, when Judas came to betray Him with a kiss, and He was arrested and taken away, while His closest friends mostly scattered and fled.
    Throughout it all, Christ leans into His relationship with the Father.  St. John the Apostle and Evangelist records the beautiful, poetic, and cryptic monologue that we call the Last Supper Discourse, where Jesus talks about His connection to the Father.  We struggle when we try to explain the love we have for a spouse or a best friend.  Even more so do words fail to properly communicate the love between the Eternal Father and Co-Eternal Son.  

The church built over the place in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed

    And in the agony in the garden, the first sorrowful mystery of the Rosary, Christ leans in on His relationship with the Father to ask that the chalice of suffering might pass, but that God’s will would be accomplished, and that Christ would be obedient to it, no matter the cost.  How fully the words of Psalm 116 were fulfilled on Good Friday as Christ took up the chalice of salvation and called on the name of the Lord.
    So, when we struggle with difficulties, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, we should lean in to our relationship with the Father.  We are His beloved children, adopted in Christ.  When any difficulty comes our way, do we go to God immediately?  Do we ask for His help?  And, like Christ, do we humbly submit to the will of the Father, even when the chalice of suffering cannot pass by?  
    As we enter these three most holy days, may we cling to our love of the Father and His love for us, the love that saved us from sin and death, and opened heaven to all believers.

Entering into the Events which Saved Us

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  A beautiful spiritual practice is to put ourselves in the Gospel accounts.  One can imagine him or herself as a particular person, like Peter or Mary or one of the other disciples, or one can put oneself into the story as a new bystander, observing what happens and noting one’s own physical and emotional response.
    I think that anyone who takes the Bible seriously would eventually ask, “What would I do if I were there?”  Especially given the Gospel before the Mass about the entrance into Jerusalem, as well as the long Passion narrative, it shouldn’t take much more to insert oneself into the profound stories we know so well of our Lord’s last week in His earthly ministry.  Would I have welcomed Christ like the crowd?  Or would I have been like a Pharisee, criticizing this display?  Would I have scattered in the Garden of Gethsemane, or what I would have remained with our Lord just a few steps behind the soldiers?  Would I have clamored for Barabbas, or would my cries to release the true Son of the Father have been drowned out by the mob asking for crucifixion of the Lord of Glory?
    But we don’t only have to imagine ourselves in the major events of our salvation.  This week, especially during the Sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, we participate in our salvation, in the events that gained for us eteral life.  In the Mass, we enter into those events, not just remember them.  While they are present sacramentally, they are also present truly, such that the fabric of time gets folded into itself, and we enter into the eternal present of God, in our own limited way.  
    So, the question is not, ‘what do I imagine myself doing at the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, Calvary, or the tomb?’, but will I be present at those events that saved me?  Will I come to the liturgies that make present what happened some 2,000 years ago?  Or do I have more important things to do than spend time with our Lord?
    This is not to make light of those who have no choice but to work on those days.  And none of the Sacred Triduum is a holyday of obligation.  But will we make ourselves present to our Lord if we can?  Will we put our life on hold for the one who gave up His life for us?  Yes, they are long liturgies.  Yes, they happen at irregular times from what we’re used to with Masses.  But if we were willing to take off work to see a presidential candidate, are we not willing to take off work to see the King of Kings and be with Him in His agony?
    The choice is yours.  And I will not be your judge as to whether you could or could not have gone for legitimate reasons, or whether you absented yourself due to sloth.  That is for God to judge.  But if we can, the Savior deserves extra time spent with Him this week.  He gave His all for us?  Can we give a little more than usual for Him?  [Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit live and reign for ever and ever.  Amen.]

Getting to Know Christ through the Lenten Gospels

Second Sunday of Lent
    Throughout Lent, we see overarching themes as we enter into this holy season.  Certainly we see mortification and the denial of the body as a way to focus on the higher, spiritual realities.  We are also, certainly, meditating on the Passion of our Lord, and preparing for His ultimate sacrifice which we celebrate during the Sacred Triduum.  And that Passion leads to the Resurrection, as we see in the Transfiguration today.  Our Lord had told the Apostles about His impending Passion, and then He takes Peter, James, and John, and leads them up Mount Tabor, and is transfigured before them, to show that what would happen after He suffered crucifixion. 

Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor

    

    But all of the Gospels passages for this sacred time, both in the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form, also help us to understand who Jesus is.  The first two Sundays of Lent find the Gospel readings in both forms of the Roman Rite the same: the temptation of our Lord, and His Transfiguration.  After that, the Gospel selections take different paths.  In the Ordinary Form, since this is Year A in the Cycle of Sunday readings, we hear the long Gospels about the Samaritan woman at the well (3rd Sunday of Lent); the man born blind (4th Sunday of Lent); and the raising of Lazarus (5th Sunday of Lent).  In the Extraordinary Form, where we hear the same readings each year, the passages are: the casting out of demons, and the accusation that our Lord does so by the power of demons (3rd Sunday in Lent); the multiplication of the loaves from John 6 (4th Sunday in Lent); and our Lord telling the Pharisees that He is greater than Abraham (Passion Sunday).  No matter which Form of Mass we attend, the readings help us to know our Lord better as He reveals Himself.
    The identity of Christ is no small matter and is perfect for meditation during Lent.  The better we know Christ, we better know our salvation.  And, since we are members of Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, the better we know Christ, the better we understand what is in store for us if we stay faithful to Him.
    On the one hand we can talk about who our Lord is objectively, as in facts about Him.  The Gospels show us that He is the Son of God, who has been tempted like us, but has not sinned (first Sunday of Lent).  He is also co-equal with the Father, and sharing in His glory, the God to whom all the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah) point (second Sunday of Lent).  The Savior is the one who brings down the power and reign of Satan (third Sunday of Lent, EF), and does so by convicting us of sin so that we can be healed and receive the waters of Divine Mercy (third Sunday of Lent, OF).  Christ opens our eyes to recognize who He is (fourth Sunday of Lent, OF), and feeds us with miraculous bread, going beyond what any other prophet had done (fourth Sunday of Lent, EF).  Christ is the Resurrection and the Life, who grants eternal life to those who believe in Him (fifth Sunday of Lent), whose day Abraham rejoiced to see (Passion Sunday). 
    But knowing our Lord is more than simply knowing facts about Him.  Knowing Christ means taking all those facts that I just laid out, the facts that we hear from the Gospel, and making a choice about who He is to me.  Even the demons knew facts about Christ, and could probably confess more Trinitarian theology than any of us could.  But they do not have a relationship with Christ; they do not want Him involved in their lives; they do not love Him.
    Following Christ as a disciple means growing in our love of Him.  Lent offers us the opportunity to recommit ourselves to acting like He did in our daily lives.  Do we actively fight temptations and do our best not to give in to the lies of the devil?  Does our glory come from God, or do we seek to glorify ourselves with our own greatness, that does not even come close to shining as brightly as the glory that God desires for us?  How do we fill that thirst that we have for God?  Are we active in cooperating with Christ to tear down the kingdom of the prince of this world and build up the Kingdom of God?  Do we ourselves recognize the ways we want to close our eyes to God’s goodness, and help to open others’ eyes to the truth of the Gospel?  Do we feed on the Living Bread come down from heaven, or do we try to fill our stomachs with food that fails to satisfy and is never enough?  Are we willing to let Christ raise us to new life, or do we treat Him as just another moral teacher, a philosopher, who had some good teachings, but is like all other teachers and philosophers who came before Him?
    Our reading of the Gospels and our participation in this Mass is not simply about gathering facts and putting time in with God.  When we read the Sacred Scriptures, guided by the teachings of the Church, God wants us to understand how we are to find our happiness by putting the old Adam, the one who chose disobedience to God, to death, and rising to life with the new Adam, Christ, who was obedient even to the point of death, death on a cross.  As we worship God in the Mass, God does not only want our praise from our lips.  He gives us the Eucharist, the miraculous Bread from heaven, so that our lives can be transformed and we can have a foretaste within us of the glory to be revealed at the end of time.  God wants us to utilize His presence within us to be more like Him, and to share that presence of Christ when we interact with others.  When family members, friends, co-workers, and others interact with us, do they sense Christ and see, even in small ways, His glory shining through us?  Are they greeted with the love that any person would desire to receive from God, and then invited to participate in the truth that is also God? 
    We are still early in Lent.  There is still time to get to know God better, and to open ourselves to the grace of God which makes deep changes possible in our lives so that we live a life like Christ’s.  Don’t only give up stuff this Lent.  Don’t only know the facts about the great gift of salvation God gave us in dying for us.  Allow what Christ did to become the pattern of your own life, and grow in your friendship with Him. 

Take a Retreat

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    Every year, priests are asked to take a spiritual retreat.  On a merely physical level, it’s an opportunity to “recharge the batteries,” that can be drained by spending himself for his people.  On a spiritual level, it’s an opportunity to deepen his relationship with the Lord, to grow in the Theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.  Jesus Himself invited the Twelve to take a brief retreat in Mark 6:31, when Jesus said, “‘Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while.’”  Mark notes that there were large numbers of people who had been coming to see Jesus, and the apostles and Jesus were often missing meal time, so they went off in a boat “to a deserted place.” 
    But retreats aren’t only for priests.  The lay faithful, too, are encouraged, to the extent possible, to take a yearly retreat.  Before COVID, our great retreat center in DeWitt offered different tailored retreats to men, women, married couples, and other groups.  As we get through this pandemic you can make sure and check their webpage for upcoming retreat opportunities. 
    But I get that retreats are especially hard for those who are still working and/or who are caring for dependents.  For many Catholics, a retreat is something that they hear about that other people do, but nothing they take advantage of for themselves. 
    So this year, for our upcoming Sacred Triduum–Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday–I want to encourage you to think about the opportunities for prayer as a chance to retreat, to take some extra time with the Lord.  We’ve added times for prayer, but there’s also the times when the Church is simply open and quiet, when you can come and spend time with Jesus.
    Jesus Himself, as we heard in our Passion Narrative today, took time to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane as He was preparing for His Passion and Death.  He asked St. Peter, “‘Could you not keep watch for one hour?’”  Come to the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at 7 p.m. on Holy Thursday, and pray with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Mass.  Pray for the openness to what the Lord wants to share with you during these holy days of the Lord’s Passion.  Sign-up for 30 minutes or and hour to spend with Jesus in our Community Room Gethsemane, which will start after Mass and go until 10 p.m.  Most of that time is simply silent, with the Blessed Sacrament.  But it’s a powerful time to pray and spend with Jesus.
    For Good Friday, we’ll have four opportunities for you to come and spend time with Jesus.  The church will be stripped, and we’ll start with Daytime Prayer, part of the Liturgy of the Hours, the official prayer of the Church, at noon.  Then at 12:30 we’ll continue with Stations of the Cross, the great devotion of walking with Jesus as He walked to Calvary to die for love of us.  It’s then that we can ponder our own crosses, our own falls on the path the God has allowed us to walk.  At 3 p.m., the hour that Jesus died, we’ll recall His Death on the Cross, and venerate the cross that saved us from sin and death.  And then at 8 p.m. Good Friday night, we’ll hear the powerful and sorrowful psalms and readings that point to the price that was paid for our salvation.  And, if any of those exact times don’t work, feel free to come to the church any time between 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. to spend time with Jesus.
    Holy Saturday is our day of watching and waiting.  We know the rest of the story, but we put ourselves into the place of the Apostles and faithful disciples who didn’t know what to do after Jesus had died.  We wait in the great silence of the day that Jesus’ Body remained in the Tomb, while His Soul descended to hell, the place of the dead, to rescue to the souls of the just and escort them into heaven.  We’ll have a powerful set of readings at 8:30 a.m., and then bless any Easter food you bring at 12:30 p.m.  On that day of silence, the expectation of what we know will happen that night pushes us to be patient with God’s will as it becomes known to us in our daily lives, especially in the sufferings that we endure, often not seeing the future risings that will come from them.  And then, at 8:30 p.m., we’ll begin our solemn Easter Vigil, the Night of Nights, when sorrow turned to joy, darkness turned to light, and death was conquered by Life Himself. 
    It’s only a three-day retreat, and it’s not the full three days, but you’ll have a great opportunity to take time away with the Lord, to give Him all that is on your heart right now, to rest with Him.  This is a beautiful way that we accompany Jesus during His Passion, doing for Jesus what He does for us in all our sufferings: stay with us, encourage us, pray with us.  Don’t miss out on this opportunity of our Triduum retreat.  Recharge your spiritual batteries; come to be with Jesus; rest with Him.

Running on Empty

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

While all generalities fall short in describing the reality of the world, we can say with decent accuracy, that there are two types of people in this world: those who fill up for gas when they’re around half a tank, and those who try to get that needle as close to E as possible before getting gas.  Being the cautious guy that I am, I usually try to fill up my Malibu when I have about half of a tank left.  But, when it comes to our life in Christ, we should mimic those who, more often than not, are running on empty.

There are so many messages that God wants to communicate to us as we enter Holy Week this year.  There are so many themes that I could preach on as we begin our pilgrimage from the triumphant entry, into which we entered at the beginning of Mass, to the Last Supper, which we enter into on Holy Thursday evening, to Calvary, in which we participate on Good Friday at the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion, to the empty tomb, proclaimed to the world at Easter.  But today, I want us to examine how God emptied Himself.

St. Paul uses that exact phrase, “emptied himself,” in our second reading today.  In this beautiful hymn which focuses on the divine kenosis, which is a Greek word which means “emptying,” St. Paul reminds us that, “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.  Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,…[and] humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  Jesus, the full revelation of the God the Father, runs on empty as He saves the world.  He leaves nothing in the tank, but abandons Himself fully to the will of God.  And in this emptying, in this kenosis, God the Father exalts Jesus and glorifies Him.  

If we were to read the chapters of the Gospels that cover the time of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem through the crucifixion, we would not find Jesus holding anything back.  He accepts the praise of the people, who acclaim Him as the Messiah; He cleanses the temple; he fights back every verbal tussle with the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees; He washes His apostles’ feet as He calls them to serve; He gives His very Body and Blood for His Apostles at the Last Supper; He gives so much of His strength that He begins to sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane; He takes the mockery and cruelty of the trials before the chief priest and Pontius Pilate; He gives His last breath on the cross, and even the blood and water that filled His sacred Body are shed for our salvation.  And this is why God exalts Jesus: because He holds nothing back for the good of His people.  And this is why God will exalt us: if we hold nothing back from God.

This is one of the many paradoxes of Christianity.  It is only by giving ourselves away that we can gain what is most lasting.  It is only by emptying ourselves that we can truly be full.  Vatican II, in the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, entitled Gaudium et spes, says it this way: “…man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”

In this life we can be scared of losing; we can be afraid of having nothing left, of running out of gas.  When we do it for God, however, we do not lose anything, but gain everything.  This week I invite you to participate in Jesus’ kenosis, His emptying.  After a long, hard day of work on Thursday, give God even the fatigue by participating in the Mass of the Last Supper; empty yourself, maybe even of some of your paid time off, by participating in the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion; empty yourself even of the time that you would normally sleep and participate in the new life of the Resurrection, the new life that will be given to the newly baptized at the Easter Vigil.  The Sacred Three Days, the Sacred Triduum, is our participation in Jesus’ kenosis, so that we can understand and live in our lives the paradoxical truth of Christianity that we learn from Christ: it is only by emptying ourselves that we can truly be full; it is only by giving ourselves away to God that we can find who we are truly meant to be.