Easter Vigil-Story of Salvation

(Easter Vigil-Year A; This homily was given on April 11, 2020 at a private Mass in Rome, Italy, in accord with the regulations of the Republic of Italy and the Vicariate of Rome; See Genesis 1:1-2:2 and 22:1-18; Exodus 14:15-15:1; Isaiah 54:5-14 and 55:1-11; Baruch 3:9-15, 32-4:4; Ezekiel 36:16-28; Romans 6:3-11 and Matthew 28:1-10)

The Roman Missal describes our celebration this evening as “the mother of all Vigils,” and the “greatest and most noble of all solemnities.”   It is singular in the vast array of liturgical feasts in the Church.  There are many dimensions of the Easter Vigil that make it unique.  One of them is the invitation we received which introduces the Liturgy of the Word.

Immediately following the musically enchanting Easter Proclamation or Exsultet, we were invited to listen to the great story of our salvation:

Let us listen with quiet hearts to the Word of God.  Let us meditate on how God in times past saved his people and in these, the last days, has sent us his Son as our Redeemer.  Let us pray that our God may complete this paschal work of salvation by the fullness of redemption.

Certainly we are called to listen with rapt attention every time the Sacred Scriptures are read, and we never cease to hear the story of our salvation when we are gathered around this sacred altar.  Nonetheless, that introduction provides a specific key for entering into each of the nine readings presented to us at the Easter Vigil.  The Church is signaling that this is our great story, and urging us to enter deeply into it as God ushers in the “fullness of redemption.”

Having listened to the first reading from the Book of Genesis, however, we may be tempted to ask the question, “Salvation, or creation?”  In fact, the first reading is the only text we are given to "meditate on” this evening that takes place before original sin, before the fall of Adam and Eve.   There is nothing in that reading regarding sin and death, or any mention of the need for salvation.  There is only the divine command that initiates the cycle of life, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28).  

In his "Theology of the Body," St. John Paul II notes how “This cycle, so deeply rooted in the potentiality of the human body, was subjected, after sin, to the law of suffering and death.”  He goes on to treat of the peculiarity with which Adam names his wife, Eve, and how that title was given to her because she was “the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20).  But the nomination happens immediately after they receive the divine sentence of death as a consequence of sin!  It is as if Adam, still feeling the effects of original sin, nonetheless is buoyed with the hope that life will somehow continue under the direction of God.  St. John Paul II explains:

Awareness of the meaning of the body and awareness of its generative meaning come into contact, in man, with awareness of death, the inevitable horizon of which they bear within them.  Yet the ‘knowledge-generation cycle always returns in human history.  In it, life struggles ever anew with the inexorable perspective of death, and always overcomes it.

This is salvation, but on a very natural level.  It is substantial, it is powerful and gives new meaning to the divine command, “Be fertile and multiply.”  But it will never be enough.  God has created each one of us individually, to know and love Him personally, and together we make up the human family that longs for nothing less than eternal life with God.

In the subsequent chapters of Genesis, God calls Abraham in a deeply personal way.  He promises to make of him a great nation, and the source of blessing for all the nations of the world.  In our second  reading from the Book of Genesis, all of that appears to be in jeopardy as God challenges Abraham to sacrifice his only son.  Isaac already senses that something is amiss, and asks his father where they will find a sheep for the offering.  “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust,” Abraham assures him (Genesis 22:8).  This is supernatural faith, and rightly is Abraham referred to as “our father in faith.”  God does provide the sheep that will be sacrificed.  God’s salvation enters once again into the human family, this time through the sacrifice of the animal gratuitously provided. 

In the Book of Exodus we listen to the salvation of the People of Israel through water.  This reading is never optional in the Easter Vigil.  Moses raises the wood of his staff over the waters, and the power of God parts the Red Sea.  Israel is saved in the midst of the sea while their enemies are summarily destroyed.  This is God’s salvation writ large, and a preparation for the wood of the cross that will be lifted up over the earth as God destroys the enemies of sin and death.  God is bringing His people into the Promised Land, and the stage has been set for a deeper, more intimate life with Him.

Suddenly, however, with the entrance of the prophets, our story changes.  That invitation to intimacy and a deeper relationship with the God who saves has been left wanting; the covenant God made with Israel has been broken.  We meditate on the words from Isaiah in the fourth reading:

“The Lord calls you back, like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, a wife married in youth and then cast off, says your God.  For a moment I abandoned you, but with great tenderness I will call you back” (Isaiah 54:6-7).  Yes, God allowed Israel to experience the consequences of her infidelity, but He reminds her with great tenderness that her foundations have been laid in sapphires and her walls are built of precious stones (see Isaiah 54:11-12).  She need only return to Him, and with haste He will build her back up again, magnificent and splendid among the nations.

In the fifth reading Isaiah is still pleading, “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!  Heed me ... listen ... seek the Lord, turn to me ...” (Isaiah 55:1-8).  But still they remain unfaithful.  The Prophet Baruch, in the sixth reading, intensifies the longing of God to see Israel living in the fullness of the covenant, walking, once again, in fidelity of heart: 

Hear, O Israel, the commandment of life: listen and know prudence!  How is it, Israel, that you are in the land of your foes, grown old in a foreign land, defiled with the dead, accounted with those destined for the netherworld?  You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom!  Had you walked in the way of God, you would have dwelt in enduring peace.  Learn where prudence is, where strength, where understanding.

—Baruch 3:10-14

Over and over again God cries out to Israel through the prophets, and His plea fails to find a hearing among them.  The seventh reading is the climax of that epic struggle.  God comes out in judgment upon His people and holds nothing back as He speaks through the Prophet Ezekiel: 

Therefore I poured out my fury upon them because of the blood they poured out on the ground, and because they defiled it with idols.  I scattered them among the nations, dispersing them over foreign lands: according to their conduct and deeds I judged them.
-Ezekiel 36:18-19  

Ezekiel goes on to describe, with shocking detail, what happened next in the history of God’s people.  Having been scattered among the nations, living in foreign lands because of their infidelity to God, even there they began to profane His holy name.  Suddenly, the covenant between God and Israel has reached the breaking point.  For God it has become the hour of decision.  Because Israel has done this, now He will act.  

It is as if all heaven grows silent in that fateful moment.  What will become of God’s people now?  We listen, breathless, to the judgment of almighty God:

I will take you away from among the nations, gather you from all the foreign lands, and bring you back to your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from your idols I will cleanse you.  I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts.  I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees.  You shall live in the land I gave your fathers.  You shall be my people, and I will be your God.

—Ezekiel 36:24-28

These are the final words in the seventh reading, as the grace of the New Covenant comes crashing in to fulfill that promise.  It is the judgment of God that will echo throughout salvation history in both directions.  What Ezekiel has just prophesied is nothing less than the coming of Jesus Christ and the transformation of fallen humanity by divine grace.  This is what we celebrate tonight, the culmination of everything God set out to accomplish in giving us His own divine life.  

The Evangelical writer, Calvin Miller, in his book, “The Divine Symphony,” comments on the shot fired at the Battle of Lexington, beginning the American Revolutionary War.  Often referred to in American history as “the shot heard round the world,” Miller disagrees.  He writes, “No shot was ever heard round the world.  In fact, in all of human history only two sounds have been heard around the entire world. . . The first: a newborn baby’s cry, saying, ‘It is begun.’  The second: A young man’s dying cry, saying, ‘It is finished’.”  

This is the cry we listened to on Good Friday:  “It is finished  ... It is accomplished ... It is consummated.”  The work of God and the story of our salvation has been completed.  Now the doors stand wide open for us to enter fully into this new life with God.

St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans indicates that doorway as Baptism.  “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,” writes St. Paul, “so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might live in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).  

This is why the main protagonist in all of the resurrection accounts for Easter is not, in fact, the risen Christ but the empty tomb.  Mary Magdalene and the other Mary meet the risen Christ in the Gospel this evening, but only after their encounter with the empty tomb.  In the Gospel for Easter Sunday morning, Christ does not even appear at all!  Mary Magdalene is confronted with the place where He was buried, instead.  St. Peter and St. John will also encounter this tomb, and enter it!  We are all called to enter that tomb, to die with Christ and rise anew with Him.

This is the message of Easter!  This is the story of our salvation!  We are called to make the prophesy of Ezekiel a reality by allowing God to transform our hearts from the inside out.  We are called to let divine grace soften our hearts of stone and make them malleable and formable, totally docile to the will and pleasure of almighty God.  In the words of the invitation that began the Liturgy of the Word this evening: Let us pray that our God may complete this paschal work of salvation by the fullness of redemption.

Good Friday: Growing the Garden

(Good Friday-Year A; This homily was given at the Celebration of Our Lord's Passion on April 10, 2020 in Rome, Italy, in accord with the regulations of the Republic of Italy and the Vicariate of Rome; See Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and John 18:1-19:42)

The Gospels and the teachings of Christ are replete with images culled from nature.  The pages of the New Testament are often gilded with vivid scenes from the natural world.  Jesus explains that the Kingdom of God is like a sacred treasure found in a field; we can imagine that warm, verdant pasture beckoning the believer to explore its expanse and discover the hidden gift within.  

Our Lord says that the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed sown in field, yet another image teeming with fertility and life.  In another place, Christ calms our anxieties and invites us to, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil or spin” (Matthew 6:28).  He teaches about the sowing of seeds in a field, and of a rich wheat harvest where “the field is the world, and the good seed the sons of the kingdom” (Matthew 13:38).  

So frequently and easily does Jesus associate His teaching with nature, we could be tempted to consider Him Franciscan!  Of course, it would be more accurate to conclude that St. Francis was imbued with nature because he was so very much like Christ.  Remember, that beautiful term used to identify the ideal of the priest, alter Christus (another Christ), was not initially used to describe the priesthood at all!  It was first used to describe a simple, humble deacon from the Umbrian city of Assisi named Francis.  He is the first alter Christus.

As we reflect on the readings for Good Friday, however, we look with sad wonderment on what has happened to the fertile fields and verdant pastures of our Lord.  St. John opens his passion narrative saying that, “Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered” (John 18:1).  

It is a very different garden than Eden, where the human family began.  There is nothing striking or beautiful about that place.  Jesus enters Gethsemane at night.  The garden is not fertile but hostile, even threatening.  So palpable is the sense of dread that Christ, in agony, will sweat drops of blood into the arid soil (Luke 22:44).  This is not a place of life but of death.  Our Lord will kneel in the earth and surrender His life to the Father.

Isaiah the Prophet, in our first reading, says of the Christ, “He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth” (Isaiah 53:2).  The ground in Gethsemane is hard, dry and unyielding.  Christ, like a young plant, is struggling for life in that place.

Isaiah continues, “there was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.  He was spurned and avoided by the people, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom people hide their faces, spurned and we held him in no esteem” (Isaiah 53:2-3).

Many of his disciples and certainly the Apostles were enamored of Christ and longed to delve more deeply into the mysterious and infectious teachings His words embodied.  With the religious leaders of His time, however, it was different.  At first Jesus was simply an annoyance, someone to be avoided or at the very least ignored.  But then He became dangerous, drawing more and more people to Himself.  When He raised Lazarus from the dead, it became clear that He would have to die, lest everyone begin to believe in Him (see John 11:48).

This is what we have done with life, with fertility, with God.  Of course, none of this is outside of the way Christ understood His life and even His death.  He had already taught quite clearly that only when the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies does it bring forth much fruit (John 12:24).   

“He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth” . . .

In the liturgy this afternoon, in the heart of the Sacred Triduum, we enter deeply into the Paschal Mystery, the suffering and death of Christ who will rise from the dead on Easter.  We know well the fruitfulness that will come from the generosity of our Lord’s cross.  This is the way to new life, and it is the only way.  

As His bride, the Church is called to be united with her Spouse and to walk that same path.  We unite ourselves to Christ in His passion and death, so as to be more fully united to Him in the resurrection (see Philippians 3:10).  

This is essential for us to remember when we see so much around us that can be distressing and discouraging.  Obviously, we can easily recognize the reality of the cross in the COVID-19 crisis that is happening across the entire world.  But there is much more than that.  The radical secular nature of so many places in the world that once belonged to Christ represent an arid land, a desertification that opposes the very life of grace and the fertility of faith.  The way that the Catholic priesthood and the sacramental life are understood today (or perhaps the way that they are not understood) and the hostility to organized religion in general, offer a clear indication that today we are very far from Eden.  

None of these realities, however, should discourage us.  To recognize that we are so very dependent upon God for new life, for growth, for a new springtime of faith is a really, really good thing.  It is, in fact, the reason why we call this day Good Friday.  The challenge Christ sets before us today, and in every age, is that we unite ourselves to Him and in that union bear fruit.

There are many different ways we are called to do that.  I would like to ask the pardon of the Franciscan Sisters, and offer one example from the Carmelite tradition.  St. Teresa of Avila speaks about the spiritual growth that takes place within the soul, but I believe it is also very applicable to the life of the Church.  She writes, in her autobiography:

Beginners must realize that in order to give delight to the Lord they are starting to cultivate a garden on very barren soil, full of abominable weeds… And with the help of God we must strive like good gardeners to get these plants to grow and take pains to water them so that they don’t wither but come to bud and flower, and give forth a most pleasant fragrance to provide refreshment for this Lord of ours, so that He may often come into the garden to take His pleasure and have His delight among these virtues.

—The Book of Her Life, Chapter 11, #6

It is absolutely refreshing to discover that the life of prayer, and our response to grace in the spiritual life, are actually not primarily something we engage in for our own benefit but for God’s!  We seek growth in prayer and an increase in virtue because, when we do, God delights in it!  What the garden needs most of all, writes St. Teresa, in order for this happen is water.  This section of her autobiography introduces the "four waters" of grace or the various ways that the soul grows in prayer through the help of God.  

The first is through obtaining water from a well by means of a bucket.  It is hard work, and we get precious little water in the process.  We consider some passage of Scripture, meditate on one of the mysteries of our Lord’s life, and we are only able to sustain that effort for a short while.  We keep forgetting that we are in the presence of God, and have to return, again and again, to the Lord who is constantly looking at us with attention and love.  This is the "first water of grace."

The second way also requires some effort, setting in motion a water wheel that will eventually move more freely and with less attention on our part.  It is sometimes referred to by Teresa as “the prayer of quiet.”  The “third water of grace” described by St. Teresa is water obtained through an aqueduct.  There is a certain amount of attention and effort necessary to construct this apparatus, but once it has been solidly set beside a nearby river it will easily flood the field or garden with all the necessary hydration.  

The fourth way is nothing less than a torrential downpour.  Obviously, there is nothing that we can do to initiate this source of water, and absolutely nothing we can do to stop it!

Today we can search our own vocation, our own personal life in the Church, and also the various ministries or responsibilities we have been entrusted with.  We can look at the overall mission of the Church and recognize that there are many different ways our Lord is challenging us to grow and respond to the overwhelming demands in the world around us.  Christ rightly demands that we work hard and remain always open to the ways that He is asking us to bring new life where there is arid land and barren soil.  We unite our sacrifices to His and constantly seek to respond to whatever He is asking of us in every moment.  

But there is also a need to recognize that He is the Lord of the garden, that He alone has the power to give the increase, and that we desperately depend upon Him to bring us and the world new life.  We pray for grace, like rain, to fall upon us and to renew the Church in this and every age.  This Good Friday, we surrender our lives to God and also plead with Him for the healing and renewal that the world so desperately needs on so many levels.

St. John the Evangelist concludes his account of the passion by noting, “In the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb” (John 19:41).  They laid the body of the crucified Christ there, perhaps as discouraged and dejected as any of the disciples would ever be.  

The Fruit from that garden has not ceased to grow and flourish, across the face of the earth, and for over two millennia.  May the Church, united with Christ in His passion, death and resurrection, continue to grow and flourish with Him as we provide refreshment, delight and pleasure to our divine Spouse.

Looking for an Opportunity

(Palm Sunday of the Passion-Year A; This homily was given on April 5, 2020 at a private Mass in Rome, Italy, in accord with the regulations of the Republic of Italy and the Vicariate of Rome; See Matthew 26: 14-27:66)

Every year we listen to the passion narrative on Palm Sunday.  We know the details of Jesus’ suffering and death very well.  We know all about the Last Supper, His agony in Gethsemane and His betrayal in the garden there.  We know of His arrest and eventual trial before Pontius Pilate, and of His crucifixion on Calvary.  Certainly Christ saw His passion in great detail before it happened.   In fact, many times He predicted it to the disciples and tried to prepare them for it.  None of this, however, takes away from the freedom of those who were there and how they experienced things, moment by moment.

One phrase in the very beginning of the passion narrative from St. Matthew this morning is chilling in this regard.  We hear how Judas approached the chief priests, willing to betray the Son of God.  The Gospel tells us that “They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over” (Matthew 26:15-16).  Jesus knew well what awaited Him in Gethsemane.  He knew that it would be in that place that He would be betrayed.  Judas, however, did not.  Most likely he considered it, but the Gospel relates, more generally, that “from that time on he looked for an opportunity.” He took the money, and then he waited and watched for an opportune moment.  Maybe the first few times things did not pan out the way he had planned.  He was diligent, though, and eventually his opportunity to accomplish his evil end arrived.  

There are several senses of opportunity that we find this morning in the passion narrative.  While Judas was seeking an opportunity with a malicious intent, there are several accounts in the passion that are not intentionally malicious.  They are simply sad, tragic moments where opportunities are lost.  

Jesus enters into the Garden of Gethsemane, overwhelmed with sorrow and distress (see Matthew 26:37).  He needs to be close to His Father, and He needs to pray.  Suddenly He chooses three of the Apostles, saying, “Remain here and keep watch with me” (Matthew 26:38).  What an opportunity!  Of all the disciples of Jesus, He had only chosen the Twelve to be Apostles, and of that number He picks these three, inviting them into one of the most intimate and meaningful moments of His life.  Tragically, they missed that opportunity . . . three times.

Worse still, one of those three, St. Peter, will miss a singular opportunity a short while later.  It is an opportunity that he has already declared—at the Last Supper—that he would never miss.  When Christ had told them that they would all be shaken in their faith, Peter had been insistent.  “Even though I should have to die with you,” he declared vehemently, “I will not deny you” (Matthew 26:35).  In essence, Peter was saying, Give me an opportunity, and I will go to the end with you.  I am ready for that moment.  The opportunity arrived after Jesus was arrested, and Peter missed it . . . three times.

The Passion, however, offers us much more than malicious intent and opportunities lost.  There are many examples of opportunities found, and tender moments where the disciples of Christ seized those occasions with both hands.  One of them, literally, is Simon of Cyrene.  He could have never guessed that morning, when he woke up, that he would be asked to carry the cross on which the Son of God would save the world.  Perhaps he could have easily missed that opportunity.  Just enough hesitation, a little more fear, and the soldiers would have quickly prevailed on another warm body to get the job done.  As far as they were concerned, it mattered nothing at all who helped the Nazarene carry that cross.  But it mattered to Simon.  The opportunity arrived and he seized it, and the rest is salvation history.

The faithful women at the foot of the cross also made the most of the opportunity to be with Christ in the hour of need.  None of them would have sought that opportunity.  They loved Him so much, that they would have given anything not to see the shameful and public spectacle of the cross.  But it happened in exactly that way, and they stood their ground and suffered along with Him.  

One of them was Mary Magdalene, who does not cease to make the most of the opportunity, before during and after the passion of Christ.  Another one was the mother of the sons of Zebedee.   Remember, she was the one who wanted to see her sons, James and John, taking their place at the right and left of Jesus when His Kingdom arrived.  Well, the Kingdom arrives on Calvary, and she is there to see it.   Two thieves are taking the places she had wanted for her sons.  It was not the opportunity she had been looking for, but she took it anyway.  Somewhere on her own right or left, of course, would have stood Mary, the Mother of God.

And then there is Joseph of Arimathea.  We know only two things about Joseph, that he was rich and that he was a disciple of Jesus.  This man had means, and he knew how to make opportunities happen.  He went to Pilate and requested the body.  Pilate ordered it to be handed over to him.  Jospeh took advantage of the location of his own new tomb and provided a burial place for the body of Christ.  Jesus would not need it for long, of course, but for all eternity Joseph of Arimathea will be known as the man who owned the grave where Jesus Christ rose from the dead.   

We enter Holy Week this morning, well aware that the opportunities to be with Jesus Christ are not limited to the passion narrative.  Jesus invites every one of us to join Him in the intimacy of prayer.  Perhaps that experience of prayer will be as bitter, dry and difficult as it was for Him; perhaps we will share in the consolation of tears that many experienced that day on Calvary.  Our prayer could also be touched by the tenderness of God, who so frequently draws near to us in our own sorrow and distress, and comforts us with the love that knows no limits.  The opportunity for prayer with Christ is most certainly being made available.  Will we seize it?

Will we recognize those untimely opportunities that we are most certainly not expecting, moments where we will be invited to carry the cross or accompany Christ in His most difficult and painful moments?  Like Joseph of Arimathea, will we make opportunities happen by whatever means we have at our disposal, knowing that God can never be outdone in generosity?  

There are many, many opportunities available to us as we enter into Holy Week.  We pray for the grace not to miss them.  From this moment, with our eyes fixed on Easter, we begin anew to look for every opportunity to love Jesus.