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.
