A Pilgrim’s notes: Meaning of “MERRY CHRISTMAS”

A PILGRIM’S NOTES: MEANING OF “MERRY CHRISTMAS”
Fausto Gomez, OP

May you have a Merry Christmas! What does “Merry Christmas” may mean? As we prepare to celebrate this great solemnity, let me share a few notes on its various and complementary meanings.
Christmas is Christ. There cannot be a true Christmas without Christ: without Christ Christmas is merely three meaningless letters – m, a, s. Christ is the center of Christmas: the Child Jesus in a manger. It is truly awesome to realize that, as St. John writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us… Of his fullness we have all received.” Merry Christmas implies a happy encounter with the Child Jesus in the crib! “If you wish to see the most beautiful thing in the world,” St. John de Avila tells us, “ask the Lord to give you the eyes to see a young maiden with her child in her arms in the town of Bethlehem.”
Christmas is love of God. “God so loved the world,” St. John’s marvelous words again, “that He gave his only begotten Son.” How incredible: “The Son of God is born in eternity without mother, in time without father, and becomes our brother” (John Tauler). We respond by adoring the Child Jesus. Adoration may be our attitude through the Christmas season. It was the attitude of Mary and Joseph, of the shepherds, and of the Three Kings. Mary and Joseph kept everything in their hearts in an attitude of contemplative prayer; the shepherds knelt before the Child in the crib, and the Three Kings offered their gifts as a sign of worship. “O come, let us adore him.”
Christmas is love of neighbor. Love of Christ in the manger entails love of all neighbors, children of God and our brothers and sisters. “In this,” Jesus says, “they will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” True Christian love is not selective but unconditionally universal: no one is excluded, not even the enemies.
Christmas is compassionate love. “I feel compassion of the crowd,” Jesus says. Charity is universal love, merciful love for all, in particular the poor and needy, the “little ones” of Jesus. Thus, Christmas is feeling compassion for those in need and doing something to help them. It necessarily implies sharing something with the poor around us, accompanying our sick and imprisoned brothers and sisters. Jesus keeps telling you and me: “What you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me.”
Christmas is joyful love. “This is the day our Savior was born: what a joy for us! This is no season for sadness, this, the birthday of Life, the Life which annihilates the fear of death, and engenders joy, promising as it does, immortality” (St. Leo the Great). Yes, “Christmas is joy, the joy of Life, the joy of the Gospel of Christ” (Pope Francis). Indeed, “Joy to the world, joy to you and me!”
Christmas is peaceful love. The angels sang: “Glory to God in the highest and peace to men whom God loves.” Peace, like joy and compassion, is a consequence of love. As believers in Christ, the Prince of Peace, we are asked to be peacemakers in our families, in our communities, in the world. To be peacemakers, we have to be at peace within ourselves and with God, with all neighbors and with creation, which is “our common home.”
Christmas is grateful love. Zechariah is grateful to the Lord for giving him his son John the Baptist: “Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel” (Lk 1:68). Mary, the Virgin-Mother is grateful for the marvelous things God has done to her: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord” (Lk 1:46). We are grateful above all to God for giving us Jesus, his only Son and the Son of Mary. We also give thanks to so many people around us! As we wish “Merry Christmas” to our family, friends, and companions we thank them for their love, their help, for being there when we needed them, for travelling with us on the journey of life. Indeed, “gracias a la vida,” thanks to life that has given us so much!
The birth of Jesus is a magnificent event that reminds us of our Baptism, of our birth as Christians. Some years ago, I received a Christmas card with this lovely message: One day Christ was born for you, and it was Christmas. / Another day, you were born for Christ, and it was your Baptism. / When you remember the joy of Christmas / do not forget the joy of your Baptism.”
The Birth of Jesus connects closely with the Eucharist: “Mary was the first tabernacle who carried Christ within her and gave birth to the One who would say, ‘I am the living bread come down from heaven’” (Fulton Sheen).
Through Advent, as we prepare to receive Jesus in our home, we remember that when our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary, there was no room for him in the inn at Bethlehem. He is coming again at Christmas 2015. There is a lovely story of a Children’s Nativity Play (from Margaret Silf). After many rehearsals the great day of presenting the play before the proud parents of the children and parishioners came. On stage: angels, shepherds, and Mary, Joseph and the innkeeper. Mary and Joseph knock at the door of the inn and ask: “Please, can we have a room for the night?” The innkeeper answers: “Sorry, there is no room in the inn.” After saying that, however, the little innkeeper had second thoughts of his own and added something else: “Don’t go away, you can have my room.”
I ask: “Will Jesus have my room the coming Christmas? Will He have yours?” There will be no room for Baby Jesus this Christmas in the hearts of those who are selfish, proud or insensitive to the needs of others. We are all invited to approach the Sacrament of Penance and thus prepare a pure heart for the birth of the Child in the manger.
My dear co-pilgrims, I wish you Merry Christmas that is a Blessed Christmas. May the Child Jesus be born in our hearts in a deeper way, and may those around us notice it by the way we treat them with kindness and compassion.
(Published by O Clarim, the Macau Catholic Weekly, on December 18, 2015)

Homily, Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday! It is the greatest feast for Christians, for us! St. Paul tells us that if Jesus had not risen, our faith would be in vain, and our hope – and heaven. God indeed raised Jesus from the dead. Hence, our faith in him, our hope in our resurrection is true. Easter is pascha, or passage from death to life, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. The Easter candle tells us that Jesus is raised and lives and that He is our light and life! Indeed, we are Easter people.

Let us meditate briefly on the message from the Word we have just proclaimed.

First Reading: Acts 10:34, 37-43. Peter proclaims the central content of apostolic preaching: the Jesus event. He died, rose from the dead and lives. Therefore the disciples of Christ – like Peter and the other apostles – have to be witnesses of the resurrection of Christ.

Second Reading: Col 3:1-9. Paul tells us that in Christ, we are raised. Look therefore for the values above, that is, the values of the Kingdom of God. Not to escape from the world, but to transform the world with the values of equality, justice, solidarity, prayer, compassion, forgiveness. As raised in Christ, we have to try always to be dead to sin and alive in love for God in Jesus Christ.

The Holy Gospel: Jn 20:1-9. John’s narrative of the empty tomb: Mary Magdalene was the first to see it, and afterwards Peter and John. John saw and believed: his great love gave him a deeper way of knowing, as it is clear also in the life of the mystics; the beloved disciple was the first to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.  The tomb where Christ was buried is empty; He is not there. (Parenthesis – It was said then that a friend asked Joseph of Arimathea: Why did you give your great and beautiful tomb to someone else to be buried in your tomb?” Joseph of Arimathea answered: “Oh, he asked me if he could use it for the weekend!”) On the third day, the Lord was not there: the tomb was empty. For those who believe and love – like for John the Evangelist – the empty tomb is an argument for the resurrection of Christ. Other arguments of faith are the appearances of Jesus to the disciples. The apostles reluctantly accepted first, and little by little, the resurrection of Christ: that the Risen Lord was the same crucified Lord – gloriously different but the same Jesus. Afterwards, they incredibly lived their faith in the resurrection powerfully and joyfully. The change that took place in the apostles is an argument of faith to believe in the resurrection: before Easter, they were afraid and sad; after Easter, they are courageous and joyful in proclaiming the death and resurrection of Christ – and in suffering and dying for their faith in him.

For each one of us, the reason for our belief in the resurrection of Christ is our faith, God’s great gift to us.

Following the apostles and first disciples of Jesus, we believe in Christ’s resurrection: it is the core of our faith. Remember the Gospel I preach, St. Paul tells Timothy, “Jesus Christ risen from the dead” (2 Tim 2:8). We are asked by our faith in Jesus to be witnesses of his resurrection.

To be witnesses of the resurrection, to be able to say “I have seen the Lord,” is to have experienced an encounter with the Risen Lord. Our faith is not a doctrine or a morality but the paschal experience. How did the first Christian communities experience the Risen Lord’s transforming presence? “They remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to fraternity, to the breaking of the bread, and to prayer. They shared their food gladly and generously, praised God and were looked up by everyone” (Acts 2:42, 46-47).

Where may we encounter the Risen Lord today? The encounter of faith with Jesus may take place in our community prayer: “Where two or three gather in my name, there I am in their midst” (Mt 18:19-20). We may experience the Risen Lord in God’s Word, the Sacred Scriptures, especially when proclaimed in the Church, the community of disciples. We can experience Jesus in the breaking of the Bread, like the disciples to Emmaus (Lk 24:32). We may encounter Jesus, moreover, when we feed him in the poor, heal the wounded on the road of our life (cf. Mt c. 25). Radically, we encounter the Risen Lord in the practice of love of neighbor: “We are well aware that we have passed over from death to life because we love our brothers” (1 Jn 3:14).

One encounter with the Risen Lord leads us necessarily to the others. The different encounters call and fertilize each other, and aid us to grow in union with the Risen Lord.

We believe in Christ’s Resurrection. We have been preparing through Lent and especially in Holy Week for this day: Easter Vigil/Sunday. I ask myself: Do I have a strong desire and hope to be raised by God in Jesus and the joy to live as witness of the Crucified and Risen Lord? Someone says that we shall have as much resurrection as death – death to our old self of sin and darkness and un-love, and resurrection to life and love and forgiveness and compassion.

It has been said that “The statement ‘Jesus is risen’ is only fully true when, saying it, it revolutionizes my personal life.”  We hope and pray that our faith in Jesus’ resurrection does change our life a bit. Our faith in Christ’s resurrection, and therefore in ours, too (2 Cor 6:14); our faith in Christ’s resurrection grows little by little, like the grass in the field, like a tree: through an act of kindness, a greeting smile, a silent presence, a gesture of loving concern, a prayer of petition.

A friend sent to me the following text, which I wish to share with you:

I know that Christ is risen…

• Because I have experienced forgiveness.
• Because He has placed in my heart a fountain of joy that no one can take away.
• Because I feel a great love for my brothers and sisters.
• Because I notice that the flower of hope is always fresh.
• Because He takes away my fears and I never feel alone.

Indeed, Christ is risen and will always be with us. We hope and pray that you and I see him through this Easter season in a clearer manner. My brothers and sisters: may we all have a Happy Easter, and may those around us notice it by the way we treat them with simple kindness and joyful compassion. Let us never be afraid. Let us be joyful. How wonderful to be able to shout:

We are Easter people and Alleluia is our song. Alleluia, that is, praise the Lord!

 

Fausto Gómez, OP

St. Dominic’s Priory

Macau, April 5, 2015

Easter Vigil celebration (2015)

SOME POINTS OF REFLECTION

Tonight’s liturgical celebration, so rich and full of symbols, memories and history, is a summary of the history of God’s plan for our salvation, carried out, in its last stage, by Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God become man, our Savior.

Why, we asked yesterday, should all have to end up that way, in such a shameful kind of death? Why was Jesus killed? Why was he condemned to death, anyway? We can advance, among others, two answers. One answer, because of the way He lived. Ever since the very beginning of his public life, Jesus found himself in disagreement with the way the standing authorities were interpreting God’s law, depriving it of its spirit and humanity; thus, he became a dangerous man to be get rid of… The other answer is because of his absolute love to his Father and his fidelity to the mission entrusted by the Father to him, the Redemption of humanity. ‘In accordance to his own plan God had already decided that Jesus would be handed over to you: and you killed him by letting sinful men crucify him. But God raised him from death, setting free from its power, because it was impossible that death should hold him prisoner” (Acts, 2, 23-24)

What did J’s resurrection mean for him?

*The definitive “yes” of God to his Son and to the new Kingdom established by Him. For that, God “glorified” Him.

*The approval and rehabilitation of the person of Jesus and of his “cause”.

*The confirmation of all that Jesus did and preached.

What did it mean to his disciples?

“Why do you seek among the dead him who is alive?” (Lk 24, 5)

After an initial stage of confusion, bewilderment and amazement, a conscience was created among them that the Lord apparently had risen. Then, a conviction that he was alive; and finally, due to the work of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus, they felt and experienced in their interior a new life, full of joy, that led them to realize that it came from the Lord, and, therefore, that the Lord was risen and alive. It all had happened as their Master had foretold them.

The Resurrection of Jesus for us

“In our union with Jesus Christ, he raised us up with him” (Ef 2, 6).

The experience of Jesus is for us a sign: what Jesus lives now is what God had promised for the end of time. In the risen Christ we can see, with joy and hope, where we are going. Jesus’ resurrection helps us to discover the meaning of our personal and collective human existence. He is the first fruit, “the first one to rise from death” (Acts 26, 23), an anticipation of our own resurrection.

We have not, individually or collectively, seen the Lord; we have not seen the empty tomb, the numerous apparitions to different persons… Besides, the reality of the resurrection, being a divine event, takes place beyond and above the realm of our reasoning; we have nothing to say about it. But we did have an encounter with or by the risen Lord. We cannot see it, or touch it, or, perhaps, explain it, etc., because it is above our senses, the same way as we cannot see or touch, or show or demonstrate the divine life given to us on the day of our baptism. Yet, we are bearers of his grace, and therefore, witnesses and sharers of his Resurrection.

How are we to live Jesus’ resurrection?

“He is going to Galilee ahead of you; there you will see him, just as he told you” (Mk 16, 7)

That is now our task–mission in the present world: to be witnesses of Jesus, not only of his historical presence, but also of his relevance in our lives. To be witnesses in our Galilee of today, that Jesus is alive, present in our world, and that Jesus was resurrected by God so that we can resurrect with him.

José Luis de Miguel, O. P.

 St. Dominic’s Priory

Macau, April 2015.

Good Friday: The Cross

Crucifixion was a cruel method of execution. The movie “The Passion of Christ”, starring Mel Gibson, is widely regarded as the most accurate and realistic description of the cruelty of crucifixion.

The very idea of Good Friday causes us concern. In fact, we all have a problem with the Cross. Religious-minded people want miracles and power. Intellectually minded people want wisdom and truth. The problem is that both his power and wisdom led Jesus to the Cross, a brutal denial of everything he had done before. Those who had seen his power wondered why he seemed powerless in his greatest need. Those who saw his intelligence wondered how someone so smart could miscalculate so badly.

Jesus knew what was coming. He was conscious that his life, his words and his miracles could only lead him to death on the cross.

We can easily see and identify all that is mean and cheap in human behavior in the story of the cross and we can also say that this kind of attitudes is also what makes ourselves suffer in life. Those are the 4 nails of Jesus on the cross, and those are also the 4 nails that cause all kind of suffering to us all:

• Betrayal: Judas sells Jesus for thirty silver coins, and Peter denies knowing him and the disciples run away.
• Violence and cruelty: The soldiers hit him and then ask “who hit you?” The people want him crucified.
• Egoism: Pilate washes his hands, even knowing that Jesus is innocent, because he does not want Jesus to become his problem. The leader of the Jews says it is convenient that a man dies, because he wants to avoid a problem for all of them.
• Contempt and sneer by everybody when they see him crucified: He said he was the Son of God; let him come down from the cross.

We can say that today we can see Jesus defeated, abandoned and abused

And yet, we venerate the Cross and worship an executed man as the Son of God. This is not easy to understand and even more difficult to accept. It is the scandal of the Cross, because, as Tertullian said, “we worship a God that dies.”

What is it that makes us think different? What is it that makes us believe that the ultimate defeat becomes the ultimate victory?

The answer to these important questions is that we know that Friday is only the road to Sunday, that the absurdity of the Cross makes only sense from the faith in the Resurrection.

And then, everything makes sense! The violent death of Jesus is just the culmination of this mission and his preaching. He came to bring a new order, the Kingdom of God, based on love. He came to live and die for us.

His passion and death on the Cross is not at all a sign of defeat, but a sign of fidelity to the will of God. “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”: This sentence is really fulfilled on the Cross. “This is why I was born and why I came to this world, to be witness to the truth”. Jesus remains loyal and obedient to God to the end, up to death.

So the passion and death is the climax of Jesus fidelity to the Father, and the resurrection is the sign of the Father’s fidelity towards Jesus.

What can we learn from this today?

What God offers us all is first the Cross. The earliest believers called the Cross “the wisdom of God and power of God” (I Cor 1:23-24). Easter is indeed about the empty tomb. But first, it’s about the Cross. This was true for Jesus and must be true also for all of us.

The sentence of Jesus “whoever wants to follow me, has to carry his cross to follow me” has full meaning today. We are not invited to be masochists, happy to suffer, but to change our attitude towards life, imitating Jesus, trusting God as Jesus did.

Sure, it doesn’t always feel this way. It is not easy to trust even God with our lives. Even Jesus, on the Cross said: Why have you forsaken me? But he immediately said: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

How can those two go together? Even at his death, Jesus showed us how to trust the Father beyond the circumstances. He knew the Father’s promise of Resurrection, but death still lay ahead of him. And death was still death, even for Jesus. It was his trust in the Father’s promise that caused him to wager everything he had: his very life. As a man, Jesus is our model on how to trust the Father.

We must also imitate Jesus in committing our lives for others. Be sure than we make a stand for justice and peace, or the rights of others. The established powers will also stand against us, as they did with Jesus, and will make our life miserable or even dangerous.

We will continue with our liturgy, which still has two main parts for us: the universal prayer, in which we are going to show our commitment towards the rest of world in the form of a prayer, regardless of the fact they are powerful or powerless, believers or not believers. And then we will venerate the Cross. I hope that as we come to venerate it, we also make a decision to accept whatever cross we may encounter in our lives, and accept it as the only way to resurrection and salvation.

José Angel López Legido, OP

St. Dominic’s Priory, Macau

Jesus is abandoned by God

There are different kinds of psalms according to content: some are psalms of gratitude; others of reconciliation; still others of thanksgiving. There are also psalms of lament such as Psalm 22 (or 21), which is considered an emblematic psalm of lament. The psalm begins with a mysterious lament: “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” Let’s meditate on Psalm 22.

There are other biblical texts underscoring the laments to God by concrete persons, or by the people. For instance the lament that Moses addresses to Yahweh: “Why do you treat your servant so badly” (Nb. 11:11); the lament or complaint of the people of Israel against God and Moses: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in the desert?” (Nb 29:5). There is the terrible lament of Job: “Why was I not still-born? Or not perish as I left the womb?” (Jb 3:11). The prophets wail for the people of Israel: “Yahweh has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me” (Is 49:14).

Biblical scholars tell us that the psalms of lament are usually psalms of praise too as it is the case of Psalm 22, which is divided in two distinct parts: the first part (verses 1-21) is of lament: “Why have you forsaken me? I call by day but you do not answer; at night, but I find no respite” (22:1-2). People see him abandoned by God and laugh at him: “He trusted himself to Yahweh; let Yahweh set him free! Let him deliver him, as he took such delight in him” (22:8)

The first part of Psalm 22 is not only of lament! It is also and more radically an act of faith: “My God, my God …” It is the complaint of a believer, of the people of Israel, of each one of us. The believer trusts in God and prays to him: “Do not hold aloof, for trouble is upon me, and no one to help me” (22:11); “Yahweh … My strength, come quickly to my help” (22:19); “Save me from the lion’s mouth” (22:21).

The second part of Psalm 22 (verses 22-31) is of praise – and trust. “I shall proclaim your name to my brothers, praise you in full assembly” (22:22); “Of you my praise in the thronged assembly” (22:25); “You who fear Yahweh, praise him, honor him, revere him” (22:23); “Those who seek Yahweh will praise him” (22:26); “The whole wide world will remember and return to Yahweh” (22:27).

Psalm 22 is perhaps one of the best known psalms by all Christians. It is the psalm Jesus prayed from the Cross. Like me, many of you know this psalm, at least its first verse, from childhood. When I was a child, the priests celebrating Holy Week in our small town El Oso (Avila), usually a Dominican, always preached the Seven Last Words. Undoubtedly, the Fourth was always the most dramatic and mysterious: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34).

Christ crucified prays Psalm 22, which appears to be substantially actualized in him: “My God, my God…; “My strength is trickling away, my bones are all disjointed, my heart has turned to wax, melting inside me” (Ps 22: 1, 14); “My mouth is dry as earthenware, my tongue sticks to my jaw”(22:15); “I can count every one of my bones, while they look on and gloat”(22:17); “They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing” (22:18). Jesus on the cross, suffering terribly, feels abandoned by God.

No sugar-coating for this incredible fact: Jesus is abandoned by God the Father! Jesus as the Son of God could not be abandoned by God; but God in the form of man – Jesus the Man – could and was abandoned by God. St. Augustine comments: The Lord Jesus Christ, “made in the likeness of man,” “wished to make his own the words of the psalm, as he hung on the cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’” “So was the son left to die by the Father” (Tertullian). The crucified Lord does not complain of the abandonment of Pilate, of the Jews, of his executioners; nor does he complain of the abandonment of his disciples. He laments deeply the abandonment of the Father: to his Abba Father, Jesus is profoundly united and therefore he is profoundly pained when the Father abandons him. Why? Why was he abandoned by his Father?  He was the victim to redeem us from our sins, bestow grace on us, and thus justify us. As St. Paul tells us, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by being cursed for our sake” (Gal 3:13). Jesus suffered divine abandonment to show the infinite love of God for us: “That Christ died for us while we were still sinners is proof of God’s own love for us” (Rom 5:8).

Jesus accepted “absolute loneliness” to be close to the lonely and abandoned of the world, and thus show us the path of life we ought to follow: “Christ suffered for you and left an example for you to follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21); “You have been bought at a price, so use your body for the glory of God” (1 Cor 6:20; cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh, III, 46, 3). The abandoned Christ on the Cross is with all the abandoned of the world – the poor, migrants, refugees, women, born and unborn children, the elderly (Pope Francis says that “the gravest sickness of the elderly is their abandonment”). Jesus crucified prays silently: “Rescue my soul from the sword, the one life I have from the grasp of the dog” (Ps 22: 20); “For he has not despised nor disregarded the poverty of the poor, has not turned away his face, but has listened to the cry for help” (22:24).

The prophets, Mary and the saints at one time or another felt – like Jesus – abandoned by God. Sooner or later in our own life, we experience the abandonment of others – and of God! And we ask God: Why? Why this misfortune, this cancer, this death of a child in the family, why the current genocides, why this unbelievable plane crash?  Pope Benedict XVI asked these questions at the place of a concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau (May 28, 2006): “Why the Holocaust? Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? A 12-year-old former street child with tears in her eyes asked Pope Francis in Manila last January: Why do children suffer so much? Why does God allow it?

God our Father does not answer us yet. So we continue asking, while making of our question an act of faith and a prayer of trust. By experiencing divine abandonment, or the silent presence of God, Christ is close to us and we are close to him and to the abandoned of the world, of our communities.

We believe that our abandonment on our cross of suffering is for a short time. Isaiah says that God may abandon us for a while but only for a short while: God says, “I forsake you for a moment, but in great compassion I shall take you back. I hid my face from you. But in everlasting love I have taken pity on you.” And then the incredibly moving and consoling words from God to believers, to you and me: “Can a woman forget her baby at the breast; feel no pity for the child she has borne? Even if these were to forget, I shall not forget you” (Is 49:14-15). The cry of the psalmist, the cry of Christ is not a cry of despair – like the cry of Cain and Judas – but a cry of hope, a prayer for God’s mercy: “Rescue my soul from the sword” (22:20); “Save me from the lion’s mouth” (22:21). In our hour of darkness, we believe and know that God, Abba Father, loves us; that the cross is the cross of salvation and hope of the resurrection; that the death of Christ is victory in itself and death that destroys death, and that Good Friday points to Easter Sunday. Indeed, the Crucified Lord is the Risen Lord.

Meditating on Psalm 22, fixing our eyes on the Crucified Lord and listening to his Fourth Last Word on the cross, we never tire of asking God our Father with a painful and hopeful prayer: “Why have you abandoned me?” We do not understand, but we know that Jesus is praying with us, with each one of us: “My God, my God…”

Mother Mary, our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us! Amen

Fr. Fausto Gomez, OP

Cistercian-Trappistine Monastery Chapel

Macau, March 28, 2015

Holy Week: Last Supper (Jn 13:1-15)

Today is a very special day for the Christian Community all over the world. The celebration of the Eucharist is always a memorial of the death and resurrection of Christ, our Savior, but today is, if I may say so, even more.

In the Jewish solemn celebration of the Passover Festival, commemorating their return home from Egypt, where they had undergone a long harsh period of several centuries of slavery, at a given a child, the youngest one of the family, asks aloud: “why is it that tonight is different?” And the father of the family answers the question narrating the epic of Exodus and the liberation by God of the people of Israel from captivity.

This is also the way how Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Passover for many years… But this time it was going to be special, truly special, “different”…

Why is special today? Among other things, because Jesus introduced several events that speak of the newness in this night’s traditional feast, and of his goal to bring salvation to humanity. St John’s gospel spells them out for us and sums them up in two: a) the institution of the Eucharist, memorial of his passion until he comes again, b) the commandment of fraternal love, following his own example. “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (Jn 13, 34).

This is one of the most crucial moments in Jesus’ life. “Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father” (Jn 13, 1).  The time left was short: “My children”, he tells them, “I shall not be with you much longer… And now I give a new commandment: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another”. He leaves them his “Testament of love”, signed by his own blood. And he tells them the signal by which people of all times will recognize that they are his disciples: “If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples” (Jn 13, 34-35).

Then he proceeds to manifest his love for them through two very special, significant gestures that point towards fraternal love:

–The washing of their feet, narrated -in ‘slow motion’- by John, is a “sign”, the prelude of his passion and the key for its understanding: the passion of Jesus is a service of fidelity and love until the extreme.

“Jesus’ action of washing the feet of his disciples was unusual, for his gesture went beyond the required laws of hospitality (washing of hands) to what was, in appearance, a menial task, a task of slaves. Despite the short dialogue established with Peter, the Lord’s action was probably unrelated to matters of ritual purity according to the Law…

At the time of Jesus it was prescribed that the host of a banquet was to provide water (and a basin) so that his guests could wash their hands before sitting down to table. Although a host might also provide water for travelers to wash their own feet before entering the house, the host himself would not wash the feet of his guests. According to the Jewish law and traditions, the washing of feet was forbidden to any Jew except those in slavery”.

The washing of the feet does not show only an act of humility, but the salvific act of Jesus to give life to the world. Washing the feet to his disciples is a way of challenging all forms of despotic authoritarian government, and teaches us a different way of being community, as true brothers in equal conditions of dignity and service.

For the Christian Community the Washing of the feet is: a revelation, not a strange occurrence, but the supreme teaching, love made servant and slave; it is a revolution: God cannot endure that anyone of his children would lord it over the others, or be violent, oppressor, etc. And it is also an example, a challenge for the Church of all times which, out of love for Jesus, must diligently seek the needy and become herself poor with them.

-The other gesture is The Common Table, –not any longer standing,  with a walking stick in their hand, but reclined around the table, as free men/women-  where they shared for the first time the eucharistic meal of Jesus’ body and blood. The mandate of Jesus “do this in memory of me” originates the repetition of the Eucharist, and therefore, the permanent convocation of the church assembly throughout the centuries, made possible thanks to the priestly ministry of the bishops and the priests in continuity with the apostles at de Cenacle.

In the last supper we are witnessing two very different kinds of donations: that of Jesus giving himself fully to his friends in the Eucharist: This bread is my body given to feed you, so that you won’t hunger; this wine is my blood, shed for you to quench your thirst.

To this donation without limits Judas responds with his unspeakable betrayal known by Jesus beforehand: “One of you is going to betray me” (Jn 13, 21). Judas walks out of the Cenacle, lighted for the occasion; from the company of his friends; from the warmth of the Paschal meal, away from Jesus, his Master and friend, who wants him to reconsider what he has planned to do. But Judas got up and went on his way into deep darkness: “it was night”. It was the mystery of iniquity, hard to understand…

-My dear brothers and sisters: There is a Spanish popular saying that reads like this: “amor con amor se paga”: “love is paid with love”. We cannot close this celebration without first thanking our Lord for all he has done for us.

-As one of our brothers has said: “Jesus did not catalogue persons as ‘good’ and ‘evil’, but as ‘those who see, and those who do not”. Let our lives reflect that of Jesus, so that they can be truly enlightening for those who need to see”.

-We should always remember that, as Saint John of the Cross says, “At sunset of life, we shall be examined in love”. Love is our distinctive sign that we are followers of Jesus. And we should equally remember that, at the sunset of life, we shall be judged by Him who died on a cross paying a high ransom for our salvation…

-The great question we can ask ourselves is not so much “will I be saved?” but rather, how should my life be, to be more faithful to God’s love for me?

Give oneself freely, as Jesus, or betray the brother, as Judas, is the dilemma that life constantly presents to us. Our option as Christians cannot be other but that of Jesus in a day such as today: to love the others as Jesus loved us.

José Luis de Miguel, OP

Prior

St. Dominic’s Priory, Macau

 

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