Anniversary & 2 Cs

Catholics and Evangelicals joined together around the common good—specifically, the SARS-CoV-2 and climate change: “both the coronavirus and climate change require people of faith to be united, more compassionate and more charitable.” The online dialogue between Catholic and evangelical leaders in Central Florida also recognized the 5^th anniversary of Laudato Si!.

Catholics and evangelics mark Laudato si anniversary by considering its lessons for a global pandemic.https://t.co/PCtZvr9tMu

— Crux (@Crux) May 14, 2020

Three-Day Drama

During the Triduum each day has its liturgy, and each liturgy is compete. Yet after each liturgy the momentum of the mystery is not resolved. That momentum builds and finds itself complete on Easter.

From its archives Thinking Faith posted Jesuit Peter Knott’s insight on the Triduum. Fr. Knott “de-scribes how the events of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday form a narrative which helps us to make sense of our own lives, particularly our disappointments and failings.“

The pandemic is a steep challenge to making sense of our lives this Holy Week.

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Wiki-image Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Dülmen, St.-Viktor-Kirche, Innenansicht--2018--0596-8” / CC BY-SA 4.0

Good Friday word, 19 Apr 19

Good Friday (19 Apr 2019)

Is 52. 13-53. 12; Ps 31; Hb 4. 14-16,5.7-9;  Jn 18.1-19.42

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J., Holy Week Retreat, Guelph, ON

Disposition Unchanged

Many apply to the Fourth Gospel St Gregory’s image about all scripture: it is like a river…broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to [wade], but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.1 Gregory was keen that scripture offers anyone comfort.2 Those who apply his image to the Fourth Gospel suggest each revisit to it allows one to reacquaint oneself with a self-giving Jesus, a free Jesus or meet Jesus anew and find comfort. Does Jesus’ passion comfort? The number of people who attend only part of its liturgy suggests it does. That during it some locales cease business and others limit activities that might interfere with its solemnity suggest Jesus draws Christians and others of good will.

What may we discover about Jesus, dead and risen, today? Some may answer discovery lay in the Passion of our Lord according to John. I wager people receive more from today’s ancient rituals—its silence, its solemnity, its more generous portion of scripture, its veneration of the cross; its communion. Its homily frees word-weary, information-inebriated, time-tethered people to meet Messiah Jesus in the rituals.

To free us to meet our Messiah I’ll remind us who we know Jesus to be: free; caring; and generously self-giving.

Free: Jesus did not fear death. His silence sang his courage. A cultural historian noted Jesus’ silence signified his Palestinian courage: he “endure[d] physical pain without screeching or crying.… This is exactly how Isaiah describes the Servant of the Lord: ‘he was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.’”³ Our aversion to death—not to mention any limitation—does not help us appreciate Jesus’ courage; this reminder does. Jesus freely died as Messiah; it was his self-proclaimed purpose. I lay down my life in order that I may take it back again.⁴

Jesus was caring. He laid down his life so others may live. We heard that those who came to arrest Jesus were powerless before him: When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they all drew back and fell to the ground. Power did not overshadow his care and concern for his disciples: if you are looking for me, let these men go.” This was to fulfill the word that he had spoken, “I have not lost a single one of those whom you have given me.” The fulfillment is not only verbal; it indicates Jesus is ever in sync with his Abba: their relationship shapes Jesus’ relationship with us.

Relationship with Jesus prompts us to  consider ourselves: 

• From what does Jesus long to release you and me?
• Do we join Jesus desiring us to find ourselves?
• For what does Jesus desire to free us?

Here Jesus was and is at his most generous. Consider today’s image of thirst and the divine choice to slake it. One who reads the Passion as literature recognizes irony in the image; one who reads it as revelation welcomes God’s selfless compassion.

Thirst is primal and urgent; it alerts one to critical need to stay alive or to live well. From the side of Jesus, who said from the cross, I thirst, blood and water flowed out. In his last visit to the temple before his death Jesus had exclaimed, Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink…of living waters! The gospel recognized flowing from parched Jesus was Holy Spirit not mere H2O.⁵ Who would have imagined the Spirit waters the world by the self-giving of Jesus’ life? It is God’s choice, God’s disposition. It was long ago anticipated.

The Book of Exodus recalled the “incident when the people were thirsty; their grumbling is more serious, since…they turn[ed] the tables on God by testing [God]…; the Lord’s generosity [was] even more dramatic.” How dramatic? Moises Silva keenly detected the Eternal One, “who is the Rock, stands on the rock of Horeb, ready to be struck so that the people may have water to drink.”⁶ Ready to be struck for us! The divine disposition has not changed. Jesus embodied it so we could recognize it and embody it, too. Although it may happen during a brief wade, more likely a deep swim in the Good-Friday river reminds us that by his cross Jesus serves us in each present moment for all time⁷ so we may embody his disposition.

We bring our entire selves to stay near Jesus today so each of us may leave more free, more caring and more generously self-giving. What we thirst and choose to do in the name of Jesus praises God in our names and in the name of all creation.⁸

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1. Letter to Leander, Paragraph 4.
2. Julian Spriggs is one of several commentators who cite St. Gregory’s words.
3. John J. Pilch, A Cultural Handbook to the Bible, Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2012), 158.
4. John 10.17.
5. John 7.37-39.
6. Moises Silva, “Approaching the Fourth Gospel,” Criswell Theological Review 3.1 (1988) 17-29, on p. 28. Accessed 2019-11Mar. Silva referred to Exodus 17.2-7.
7. Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], ##1366-1367.
8. CCC, #1361.

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Wiki-images What Our Lord saw from the cross PD-US; by Sandro von Lorsch Maria und Engel mit totem Jesus vor Golgatha, um 1970 CC BY-SA 4.0.

Good Friday word, 30 Mar 18

Good Friday (30 Mar 2018)

Is 52. 13-53. 12; Ps 31; Hb 4. 14-16,5.7-9;  Jn 18.1-19.42

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J., Holy Week Retreat, Guelph, ON

Brought In

Each gathering around the tables of God’s word and God’s son calls us to transport ourselves to ancient Mediterranean culture. The words we hear and use and the meal we share are rooted there. We linger long enough to gather what will help us live as better friends and followers of our Messiah Jesus.

As we linger we note prophets like Isaiah and Jesus spoke with divine authority: The Lord says this! O my people! Hear me! I say to you. They did not only add language God-markers like those. They soaked their hearers in vivid images: images to announce God’s heart and echo God’s desire for people. Their images contrasted God’s heart and the hearts of God’s people as well as sounded hope for life restored. Sometimes the gateway to hope opened onto troubling vistas. An Isaian image troubles us: suffering servant. Is to suffer the way God’s friends prosper?

Yet on our highest holy days we allow Isaiah’s suffering servant to open the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion. This liturgy demands greater courage because Isaiah’s images don’t relent: speechless; parched; faces hid; spurned; stricken; silent; smitten; crushed; afflicted…to death. Who would believe what we have heard? Who would believe what we have heard in the passion or see on a close look at a crucifix or the Pieta? It’s not believing with our heads; it’s knowing with our hearts; a you-are-there experience to help us be touched deep within by the mystery of divine love then leave moved and transformed.

What we heard happened. The events the church celebrates today are not merely reported; they are given us now. Isaiah spoke to his circumstances with his suffering servant oracle. His oracle was not locked in history; later generations used it. Evidence mounts that Jesus used his oracle: one who knows the evidence observed that Christian scriptures developed “[what] Jesus himself set in motion when he drew on [Isaiah] to…explain his mission and ministry, and in particular his coming violent death.”¹ That means we receive a privileged communication from Jesus: privileged because it’s scripture; and present² for us as Jesus lives his self-description to its end. It baffled, angered and frightened his disciples: we’re no different.

Like them Jesus’ humiliating death can move us and transform us; it also blesses us with hope for ourselves and beyond ourselves. That calls again for graced courage—and help. Who might help us be moved? The young woman who kept the door…to the courtyard of the high priest. Consider her as our help. Consider her for she was trustworthy, reliable, confident, kind and perceptive.

She was trustworthy and reliable because she had been given the role of porter. In her world those entrusted with doors and gates played key roles in households. She did not shirk to use her authority: she gave Peter access to the courtyard of the high priest. We too need intimate access to the events of this mystery. Who better to let us in than this reliable, confident young woman?

Each woman in the Fourth Gospel spoke confidently. The young woman at the courtyard gate did not converse with Jesus and for that reason is overlooked. Who can say she had not heard Jesus speak of himself as a porter? I am the gate. Those who enter through me will be saved; they will come in and go out and find nourishment.³ Imagine her listening to his words! Whatever her source of  confidence: she knew who she let in that day because she met Peter’s companion. We are their companions; she will bring us in to the courtyard of this mystery unfolding in a high priest’s house to end high on a cross. She offers a new perspective and will treat us as she treated Peter: kindly.

St. John Chrysostom noted kindness in her words to Peter: “She did not ask Peter, Are you a disciple of that cheat and corrupter, but, of that man.” Jesus had passed through her gate; she perceived things would not bode well for him. Her phrase that man revealed Jesus’ plight stirred her compassion.⁴

Trustworthy, reliable, confident, kind, perceptive: the young woman’s qualities are worth emulating in every circumstance. Surely her silent presence boosted Jesus’ confidence to complete his mission. I suggest we follow her lead as we reverence his cross: entrust the cross to another to bring in the person next to you closer to its mystery; in that moment let yourself enter the gate of Jesus’ paschal life: let it continue to move you. Be confident the young woman stands at the doors of our hearts encouraging us, Be transformed by Jesus’ tree of life!

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1. Ben Witherington, III. Isaiah Old and New, Accordance electronic ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017), 35.
2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1085.
3. John 10.9.
4. Homily on John, 83.2.

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Wiki-image Consummatum est PD; by Canaan Dulce lignum CC BY-SA 3.0

Good Friday word, 14 Apr 17

Good Friday (14 Apr 2017)

Is 52. 13-53. 12; Ps 31; Hb 4. 14-16,5.7-9;  Jn 18.1-19.42

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J., Holy Week Retreat, Guelph, ON

“Lightening Marks”

The Passion According to John makes its point: Jesus’ cross wasn’t only an instrument of his shameful torture and death; his cross was the throne of our King’s glory. The gospel’s conviction is no solution: the notions, shame and glory, collide in our minds; our hearts tremble as we try to hold together dying by public asphyxiation and undying presence with God.

Yet Christians remind one another that Jesus’ dying into God’s undying presence calls us not to ignore any suffering and death and to look through human anguish to life. So this vision can be our ever-new vision, Jesus’ cross is our lens. Can we better appreciate Jesus’ cross? venerate it? carry it? A contemporary writer offered a useful image.

Annie Dillard wrote: American “Indians…used to carve long grooves along the wooden shafts of their arrows. They called the grooves ‘lightning marks,’ because they resembled the curved fissures lightning slices down the trunks of trees. The function of lightning marks is this: if the arrow fails to kill the game, blood from a deep wound will channel along the lightning mark, streak down the arrow shaft, and splatter to the ground, laying a trail dripped on broadleaves, on stones, that the barefoot and trembling archer can follow into whatever deep or rare wilderness it leads.”¹

Her image helps me see with Jesus. We see lightning marks of other kinds surround us. Lives scarred by suffering and death scar us and cut us deeply. Blood is poured out in numerous places near and far. The cries of the poor and oppressed, and our affirmation of them in deed as well as prayer, call beyond anguish and despair.

Calls beyond ourselves received clear voice from the cross and its mystery. Can we not say the cross of Jesus is the lightning mark of God? Might this be what you and I seek? Holding the cross, bearing our crosses we see ourselves anew: we realize each of us is “the barefoot and trembling archer,” who follows the trail through life’s wilderness to find the very heart of God. Jesus’ cross graces us with his divine spirit and pioneering love. His pioneering love dots the trails of our lives; it trains us and forms us as God’s scouts. 

Trained scouts see what others overlook. God’s scouts note each dot, each drop of blood calls, ‘God loves forever.’ By God’s forever-love God reaches into and beyond the grave. God reaches into and beyond each valley of death that veils from sight the attitude of Christ.² God reaches into and beyond every setback that prevents us from putting on the attitude of Christ. God’s forever-love alive in us frees us to be “forgetful of self in…generous and ready service of all the abandoned.”³ 

Jesus’ attitude frees us to forget self more consistently. His attitude makes no human sense when we forget he nurtured intimate relationship with God: Jesus lived faithful to God’s heart. Jesus invites and graces us to do likewise. Jesus freely continues giving his attitude to all who desire to receive it.

Ask Jesus to help you stay near him and his cross. As you hold it ask Jesus to help you see the cross as the “lightening mark” of God’s pioneering love. For God’s pioneering love Jesus daily chooses us as his trained scouts for the life of our world.

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1. “Heaven and Earth in Jest,” Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Olive Editions (HarperCollins), 2016 (1974), pp. 14-15.
2. Philippians 2.5: the Greek word often translated as mind connotes feeling and emotion in addition to intellectual activity; therefore attitude translates the Greek word well.
3. Society of Jesus, General Congregation 32, Decree 12.4 (Poverty), [260]

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Wiki-image Jesus alone on the cross PD-US

Three Cues for Three Days

Christians stand at the threshold of their holiest days: the Sacred Triduum. At Thinking Faith Sr. Anouska Robinson-Biggin offered an Ignatian way to enter the Three Days. She suggested three verbs can guide the way.

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Wiki-image by Loïc LLH CC BY-SA 3.0

No Interlude

Holy Saturday challenges everything. It is no mere in-between. Today is a mystery as much as Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Jesuit James Hanvey guides us through its “emptiness of waiting.” Only Jesus can “carry us over into Easter morning.”

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Wiki-mage by Olybrius of Saint-Girons CC BY-SA 3.0

Seven Last Words

Often the last words of one who dies are imbued with meaning to those who survive the deceased. The gospels offer Jesus’ dying words, and the Christian community has treasured them. Seven people, from different denominations, consider them in this U.S. Catholic post.

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Wiki-image by Hajotthu at the German language Wikipedia of Hermannsburg crucifix used according to CC BY-SA 3.0.

Triduum Begins

Gabe Huck considers how to enter it.

What gets us in? The gathered church does something this night it doesn’t do all the rest of the year. Perhaps that tells us: Pay attention. Here is the way we enter. We’re going into our three holiest days by taking off shoes and stockings and using soap and water and towels.

His reflection is part of Holy Week resources at U.S. Catholic.

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Wiki-image of  Lorenzetti’s washing of the feet is in the public domain.