Do you ever look forward to your favorite Scripture story, waiting for it to be read in church? Well, I do. I anticipate my favorite Gospel story on Wednesday in Easter Week. Remember the story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? Every year I sympathize with Cleopas’s dejection over Jesus’ crucifixion and wonder how Cleopas and companion couldn’t recognize the Stranger. Since I’m a teacher at heart, I love to listen to Jesus teaching the history of the Chosen People from the time of Moses to the time of “the Christ [who] should suffer these things and enter into his glory.” The two wouldn’t let Jesus go. They pleaded with him to stay, and then it happened. Their eyes were opened at the breaking of the bread. Then the two had their own story to tell the Eleven who already knew the Lord had been raised. I imagine a whole lot of disciples shouting and clapping and doing happy dances. My heart burns within me at that Scripture passage. When you read or listen to the Scriptures, when do you say “Were not our hearts burning within us when he. . .opened the Scriptures to us?”
Throughout our Sisters of Notre Dame history, our Superior Generals have composed letters at Christmas, Easter, and other times. These letters offer their own spiritual insights, remind us of our founding sisters Sister Maria Aloysia and Sister Maria Ignatia, our spiritual mother Saint Julie Billiart, and keep the Congregation abreast of developments, such as missionary activity. This Easter’s letter from Sister Mary Ann Culpert spoke of “imaginative hope.” More than a beautiful theme, the letter enumerated examples from history and the present that “imaginative hope” was God’s way to move the congregation forward by implementing God’s dreams. From 1850 to the present Sisters have looked for new ministries in hope to make God more known and loved. “Imaginative hope” was the impetus, the Holy Spirit’s urge, to realize God’s dream in Germany, Brazil, Indonesia, East Africa, USA, and many other parts of the world. The imaginative hope took root in education, hospitals, social work, missionary activity, prison ministry, parish leadership, and much more. The letter ended with the invitation to consider other ways God is inviting us to move forward. The invitation is extended also to our Associates. And, since you’re reading this, to you, too.
Some call today April Fool’s Day. A “holiday” to fool others seems nonsensical to me. Yet this week’s Scripture readings have several accounts of people being fooled at the first Easter. The disciples witnessed the death of Jesus and feared their own deaths by association with Jesus. Joseph of Arimathea assumed he would never be buried in his own new tomb, but eventually he probably lay on the same stone slab as Jesus did. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus were fooled by the Stranger who pretended not to know anything about what had happened the past few days in Jerusalem concerning the one they had hoped would redeem Israel. Judas was foolish enough to feel there was no hope for him, that his Master would never forgive him. Peter’s denial was foolish, but he wasn’t fooled by the Fisherman who asked the band of disciples to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. Mary Magdalene was not foolish enough to think a woman had no place in announcing the resurrection. She was the first to see the Risen Lord and give the Good News to the incredulous apostles.
On this night of vigil we participate in the interplay of past, present, and future. The new Christ candle is lit to praise the Christ of yesterday, today, and forever. Listening to the story of Jewish Passover we glorify the Lord who passed over from death to life. Like Exodus people ourselves, we go through the water, leaving behind sin and selfishness in the baptismal font and Easter’s rite of sprinkling. Once God’s people were led by a pillar of fire by night. Now on this night we are led by Christ-light. Lumen Christi!
Crucified Savior, our world is fragmented by discord and division. Even in our small personal worlds we feel the violence, the shattering of trust, the brokenness of relationships, the scars of fear. Through your surrender on Calvary—“Into your hands I commend my spirit”—may we surrender ourselves to your healing. Reconcile our world, love us in our brokenness, make us whole—One Body in you.”
Tonight we participate in the beginning of the one liturgy that comprises the ritualization of the dying and rising of Jesus Christ. The three liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil are three but one, distinct but the same. All three make tangibly present the death and resurrection of Jesus. In each we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ and we ourselves became the Body of Christ. The reality is present at every Mass throughout the year and in every place, but it somehow seems that this night is the most special, the most precious. For me it’s the “extras,” the sung “Glory to God” absent for weeks, washing of feet, the annual hymns like “Pange Lingua,” the once-a-year solemnity, the altar of repose, the color and pageantry that conclude with stripping the altar and the feeling of emptiness and longing.
“Ah, Gethsemani, my favorite garden, my place of prayer. A garden that my disciples have also grown to love as a place to rest, to pray, to decide. This will be the last time I come. I will soon know the crush of the olive press. I will miss your fragrance, your gnarled trunks, your rocks. In my great need, let me agonize upon my favorite rock. Support me as I pray: “Abba! If it is possible, let this cup pass me by. But not as I will. Let your will be mine.”
“Go quickly, Judas. I have dipped the food and offered it to you—just a morsel. You didn’t understand that I was about to give you a meal, a banquet of my Body. Perhaps my Father will bring you to the heavenly banquet. If that is my Father’s will, know that I want you to be with me in paradise. Go quickly, Judas. Shalom.”
Perhaps we’ve all experienced huge misunderstandings. Maybe we’ve been accused of acts we never performed. Or our life has taken a sharp turn in a direction we would never have chosen to go.
We in our darkness, fettered by forces beyond our control, have lost the gift of choice. Incapable of following our own will, we take the shape of wherever we are—even in battered, chipped vessels of clay—forced to take the confining shape of suffering, of acceptance, of twisted thorns. No other way. We must accept—as disciples of Jesus in Agony.
“Please, God, do not chip off a piece of this clay. But give me the grace to view it as that elegant vase until I have suffered enough to know that this vessel is the monstrance.”
Compassion might be called the fullness of divine and human perfection. Whatever God does, God does with compassion founded upon humility. That’s the way God works. How do we know? We see compassion in Jesus. As you read the Passion Narrative of Mark on Palm Sunday or that of John on Good Friday, pay attention to God’s compassion. Jesus doesn’t embarrass Judas who exits the Last Supper. Jesus lets the sleeping apostles in Gethsemane rest. Jesus forgives the denial of Peter, the treachery of Judas, the abandonment of his apostles. He replaces the severed ear of the soldier. Jesus takes care of his mother from the cross. And always with humility, accepting the persons, accepting the situations, accepting the cross.
Be humble enough to clear your calendar to make room for the Holy Week services. If you cannot attend, read the Passion Narratives. Take time to learn by heart the sentences that make your heart skip a beat.