First Reading Commentary
Certainly Isaiah and all the true prophets of
God had well-trained tongues because they were taught by their Creator. Later, their Teacher would clothe Himself in
flesh and become Man to speak the infallible words of everlasting life.
Prayer in the morning is vital so that we can
put on the armor of Christ before we venture off to another day on the
battlefield. Through prayer, ears are
opened and prepared to hear the Voice of the Master. A life without prayer is a life that rebels;
a life that turns back. Pious souls,
however, are not exempt from stumbling.
Sin leads to humbling experiences for the devout Christian. It shows us that we're not always a top-notch
player for the team. Sometimes we are in
dire need of other team players to stop us from turning back. This is the work of the various body parts
going to bat for the sake of the entire mystical body.
Our enemy is a tempter and knows exactly what
can take our focus away from God. Our
shame, failures and disappointments, however, can be visualized on a willing
Victim in the form of a scourged Back, a Face of spittle, a Head wearing a
crown of thorns, Feet and Hands with nails driven through them, and finally
death. And yet "finally" is a
bad word choice because, fortunately for our undeserving souls, death is not
where it ends – actually, it doesn’t end at all.
The final verse expresses the suffering
Servant's inalterable confidence in God.
That confidence is something that every disciple of Christ strives
for.
Saint Paul teaches us about our different
callings and the gifts we possess as individuals (cf. Ephesians 4:11). Having
a "well-trained tongue" does not necessarily mean the tongue as a
physical body part. Certainly for
liturgical readers and homilists it could mean the physical tongue; but as Saint
Francis of Assisi said to use words if necessary, then certainly tongues can be
metaphoric and points to the old adage: Actions speak louder than words. And for many of us our gifts of service are
displayed by our actions and not necessarily our words. Gifts used in service help to build up the
body of Christ.
Second Reading Commentary
The Catechism of the Catholic Church asserts
that by attributing to Jesus the divine title "Lord", the first
confessions of the Church's faith affirm from the beginning that the power,
honor, and glory due to God the Father are due also to Jesus, because He was in
the form of God, and the Father manifested the sovereignty of Jesus by raising
Him from the dead and exalting Him into His glory (cf. CCC 449).
Our hearts would implode if we fully understood
the love that compels Christ's actions described here in this letter from Saint
Paul. First, consider God as the
Creator. Look all around and see His
created beauty. At night, look at the
sky and know that out there is an infinite universe full of countless stars,
galaxies and planets. And yet, the
Creator of all that is known and unknown joined the ranks of humanity, mere
specs of dust in this vast universe, subjecting Himself to our lower nature and
becoming a willing Victim for that fallen nature because He loves us far beyond
any love that any human being is capable of expressing. His Sacrifice for us because of His love for
us is summarized here in this Reading; but also contemplate how close our
Savior must surely keep us to His own Sacred Heart by reflecting on the fallen
angels. They are often referred to as
demons. Their arrogant ambition to be
gods rendered them fallen from grace with an eternity to think about their actions. In other words, God never became one of them
to redeem them. Unfortunately, our lack
of comprehension of God's love for us will for this lifespan make us fall short
in expressing our gratitude to God for saving us. What we can do is strive to follow the
example Jesus gives us in the Gospels and remain in a state of grace to partake
of His precious Body and Blood which He commands us to do in memory of
Him. And like the example of Jesus
depicted in this Reading, follow the exhortations of Saint Paul by placing the
interests of others before our own (cf.
Philippians 2:3-4).
Gospel Commentary
If approaching this Gospel strictly from a human
perspective, then the events of this story are very disturbing. The man looking in the mirror will see the
reflection of the atrocities he is capable of.
But not as man sees does God see (cf.
1 Samuel 16:7). The horrific things
man is capable of were an overwhelmingly incomprehensible spiritual weight
added to the physical weight of the Cross carried by Jesus. The suffering that man receives, the burdens he
inflicts, were placed on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. The wandering sheep were carried by the
Shepherd.
As we begin, spikenard was poured on the Head of
Jesus. Spikenard is a perfume extracted
from a plant known as nard. It was most often used as it is used in this
Gospel: it was poured on the head of honorable guests. Interiorly, how do we make preparations to
receive the Paschal Lamb? The spikenard
poured on the Head by the woman is an intense personal encounter with Jesus
Christ. Notice the contrast: the woman
who desires this encounter, versus the objections of others, a vivid depiction
of our own desire to be close to Jesus, but being weakened by the war
within. Our Lord’s handling of this with
the words: “Let her alone” demonstrates Jesus’ dominion over all obstacles when
a soul has completely surrendered to Him, our Savior’s desire for us to be
intimately close to Him. This is prayer,
this is how we prepare to eat the Paschal Lamb; this is how we furnish and make
ready our upper room, that is, our soul.
There are a couple of things we can reflect on
in the betrayal of Judas: First it is our own betrayal, our own sinfulness; and
we can extend that to the liturgy when we receive Holy Communion but are not in
a state of grace. Secondly, Judas is
among the ordained priesthood; therefore, we must ask ourselves why Jesus, who
knows the hearts of all, would call Judas to the priesthood. Everything that God calls us to is subject to
our fallen nature. Thus Jesus may have
presented Judas to us to show us that not every priest would be faithful. But Judas is only one of Twelve, and while
our secular media would like to escalate the Church’s scandals, the truth is it
is a minority; the majority of our ordained are very faithful.
The words, “Surely it is not I?” delineates
man’s desire to avoid an examination of conscience which has helped lead our
culture to a New Age notion that there is no such thing as sin; or moral
relativity which suggests that truth is not absolute, that what is true for one
may not be true for another -- we get to be our own god, our own pope. Jesus proclaimed Himself as the Truth;
therefore truth is absolute.
Next comes that moment we hear at every Mass:
“This is My Body” – “This is My Blood.” What
do these words mean? They are perhaps
the most mysterious words in the universe, not necessarily by definition but
more so by how it is possible. Officially,
these words define the Eucharist, one of the seven Sacraments of the Church and
perhaps the most crucial Sacrament to Christocentric living. The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers
to the Eucharist as the "Sacrament of sacraments" (cf. CCC
1211). Jeremiah prophesied about a
new covenant: "Behold the days shall come, says the Lord, and I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah" (Jeremiah 31:31). The Eucharist frees us from bondage because
the Eucharist is the Bondsman. Saint
Ignatius of Antioch, a contemporary of some of the apostles, defined the
Eucharist as the medicine of immortality, the antidote against death, by which
we always live in Christ.
In the encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia" Saint John Paul II wrote the
following words about the Eucharist: "It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. The Son of God became Man in order to restore
all creation, in one supreme act of praise, to the One Who made it from nothing. He, the Eternal High Priest Who by the Blood
of His Cross entered the eternal sanctuary, thus gives back to the Creator and
Father, all creation redeemed. He does
so through the priestly ministry of the Church, to the glory of the Most Holy
Trinity. Truly this is the mysterium fidei [mystery of faith] which
is accomplished in the Eucharist: the world which came forth from the Hands of
God the Creator, now returns to Him redeemed by Christ. The Eucharist, as Christ's saving Presence in
the community of the faithful and its spiritual Food, is the most precious
possession which the Church can have in her journey through history."
The Church celebrates the mystery of her Lord
until He comes when God will be everything to everyone. The liturgy thus shares in Jesus’ desire: ‘I
have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you’ until it is fulfilled in
the Kingdom of God (cf. CCC 1130). Jesus is following the
Jewish custom of the Passover whereby the father or leader at the table pours
wine into a glass or cup, blesses the wine and passes it around the table for
the family and guests. Jesus said: “I shall not drink again the fruit of
the vine until the day when I drink it new in the Kingdom of God”; whenever the Church
celebrates the Eucharist she remembers this promise and turns her gaze to Him
Who is to come (cf. CCC 1403).
Sadly, not everyone believes what we Catholics
believe about the Eucharist. For
scholarly unbelievers, the one verse in scripture that is usually avoided like
the plague is found in Saint John's Gospel when Jesus says: "My Flesh is
real Food and My Blood is real Drink" (John
6:55). The word "real" is
translated from the Greek word "alethos"
which means, "truly" or "in reality" or "most
certainly" or "literally".
There's just no convincing means to explain away, water down, or bend
and twist "alethos" to make
our Lord's Body and Blood appear to have a symbolic application. The Council of Trent stated: “Because Christ
our Redeemer said that it was truly His Body that He was offering under the
species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church that by the
consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole
substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Christ our Lord and of
the whole substance of wine into the substance of His Blood. This change the
holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called
‘transubstantiation’.”
The Eucharist that Jesus institutes at this
moment is the memorial of His Sacrifice which will very shortly occur. Jesus includes the apostles in His own
offering and with the words we hear in the liturgy, “do this in memory of Me”
instructs them to continue this as a perpetual memorial thus instituting them
as priests of the New and Everlasting Covenant.
Saint Cyril strengthens our faith in the Eucharist with these words: “Do
not doubt whether this is true, but rather receive the words of the Savior in
faith, for since He is the Truth, He cannot lie.”
When Jesus went to a place called Gethsemane, He
prayed to His heavenly Father and concluded His prayer with the words: "Not
what I will, but what You will." As
Christians, surely we all want to follow Christ's example and pray these very
same words, but these words can be frightening.
There's something inside of us that needs to call our own shots. Trusting God above ourselves is very
difficult.
Oddly enough, the saints may very well have
something to do with that feeling of uneasiness. Undoubtedly we honor them and applaud them
for their holy example; but even if you've never read the life of any saint,
you're still likely to be familiar with the "high profile"
saints. A common thread which seems to
run through the lives of a great deal of the saints are the sufferings they've
endured. There's Sait Pio of Pietrelcina
and the stigmata he bore for fifty years; there's Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and
her holy acceptance of tuberculosis; and then there's the legends of the bible
like Saint Paul and the sufferings which he never seemed to be without. And, of course Moses, who made this plea to
God, as translated from Hebrew: "I am not able to bear all these people
alone because it is too burdensome for me.
And if You deal thus with me, kill me, I pray You, out of hand, if I
have found favor in Your Eyes; and let me not see my evil" (Numbers 11:14-15). Perhaps the inability of Moses "to bear
all these people alone" points towards the Messiah Who would alone bear
the burdens of everyone.
There's a fear factor in letting go and letting
God take over. In fact, it was Saint
Teresa of Avila who said, "Dear Lord, if this is how You treat Your
friends, it is no wonder You have so few!"
While suffering uniquely and very intimately
unites us to Christ, in many cases, and understandably so, suffering actually
flickers the flames of faith. When
suffering arrives, hear the Voice of Christ: “All of you will have your faith shaken.” While that might not be the most comforting
words to ever come from our Savior, they do teach us that He is with us and
thus we're never alone. The psalmist
writes: "Where can I go, then, to take refuge from Your Spirit, to hide
from Your view? If I should climb up to
heaven, You are there; if I sink down to the world beneath, You are present
still. If I could wing my way eastwards,
or find a dwelling beyond the western sea, still would I find You beckoning to
me, Your right Hand upholding me" (Psalm
[138] 139:7-10).
Jesus said to Peter, James and John: “Remain
here and keep watch.” The Catechism of
the Catholic Church reads: “In Jesus the Kingdom of God is at hand. He calls His hearers to conversion and faith,
but also to watchfulness. In prayer the
disciple keeps watch, attentive to Him Who Is and Him Who Comes, in memory of
His first coming in the lowliness of the flesh, and in the hope of His second
coming in glory. In communion with their
Master, the disciples’ prayer is a battle; only by keeping watch in prayer can
one avoid falling into temptation” (CCC 2612).
It is not possible to fully understand the
interior life of Jesus. Taking into
consideration the assumed complexities of this dual-natured God-Man, even with
all the covenants and prophecies foretold throughout salvation history leading
up to this moment of agony, one would have to wonder if the redemption of
humankind was somehow hanging in the balance in the Garden of Gethsemane. With the exception of committing sin, God
fully embraced our way of life when He clothed Himself in flesh. It’s a certainty that fear and apprehension
is very much a part of our existence.
Since Divine Providence has not fully revealed it nor has anyone else
ever possessed both a divine and human nature, it’s impossible to know for sure
what was going on in Jesus’ Heart when He said, “Take this cup away from Me.” It’s also interesting that in this scene of
Jesus’ agony some of the ancient transcribers of the earlier texts purposely
left out the portion of the text which tells of an angel appearing to Jesus to
strengthen Him as well as the part about His Sweat becoming like drops of Blood
falling to the ground. They left it out
because they felt it was not consistent with the dignity of Jesus.
Our mixed bag of being human contains life
experiences of both Jesus and Judas. We
have been betrayed -- we have betrayed.
Pride, however, is that one unpredictable ingredient which wreaks
havoc. Pride makes it equally difficult
to forgive and to ask for forgiveness.
As our Lord's captors led Him away, Peter
followed at a distance. In the spiritual
life there are several ways to follow Jesus at a distance. Perhaps the most common example is to go to
Mass every Sunday, then leave the Lord alone all week and not give Him another
thought until the following Sunday. But
a way that is more closely related to Peter's distance is when Mass is attended
weekly or even daily, there's a daily devotional life as well; but when that
faith is challenged, and suddenly there's a risk of mockery or friendships are
jeopardized, one backs off a little from being a living witness and defending
the faith just to avoid being the talk of the town, so to speak. One may still attend Mass and continue with
the daily prayers but have abandoned the evangelistic example and thus faith
becomes a very private matter. This also
is very much likened to Peter's denial of Jesus. Peter knew Who Jesus was and had faith in his
Teacher but when he felt threatened by others because of his relationship with
his Lord, he was suddenly out of his comfort zone and wanted quickly to avoid
what could be a tense situation.
During the initial interrogation Jesus tells the
high priest that he will see the Son of man seated at the right Hand of the
Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.
In the Book of Daniel are the prophetic words: "I beheld therefore
in the vision of the night, and lo, one like the son of man came with the
clouds of heaven" (Daniel 7:13).
As many gave false witness of Jesus, can you see
your opponent prowling around like a roaring lion (cf. 1 Peter 5:8)? Can you
see the devil offering those mysterious whispers of evil, suggesting thoughts
of temptation -- that shouts of falsehood should overpower truth?
When Jesus was questioned by Pontius Pilate and
accused by the chief priests, much to Pilate's amazement, our Lord remained
silent. Silence is such a tremendous
gift but is a foreign notion in today's world.
Silence speaks a trust in God louder than any words. A Carthusian monk, Augustin Guillerand
(1877-1945) wrote: "There are times when we do not need any words of
prayer, neither our own nor anyone else's, and then we pray in perfect
silence. This perfect silence is the
ideal prayer."
Barabbas is released from prison and is granted
his freedom. To fulfill the will of the
Father, Jesus came to take our place and we see evidence of this here with
Jesus taking the place of Barabbas, a murderer and therefore the most hardened
of sinners.
As this Gospel tells us, Simon a Cyrenian was
pressed into service to carry the Cross of Jesus. He was a “passer-by” which
says something about not only a reluctance to carry our own Cross, but as a
passer-by pressed into carrying the cross of another, draws even stronger
emotions of avoidance. Our Lord, however,
does not ask us to seek out a cross in which to bear, but only to accept it
with faith and trust in Him when it comes.
When Jesus is crucified and His garments
divided, there is the fulfillment of what is written in the Psalms: "They
parted My garments amongst them; and upon My vesture they cast lots" (Psalm [21] 22:19). On the Cross was placed the written charge
against our Savior: “The King of the Jews". A better English translation
is: "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews". The Latin words are: "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudæorum" which explains the
"INRI" inscription found on most Crucifixes.
Jesus being reviled is something we have to
humbly accept as representing ourselves.
As we kneel in the shadow of the Cross during the words of consecration
in the most unfathomable, holy event to ever occur in human history, our human
weakness has seeds of doubt planted within and thus questions whether we are
really at Calvary, or that the Real Presence is true. We really can’t dwell on these doubts because
they are a product of concupiscence.
What we can do is believe Jesus at His word.
This Gospel informs us that Jesus was crucified
between two revolutionaries. Isaiah
prophesied about a servant who would be counted among the wicked (cf. Isaiah 53:12). Jesus cried out in a loud Voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?"
which is translated, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" These are the opening words to Psalm [21]
22. Most likely Jesus finished the
remainder of the psalm in the silence of His Heart.
Those who were Christ's followers must have been
amazed to hear that even He could bellow out such words. Most scholars believe that these words are
our Savior's way of placing His Human Nature into our human circumstances and
showing us that He understands our occasional feelings of abandonment. Nevertheless while He is hanging from that
Cross, He also shows us that He is willing to be with us even through the most
hellish experiences. There are some,
however, who have theorized that during this torturous crucifixion, Christ's
Human Nature blocked out His Divine Nature and He actually felt abandoned by
His heavenly Father. Once again, one can
only speculate on the mystery of the interior life of a Divine Person Who
possesses both a Divine and Human Nature.
This reflection would be incomplete if it didn’t
share something about the Blessed Virgin Mary.
At Mass when the priest elevates
the Host and elevates the Cup and our eyes move upward to behold our
Eucharistic Lord as we're kneeling in the shadow of the Cross, this brief
glimpse into eternity allows us to look at Him from the same vantage point as His
Blessed Mother saw Him when He said to her: "Behold your Son" (John 19:26). What a marvelous opportunity to contemplate
Jesus Christ through the eyes of the Blessed Virgin Mary, asking her to reveal
that which Scripture says she keeps in her heart (cf. Luke 2:19 & Luke 2:51).
“Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed His last.” During
Mass at the proclamation of this Gospel we will kneel and pause in a moment of
silence after these words have been proclaimed.
Take this period of silence and prayerfully enter into the silence of
Jesus.
The veil of the sanctuary being torn in two from
top to bottom signifies God's call to end all sacrifices according to the law
of Moses because our heavenly Father has accepted Christ's One and Eternal
Sacrifice for the redemption of humanity.
Logically it would have been somewhere around
four o'clock when Joseph of Arimathea approached Pilate for the Body of
Jesus. By Jewish law Jesus would have to
be placed in the tomb before sundown which begins the preparation for the
Sabbath.
In the eyes of the chief priests and Pharisees,
Christ's claim to be the Messiah makes Him an impostor. His Crucifixion, however, effectively
supports our Savior's claim and fulfills what has been foretold by the prophets.
The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is a love
story, the love that God has for His people.
Our Lord's Passion is the most loving, charitable act in human
history. And now it's our turn to follow
in His Footsteps and love Him by our selfless acts of charity towards one
another. The hymn, "Where Charity
and Love Prevail" says it well with these lyrics: "With grateful joy
and holy fear God's charity we learn; let us with heart and mind and soul, now
love God in return. Forgive we now each
other's faults, as we our faults confess; and let us love each other well in
Christian holiness."
How sad and abandoned the followers of Jesus
must have felt when these events occurred in a moment of time. We, however, who get a glimpse into eternity
at Mass have the luxury of knowing that it doesn’t end here. We have also been given an incredible gift
because of these events, namely the Eucharist.
The Catechism reminds us that in the Eucharist Christ gives us the very
Body which He gave up for us on the Cross and the very Blood which He poured
out for many for the forgiveness of sins
(cf: CCC 1365). The Mass re-presents the Sacrifice on the Cross. Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, perhaps more
affectionately known as Padre Pio, once said: “It would be easier for the earth
to carry on without the sun than without the Holy Mass.”
