Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Month: April 2010

  • Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord

    Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?”

    That was the question the men in white garments asked the women in today’s Gospel reading.  This is an important question for all of us people of faith on this Easter day.  Because we often seek life among the dead.  Jesus came to change all of that.

    To be honest, it wasn’t even a fair question to ask of those women of faith.  Oh, it’s easy for us to know that Jesus wasn’t in the tomb – we have a couple of thousands of years of Church teaching to lead us to the right conclusions.  But they, and the disciples, had not been given any road maps or instruction sheets.  They didn’t know what was going to happen and when, and they were puzzled.

    All they knew is that Jesus, the one they had been devoted to, had been arrested, put through a farce of a trial, and had been killed in the most horrible, humiliating way possible, a death that was reserved for the most obdurate of criminals.  To say that they were saddened and disappointed and confused and frightened – well those emotions just slightly scratched the surface.  So they come to the tomb – the place where they had seen Jesus last – to prepare his body for burial.  The stone was rolled away from the entrance of the tomb, which was odd, because it had taken several men to seal it up, and when they went in to the tomb, Jesus’ body was not there.  They had to be thinking, “Now what?”

    As they were puzzling over this latest turn of events, things get even stranger.  Two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.  We aren’t told whether these men were angels or prophets or some other kind of heavenly messenger.  All we know is that their appearance terrifies the women.  After all, they were coming to complete the funeral rituals for their friend, and they are instead greeted by strangers with a puzzling message.

    They are asked, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead?”  Again, this is a startling question.  They didn’t think they were seeking a living one, did they?  No, they had just seen their friend crucified and placed in the tomb.  They carefully noted where he was buried, and now they had come to complete his burial.  They had abandoned hope, perhaps, that he was the living one.

    But they are told to remember what Jesus had said to them.  And when they thought about it, things finally started to make some sense.  He had told them that he would have to suffer and die and rise again, and now they can see that that is what must have happened.  So they go to tell the Eleven apostles what they had seen.  But for them, the story seemed like nonsense and they didn’t believe.  Only Peter comes to believe, after he goes to see the empty tomb himself.

    It’s time for them to stop looking for the living one among the dead.  They will come to see him risen and walking among them in the days to come.  And that will reinvigorate their faith and help them come to see – finally – what Jesus has been trying to tell them ever since they met him.  There is only one way to come to new life, only one way to rise up out of the grave, only one way to have sins forgiven, and that is through the mercy of our God in the person of Jesus Christ.  He became one of us, he died the death we deserved to pay the price for our sins, and he has risen from the dead in order that we may have eternal life, forever shattering the power sin and death have over us.

    So we need to stop looking for the living one among the dead too.  We’ll never find real life by burying ourselves in work or careers.  We’ll do nothing but damage our life if we seek to find it in substance abuse.  We’ll never find our life by clinging to past hurts and resentments.  We are only going to find life in one place, or more precisely in one person, namely, Jesus Christ.

    Today, Jesus Christ broke the chains of death, and rose triumphant from the grave.  What good would life have been to us, if Christ had not come as our redeemer? Because of this saving event, we can be assured that our own graves will never be our final resting place, that pain and sorrow and death will be temporary, and that we who believe and follow our risen Lord have hope of life that lasts forever.  Just as Christ’s own time on the cross and in the grave was brief, so our own pain, death, and burial will be as nothing compared to the ages of new life we have yet to receive.  We have hope in these days because Christ who is our hope has overcome the obstacles to our living.  We no longer need to seek the living one among the dead.

    The good news today is that we can find the living one today and every day of our lives, by coming to this sacred place. It is here that we hear the Word proclaimed, here that we partake of the very Body and Blood of our Lord. An occasional experience of this mystery simply will not do – we cannot just partake of it on Easter Sunday. No; we must nurture our faith by encountering our Risen Lord every day, certainly every Sunday, of our lives, by hearing that Word, and receiving his Body and Blood.  Anything less than that is seeking the living one among the dead.

  • Holy Saturday: Blessing of Easter Foods

    Holy Saturday: Blessing of Easter Foods

    Holy Saturday is a rough day for us Catholics, I think.  We started last Sunday with a triumphant procession with palms, only to end with the death of Jesus in the Passion.  On Thursday, we gathered for the joyful celebration of the institution of the Eucharist – an incredible gift from our God – and again, yesterday, we ended the week with the Passion.  It’s been a roller coaster week of death and life, of triumph and disappointment, of joy and sadness.  And today, well, today’s even harder.  We have the memory of the cross fresh in our minds from yesterday.  And we know the joy that’s coming tomorrow.  But for now, all we can do is wait.

    And we’re not so good about waiting, are we?  We live in a culture where we want immediate gratification.  But all we can do today is gaze on the sealed up tomb, symbolized in our church by the empty tabernacle, the extinguished sanctuary lights, and the stripped altar.  We are absolutely yearning for life to burst forth from the tomb and destroy death forever.  And it will, but not yet.

    This reminds me of when I was a kid, and mom would start cooking for Easter.  Days before, she would prepare Easter calzone, a traditional Italian Easter food that her father used to make.  She would bake lamb cakes made of Aunt Mia’s sour cream pound cake recipe, one of my two favorite versions of that cake.  The smells would be incredible, and we longed to nibble on the jellybeans that decorated the lamb cake, or have just a little slice of the calzone.  And we’d get to do that, but not yet.

    Not yet because it’s not Easter yet, and we’re still fasting, still waiting, still hoping, praying and believing.  There would be joy in the morning, but for now, all we could do is wait … even as our hungry tummies growled, as we smelled the wonderful things baking in the kitchen.

    Food gives us powerful memories, especially on feasts like this.  We always remember the things we ate on Easter Sunday, or on Christmas, and yes, even the Irish soda bread on Saint Patrick’s day!  In so many ways, the food we prepare and eat reminds us of who we are, reminds us of those we love, and reminds us of the wonderful mysteries that we celebrate.  It’s important to cook our traditional foods because they are gifts to us from the One who provides food for our stomachs as well as food for our souls.  It’s important that young people learn to make these foods so the tradition doesn’t end, and that they hear the stories of those great traditions so that the grace will live on.

    We gather here today then, to thank our Maker for providing for us once again.  We ask his blessings on the feasts of tomorrow, just as he has blessed us with the whole reason for tomorrow.  We remember the stories of our family traditions, as well as The Story that brings us together on Holy Week and Easter.  The time is almost here.  The fast is almost over.  We eagerly await the Feast and the feasting.

  • Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Today’s readings

    “We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

    for he is our salvation, our life and our resurrection;

    through him we are saved and made free.”

    That is the proper entrance antiphon, also known as the introit, for this Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper. It is taken from Paul’s letter to the Galatians in which he says “May I never boast about anything other than the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which I have been crucified to the world and the world to me.” As you know, the Church considers these three days – the Sacred Triduum – as just one day, one liturgy. When we gather for Mass tonight, and reconvene tomorrow for the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, and finally gather for the great Easter Vigil on Saturday, it’s just one day for the church, one Liturgy in three parts. And the only part of that Liturgy that has an entrance antiphon is tonight’s Mass, so the Church has chosen this text to set the tone for our celebrations for these three nights, and to draw all of them together with the cross holding them all together.

    It’s almost ridiculous for us to glory in the cross.  Few of us could imagine anything more horrible than being arrested by the leaders of one’s religion, put through a farce of a trial, being stripped, humiliated, beaten and dragged through the streets, then being nailed to a cross in order that we might die a horrible, painful death for no apparent reason.  But we know the reason, don’t we?  And that reason is why the Church has us gather on these holy days to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

    We glory in the cross because these days remind us that there is nothing our God won’t do in order to be with us.  It was we who had and have rejected his friendship over and over again.  Our original sin, our personal sin, our societal sin, the sins of all the ages and every people had dug a chasm that prevented us from being close to our God.  The offense was so great and the chasm was so deep that there was absolutely nothing we could do to bridge the gap and find our God.  So God did it for us.  He sent his only Son to be our salvation.  He was born among us in the lowliest of conditions.  He grew up and lived among us, experiencing the many frustrations that we find in our world, knowing our hardship and pain.  And when the appointed hour arrived, he gave up his very own life in that horrible, humiliating, seemingly-pointless death.  That act canceled the power that sin and death had over us, bridged the great chasm, and opened for us the possibility of life that lasts forever.

    We absolutely should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!

    I think what the cross teaches us in these three days, and what this evening’s part of the Liturgy says in particular is summed up in the Latin word, caritas. Caritas is most often translated into English as either “charity” or “love.” And, as in the case of most translations, both are inadequate. When we think about the word “charity,” we usually think of something we do to the poor: we give to the poor, we have pity on the poor, that kind of thing. And “love” can have a whole host of different meanings, depending on the context, and the emotion involved. And that’s not what caritas means at all. I think caritas is best imagined as a love that shows itself in the action of setting oneself aside for the good of others. It’s a love that remembers that everything is not about me, that God gives us opportunities all the time to pour ourselves out on behalf of others, that we were put on this earth to love one another into heaven.

    Two parts of this evening’s Liturgy show us what caritas means. The first is what we call the mandatum: the washing of the feet. Here, Jesus gets up from the meal, puts on a towel and begins to wash the feet of his disciples. Washing the feet of guests was a common act of hospitality in Jesus’ time. In those days, people often had to travel quite a distance to accept an invitation to a feast or celebration. And so the guests’ feet would be washed. This was a gesture of hospitality that was supplied not by the host of the gathering, but instead by someone much lower in stature, usually a servant or slave. But at the Last Supper, it is Jesus himself who wraps a towel around himself, picks up the bowl and pitcher, and washes the feet of his friends.

    We will reenact that Gospel vignette in a few minutes. But I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of this particular ritual. Not because I don’t like washing feet or don’t care to have mine washed. It’s just that I think this particular ritual is better when it is reenacted outside of church. Every day, in every place where Christians are. Let me give you an example.

    In seminary, we used to eat cafeteria style most of the time, much like any institution of higher learning. But several times a year, we would have formal dinners. They would happen on special feast days or to celebrate the giving of ministries or ordinations to the deaconate. On those occasions, our round tables would have white tablecloths, there would be wine at the table, and special food. On one of the chairs of every table, there would be a white apron. The person who got that chair was to put on the apron – much like Jesus wrapped the towel around him – and serve the rest of the people at the table. Now, when I first got to seminary, my objective, I am not proud to tell you, was to get over to the refectory early so that I wouldn’t have to be that person. Lots of us did that at first. But sometime during seminary, and I’m not sure exactly when it happened, my objective changed. I would try to get to the refectory early, not to avoid being the one to serve the rest, but to get that seat at the table so that I could serve the others. Certainly that was the work of the Holy Spirit.

    And I think this kind of caritas can happen everywhere. Maybe you make an effort to get home from work a little sooner to help your spouse get dinner ready or help your children with their homework. Maybe at work you try to get in early so that you can make the first pot of coffee so that people can smell it when they come in to the office. Or maybe after lunch you take a minute or two to wipe out the microwave so it’s not gross the next day. If you’re a young person, perhaps you can try on occasion to do a chore without being asked or even wash the dishes when it’s not your turn to do it. Or if one of your classmates has a lot of stuff to bring to school one day, you can offer to carry some of his or her books to lighten the load.

    This kind of thing costs us. It’s not our job. We’re entitled to be treated well too. It’s inconvenient. I’ve had a hard day at work – or at school. I want to see this show on television. I’m in the middle of reading the paper. But caritas requires something of us – something over and above what we may be prepared to do. But, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, he’s given us an example: as he has done, so we must do. And not just here in church washing each other’s feet, but out there in our world, washing the feet of all those in our lives who need to be loved into heaven.

    The second part of our Liturgy that illustrates caritas is one with which we are so familiar, we may most of the time let it pass us by without giving it a thought. And that, of course, is the Eucharist. This evening we commemorate that night when Jesus, for the very first time, shared bread and wine with his closest friends and offered the meal as his very own body and blood, poured out on behalf of the world, given that we might remember, as often as we do it, what caritas means. This is the meal that we share here tonight, not just as a memory of something that happened in the far distant past, but instead experienced with Jesus and his disciples, and all the church of every time and place, on earth and in heaven, gathered around the same Table of the Lord, nourished by the same body, blood, soul and divinity of our Savior who poured himself out for us in the ultimate act of caritas.

    We who eat this meal have to be willing to be changed by it. Because we too must pour ourselves out for others. We must feed them with our presence and our love and our understanding even when we would rather not. We must help them to know Christ’s presence in their lives by the way that we serve them, in humility, giving of ourselves and asking nothing in return.

    The ultimate act of caritas will unfold tomorrow and Saturday night as we look to the cross and keep vigil for the resurrection. Tonight it will suffice for us to hear the command to go and do likewise, pouring ourselves out for others, laying down our lives for them, washing their feet and becoming Eucharist for them. It may seem difficult to glory in the cross – it may even seem ridiculous to say it. But the Church makes it clear tonight: the cross is our salvation, it is caritas poured out for us, it is caritas poured out on others through us, every time we extend ourselves, lay down our lives, abandon our sense of entitlement and give of ourselves.

    “We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

    for he is our salvation, our life and our resurrection;

    through him we are saved and made free.”