Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: service

  • Saturday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time: Day of Service

    Saturday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time: Day of Service

    Today’s readings

    Our Gospel today warns us of coming persecutions.  At some point, we will all be dragged before synagogues and rulers and authorities of some sort, and we will have to give an account of what we believe.  Now for us, it’s not going to be so literal, obviously.  But we may have to give an account of why we believe in Christ or why we follow a religion that inconveniently speaks out against threats to life and family.  We may have to tell others why it is that we would give up some of the first non-rainy day in the last few to sort food for the food pantry or dig a trench outside the church or clean the pews.

    Living our faith is always going to cost us something and that something is likely to be status or popularity, or at least the wondering glance from people who aren’t ready to accept the faith.  But the volumes that we speak by living our faith anyway might just lay the groundwork for conversion and become a conduit of grace.  We are told that we don’t have to hammer out all the words we want to say; that the Holy Spirit will give us eloquence that we can only dream of.  And it’s true, if we trust God, if we live our faith when it’s popular or unpopular, we will have the Spirit and the words.  God only knows what can be accomplished in those grace-filled moments!

  • The Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]

    The Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]

    Today’s Readings

    So the problem is, nobody ever becomes rich and famous by being righteous.  How many people even care about the idea of being righteous?  The world is so often full of jealousy and selfish ambition.  Indeed, we commend people who make amazing business deals (for themselves, anyway), who get ahead (regardless of the cost), who get rich quick (even if it means stepping on people all along the way).  These people are strong, self-assured, ambitious, and clever.  Sometimes they are even entertaining.  But would we ever call them righteous?  Maybe sometimes, but not very often, I think.

    So our idea of who is a person worthy of our admiration needs to change a bit, I think.  Jesus puts it very plainly in today’s Gospel: “If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”  That, after all, was the way that he lived his life, and the way that he expected his disciples to live as well.  This is the Jesus who said goodbye to his disciples by feeding them with his own body and blood and washing their feet.  He is the one who cured the sick and preached the word no matter what day it was, Sabbath or not.

    Saint James in the second reading urges us all to be truly wise, not covetous and envious and full of hate.  He urges us toward the wisdom of the righteous one, the one who has the wisdom from above, who is “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.”

    The problem is, though, that the righteous one doesn’t always live a stress-free life.  Nice guys, as the proverb goes, tend to finish last.  And so, as our first reading tells us, the just one is often seen as an obnoxious irritant to those who do not see with wisdom from above.  And so they set out to knock the just one down a peg or two: “With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test,” they say, “that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience.”

    Jesus knows that just this kind of treatment is in store for him, and he discusses it with the Twelve as they walk along, out of the way of the crowds, so that he might better teach them what is to come. “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”  But the Twelve, as usual, miss the point.  And rather than ask the Teacher what he means, instead they engage in a frivolous argument about who among them is the greatest.

    Jesus corrects them, and says that the way a person becomes first among us is that he or she gives everything, empties himself, becomes the last of all and the servant of all.  This is a spiritual principle called kenosis or “self-emptying” that calls the Christian disciple to go deep into himself or herself and to give up all of the back-biting, ambitious attitudes that come so naturally to us fallen people, and instead give everything they have and are for others.  This is righteousness, and it comes at a great cost.  This is our calling as followers of the Lord.

    We have to realize that our salvation will only come about by pouring out our lives for our brothers and sisters.  We may think we can become number one by looking out for number one only.  We may think we can get ahead by tending to our own interests first and foremost.  But Jesus tells us today that quite the opposite is true.  To become number one, to really get ahead, we must serve all of our brothers and sisters.  We must lay down our lives in every way possible and raise up others whenever we see them down.  Getting this right, becoming truly righteous, will involve us tending to the needs of others first and foremost, knowing that God will take care of the just one.

  • The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)

    The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel reading speaks of Jesus, the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep, and whose sheep know him.  However, I have two problems with that.  First, who wants to be compared to sheep?  Sheep are not the brightest of animals, and they must remain in their flock to defend themselves against even the most innocuous of predators.  Second, how are the sheep, if that is how we are to be called, to hear the shepherd in this day and age?  There are so many things that vie for our attention, that it would be easy to miss the call of the shepherd altogether.

    So let’s look at these issues.  First, many who raise and nurture sheep would perhaps disagree with my assessment that they aren’t very bright.  I have been told that sheep do have the innate ability to hear their master’s voice, and that they also innately wish to remain part of the flock.  So we can see that sheep seem to know what it takes to survive.  And maybe we don’t know that as well as we should.  How often do we place a priority on being within earshot of our Master?  How willing are we to remain part of the community in good times and in bad?  Yet Jesus makes it clear today that this is the only way we can survive spiritually, the only way we can come at last to eternal life.

    So what will it take to overcome my second objection?  What will it take for us sheep to hear our Master’s voice?  We who are so nervous about any kind of silence that we cannot enter a room without the television on as at least background noise.  We who cannot go anywhere without our cell phones and/or iPods implanted firmly in our ears?  We who cannot bear to enter into prayer without speaking all kinds of words and telling God how we want to live our lives?  If even our prayer and worship are cluttered with all kinds of noise, how are we to hear the voice of our Shepherd who longs to gather us in and lead us to salvation?

    The “elephant in the room” question, though, is this: how are we to hear the Shepherd’s voice if there are no shepherds to make it known?  Today is the world day of prayer for vocations.  And I want to talk about all vocations today, but in a special way, I want to talk about vocations to the priesthood, religious life and the permanent diaconate.  Because it is these vocations, and especially the priesthood, that are called upon to be the voice of Christ in today’s world.  This is a special, and difficult challenge, and I know there are young people in this community that are being called to it.  We hear in today’s Liturgy of the Word that this task is not always easy because it is not universally accepted, as Peter and the other disciples were quickly finding out.  But it is a task that brings multitudes of every nation, race, people and tongue to the great heavenly worship that is what they have been created for.  People today need to hear the voice of the Shepherd, but who will the voice of Jesus when I retire?  Who will be that voice when there aren’t enough priests in our diocese for every church to have one?  Who will preach the Word of God when Deacon Frank, Deacon Alex, Deacon Al and Deacon Dave retire?

    We know that every person has a vocation.  Every person is called on by God to do something specific with their life that will bring not only them, but also others around them, to salvation.  Parents help to bring their children to salvation by raising them in the faith.  Teachers help bring students to salvation by educating them and helping them to develop their God-given talents.  Business people bring others to salvation by living lives of integrity and witness to their faith by conducting business fairly and with justice and concern for the needy.  The list goes on.  Every vocation, every authentic vocation, calls the disciple to do what God created them for, and helps God to bring salvation to the whole world.

    Eleven years ago on this very Sunday, I was struggling with my vocation.  Honestly, I knew that God was calling me to give up my comfortable life and go to seminary to study for the priesthood.  But I did not want to go.  I was already doing what I wanted to do with my life and thought it was going pretty well.  But on some level, I knew that life as a disciple required me to do what God wanted, and not necessarily what I wanted.  I had found out that there was an open house that day at the Diocesan Vocations Office.  I wasn’t interested and I wasn’t going.  And that day, the celebrant preached on vocations and made the point that living as a disciple meant that at some point we have to stop asking the question, “what do I want to do with my life?” and start asking, “what does God want me to do with my life?” And I already knew the answer to that question: God wanted me to go to that vocations open house that day, and so I did.  Four months later, I was in seminary.

    What about you?  Are you doing what God wants you to do with your life?  Maybe your answer won’t require such a radical change as mine did, although perhaps it does.  Maybe it means you renew your commitment to your family, your work, your life as a disciple.  But if you’re a young person out there and have only been thinking about what’s going to make you successful and bring in lots of money so you can retire at age 35, maybe God is today asking you to stop thinking only of yourself and put your life’s work at the service of the Gospel.  Maybe you’ll be called on to be a teacher, or a police officer, or a health care professional.  And maybe, just maybe, God is calling you to enter the priesthood or religious life.  And for those who are fathers and empty nesters, it’s quite possible that you feel a tug in your heart to do something more to live the Gospel.  Maybe you are being called to a life of service as a permanent deacon.

    On this day of prayer for vocations, I’m just asking you to pray that God would make his plans for your life clear to you, and that you would promise God to do what he asks of you.  I can tell you first hand that nothing, absolutely nothing, will make you happier.

  • The Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    For each of the deadly sins, there is also a life-giving virtue.  Today, our readings focus on humility, which is the life-giving virtue that is the antidote to pride.  Of the seven deadly sins, pride is usually considered the original and the most serious of the sins.  Pride was the sin that caused the angel Lucifer to fall from grace to become the devil.  Pride was the sin that caused our first parents to reach for the forbidden fruit that was beyond them, all in an attempt to know everything God does.  A good examination of conscience would probably convince all of us that we suffer from pride from time to time, and sometimes even pervasively, in our own lives.  It’s what causes us to compare ourselves to others, to try to solve all our problems in ways that don’t include God, to be angry when everything does not go the way we would have it.  Pride, as the saying goes, and as Lucifer found out, doth indeed go before the fall, and when that happens in a person’s life, if it doesn’t break them in a way that  convinces them of their need for God, will very often send them into a tailspin of despair.  Pride is a particularly ugly thing.

    Jesus tells us quite clearly today: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  But not many of us really seek to be humbled, do we?  When we think about humility, we might associate that with a kind of wimpiness.  As you think about humble people do you imagine breast-beating, pious souls who allow themselves to be the doormats for the more aggressive and ambitious? Humble people, we tend to think, don’t buck the system, they just say their prayers and, when they are inflicted with pain and suffering, they just “offer it up.”

    But that’s not how Jesus sees it.  He doesn’t see humble people as wimpy or weak-minded.  He sees them as leaders: “The greatest among you,” he tells us, “must be your servant.”  So do you want to be a leader?  Do you want people to look up to you?  Well, if you do, you need to be a servant of others.  I talked in my homily last week about my friend Mike, who was the mechanic who humbly offered his service to those in need.  This weekend, we mourn the passing of our brother Marty Rock, a long time parishioner here at Notre Dame, who just this past summer, I clearly remember on his hands and knees repairing one of the pews in the church.  And he did that kind of thing all the time in his retirement years.  These were not wimpy men.  These were the kind of servant leaders that our Lord calls us all to be in today’s readings.

    Today, we had our parish day of service.  The place was bustling with around 150 servant leaders who took time out of their day to help spruce up the church grounds and reach out to those in need.  They packed lunches for the homeless, made cookies for PADS, did yard work for some senior parishioners, washed the pews you’re sitting in right now, painted the rectory porch, collected food for the food pantry, and quite a bit more.

    As we are in the middle of our stewardship campaign right now, this is a good time to reflect with humility on the many gifts that we have been given, both individually and as a community.  How can we make a return to God for all that he has given us?  How can we share the love that he pours out on us daily?  The best we can do is to look at our resources and realize, with humility, that they are all gifts from God.  And then pray to know how we can best return a portion of our time, talent, and treasure to God that he alone might be glorified in all things.

    As I said, this attitude is counter-cultural.  We want the places of honor at banquets and wherever we go; that’s just human nature.  We may not wear phylacteries or tassels when we come in to worship, but we are pleased when someone notices how wonderful is something that we have done.  And Jesus would have nothing of all this.

    I don’t really think that Jesus was saying there shouldn’t be people we call “father” or “teacher” or “master.”  I think Jesus knew well that the world needs leaders.  But the message here is that those leaders must be the servants of all.  And so we need to reflect on how willing we have been to be servants.  Have we reached out to the poor in some way?  Have we given adequately of our time, talent and treasure for the mission of the Church?

    We can see how Jesus modeled leadership in his own life.  Indeed, he is not asking us to do something he was unwilling to do himself.  When he said, “For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” he was in a way foreshadowing what would happen to him.  Humbling himself to take up our cross – our cross – he would be exalted in the glory of the resurrection.

    The good news is that glory can be ours too, if we would humble ourselves and lay down our lives for others.  If we stop treating the people in our lives as stepping stones to something better, we might reach something better than we can find on our own.  If we humble ourselves to feed the poor and needy, to reach out to the marginalized and forgotten, we might be more open to the grace our Lord has in store for us in the kingdom of heaven.

    At this Mass, we have been invited to a very important banquet, and we ourselves are completely unworthy of being here.  And I include myself in that statement.  Yet, through grace, through the love of our God, we have been given an exalted place at the banquet table.  Realizing how great the gift is and how unworthy of it we are is a very humbling experience.  In that humility, we are called to go out and feed those who need to know how much God loves them.

    For every one who exalts himself will be humbled,
    but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

  • Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Give them some food yourselves,” Jesus says to the disciples.  Yes, it would be easier to send the people away so they can fend for themselves.  But that’s not how God wants to feed them, and Jesus won’t hear of it.  “Give them some food yourselves.”  All they have are five loaves and couple of fish, hardly enough for the incredible crowd.  But, that sacrifice in the hands of Jesus is enough to feed all of them and then some.  What meager offering will you be called upon to sacrifice today so that others can be fed?  Our little service might not seem like much, but in Jesus’ hands it is more than enough.  “Give them some food yourselves.”

  • Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I have to confess that part of me dislikes the Gospel reading we have today.  Dislike is probably too strong a word: it just kind of makes me uneasy.  That’s because I don’t like the idea that there is some kind of competition between the duties of hospitality and the joy of contemplation in the Lord’s presence.  That’s how this reading often comes across, and I find that difficult to accept.  When I have guests over, I take it seriously.  According to my family custom, there is plenty – perhaps too much – food, and I try to make my guests comfortable.  That takes work – anyone who has ever had guests for dinner knows that, but I think it’s time well spent.

    I’m also not wild about the idea that some often draw the conclusion that this reading places a higher priority on contemplation and prayer over the duties of ministry.  Stuff needs to get done; we don’t just show up and have beautiful Liturgy happen.  I think that if all we did was pray all day, we’d never get any of the Gospel done, and I don’t think that’s what our Lord intended.

    Fortunately, I don’t think these are valid conclusions to be drawn from today’s Gospel – although I do think these conclusions are frequently drawn.  And that’s sad for any of us who want to be in relationship with our Lord and yet know that there are the duties of our vocation to which we must attend.  Nobody can spend all day in prayer, no matter what their vocation.  Priests have the needs of the parish to accomplish.  Parents have children to raise.  Everyone has the goals of their profession to meet.  And Jesus isn’t saying that any of this is wrong.

    So let’s give Martha a bit of a break. Because there is a difference between the very legitimate and laudable act that Mary was doing – listening to the Word of Jesus – and just being plain old lazy. Many of us could be tempted down those roads too, and that’s not praiseworthy. And Martha’s tasks were important ones. The demands of hospitality in the ancient world were taken very seriously. And they were difficult duties, too.  Think about all that Abraham and Sarah had to do: knead dough and make rolls, slaughter a steer and prepare it, and put together some curds and milk.  A far cry from making a run to McChesney’s and popping some steaks on the grill!  Just as Abraham leapt to his feet in our first reading to welcome the three visitors and provide them with a beautiful meal, so Martha had things to do to care for her own guest.

    But where Martha went down the wrong path was that she let the details of the tasks of hospitality overshadow the hospitality itself. In doing all the things she was doing, she had actually neglected her guest. Perhaps there was a way that she could have provided refreshment to Jesus in a way that didn’t take her outside his company for so long. Maybe a simpler meal would have sufficed. When the details of hospitality overshadow the guest, then it’s not really hospitality at all.

    I think that what’s at stake here is balance in our spiritual life. We are not called upon to make a choice between being Martha or being Mary. We are called upon to be both Martha and Mary. These scripture readings speaks of the service of the disciple, in Greek the word is diakonia, from which we derive our word, deacon. This tells us that the life of the Christian disciple is about service. What we see in today’s Gospel is that there are two aspects of that service. The first is represented by Martha’s work, and is the kind of service that takes care of what is necessary in order that God’s will would be done: it is a service that reaches out to those in need. The second kind of service is represented by Mary’s work. Her work is one of contemplation: she sits at the feet of Jesus to absorb his words and his presence.

    Both kinds of service are necessary in the life of the Christian disciple. Saint Benedict’s motto was ora et labora – work and prayer, and that’s the call we receive in today’s Liturgy.  The trick is keeping them in balance. Because it is Mary’s contemplation that gives us the spiritual refreshment necessary to reach out to those in need.  We have to be people of prayer. And it is Martha’s active service that gives meaning and context to our prayers and our preaching.  We have to be people who work. When we avoid either aspect of service, we are getting it wrong, and perhaps our Gospel today is a tug at our hearts to get it right.

    So we need to make time for both our work and our prayer. We have to give priority to contemplation and Scripture reading and whatever kind of prayer speaks to us just as much as we give priority to the demands of our vocations, whatever those vocations may be. We have to let God speak to us in our quiet and in our activity, and to remember that doing God’s will sometimes means getting quiet and sitting still long enough for him to speak to our hearts. It may take a lifetime to get this right, but as we put effort into our service of God, we too will be choosing the better part, and it will not be taken from us.

  • 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.”

  • 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 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.

    I think what the cross teaches us in these 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 practice in Jesus’ time. In those days, people often had to travel quite a distance to accept an invitation to a feast or celebration. And they would travel that distance, not by car or train or even by beast of burden, but most often on foot. The travelers’ feet would then become not only dirty from the dusty roads, but also hot and tired from the long journey. It was a gesture of hospitality to wash the guests’ feet, but it was a gesture 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 should be 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 life for them, washing their feet and becoming Eucharist for them. It may seem difficult to glory in the cross – it may even seem strange 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.”