HELP THOU MINE UNBELIEF

A SERMON FOR LOW SUNDAY

On this Sunday after Easter, we read the story of the Apostle Thomas, and follow him in his journey from doubt to certitude.   In a sense, it was rather a sad journey—only by placing his finger in the wounds of our Lord was Thomas convinced that Christ had indeed risen from the dead, and for this reason he has always been known as Doubting Thomas.  Without proof, he would not have believed.  The message of today’s Gospel is precisely the one our Lord gave us: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Today’s message is all about the importance of faith.

And yet, I’d like to shift focus this year away from faith itself, without in any way belittling that most important of virtues.  But let’s face it, there are times when too much faith can be a bad thing.  It’s actually pretty obvious if you think about it.  Should we believe everything we’re told?  Obviously not.

There’s a very good reason for often doubting what we’re told.  It’s because it might not be true!

People are very often mistaken when they tell us things.  Maybe we read something on the Internet, and because it falls into our own belief system, because we want it to be true, then we believe it. We give it the assent of a certain natural faith.  There’s a saying that “people believe what they want to believe.”  Caution!  Don’t be too quick to believe what you read, what you hear.  Especially, if you like what you’re being told.  Because when you want to believe it, you’re all the more likely to do so and fall into error.  A case in point would be a false apparition, for example, where our Lady supposedly appears and says things we might agree with.  Be very careful with apparitions that haven’t been approved by the Church (before Vatican II)—there’s probably a very good reason they haven’t been approved, and it would be gullible of us to blindly think that such apparitions have the same value as Fatima, La Salette, and Lourdes.  Or the same value as what God has revealed through Holy Scripture, or by the Church’s long-held and traditional beliefs.  Don’t be taken in!

 Many times, what we’re being told is not just a sincere error on the part of the teller. Sometimes it’s an out-and-out lie, deliberately told in order to deceive us.  People do tell lies, and it would be foolish to think everyone is truthful and virtuous.  Very often they have an agenda, where they will make the facts “fit” so they can persuade others.  This involves twisting the truth, distorting evidence and logic, using insufficient or erroneous data and creating false conclusions.  There are so many ways people can lie.  But lie they do, and if we suspect they are lying, surely then, we must withhold our belief, and doubt what they tell us.

To doubt then is not always wrong.  It’s merely to believe something may not be true or is unlikely.  We may quite legitimately doubt a person if what he says appears unlikely, or if he has a history of embellishing stories, or of exaggerating and even inventing truths for his own purposes.  We would be foolish to give unthinking credence to what he says. 

Today’s message though, is not about being cautious when people tell us something unlikely.  It wasn’t that St. Thomas had a hard time believing the other apostles.  For this, he could have been excused—maybe they were trying to teach him a lesson for being absent from their earlier meeting, or perhaps they were playing a joke on him.  Perhaps he didn’t want to believe for fear of being let down when he finds out it isn’t true.  All this would be excusable.  But Thomas’s sin lies elsewhere.  He failed to believe our Lord.  How many times had our Lord told the apostles that he would be put to death and would rise again on the third day?  But Thomas had doubted the Son of God himself.

God must always be believed.  If God says something is so, then we must not doubt.  We must give the assent of our faith to everything God has revealed to us to be true. And how are we to know that it’s true? Because it has been taught as true for two thousand years from the time of the Apostles until Vatican II.  These are the truths and dogmas of the Church, and we mustbelieve them.  All of them.  We can’t believe some mathematical truths but not others.  I can’t believe that the number three doesn’t exist, for example.  To pretend there’s no ‘3’ would destroy the whole system, for what would happen if I added an apple to the two apples I already had.  How many apples would II have?  Certainly not 4, but I have more than 2.  The whole thing comes crashing down.  And so would our entire theological system collapse if just one dogma were not true.  Because it would mean that when God revealed it, he either made a mistake or he lied to us. Either way, he would no longer be a perfect god, and thus not God at all.  

So what happens if one day we happen to wonder if heaven and hell really do exist, if this or that action really is a sin, if there really are three Persons in the Trinity, or if maybe we just cease to exist when we die…. How bad is this? Is it a sin?  Does it offend God?  Not necessarily.  It’s actually just a temptation, and we should regard such doubt as simply a bad thought that has to be treated like any other.  Don’t play around with it, don’t let it fester in your mind.  Don’t wish your doubt to be true, for example, by wishing something were not sinful so we could take advantage of it, or if we deliberately give in to the doubt so as to reject our belief in some aspect of the faith. Doubt will, at some point, become sinful.  But usually, if we treat it properly, it is simply a temptation.  And like all temptations, it is something to thank God for, even as we fight it, for it is a test from him to find out if we’re worthy of grace, and ultimately worthy of heaven.

In the case of St. Thomas, it wasn’t so much a case of doubt as a refusal to believe the very Word of God.   If Thomas had faith, he would not have been so obstinate that he required physical proof of the Resurrection before giving it the assent of his belief.  His was a classic case where doubt was willingly accepted and Thomas yielded to temptation and rejected his faith.

And yet Doubting Thomas went on to be a saint.  Like other apostles, he sinned, but went on to great holiness.  Even St. Peter had his moments of doubt. Think when he impetuously jumped from his boat and walked on water to go meet his Lord.  As soon as he realized what he was doing, he doubted and sank beneath the waves.  With faith, our Lord tells us we can move mountains.  So what should we do when that first little doubt inserts itself into our hearts and minds, and we contemplate questioning even just one little dogma of the Catholic faith? When we stand at the edge of that great chasm of emptiness and despair that would surely open up and swallow us if we yield to the temptation of doubt, and our whole belief system then comes logically crashing down and we are left to contemplate a world without God and a life without purpose? What should we do?

The answer is we should pray.  Recite the Act of Faith, and remember that God can neither deceive nor be deceived.   If that’s not good enough, to remember the story of the father who brought his possessed son to our Lord, begging him to drive out the demon from him.  The poor boy had been possessed from his infancy, and would roll around on the ground, gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth.  The poor father had tried many times to get the apostles to cast out the demon but they were unable.  He was beginning to lose faith.  And then our Lord told him, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears,”—and this is what we must all learn to say in those moments of doubt… “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

JESUS, THESE EYES HAVE NEVER SEEN

A HYMN FOR LOW SUNDAY

By Ray Palmer, 1858

1 Jesus, these eyes have never seen
that radiant form of thine;
the veil of sense hangs dark between
thy blessèd face and mine.

2 I see thee not, I hear thee not,
yet art thou oft with me;
and earth hath ne'er so dear a spot
as where I meet with thee.

3 Yet, though I have not seen, and still
must rest in faith alone,
I love thee, dearest Lord, and will,
unseen, but not unknown.

4 When death these mortal eyes shall seal,
and still this throbbing heart,
the rending veil shall thee reveal
all glorious as thou art.

THE SPIRIT, THE WATER, AND THE BLOOD

A REFLECTION FOR LOW SUNDAY

“There are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.”  This quotation from today’s Epistle may escape our comprehension if we read it superficially.  But St. John obviously has an important message to convey here, as he compares these three witnesses in earth to the three in heaven who are no less than the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost.  So we shouldn’t gloss over what, in this world, are somehow equivalent to God himself.

These three witnesses are witnesses to what?  St. John tells us that it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. And here is the key, the common denominator if you like, between the witnesses in heaven and the witnesses in earth. The Holy Ghost of heaven is the same Spirit that witnesses in earth.  

And where are we to find this Spirit?  The answer is in the words of our Lord, where he instructs the Church to preach everything he taught (Matt. 28:19–20) and promises the protection of the Holy Spirit to “guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). That mandate and that promise guarantee the Church will never fall away from his teachings (Matt. 16:18, 1 Tim. 3:15), even if individual Catholics might.  It’s why we can still put our trust today in all the truths of the Catholic faith, despite many of them having been twisted, denied and corrupted by individual popes, bishops and theologians since Vatican II.

To avail ourselves of these truths, we must then be members of the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.  Which explains the necessity of Water, the waters of Baptism, that wash away our original sin and make us members of the Catholic Church.  It explains too the necessity of Blood, for it is only through the Precious Blood of Christ that we avail ourselves of the graces of his Redemption, and become ourselves living temples, living tabernacles, of the Holy Ghost through his real presence within us in the Holy Eucharist.

Spirit, Water, Blood, these three things.  Together they bear witness to all the truths we believe.  As living members of the Church, we faithful Catholics may be worthy to be a part of that mystical Body that belongs to Christ our Lord, who is Truth.  Let’s not forget this wonderful grace we have been given, and remain, by our godly behavior, in that state of grace, and united to that Body.

RISING FROM THE ASHES

A SERMON FOR EASTER SUNDAY

Of all the sermons of the year, I somehow find the Easter sermon the hardest to write.  The reason is purely psychological—somehow, in the midst of all the sorrowful meditations of Holy Week I have to come up with something that conveys the pinnacle of joy.  I have to forcibly switch mindsets from the horrors that surround the most terrible deeds of history, to write about the most glorious event of that history.

But that’s Easter, isn’t it!  It’s not like Christmas, where we anticipate the joy of the holiday through the whole of December, putting up decorations, lighting Christmas trees, planning gifts and parties for everyone.  We follow Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, with the anticipated joy of their soon-to-be-delivered baby, who will be the Saviour of the world.  But Easter, that’s a different kind of story altogether.  We start with Shrovetide, and the anticipation of the Lenten fast.  Ash Wednesday comes all too early and we’re reminded that we’re dust and unto dust we will return—not a happy thought, really, but one which is designed to motivate us as we launch out on the path of penance.  Now we’re following our Lord into the wilderness, with the prospect of a forty-day fast in front of us.  We eventually arrive at Palm Sunday, and we follow Christ into Jerusalem, singing with trepidation our Hosannas, as it hits us like a kick in the stomach that the last week of our Saviour’s life has begun, and that something most terrible is about to happen.  This year was more terrible than most when the very day after Palm Sunday, Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was horribly disfigured by a fire that came very close to reducing the structure to the same ashes that were placed on our foreheads just a few weeks earlier.  But the destruction of a building, no matter how venerable and hallowed, is as nothing compared with the murder of the Son of God.  We now reach the very depths of the liturgical year, those terrible three days of darkness, the Sacred Triduum on which our Creator suffered in far worse ways than any of us poor creatures ever will.  And he suffered because ofus poor creatures, that’s the worst part of it!

But then comes Holy Saturday, and from the absolute lowest point of all history, there is a flash of light in a distant tomb, and we gasp to catch our breath as our Saviour walks out of that tomb, transforming death into life, and all our sorrows into joy.  No theme park roller coaster can ever reproduce the rush of exhilaration we feel as we acknowledge that Christ is risen, and we force our lips at the Easter Vigil service to pronounce once again that forbidden word, Alleluia!

But from alleluia to alas!  For we human beings are so very shallow, are we not!  No sooner do we recover from the shock that the Lenten fast is over, the covers have come off the statues, and we’re back in white vestments, than it’s back to business as usual.  Sure, we offer our annual tributes to the Easter traditions, painting a few eggs with the kids, then hiding them, then looking for them, never actually eating them though. We might even go so far as making a leg of lamb for dinner.  But let’s face it, we didn’t find it any easier to get out of bed this morning than any other Sunday, we still have work tomorrow, and of course we’re still getting older, with more aches and pains every week.  On a far more serious level, our friends are still dying, a cathedral in France is still, and will be for a long time to come, a skeletal ruin of its former glory.  So really, at the end of it all, are we any better off than when we let the good times roll on Mardi Gras forty days and forty nights ago?

The answer, my friends, is staring us in the face, if only we would stop and think for a moment, and then acknowledge it in all its glory.  Christ is risen!  Risen from the tomb where he lay dead.  By his glorious Resurrection he has transformed death, conquered death!  He has transformed our despair into hope. Notre-Dame Cathedral will no doubt rise again from the ashes—they’ll rebuild the roof and the spire, clean up the stained glass, repair the organ.  But far more importantly, those friends of ours, those loved ones who await death from terminal cancer or heart disease or whatever, they too will rise from the ashes. And so, my friends, will you and I. When I placed those ashes on your forehead on Ash Wednesday, I told you to remember, man that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.  But today on Easter Sunday, I tell you this:  Remember man, thou hast a soul, and though your body may return to dust, your soul shall live forever. 

Even that very dust of which you’re made, that too will one day rise again. For our faith tells us that we believe in the “resurrection of the body, and the life of the world to come.  Amen.” This is how St. Paul describes that glorious day: “Behold, I tell you a mystery, says St. Paul; “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”By rising from the dead, our Lord and Saviour has shown us that death is not the end, death is not the victor over life.  When we die, it is not because we have failed to stay alive any longer.  “Death is swallowed up in victory!” says St. Paul, and the end of our lives is actually the beginning of something far greater.  

Our faith in the Resurrection, then, must transform our attitude towards the daily pains and grief we suffer into nothing more than the price we pay for our eternal reward.  Sure, Christ paid for these himself by his own sufferings and death, but let’s not forget he admonished us that we too must take up our cross if we would his disciples be.  It is not for us to sit back in our recliners, sip our gin and tonic, and smugly claim that “we’re saved”.  It is for us to join our Lord on our own path to Calvary, because it is in the Holy Cross we find there that we come to really understand why we must first die if we are ever to rise from the dead.  So let’s embrace that Holy Cross and exalt that it today stands empty!

From Christmas to Easter we have come full cycle.  “From the Virgin’s womb to an empty tomb.”  It has been a long and sometimes difficult journey, filled with joys and sorrows, much like our own journey from womb to tomb.  But it is a journey that, because of the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead, we now know is one that ends in glory.  “Thanks be to God,” says St. Paul, “which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”Listen now, and watch, as our Lord reveals to you this greatest of all mysteries, that no matter what sorrows await us in this vale of tears, we will one day rise again from the dead to join him in everlasting glory.  If we have followed him to Calvary, we will surely follow him to heaven.  This is our future, this is our destiny.  It remains for us to do our part.

HAIL THEE FESTIVAL DAY!

A HYMN FOR EASTER SUNDAY

By Venantius Fortunatus, 6th century (Salve Festa Dies)

Hail thee, festival day! 
Blest day that art hallowed forever; 
day wherein Christ arose, 
breaking the kingdom of death.

Lo, the fair beauty of earth, 
from the death of the winter arising, 
every good gift of the year 
now with its Master returns.

He who was nailed to the Cross 
is God and the Ruler of all things; 
all things created on earth 
worship the Maker of all. 

God of all pity and power, 
let thy word be assured to the doubted; 
light on the third day returns: 
rise, Son of God, from the tomb! 

Ill doth it seem that thy limbs 
should linger in lowly dishonor; 
ransom and price of the world, 
veiled from the vision of men.

Loosen, O Lord, the enchained, 
the spirits imprisoned in darkness; 
rescue, recall into life those 
who are rushing to death.

Ill it beseemeth that thou, 
by whose hand all things are encompassed, 
captive and bound shouldst remain, 
deep in the gloom of the rock. 

Rise now, O Lord, from the grave 
and cast off the shroud that enwrapped thee; 
thou art sufficient for us; 
nothing without thee exists. 

Mourning they laid thee to rest, 
who art Author of life and creation; 
treading the pathway of death, 
life thou bestowedst on man.

Show us thy face once more, 
that the ages may joy in thy brightness; 
give us the light of day, 
darkened on earth at thy death. 

Out of the prison of death 
thou art rescuing numberless captives; 
freely they tread in the way 
whither their Maker has gone. 

Jesus has harrowed hell; 
he had led captivity captive; 
darkness and chaos and death 
flee from the face of the light. 

VICTIMAE PASCHALI LAUDES

A REFLECTION FOR EASTER SUNDAY

At the Jewish Passover Seder, it is traditional for the youngest male present to ask the question:  “Ma nishtana ha lyla ha zeh mikkol hallaylot?—Why is this night different from all other nights?  Little do they realize that their rituals and ceremony in remembrance of things long past are in fact nothing more than the foreshadowing of a new ceremony that Our Lord performed at the Last Supper, and that would be continued by the New Testament priests until the end of time “in remembrance of me.” 

The Seder meal on the eve of Passover commemorates the deliverance of the Hebrew people from their slavery in Egypt.  Moses had been trying in vain to persuade the Pharaoh to free them from their bondage, but in spite of commands by God himself to “Let my people go,” the Pharaoh was stubbornly unrelenting.  Nine plagues had smitten the land of Egypt, but after each one Pharaoh had again “hardened his heart” and continued to refuse them freedom. There now followed the tenth and most terrible plague in which the firstborn of every living creature in Egypt would be slain by the Angel of Death.  Moses, however, was warned in advance to prepare a “lamb without blemish” that would be sacrificed to God, and whose blood was to be sprinkled on the doorposts of the Hebrews so that God might “pass over” their houses.  And so they were spared.  After the slaying of the Egyptian firstborn the Pharaoh finally relented, and the Hebrews, delivered from their slavery, set off on their journey to the Promised Land.

The Jews had continued the tradition of sacrificing a lamb known as the Korban Pesach (Paschal Sacrifice) in the temple of Jerusalem each anniversary of the first Passover.  One of the main features of the Seder meal continues to be a roasted lamb, symbolizing the Paschal Victim.  At the Last Supper, our Lord himself would have followed this tradition, thus beginning his fulfillment of the ancient events in the land of Egypt.  He would now become himself the unblemished, sinless Lamb of God and Paschal Victim, offered to God for the salvation of his people.  His own blood would now be sprinkled, averting the avenging angel, delivering mankind from bondage, taking away the sins of the world.  The firstborn Son of God alone would die and mankind would be spared.  “He is the true Lamb who hath taken away the sins of the world.  Who by dying hath destroyed our death; and by rising again hath bestowed a new life upon us.”  In this new life, this new Covenant, God would be appeased in his wrath, he would spare us, and “let his people go,” freeing them from the bondage of sin to resume their journey to the Promised Land of heaven.  

Meanwhile, the Old Covenant came to an abrupt end.  The sacrifice of the Paschal Victim at the temple in Jerusalem had been interrupted that year as the veil of the temple was rent asunder at the death of God’s Son.  The temple sacrifices were of no more value, and soon, even the temple itself would be destroyed.  As for the Paschal Victim, it would continue to be commemorated until the end of time, no longer as a foreshadowing by an actual lamb in the temple, nor symbolically by the Seder meal, but in their fulfillment as the perfect Sacrifice of the Mass.  The Paschal Lamb that we would consume at the Mass in Holy Communion would no longer be a symbol, but the actual Body of Christ, the Lamb of God.  This would be no mere commemoration of a human act that occupied a single moment of a dimly remembered past, but the perpetual re-presentation of an act of God, eternal in nature and as fresh and full of grace today as it was on Calvary.

All the hopes of the Old Testament were fulfilled at the Last Supper and in the events that followed. And now on Easter morning “the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.”  On the glorious dawning of a new era we offer our thankful praises to the Paschal Victim offered for our salvation on Calvary and in the Mass. The Seder of the Last Supper heralded mankind’s transition from the Old Testament to the New, from prophecies to fulfillment, from shadows to eternal light.  This is what made that particular night different from all other nights.

WHERE CHARITY AND LOVE ABIDE

A SERMON FOR MAUNDY THURSDAY

On the night before he suffered, that is, on this night, there were two things our blessed Lord wanted to accomplish.  We read about the first in the Epistle, and the second in the Gospel.  

In his Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul summarizes the Last Supper and the institution of the Holy Mass.  Here, in the solemn words of the Word of God, Biblical words that Protestants simply ignore or deliberately misinterpret, but words that have resounded daily in every true Catholic Church ever since that first Maundy Thursday, we hear the command to take and eat this bread, for this is no longer bread.  It is his Body which is broken for us.  And then the command to drink of this cup of wine, for it is no longer wine but the cup of his Blood, the Blood of the New and Everlasting Testament. 

After an event of such paramount significance as the institution of the Holy Mass, we may feel that our Lord’s washing of his disciples’ feet, recounted in the Gospel, is rather an anti-climax.  Is this simple action so very important when we compare it with the great miracle of Transubstantiation that has just taken place, the gift to us of not just a new sacrament, but one that would be the central trunk from which all the other sacraments would be the branches?  And yet, if we think about it, this simple act of Jesus is a story that mustbe told, and the events of the night would not have been complete without it.  

Let’s take note, first of all, that he washes the feet of all twelve apostles, including those of Judas.  Knowing that Judas was about to betray him, our Lord says “Ye are not all clean,” and yet he makes this last ditch effort to clean Judas of his wickedness, knowing all along that it would be in vain.  The act of washing his disciples’ feet was obviously one of supreme humility, and for our Lord to wash Judas’ feet in particular demonstrates the extent of that humility.  For no sooner did his Lord and Master complete this humble washing of Judas’ feet as he arrogantly sat there, than the betrayer stood up on those feet and turned them in the direction of the waiting High Priests of the Synagogue.  Here he would collect his blood money and tell them where they could arrest our Lord later that same night.  In fact, those same feet would then lead the Jews to the very Garden of Gethsemane, where he would heartlessly ignore the pools of blood already sweat by our Lord, and seal his betrayal with a sacrilegious kiss.

But why did our Lord wash the feet of his twelve apostles?  Ultimately, it was an act of love.  The love of our Lord for his apostles.  The love of God for man.  It demonstrates clearly the humility of the Son of God.  Our Lord had already humbled himself by becoming incarnate, being made “man”, and now on this very night, he had shown his disciples how he would perpetuate this act of humility and love, by dwelling forever amongst them and their successors as the Bread of Life in our tabernacles, upon our altars, and in our very souls and physical bodies.  But the Son of God is hidden in his human form.  He is likewise hidden in the form of bread on our altars.  Some clear and unambiguous signal of this humble, hidden Son of God was needed.  And so our Lord knelt before each of his apostles, abasing himself before them to wash their feet.

Today is not called Last Supper Thursday, nor Gethsemane Thursday, Betrayal Thursday, or Bloody Thursday.  It is called “Maundy Thursday” after the Latin word from which “Maundy” derives. The Latin word is Mandatum, which means “command”, and refers to the words of our Lord after he has washed the feet of the Apostles and declares that he has given them an example to follow, “that ye should do as I have done to you.”  That today is named after this specific command of our Lord underlines its significance and importance for us.  It is a command to have the same humility with which our Lord washed his disciples’ feet. It is a command that we should never again look down on our neighbor, but that we should deliberately allow our neighbor to look down on us if needs be.  We must always put our neighbor first, even if we don’t like him, even if he’s our enemy, like Judas.

When the Maundy ceremony is celebrated, one of the hymns that is sung is the famous Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.  “Where charity and love abide, there is God.” And indeed, there is nothing that binds us closer to God than the loveof God.  That is why the command to love God “with our whole heart and mind and strength” is the first and greatest of all the commandments.  But tonight, our Lord reminds us of that second great commandment “which is like unto the first...” namely, that we love our neighbor as ourselves. 

And why?  Because “where charity and love abide, there is God.”  We don’t see very much of God in the course of our daily lives, do we? That’s because real charity and love are so lacking in those day-to-day lives.  The world long ago replaced the true love of humility and sacrifice with the idea that love is a mere emotion, ranging from politeness through soppy sentimentality to the indulgence of every lust imaginable.  To love, one must be politically correct, one must never say or do anything that could offend anybody at all, one must never challenge any erroneous belief whatever, no matter how insane.  The only challenges now allowed are of those who stand up for truth and common sense.

Now and again, it’s a relief to see true fraternal love breaking through the clouds of intolerance, although it’s nearly always at times of crisis or grief, and only for a short time.  We saw this, for example, in the days after 9/11, when we witnessed Republicans and Democrats linking arms and singing on the steps of the Capitol in their common love of their violated nation.  We saw something similar this week with the terrible desecration of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, when men and women from all walks of life stopped what they were doing to watch in horror as a part of their beloved heritage was destroyed, and how they too, instinctively, began to sing together the Hail Mary to the Mother of God, as her cathedral burned.  In sharing a common loss and being reminded of the power and might of God, we seem to find our true brotherhood restored, as children of the same God, with a common bond uniting us together and to our Father in heaven.

“Where charity and love abide, there is God.”  In one of the stanzas of this hymn, we sing  about this unity, and we encourage ourselves to embrace it: “When therefore, we are joined together, let us see that we be not divided in spirit. Let all malicious wranglings and contentions cease, and let Christ our God be in the midst of us.”  If all those who truly love God would be united in spirit, there would be no protestants, no modernists, no divisions, nothing but real Catholics celebrating together a real God and a true faith.  If all Americans truly loved their country, the distinction between Republicans and Democrats would be limited to a question of the right tactics to make our nation a better place.  There would be none of the kind of hatred we see today, where one party does everything in its power to prevent the other from succeeding in making America a better place for everyone.

As children of the same God, we are all called to unity with others who truly love the same things.  Is it okay to have small and insignificant differences?  Yes, and we should discuss them by all means.  But to use them as a reason for dissension and schism?  A house divided against itself cannot stand. If we are to prevail against the ever-worsening onslaught of modernistic principles that threaten to destroy our civilization once and for all, then we must have God on our side.  And if God is to be with us, then charity and love must first abide.

Finally, let’s not forget the Last Supper we commemorate tonight.  The Holy Eucharist is sometimes called the Sacrament of Unity.  And why?  Because it unites us with God and God with us.  But alas, as our Lord pointed out, “Ye are clean, but not all.”  There are those, perhaps in our very midst as Judas sat among the other apostles, who want nothing to do with charity and love.  Who care not whether God is with them or he isn’t. Perhaps they don’t appreciate the enormous gift of grace they have been given to bring them here to the true apostolic Mass?  Maybe they have listened with too much interest to the modernist lies?  Or allowed themselves to be drawn in by the loose godless culture of the world that allows them to do whatever they want?  It’s a very nice idea for some.  “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”  Just remember, these enticing words aren’t in our Bible! They’re in the Satanic bible, and will lead you, as willing victims, all the way to hell.  Our blessed Lord himself tells us to love God and neighbor, and at the Last Supper he shows us how.  Not by literally washing each other’s feet, but about having that state of mind towards our neighbor, of humility that is both a cause and effect of love.  And most of all, by sharing with him in that Sacrament of Unity that he had just taught these same apostles to repeat in everlasting remembrance.  True love of neighbor is to be found at the altar of God.  For this is where we will find charity and love, this is where God is.

THOU, WHO AT THY FIRST EUCHARIST DIDST PRAY

A HYMN FOR MAUNDY THURSDAY

By William H. Turton, 1881

1 O thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray
that all thy church might be for ever one,
grant us at every Eucharist to say
with longing heart and soul, 'Thy will be done':
O may we all one bread, one body be,
through this blest sacrament of unity.

2 For all thy church, O Lord, we intercede;
make thou our sad divisions soon to cease;
draw us the nearer each to each, we plead,
by drawing all to thee, O Prince of Peace:
thus may we all one bread, one body be,
through this blest sacrament of unity.

3 We pray thee too for wanderers from thy fold;
O bring them back, good Shepherd of the sheep,
back to the faith which saints believed of old,
back to the church which still that faith doth keep:
soon may we all one bread, one body be,
through this blest sacrament of unity.

4 So, Lord, at length when sacraments shall cease,
may we be one with all thy church above,
one with thy saints in one unbroken peace,
one with thy saints in one unbounded love:
more blessèd still, in peace and love to be
one with the Trinity in Unity.

DRAWING NIGH UNTO JERUSALEM

A SERMON FOR PALM SUNDAY 

It is fitting that as we make our liturgical entry into the time known as Holy Week, we should do so in company with our Blessed Lord as he makes his own entrance into the city known as the Holy City.  Jerusalem has had this title since God instructed Solomon to build his temple here on Mount Sion, the temple that would contain the Holy of Holies. This was the holiest spot in all the earth, holier than Mount Horeb where Moses encountered God in the burning bush, holier than Mount Sinai where he received the law.  Jerusalem with its Holy of Holies was infinitely more sacred than any other place, because it was here that God dwelled in his holy tabernacle, where man and God communed together in the closest union that God would grant his children of the Old Testament.

We have been thinking lately about that verse of the psalm, “I was glad when they said unto me, we will go into the house of the Lord.”  Literally, of course, it signified the joy of the people as they approached the Holy City of Jerusalem and into the Temple.  Listen to the next verses of the same psalm: “Our feet shall stand in thy gates, O Jerusalem.  Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself.  For thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, to testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord.  For there is the seat of judgment, even the seat of the house of David.”  Why were the people glad when they entered into Jerusalem? “For there is the seat of judgment.”  This seat of judgment was the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, the holiest artifact of the Old Testament, still sought for by archeologists to this day.  From this seat of judgment, God literally spoke to his people.  And they listened.  And they were glad.

Today, we enter Holy Week with mixed feelings.  We begin our ceremonies today with joy and gladness.  We are glad because they have said unto us, we will go into the house of the Lord.  What could make us happier than to approach the place where God is with his people. And now, on Palm Sunday, here comes the Son of God, the very Word made Flesh, to unite with his Father in the Holy of Holies, that Jerusalem may be “at unity with itself.”  But our gladness is turned into sadness and horror, as we discover that this most holy of holiest places in the world was about to witness the most infernal abomination ever committed, the murder of the Son of God by his chosen people.

Thus it was that as the high priests sacrificed their paschal lamb on the afternoon of Good Friday, the true Lamb of God was nailed to the cross.  And as the blood was drained from this most holy of animal sacrifices, so was the last drop of Blood shed by an infinitely holier sacrifice, the only truly acceptablesacrifice.  The Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant between God and man, now replaced the blood of lambs and goats and bulls and heifers.  And just as Precious Blood of Christ far surpasses the blood of these animals, so too do our the New Testament tabernacles surpass the Holy of Holies which was the Old Testament tabernacle.  For our tabernacles contain the Body and the Blood and the Soul and the Divinity of God in a Real Presence far more tangible and authentic than the merely spiritual presence of God in the temple of Jerusalem.  

This is why, at the very moment of our blessed Lord’s death, the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was rent in two.  When we think of a veil, we tend to think these days of something like a flimsy chapel veil.  But the veil of the temple was not a thin and delicate object. Without going too deeply into the dimensions, let’s just mention that it was about six inches thick!  And it was miraculously torn in half by God himself as his chosen people chose to kill their God.

The power of God was witnessed by the Jews that first Good Friday.  God could not have made it plainer to them that their Old Covenant was over!  He destroyed the Old Covenant just as the last drop of the Blood of the New and Everlasting Covenant was being spilled outside the city walls, spilled for Gentiles as well as Jews.

At the end of time, when the seven angels, one by one, pour out their seven vials, one by one, producing ever greater devastation to the earth, could it be that the final battle will take place not in Armageddon as is commonly thought, but in Jerusalem? Many biblical scholars claim that Armageddon is a symbolic name, that the word is derived from the Hebrew words meaning “mountain” and “assembly.”  And what is the mountain of assembly if not Mount Sion, home to the Jewish temple where the Jews assembled to worship?  How fitting would it be that as the sixth angel pours out his sixth vial, the Son of God should come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead? And that the divine Judge should pronounce his judgments from his Seat of Judgment in the former Holy of Holies? 

Conjecture perhaps, but certainly food for thought.  No wonder our psalm “I was glad” exhorts us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem!  For when that peace is over, when the kings of the earth rise up one last time against the Lord and his anointed, the day of judgment is surely at hand.  It will be that day of wrath when the Blood of Christ shall be avenged upon all them that have offended him and not repented.  “Deliver us, O Lord,” we pray at the funeral Mass, “from everlasting death in that fearful day: when the heavens and the earth shall be shaken: when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.”

Just as our Lord’s physical body gave up the ghost on the cross, so too shall we, his mystical body, meet our own end in that day of wrath. “When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”  Consummatum est, it is finished. And echoing out through the centuries from the moment those last two words were uttered by the Word made Flesh, across time from 33 AD to the year of the Lord 2019, and from here unto some unknown future date, mankind shall hear them once again pronounced, not from the temple of Jerusalem but from the temple of heaven, no longer from the Seat of Judgment but from the very throne of God, as the seventhangel pours his vial into the air; and, as St. John prophesied, “there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.”  Consummatum est.  

Let us accompany our Lord today into Jerusalem.  There, let us offer up our own sufferings with his, let us bitterly weep for sins committed against him, let us promise most fervently never to offend him again, and let us prepare ourselves for the words that shall be pronounced upon us from the Seat of Judgment.  Let us make absolutely certain that when we ascend to Jerusalem and to that Judgment Seat, we will indeed be glad, because from there and for evermore “we will go into the house of the Lord.”

RIDE ON, RIDE ON IN MAJESTY

A HYMN FOR PALM SUNDAY

By Henry Hart Milman, 1827

1 Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
O Savior meek, pursue thy road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.

2 Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die:
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
o'er captive death and conquered sin.

3 Ride on, ride on in majesty!
The winged squadrons of the sky
look down with sad and wond'ring eyes
to see th'approaching sacrifice.

4 Ride on, ride on in majesty!
Thy last and fiercest strife is nigh;
the Father on his sapphire throne
expects his own anointed Son.

5 Ride on, ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain,
then take, O God, thy pow'r and reign.

THE HOLY CITY OF OUR GOD

A REFLECTION FOR PALM SUNDAY

A great deal of Holy Scripture takes place in or near the Holy City of Jerusalem. What concerns us at the start of this Holy Week is its connection with the end of our Lord’s earthly life.  As home to the Temple of Solomon, Jerusalem had long been the focal point of Jewish spiritual and ceremonial life.  We have several examples of this in the life of our Lord himself, such as his presentation in the temple forty days after his birth, and the pilgrimage made there by the Holy Family when Jesus was twelve years old.

But now, as the drama of our Lord’s last days begins to unfold, the Holy City of Jerusalem plays as great a role as any of the other main actors.  Today, Palm Sunday, we begin our Holy Week by following our Lord ever closer to his ultimate fate.  But where do we follow him?  Into Jerusalem.  And why does he go to Jerusalem?  Because it is there, at Jerusalem’s Temple, that the Passover Lamb is to be slaughtered later in this same week, the Lamb which our Lord, the first-born of the Father, the Lamb of God, is to replace once and for all.  What had been enacted time and again in ceremonial symbols by the Jewish priests, was now to be fulfilled. What had been foreshadowed now dwelt amongst them, and what the people had seen through a glass darkly was now there for them to behold, face to face.

How fitting it is then, that it would be in Jerusalem that the Last Supper would also take place.  Those rituals of worship that the Jewish sacrifices foreshadowed would not be fulfilled only by the ultimate and infinite sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, but would be memorialized in perpetuity through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, first offered by the same priest and with the same victim as the Sacrifice of Calvary.  Where else could this sacrifice take place then, that in the Holy City itself?

When it came time for our Lord to be put to death, however, the sanctimonious and hypocritical Jewish High Priests could not allow their Holy City to be desecrated by the execution of a prisoner.  They had long ago arranged with the Roman occupiers that executions should take place outside the city walls.  Our Lord was thus marched out of Jerusalem, in stark contrast with the scene of triumph we witness today.  The cries of “Hosanna” were replaced by screams of “Crucify him!” and instead of palms of glory, the mob now wielded scourges and thorns with which to inflict their hatred on their Saviour.

Jerusalem is a symbol of the Church.  When we read the psalms we can substitute in our minds the word Church whenever we see “Jerusalem” or “Sion”.  It is the Holy City, the temple in which the sacrifice of the Old Testament is fulfilled, and the sacrifice of the Cross is renewed daily and perpetuated.  It is from our own Jerusalem, our Church, that all graces flow through the sacraments today as they flowed from the wounds of our dying Lord on Calvary.  And all we who come to this living water of grace shall be saved from our sins, as the Jews of old were blessed by their own close observance of the law of Moses.

This Palm Sunday, let us be resolved to follow our Lord through the remainder of this week, through the joys of his triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the sorrows and suffering as he carries his cross back out through the city gates on the Via Dolorosa.  We have much to learn and much to endure if we follow him closely in and out of the Holy City. For it is here that we make our farewell to the Old Testament and here that we greet the New.

TAKE UP THY CROSS

A SERMON FOR PASSION SUNDAY

“And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake.. the same shall save it.”

The hymn on the back of today’s bulletin is probably familiar to you. It’s drawn from the quotation I just read from St. Mark’s Gospel, and during the last few weeks, we’ve become somewhat familiar with the first part of it—the “let him deny himself” part. Since Ash Wednesday, we’ve been doing, I hope, just that: denying ourselves.  Yes, we do want to be our Lord’s disciples, and yes, we do want to follow him.  And so we followed.  On the first Sunday in Lent we followed him into the wilderness and committed to a fast of forty days.  On the second Sunday in Lent we followed him up the Mount of Transfiguration, and were strengthened in our prayer and fasting.  On the third Sunday we witnessed our Lord performing exorcisms, and we were reminded that it is only by prayer and fasting that our own demons can be driven out. And then last week, Laetare Sunday, as we numbered ourselves with the multitude who followed our Lord into the wilderness once more, fasting and hungry, we saw the reward that awaits those who freely do penance for the sake of our Lord, watching as he fed the five thousand, and conscious of the bread of life now given us in the Holy Eucharist.

I hope we have learned much this Lent.  I hope that these four Sundays have taught us at least the value of denying ourselves.  But now, we transcend to a higher level of self-denial.  Now is the time to move on from mere fasting and penance to a willingness to really suffer for Christ and with Christ, and to do so unto death itself. By death, I don’t necessarily mean martyrdom, although if that is the means of death that is presented to us, then by all means we must carry our cross to a very real Calvary.  But death comes to us all in one form or another, and our crosses will continue (and probably get heavier) as we approach that hour. 

“Whosoever will come after me,” said our Lord, “let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” It is time now to take up that cross.

And how do we do that?  Should we ask God for a cross?  There are saints who have asked this, but it’s a special calling by God to ask this and mean it.  It’s permissible, certainly, but be careful what you pray for.  God does answer prayer.  I would tend to advise against it, unless you’re an extremely generous soul and aware of the consequences.  I’ve known people who have offered themselves to God as victim souls, and their lives are now filled with crosses you can’t imagine.  

Or maybe we should make our own crosses?  This is also permissible, but should be done according to the amount of love we have for God.  Indeed, the degree to which we deny ourselves is how we measure our love of God.  Don’t overestimate how much that love is.  We may very easily, in a moment of giddy sentimentality, offer more than we’re actually prepared to give or truly capable of giving.  Don’t start Lent with the idea of fasting on bread and water for forty days—unless your love for God is capable of sustaining such a resolution.  Leave that kind of thing to the professionals—the saints and holy ones whose love for God cannot be contained.  The rest of us aren’t meant to take up whips and scourge ourselves till we bleed.  Rather, with the virtue of humility let us measure our own weak and superficial love of God against the unchained love these saints had.  They certainly knew the value of suffering, and there isn’t one canonized saint I can think of who didn’t suffer heroically during his or her lifetime.  St. Rose of Lima explained why: “Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”

So Rule Number One is don’t ask God for more than you can handle.  And Rule Number Two is don’t bite off more than you can chew.  Our real challenge lies in how we take up the crosses that we’re given—that just appear one day on our shoulders.   After all, who amongst us here today does not have such crosses to carry already?  For some, their weight may seem unbearable, for others merely heavy.  But we all have things going on in our lives that cause us pain.  It might be physical pain, like a bad headache or a chronic disease.  Or it could be emotional pain caused by bereavement, financial troubles, marriage problems, and so on.  We can suffer in so very many ways, can’t we?  But one thing is sure—we don’t get to walk through this vale of tears without picking up a few crosses along the way.  And it’s how we regard these crosses and then handle these crosses that make us either a good or a not-so-good disciple of Christ.

So firstly, how should we regardall these crises in our life?  The first thing to remember is that the bad things that happen to us should be regarded as good things.  Crises are crosses.  And what is the cross, but the sign of our salvation, the sign that appeared to the Emperor Constantine in the heavens with the words “In this sign shalt thou conquer!”  We should truly love these crosses therefore. That doesn’t mean we should enjoy them. We don’t go around asking people if they’ve had any good toothaches lately.  But we should love these crosses and thank God for them, because they allow us to participate in our blessed Lord’s own holy cross, the instrument of both his suffering and our salvation.  Through the act of willingly suffering with him and dragging our own sorry crosses up our own Calvary, we merit the graces needed to follow him in his resurrection and ascension into heaven.

That’s how we should regardour crosses.  But how should we handlethem in practical terms? Should we seek to prolong them? To intensify them?  No.  If you have a bad headache, take a couple of extra-strength Tylenols and go to bed.  If you have a toothache, go to the dentist’s.  Don’t feel compelled to try and weather it out as a penance – especially if you have duties to perform that the pain stops you from doing. It’s not a sign of failure to take a painkiller now and again; it’s common sense.  God gave men intellects to invent drugs and come up with other remedies for our aches and pains, and it would be ungrateful of us not to use them appropriately.  So don’t handle your crosses by trying to make them heavier.  That’s breaking Rule Number Two, remember?   What you should do though, is humbly accept your crosses, and if the appropriate remedies don’t work, then and only then offer up the pain for as long as God chooses to allow it.  But as soon as it’s within your power to see a dentist and have the tooth removed, then go for it!  And don’t forget to thank God when the pain stops.

Crosses then are to be endured, not sought after.  God will certainly permit what we’re capable of handling. Sometimes though, we receive crosses that seem to be beyond our ability to handle.  What then?  The examples I’ve given so far are only trivial instances of suffering.  But when I turn on the news and see some of the horrific things some poor people have to through, it makes you wonder where they find the courage and strength.  The death of a child, perhaps.  Kidnapping or murder of a family member.  The horrors of war and the battlefield.  Mass starvation.  Beheadings, genocide.  All things that are mercifully rare, at least for us here in America.  But what if…?  Would I be able to handle it?  Could I embrace that cross and thank God for it?  We all wonder such things, but don’t worry too much about it:  when especially heavy crosses like these are placed upon our shoulders, God gives extra special graces to allow us to bear such burdens.

Meanwhile, we must take up the crosses we already do have on this Passion Sunday.   And then walk proudly forward.  We’re following behind our Saviour, so be glad! Together “we will go into the house of the Lord.”

TAKE UP THY CROSS, THE SAVIOUR SAID

A HYMN FOR PASSION SUNDAY

By Charles W. Everest (1814-1877)

1. "Take up thy Cross," the Savior said, 
"if thou wouldst my disciple be; 
deny thyself, the world forsake, 
and humbly follow after me." 

2. Take up thy cross, let not its weight 
fill thy weak spirit with alarm; 
his strength shall bear thy spirit up, 
and brace thy heart and nerve thine arm. 

3. Take up thy cross, nor heed the shame, 
nor let thy foolish pride rebel; 
thy Lord for thee the cross endured, 
to save thy soul from death and hell. 

4. Take up thy cross and follow Christ, 
nor think till death to lay it down; 
for only those who bear the cross 
may hope to wear the glorious crown. 

BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS, I AM

A REFLECTION FOR PASSION SUNDAY

At Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, one of the required prayers, familiar to all of us, is the Divine Praises.  Beginning with the words “Blessed be God”, we praise, one by one, the sacred attributes of God.  The very first to be mentioned after the praise of God himself, is the Name of God—“Blessed be his holy Name.”  We sometimes think of this holy Name as that of the Son of God, “Jesus”, which we revere by celebrating a feastday in its honor, and bowing our head whenever we pronounce this Name.

The custom of giving profound veneration to the Name of God, however, originates long before the birth of our Lord.  It goes back all the way to the Book of Exodus, to a day that found a fellow called Moses tending to the flock of his father-in-law Jethro.  As they climbed the slopes of Mount Horeb, an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses “in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bushwas not consumed.”  

This naturally aroused Moses’ curiosity, and as he approached the burning bush, God himself warned him to take off his shoes before coming near, “for the place whereon thou standestis holy ground.”  It is a common feature of many cultures still today to remove their shoes at certain times. Muslims, for example, leave their shoes at the door when they enter their mosques; the Japanese take off their shoes when entering someone’s home.  Even we Catholics have the custom of removing our shoes every Good Friday—it is prescribed by the rubrics that as we approach the Cross for veneration clergy and people remove their shoes and genuflect three times before kissing the feet of Christ on the Cross.

And for what purpose had God called Moses to this holy place?  If not for this milestone in Jewish history, Moses would presumably have continued his life as a shepherd and we would never have known about him.  But God had seen the plight of the Hebrew people, living in slavery in Egypt.  It was his intention to deliver them from their bondage, as a sign of the Messiah who was to come and deliver them from all their iniquities, redeeming his people and re-opening the gates of heaven, slammed shut since Adam bit the apple.  God had chosen Moses to lead the great exodus out of Egypt to a land flowing with milk and honey, prefiguring his only-begotten Son who would lead us away from our sins to the blessed homeland of a new Jerusalem, heaven itself.

Moses anticipated that his people would not accept him unless he could give the name of the One who had given him his mission. And so God declared to Moses that “I AM THAT I AM.”  When these words occur in the liturgy we bow our heads.  The Hebrew phrase is ehyeh ašer ehyeh, from the word hayah(היה). From this derives Yahweh(יהוה), the most holy Name of God in the Hebrew language, the word that, out of reverence for God, Jews still today refuse to pronounce even replacing the written form (in English) with “G-d”. “Thus,” said God to Moses, “shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AMhath sent me unto you.”

When our Lord declared that “Before Abraham was, I AM” he was not only pronouncing the sacred Name of God, he was actually claiming to bethat God.  Little wonder the unbelievers were horrified.  But he who is the Truth itself cannot lie…