Reflections on the Triduum

Our Jewish brothers and sisters have been celebrating Passover remembering the events leading to their release from slavery in Egypt and we gather these three days from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday to celebrate our Passover from death to life in Christ.  It is a time of remembering the triumph of God's love over darkness and death.  It can change our hearts deeply if we allow it.

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday we experience the washing of feet and see Pope Francis wash the feet of the young men and women in the juvenile detention center.  It is a ritual of service that sends the message that Eucharist is how we treat one another and our call is to treat others with respect and open service. The Eucharist of Holy Thursday unites us not only in ritual but in the desire and the commitment to be one with each other, to recognize and support one another and to serve one another.  As we watch Pope Francis during these Holy days we become more aware that great change is occurring in small gestures.  He could have just washed the feet of these young men and women, that's the ritual, but he also kissed their feet.  He also told them "washing your feet means I am at your service."  Holy Thursday should move us to the tenderness our Pope expressed in this short clip of the Holy Thursday experience.   It should invite us to be at the service of one another.

Good Friday

On Good Friday we gather to remember the Lord's passion and death.   I have always been inspired by Teilhard de Chardin's reflections on the cross  in The Divine Milieu.  He acknowledges the redemptive aspect of God's suffering for our sins but he focuses on Jesus'  effort at reconciliation. Jesus by his life, his passion and death teaches us how hard it is to work toward reconciliation and unification.  In the Divine Milieu Teilhard tells us that by his death, Jesus reconciled the world with God, but, because he was human (matter), he also reconciled  the various elements of the world with itself in a way that is being worked out in history even in our day. It is this side of the redemptive act of the cross that is uppermost in Teilhard's thought:   that Jesus by his death unified the world with God and within itself.  Teilhard sees the cross of Jesus above all as a work of unification. Jesus Christ bears the sins of the world, he overcomes the resistance to unification offered by the many, the resistance to the rise of spirit inherent in humans and in all matter.  The complete meaning of redemption is no longer to expiate sins, it is to surmount and conquer the resistance that divides us, that separates us from love. Christ's suffering reveals to us that its hard work to overcome resistance, he shows us what it is like, and he helps us to carry the weight.  And so, in Teilhard de Chardin the cross is brought into human becoming, our potential of being more, of evolving in compassion.  The cross is the symbol of work more than of penance.  Jesus' suffering, without ceasing to be he who bears the the sins of the world, indeed precisely as such, is also the one who bears and supports the weight of the world as it evolves.    The cross preaches and symbolizes the hard work of renunciation.   The cross is both the condition and the way of progress.   Because of the very nature of reality we are on a cross.  It is in Jesus crucified that every person can recognize his own true image.  The cross is the symbol of progress and victory won through mistakes, disappointments and hard work.  The cross synthesizes the transcendent, the "above" (the "upward' impulse of a person toward the worship of God) and the ultra-human, the "up-ahead", the "forward" impulse of a person towards building a better future.  The cosmic Christ calls us forward to that future.  Teilhard tells us true compassion is participating in the action of the cross.  We carry our cross 1) in compassion with Christ and 2) in compassion with all human suffering in our history.

Holy Saturday

Saturday is a day of quiet reflection on the Entombment of Christ as we wait, like the disciples, for news of the resurrection. I  always want to go fishing on Holy Saturday because I think that's what the disciples did.  They were deflated, crushed perhaps, and they would have wanted to just go away and be by themselves.   James Martin in an article in America Magazine Online tells us most of our lives are spent in Holy Saturday.  In other words most of our lives are not filled with the unbearable pain of a Good Friday.  Nor are they suffused with the unbelievable joy of an Easter.   But most are...in between.  Most are, in fact, times of waiting, as the disciples waited during Holy Saturday.  May your waiting be holy.

Holy Saturday:  The Easter Vigil

And finally, on Saturday night we gather in vigil and hear the amazing news that Jesus Christ, our companion and brother, is not dead, but is risen from the grave.  We no longer have to fear the empty tomb.  We move from darkness into light.  Having read the stories of our journey, we know all is well and all will be well as Julian of Norwich tells us.  Let us open our hearts to see the resurrection of Jesus all around us.  In this video clip of a flashmob  we see a building Alleluia as one by one humanity unites and surprises us all with the beauty of an Alleluia.  We, together, in joyous heart praise the risen Savior among us.  Perhaps we see this Savior in the eyes of all those around us.  As you watch this video be patient -- wait with the people, marvel at the gentle talents and be one with the crowd as it joins in the praise.  Ordinary people like you and I lift their voice in praise.  Can you resist singing?