Easter Monday, April 1, 2024

Matthew 28, 8-15

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce the news to his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”  While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had happened. The chief priests assembled with the elders and took counsel; then they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.’ And if this gets to the ears of the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” The soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has circulated among the Jews to the present day.

St. Matthew presents a contrast in these verses of his Gospel.  There are two groups of people who have two very different reactions to the same fact — that of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead — and who are given two different sets of orders.  On the one hand, the women were “fearful yet overjoyed”; on the other, there were the soldiers, who were panicked over the appearance of the Angel and also that the tomb they had been told to guard was empty.  In ancient times, the escape of a prisoner meant the execution of the guard.  But the guards did not know what else to do but to plead their case.  The women are told to go to the Apostles, whom the Lord for the first time calls his “brothers”, and tell them to return to Galilee, where he will meet them.  These women are to bring the glad tidings of the Resurrection to them.  They thus fulfill the office of the Angel who was sent to them.  The guards, full of dread, are ordered by the Jewish leaders to lie about what they had seen and to lie about the Apostles.  The lie, in fact, would be harder to believe than what actually happened, since people would be asked to imagine the guards sleeping through an operation that would have involved several men, a number of torches, the use of levers, and a certain amount of time.  And if the guards could say the Apostles stole the Body, they must have been awake at any rate.  And if they had seen the Apostles steal the Body, why did they not stop them, or chase after them?  Surely they could have caught up with men loaded down with the Body of a dead man?  But this was the story that they told.

This sums up the positions of those who believe in the Lord Jesus and those who refuse to believe.  Those who believe are overjoyed in the promise of the Lord that they may be with him forever; those who refuse to believe are unhappy people who seek to spread their unhappiness and to prevent the believers from expressing and sharing their joy.  The believers are free in the knowledge of the truth; the unbelievers are chained to their pathetic lies and their darkness.  Let those of us who believe speak with our joy and our love to those many people who do not know Jesus, so that they may enter into his truth too.

 Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024

John 20, 1–9

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. 

“They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”  Mary Magdalene so loved the Lord that even the care of his dead Body was of the greatest concern for her.  First, devastated and broken-hearted by the Lord’s Death, now she finds his tomb empty.  She does not know whether the Jewish leaders have stolen it to prevent its veneration or if those who laid it in the tomb meant it to rest there on temporarily until it could be buried after the Sabbath, since he had not belonged to the family whose tomb it was.  It seems, though, that it was the first possibility that alarmed her.  The “they” who she thinks moved his Body sounds like she was referring to the “they” who killed him.  It was not enough for them that the Lord was dead: they had to hide his Body as well.

She ran directly to Simon Peter and to John to tell them.  She would have known where to find them because John was with her under the Cross on Golgotha and would have learned this from him.  The two Apostles seem to have run off for the tomb without speaking to her, although she must have told them where the Body had been laid to rest, or perhaps John knew from remaining at the Cross until it was taken down by Joseph of Arimathea.

“When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.”  It is significant that the cloths were found very neatly set aside, as it demonstrates that the Body had not been stolen or taken away.  Whether thieves or the Jewish leaders, they would not have bothered to unwrap the linen cloth from the Body before taking it, much less roll up the cloth that had covered his head and then put it in a separate place.  It as though the one who had died had gotten up off the stone bench on which he had been laid and calmly folded up the linen cloth and rolled up the cloth that had covered his face and head, and then set it on the floor in a corner.  This is why John can say that he and Peter “saw and believed”.  Previously, “they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead”.  Now they faced a reality that could only be explained by the Lord Jesus rising from the dead.  The last verse of the Gospel Reading should read, “For they had not before understood the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”  That is, until the Apostles went into the tomb and looked around they had not understood the prophecies, but now they did.  Their eyes were opened.  They walked away from the tomb changed men, and unsure of what would happen next, but very certain that their Master had conquered death.

 Holy Saturday, March 30, 2024

Mark 16, 1-7

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint him. Very early when the sun had risen, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb. They were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back; it was very large. On entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they were utterly amazed. He said to them, “Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold the place where they laid him. But go and tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.”

The above Gospel Reading is used for the Easter Vigil Mass late Saturday night when we anticipate the glory of Easter Sunday.  During the daytime it is useful for us to recollect how, after his Death, the Lord Jesus “preached to those spirits that were in prison” (1 Peter 3, 19).  The Lord, after finishing the course of his life on earth descended to the place where all the souls of the dead were kept.  They heard the word of God, and those who had lived just lives and accepted it were saved and those who did not were were cast into hell.  This event has been known since the Middle Ages as “the harrowing of hell”, since this place of the dead was thought to be adjacent to hell.  Details of this harrowing are provided by the apocryphal Gospel of  Nicodemus (c. 350).  The arrival of Christ to the place of the dead is related in this way: 

“There was a great voice like thunder, saying: ‘Lift up your gates, O you rulers; and be lifted up, you everlasting gates; and the King of glory shall come in.’  When Hades heard, he said to Satan: ‘Go forth, if you are able, and withstand him.’  Satan therefore went forth to the outside. Then Hades said to his demons: ‘Secure well and strongly the gates of brass and the bars of iron, and attend to my bolts, and stand in order, and see to everything; for if he come in here, woe will seize us.’ . . . There came, then, again a voice saying: ‘Lift up the gates.’ Hell, hearing the voice . . . answered as if he did not know, and said: ‘Who is this King of glory?’ The angels of the Lord said: ‘The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.’ And immediately with these words the bronze gates were shattered and the iron bars broken, and all the dead who had been bound came out of the prisons . . . and the King of glory came in the form of a man, and all the dark places of Hell were lit up.”  

Hell was seen not as some terrible place, merely, but as a greedy, devouring monster.  Also to be noted is that that the author has adapted verses from Psalm 24 to be spoken by the angels and is the basis for a chorus in Georg Frideric Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, in the eighteenth century.

Who followed Christ into heaven?  Adam and Eve, who had repented of their awful sin and never sinned again; Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel and Leah, Moses, the Prophets, the Holy Innocents, the Lord’s foster father, Joseph, John the Baptist, and so many more.

We ought to pray to the saints who dwell now in eternal glory and ask for their aid in persevering in our faith so that our earthly celebration of the Lord’s triumphal Resurrection on Easter Sunday will prepare us to join them in celebrating it in heaven.

 Good Friday, March 29, 2024

John 18, 1—19, 42

Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered. Judas his betrayer also knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. So Judas got a band of soldiers and guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons, etc.

The Roman soldier thrust his lance into the side of Jesus.  It went deep and sharp into his Body so that Blood and water flowed out immediately.  The soldier did this to ensure that Jesus was dead.  This act of brutality signifies how the world would continue to hate the Lord even after his Death.  His Mother Mary, the Apostle John, and Mary Magdalene, out of whom the Lord had cast seven demons, remained to witness this final act of contempt for the Savior of the world.  We can well imagine how Mary felt the lance thrust violently into her own breast as she saw it pierce through her Son’s.  

The bodies of the thieves were taken down after they had finished strangling.  The sun was beginning to set and the Law stated of a hanged criminal that “his body shall not remain upon the tree, but shall be buried the same day: for he is accursed of God who hangs on a tree: and you shall not defile your land which the Lord your God shall give you in possession” (Deuteronomy 21, 23).  The families of criminals did not attend their executions, as a rule, so who took down their bodies?  Those staunch advocates of the Law the Sanhedrin would have seen to this, employing their slaves so that they themselves would not incur ritual impurity on the day of the Passover.  But such was their hatred of Jesus Christ that they would not extend this courtesy towards his Body.  The Virgin Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene were not in a position to take down his Body.  They must have watched the two bodies of the thieves come down and wonder sadly if no indignity would be spared the love of their lives.  

Just then, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, members of the Sanhedrin, came with ladders and tools and cloths and showed no interest in the purity laws by using their own hands to take down the dead, bloody, shredded Body of the Lord Jesus.  It was a heartbreaking scene.  Tradition holds that the Blessed Mother held his Body in her arms one last time.  Then John led her away to a safe place in the city with Mary Magdalene.  And Joseph and Nicodemus carried his Body down the road to a fresh tomb, rolling the stone to seal its entrance just as the last flickering of sunlight faded away.

We will never fully be able to comprehend how much our Savior suffered for us.  

 Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024

John 13, 1–15

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over. So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Master, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.” Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.” For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”   So when he had washed their feet and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

We may wonder that the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday does not have for its Gospel Reading one of the accounts of how Jesus instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  This, however, is commemorated on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, which falls on June 2, this year.  On Holy Thursday night, the Gospel Reading presents to us the meaning of the Lord’s life in this world, which is that of humble service.  From the first moment of his life to its end on Golgotha, he served and was obedient.  St. Luke tells us very specifically that Jesus, as a boy, “was subject” to his parents (Luke 2, 51), whom he had created.  In this he is obedient to the Father: “He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death” (Philippians 2, 8).  And this was no abstract service but that of a field slave: unrelenting, from sunrise till sundown in the heat of the day, on the road, preaching, healing, casting out demons, debating with the Pharisees.  And at night spending long hours in prayer.  We might think of his prayer as refreshing and restorative since it meant being along with his Father, but his prayer was intercessory.  Already he was beseeching mercy from the Father for each one of us by name, perhaps even sweating blood in the effort, as he would on Holy Thursday night.

His Apostles had not only witnessed his life of service; they had shared in it.  And yet they did not fully understand it.  For them, even at the Last Supper, all this was preliminary to overthrowing Roman rule and reestablishing the Davidic kingdom.  And so Jesus shows them that what they have seen and done does not pave the way to their own rule, but to greater opportunities for service.  And they would do this for him and in his name.  He makes the nature of the service painfully clear through washing their feet, taking the part of a slave.  They are dumbfounded and repulsed.  Peter objects, almost violently.  What Jesus does goes completely against what anyone had thought about authority.  Jesus teaches that this is exactly what authority is for: to have complete freedom for serving.

“Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”  This washing is no mere symbol, but a sign to be fulfilled.  First, the one who would follow Christ and gain an inheritance with him must confess that he is in need of being washed, for in order to enter a house one must have clean feet.  Second, the person must allow the slave to wash his feet.  He cannot wash his own but must accept being washed.  In this sign the Lord teaches how he will forgive sins, but to be forgiven, a person must humble himself to acknowledge his sinfulness and that he must be “washed”, and that it is the Lord himself who will forgive him and make his soul clean, “whiter than snow” (Psalm 51, 9).  The one who clings to his dirt will be allowed to remain in his sin.  The effects of forgiveness are not received by one one refuses them: “You are clean, but not all.”  The Lord dies for all, but many will still reject his redemption and go the “wide way that leads to destruction” (Matthew 7, 13).

The Apostles still had to learn how each of them was meant to “wash the feet” of others, and we have to learn this too.  But it is clear that we should be looking for feet to wash, as it were, and not waiting for them to come to us.  Let us serve while we can.

 Wednesday of Holy Week, March 27, 2024

Matthew 26, 14-25

One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over. On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The teacher says, My appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.”  The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered, and prepared the Passover.  When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?” He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me. The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.” Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” He answered, “You have said so.”

“What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?”  Judas asks a very dreadful question.  He has planned to hand over Jesus to certain death for “thirty pieces of silver”, a sum large enough as to used to buy a substantial piece of land outside Jerusalem (cf. Matthew 27, 7).  It is no secret that the chief priests and the elders were trying to kill him.  Jesus himself spoke openly of this: “Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief priests and the scribes: and they shall condemn him to death” (Matthew 20, 18).  Judas is quite aware of what his actions will lead to.  His return to the chief priests later on and throwing the money back at them with the cry that he has betrayed innocent blood shows not repentance but panic that he would be blamed.  He certainly managed to keep his nerve at the Last Supper when Jesus revealed to the Apostles that one of them would betray him, and he went on with his deed anyway.

“Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” He answered, ‘You have said so.’ ”  Jesus exposes Judas, and still Judas betrays him.  In the hubbub after Jesus announces the betrayal, either the other Apostles do not hear, do not understand, or do not believe such a thing possible.  Judas, for his part, seems to have no concern for his own safety, so great is his desire to betray him.  He is like the chief priests and the elders who, worried for their lives, said to each other in regards to killing Jesus, “Not during the festival, lest perhaps there should be a tumult among the people” (Matthew 26, 5) — and then they did it all the same.  They could no longer restrain their hatred of the Lord, come what may.  It is a mirror image of how greatly the Lord yearned to offer himself for us on the Cross.

“When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve.”  A note about the physical aspect of the dinner.  In accordance with the practice of the time, Jesus and the Apostles reclined on couches to eat at formal meals.  The couches would be drawn up before the table laden with food and a person would recline with the upper part of his body leaning on his side on the table while the lower half was sprawled behind him on the couch.  The diner would have one free arm with which to eat.  John the Apostles recalls that he reclined on the couch next to Jesus.  The English translation says that he reclined at the side of Jesus and that he leaned back against the Lord’s chest to ask him who was going to betray him, making it sound as though John and Jesus shared the same couch, but this mistranslates a Greek idiom for dining on the next couch.  

During these holy days let us hand ourselves over to the Lord Jesus who died in order to gain us treasure in heaven.

 Tuesday of Holy Week, March 26, 2024

John 13, 21-33; 36-38

Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified, “Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, at a loss as to whom he meant. One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was reclining at Jesus’ side. So Simon Peter nodded to him to find out whom he meant. He leaned back against Jesus’ chest and said to him, “Master, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.” So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot. After Judas took the morsel, Satan entered him. So Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.” Now none of those reclining at table realized why he said this to him. Some thought that since Judas kept the money bag, Jesus had told him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or to give something to the poor. So Judas took the morsel and left at once. And it was night.  When he had left, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. You will look for me, and as I told the Jews, ‘Where I go you cannot come,’ so now I say it to you.”  Simon Peter said to him, “Master, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, though you will follow later.” Peter said to him, “Master, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times.”

“Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”  The Lord says these words to the Apostles not in order to rouse them to action against Judas, but in order to give Judas a chance to reconsider what he was planning to do.  The Lord gave Judas multiple opportunities to change his mind and to repent.  The Lord etting him know that he knew would certainly have scared off all but the most determined of men.  Only a true enemy would go through with his scheme after learning that the one against whom he was plotting was aware of it.  Again, when the Lord indicated that the betrayer would be the one to whom he offered food, Judas could have turned back.  The gesture should have reminded Judas of all that the Lord had done for him and for those who had come to him in their need.  Then, when the Lord said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly”, Judas could have opted out, again knowing that the Lord could stop him or order the loyal disciples to stop him, or even that the Lord could slip away from him, as he had several times before from those who would have killed him before his time.  And then, in the Garden, when Judas approached the Lord with his band of thugs, and the Lord said to him, “Do you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”, Judas could have whispered to him to get away, and he could have assisted his Master’s escape by hindering those with the torches.

Sometimes we see portrayals of Judas in movies or books which attempt to show him as confused, tricked by the chief priests, or even believing that he was helping the Lord bring about his Kingdom.  In reality, Judas was a deadly enemy set upon the Lord’s arrest and murder.  His later feelings of apparent remorse stem more from his fear of retaliation from the Lord’s followers than from concern for the Lord whom he had sold to the chief priests.  

We each receive multiple chances throughout our lives to repent of our sins and return to a God who is desperate for us, so much so that he sent his Son to die for us.  Let us truly turn from sin and from every attachment that yet binds us to the things of this world so that we may finish our lives here like Peter, and not like Judas.

 Monday of Holy Week, March 25, 2024

John 12, 1-11

Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him. Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, “Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days’ wages and given to the poor?” He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”  The large crowd of the Jews found out that he was there and came, not only because of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too, because many of the Jews were turning away and believing in Jesus because of him.

Ordinarily, the Holy Church celebrates the Feast of theAnnunciation on  March 25, but not on the occasions when it falls within Holy Week.  This year the feast will be celebrated on Monday, April 8, the first day outside of the octave of Easter.  The feast commemorates both the message of God to the Virgin Mary through the Angel Gabriel that she would be the Mother of his Son, and also the Son’s Incarnation in her womb.  

“Six days before Passover Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.”  Jesus arrived at the house of Lazarus on the Saturday before he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  St. John tells us that after raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus and his Apostles retired to a town named Ephraim (present-day Taybeh), a little more than nine miles northeast of Jerusalem, and they seem to have remained there until they received the invitation to return to Bethany for a meal to celebrate the return of Lazarus to life.  They could not have stayed much longer than a week at Ephraim then, though the invitation must have been timed to the Lord’s pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover.

“They gave a dinner for him there, and Martha served, while Lazarus was one of those reclining at table with him.”  This could have been either an afternoon or evening meal.  It was a very happy occasion, with all those who had mourned for Lazarus over the course of four days would have come to the feast, still amazed and very joyful.  This brings to mind Psalm 126, 6–7: “He who goes forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing in his sheaves.”  This is how we shall be one day when we see our loved ones again in heaven.  The dinner seems to have taken place at the house Lazarus, Martha, and Mary shared together, since Martha is said to be serving at it, that is, directing it.  They were young and none of them seem to have been married at the time.

“Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.”  The Greek text says that this was a Roman pound, not quite a Roman pound, of pure spikenard oil.  In today’s money this would cost over $54,000.  Mary’s action of breaking open the jar and anointing the Lord’s feet would have shocked the crowd, who would have known right away by its sweet scent what type of  perfume this was.  Mary slathered the Lord’s feet with it.  In a way, it was a preposterous thing to do.  The washing of the feet was the duty of slaves.  The feet were washed but never anointed.  The guest’s head would be anointed but not his feet.  Here, Mary takes the place of a slave at the Lord’s feet, and anoints them with oil greater than a year’s wages.  Lazarus and his family shows with this expenditure and Mary’s anointing that nothing was too good for Jesus.  There was nothing they could do to really show the depth of their gratitude to him and love for him.

Many of the guests must have been shocked.  Judas was one of these, though for a different reason.  While others would have marveled st what they would have considered a waste, Judas saw this as a missed chance to enrich himself.  Since it was soon afterwards that he went to the Sanhedrin and offered to betray Jesus for money, we might speculate that his disappointment in profiting here played a role in this.  If so, how ironic that he wound of throwing the money back at the Sanhedrin after Jesus was arrested: he wasted what he had gotten, while instead of wasting the money spent on the perfume, Mary of Bethany gained a seat in heaven.

“You always have the poor with you.”  The truly poor are those who do not believe in Jesus, and we should do what we can to alleviate their poverty.

“And the chief priests plotted to kill Lazarus too, because many of the Jews were turning away and believing in Jesus because of him.”  Many of the Jews were “departing” or “going away”, that is, seeing Jesus as a greater authority than the chief priests.  We might wonder how the killing of Lazarus would have helped the cause of the chief priests, but by this time their rage against the Lord had blown past rational limits and they were willing to kill anyone connected with Jesus out of their hatred for him and their perceived need to protect themselves.

Lazarus and his sisters spent a great deal of money on the perfume.  They need not have bought so much of it.  They could have been satisfied with a tenth of what they bought.  They evidently bought all that was available in their region at the time.  It would have been sold in small jars of a few ounces, so probably they purchased it from several merchants, possibly going so distances to do so.  What they did makes us think of the incalculable debt we owe to our Lord.  He restored Lazarus to live for a few more decades, but he restores us to live eternal.  How grateful we should be!  And what should we not do for him in our gratitude?

 Palm Sunday, March 28, 2021

Mark 11, 2-7

“Untie it and bring it here. If anyone should say to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ reply, ‘The Master has need of it and will send it back here at once.’  So they went off and found a colt tethered at a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. Some of the bystanders said to them, ‘What are you doing, untying the colt?’ They answered them just as Jesus had told them to, and they permitted them to do it. So they brought the colt to Jesus and put their cloaks over it. And he sat on it. 

Palm Sunday is celebrated with two readings from the Gospel.  The second reading is that of the Passion of the Lord, while the first, given at the very beginning of Mass, is that of the Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

In the passage quoted above, the Lord orders his disciples to bring him a colt to ride into the city.  In the ancient world, people normally entered a city on foot, leading in their pack animals if they were merchants or traders.  Only a king or a conquering general would ride in, mounted.  The Lord signifies his Kingship in this way, but by riding in on the colt of an ass, and not on a horse, shows his humility.  

We can understand the human soul as the “colt” on which Jesus rides.  The Lord desires it, as he desires a soul, and he sends his disciples to free it and lead it to him.  Thus, the human soul is tied with the bonds of sin, tethered at the gate of death.  Bystanders, that is, the demons standing before the gate of death, demand, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”  They had seen the colt, that is, this soul, as their property, although they had no title to it. The Church frees it and leads it to the Lord by the reins of the conscience, saying to the demons, “The Master has need of it.”  The demons give way in fear, and the Church leads it to the Lord.  The Church lays the “cloak” of its intercession upon the soul, and the Lord seats himself on it, that is, he enthrones himself upon it.  He then guides the soul into the holy city — not the old Jerusalem, but the New Jerusalem which comes down out of heaven from God  (cf. Revelation 21, 2).  The Lord had warned the demons through his Church that he would “send it back here at once”.  And so he does, in the form of the soul’s prayers for those still tethered at the gate of death.

During this Holy Week, let us remember to pray for the catechumens who are  preparing to enter the Catholic Church on Holy Saturday night.

 Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent, March 23, 2024

John 11, 45-56

Many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what Jesus had done began to believe in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing, nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.” He did not say this on his own, but since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to kill him.  So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he remained with his disciples.  Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves. They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?”

Here, St. John shows us the inner workings of the movement that resulted in the Death of the Lord Jesus.  It is curious in that John identifies the moment in which the high priest and his circle made the decision to do this as that in which they learned of the raising of Lazarus.  John specifically shows the high priest himself as initiating this: “It is better for you that one man should die instead of the people.”  In other words, the high priest goes about his work of sacrificing a Lamb for the sins of the people.

Now, we notice the motivation.  The Jewish leaders spoke of their fear: “If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.”  That is, just as many of the Lord’s own followers expected Jesus, as the Messiah, to lead the revolt against the Romans, despite his earnest efforts to disabuse them of this notion, so did the Jewish leaders.  The Lord had fought against this materialist interpretation of the Messiah, telling the Jews who held it that they were “of the world”, while he himself was not.  Ironically, it is the greatest materialist in the land, Pontius Pilate, to whom the Lord explained that his kingdom was not of this world, who saw the Lord as a spiritual leader and sought to release him.  

But behind all this is the raising of Lazarus.  The panicked reaction of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin to this news tells us of their obstinacy in the face of God’s glory.  They will let nothing change their minds about the Lord.  They see the gift of life as a threat to themselves.  Their reaction also proves that they never really wanted the Messiah to come, for his work would be to overthrow the Romans.  If the public raising up of a dead man was not a sign of the Lord’s ability to defeat the Romans, then there could be none.  All their teaching the people to await the Messiah was a sham, after all, and so we see the greatest reason why the Lord labeled them as “hypocrites”.  

“So Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, but he left for the region near the desert.”  Not wishing to die at any other time than at Passover, the Lord withdrew until all was in readiness.  

“Many went up from the country to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves.”  This little detail, so easy to overlook, reminds us that it is a Jew telling this story to other Jews, that is, to Jewish Christians, and, in conjunction with other evidence, we know that St. John “is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true.”  Let us also be disciples whose testimony to Jesus is reckoned as true so that others “may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10, 10).