Easter Monday, April 22, 2025

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 stark contrast here: 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, April 20, 2025

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. 

My brother priests and I celebrated the Easter Vigil Mass last night. It was simple and very beautiful.  If I have learned anything during Holy Week this year, it is that the amount and type of  music we use covers up the words and the actions of the Mass, especially during Solemnities.  Instead of organs and orchestras, I think it would be better for us to sing the hymns we know a cappella.  Choirs and organs and musical instruments tend not to lead the people in singing, but to replace them.

In St. John’s recounting of his and St. Peter’s investigation of the empty tomb, he seems to place emphasis on the burial cloths, which he mentions twice.  We might wonder why he would mention a detail like that at all.  If the Lord is risen, it is plain that he should leave the burial cloths behind.  But the cloths provide important evidence for what has taken place.  When Mary says to the Apostles, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb”, she is evidently referring to the leaders of the Jews.  But if this is so, why would they strip the Body of Jesus of the burial cloths?  The burial cloths would make it easier for them to steal the Body.  Also, by this time, the cloths are glued to the skin of the body by the dried Blood.  The grave robbers would have had to tear the cloths from the skin.  In addition to this being unnecessary work, it would have taken time, and when stealing a body from a grave, speed is critical.  Presumably, the Jewish leaders did not want to be caught at this.  And this leads us to a further consideration, and John says that he and Peter noted it at the time: They 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.  Not only were the cloths removed, but they were carefully stored.  This is not a sign of thieves in a hurry.  John says that when he looked into the tomb and saw that it was empty and that the burial cloths were arranged in this way, “He saw and believed.”  

A person reading his account two thousand years after he gave it, may be excused from not paying special notice to the burial cloths.  But for someone who loves Jesus, every detail pertaining to him is to be searched out and pondered, because it will lead to deeper faith and love.  Let us search out the Gospels with real attention and ponder what we read, and ask the Lord for enlightenment so that what faith and love we have for him may be increased, and that we may look upon the Lord in the Gospels and say with St. Thomas, who saw the Lord with his own eyes, “My Lord and my God!”

Holy Saturday, April 19, 2025

Luke 24, 1–12

At daybreak on the first day of the week the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were puzzling over this, behold, two men in dazzling garments appeared to them. They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.” And they remembered his words. Then they returned from the tomb and announced all these things to the eleven and to all the others. The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James; the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles, but their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.

“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.”  Perhaps rephrasing the translation would help us to appreciate the meaning of the angels: “the living one among corpses”.  The question the angels ask seems odd.  The women were going to the last place the Body of Jesus had been seen.  They went with honorable intentions, as well.  The question has the tone of a rebuke, which hardly seems appropriate.  But by asking this question, the angels make clear that they know the Lord is risen, as though to say, Of course Christ is risen.  You, who are mortals, do not see this and must be convinced of it, but we, who are angels, know that he lives and tell this to you.  “He has been raised.”  That is, from the grave in the depths of the earth to the upper regions where there is life and light.  There is also the sense that a body is buried on its back in a posture that otherwise suggests sleep.  But when a sleeping person wakes up, that person rises from the bed.  This phrase can also be understood in that the soul of Jesus “descended” to the realm of the dead and has re-emerged from it into the world of the living.  “He has been raised” is in the passive voice, meaning that someone raised him, and that would be his Father in heaven.  Elsewhere, however, we hear of Jesus rising from the dead in the active voice: “Jesus died and rose again” (1 Thessalonians 4, 13).  The work of the Resurrection is the work of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, so perfect is their union.

“He is not here, but he has been raised.”  Where is “here”?  It is this world with all its entanglements and traps for the soul.  Jesus has been raised out of it and with his glorified Body exists in a different way in relation to it — he can pass through locked doors, he can take on other appearances so that even those who know him do not recognize him.  And yet he can eat real food; he has flesh and bones and is not like a ghost: “See my hands and feet, that it is I myself. Handle, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have” (Luke 24, 39).  And so shall it be for us on the Last Day when Jesus comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

“But their story seemed like nonsense and they did not believe them.”  The women themselves may not have known what to make of what the angels told them and could not relate a coherent report to the Apostles.  But even if they did, the Apostles could not have been able to absorb the news.  At least St. John, of them all, had stood beneath the Cross and seen their Lord die on it and then his side pierced by a guard’s lance.  Evidently they knew that he had been buried and they knew the location of the tomb.  He was dead.  Shock and grief held them in thrall.  Except for Saints Peter and John.

“Peter got up and ran to the tomb, bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone; then he went home amazed at what had happened.”  St. Luke speaks only of St, Peter here.  John, in his own Gospel, will related that he ran with Peter and even reached the tomb before he did.  We see in Peter’s running his urgent, even desperate, desire to see Jesus again and to beg his forgiveness for his denials of him.  He “bent down” when he arrived at the tomb, for the tomb had been cut into a rock and had a little courtyard before the entrance reached by a few steps.  Peter saw their Lord die burial cloths “alone”, that is, not wrapped around the Body of Jesus.  And this fact, that they had been left behind, left him “amazed”.  Peter saw only two possibilities: either the Body of Jesus had been removed from the tomb or he had risen from the dead.  But if it had been removed, many people would have known about it because the work of moving the massive stone that sealed the tomb would have entailed several workmen as well as giant levers and other tools.  And if the Body had been removed from the tomb, it would still be wrapped in its burial cloths.  There would have been no need to remove them.  This left the alternative explanation, that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead.

Good Friday, April 18, 2025

John 18, 1 — 19, 42

St. John’s account of the Passion of our Lord emphasizes how Jesus stood out from all the people around him in his majesty and power.  Jesus is shown going deliberately to the place where he knew he would be betrayed.  Those armed with clubs and swords fall before the Lord as they approach him.  Jesus heals the slave of the high priest in the middle of his arrest by that high priest’s Temple guards.  He commands Peter to put up his sword and allows himself to be taken to the Sanhedrin.  It is Jesus who is in control of the situation at his interrogation by Annas.  He is not cowed by the guard’s blow.  He turns his questioning by Pilate into the questioning of Pilate, reducing Pilate to asking himself a philosophical question: “What is the truth?”  Pilate is convinced of the Lord’s innocence and orders him to be crucified only due to the threat of violence by the Jews.  Jesus is the master of the situation even on the Cross, giving his Mother into the care of the Apostle John.  Even his words, “I thirst”, are uttered as a command.  And then his final words, “It is consummated”, show that he has accomplished the mission for which his Father sent him.  The fact that he had the strength to speak as he did demonstrates superhuman strength.  He does only because he wills it: “I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished?” (Luke 12, 50).

On this day in which we look upon the suffering of our Lord, we see how much he loves us that we would give himself up to the horrific death of the cross.  He shows that there is nothing he would not do for us to save us from hell.  He enters into death into to slay it from the inside.

Holy Thursday, April 17, 2025

1 Corinthians 11, 23–26

Brothers and sisters: I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

The words of institution spoken by the Lord Jesus — those which the Church uses for the confection of the Sacrament of the Eucharist — have great significance and power, so we should examine them closely.

“This is my Body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  The Lord broke the unleavened bread and, having done so, he declared, “This is my Body.”  It is broken bread that becomes his Body, as a sign of the Passion he was about to undergo.  And this bread did become his Body in fact.  The Lord changed the bread into the substance of his Body while allowing it to retain its appearance to the five human senses.  In this way he answers the question posed after he first announced that those who ate his Body would live forever: “How can this man give us his Flesh to eat?” (John 6, 53).  So necessary is the eating of his Flesh for salvation that Jesus makes it easily palatable for us, with the shape, texture, and taste of bread.  

Further, he commands that this ritual be performed again and again “in memory” of him.  Now, we must distinguish between the Western way of thinking about memory and the past and the ancient Jewish one.  In the West, the past is over; it is no longer happening.  A past event may be recalled vividly so that we may speak of “reliving” the past, but we recognize the event itself as completed, as irrevocably done.  However, for the Jews in the time of Moses and in the time of Jesus, and for religious Jews today, remembering makes the past present so that we are truly experiencing it.  Thus, the Passover meal is no mere reenactment of a past event but making it present so that it can be joined.  When Jesus says to do this in memory of him, he means for us so that he becomes present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  At the Last Supper, then, Jesus changed the bread into his Body. (and the wine into his Blood) for the Apostles to consume, and he commanded and gave them the power to do this over and over.  And this power is handed on by their successors, the bishops, to those ordained to the priesthood today.

“This cup is the new covenant in my Blood.”  In ancient times, covenants were made using blood as a seal.  The ancient Hebrew word for making a covenant actually means “cutting” a covenant, for this reason.  Moses sprinkled the Israelites at the time God made a covenant with them in the Sinai (cf. Exodus 24, 8).  After the Israelites broke the covenant through their idolatry over the course of centuries, God said through the Prophet Jeremiah, “Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.  Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, the covenant which they made void, and I had dominion over them, saith the Lord.  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”(Jeremiah 31, 31-34).  At the Last Supper, Jesus inaugurates this covenant and tells them to “drink it”.  This covenant is not ratified by the blood of an animal touching a person’s skin, but the Blood of Christ, sacrificed for our redemption, is drunk so that it is within.  For this reason, each time a Catholic receives the Holy Eucharist, he or she ratifies this covenant anew.

St. Paul says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” The Church proclaims the Lord’s Death through the action of the Holy Mass, which presents it in the sign of the separated Body and Blood of the Lord on the altar, his Body on the paten and his Blood in the chalice.  And each Catholic proclaims his Death by consuming his Flesh and Blood.

(The question arises as to how the faithful receive the Blood of the Lord if they do not drink from the chalice.  But as the Church teaches, the Flesh and the Blood of the Lord truly mingle together as in any living body so that those who cannot consume a Host due to medical problems still consume the Lord’s Flesh when the priest shares the chalice with them.)

On this day we celebrate the Lord’s Supper and the great gift he continuously offers us in the reception of his Body and Blood.

Wednesday during Holy Week, April 16, 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.”

“One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests.”  Much speculation has circled about what motivated Judas to betray Jesus.  In the Gospels, he is portrayed as greedy and even as a thief, as though the lure of money from the chief priests drove him to do as he did.  But Judas says to the chief priests, “What are you willing to give me?”  That is, he will take what he is given — he is not demanding a price that will make him rich.  St. John also writes that “Satan entered him” (John 13, 27).   The devil by this time knew Jesus was a threat to his empire.  He still would not have understood the mystery of the Incarnation by which God became man, but he knew that Jesus had great powers, especially that of casting out demons.  Satan could have persuaded Judas that Jesus was a false messiah who would only bring ruin to Israel.  Or he might have felt left out of the Lord’s plans and become viciously jealous of the other Apostles.  There are those who misread the Gospels and think that God forced Judas to betray Jesus.  But Jesus gave Judas multiple opportunities to walk away from what he meant to do, but he did not avail himself of them.  Jealousy and hatred were enough to move a man to betray another.

“My appointed time draws near.”  That is, for the offering of his life on the Cross for our redemption.  The Evangelists make it very clear throughout the Gospels that his Death was clearly foreseen and freely willed.  St. John quotes Jesus a number of times as speaking of his “hour”.  We can see the Lord’s life as a race to this hour, relentlessly driving himself in preaching the Gospel and healing those in need of healing as signs of the Father’s approval of his mission.  Although most people live in dread of death, Jesus could hardly constrain himself for it, as though the time dragged until it be accomplished: “I am come to cast fire on the earth. And what will I, but that it be kindled?  And I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized. And how am I straitened until it be accomplished?” (Luke 12, 49-50).

“In your house I shall celebrate the Passover.”  The Lord Jesus very much acts as king in Jerusalem during his final days there.  He appropriates a donkey on which to ride in; he casts the money-changers out of the Temple as though it were his Temple; and he announces to a disciple living in Jerusalem that he will eat the Passover meal in his house.  It is in this house that the Lord offered the first Mass.

Tuesday during Holy Week, April 15, 2025

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.”

Few actions reveal the infinite mercy in the Lord’s Heart than those involving Judas Iscariot.  Several times before, during and after the Last Supper Jesus let Judas know that he was fully aware of his intention to betray him.  Here, Jesus explicitly informs the Apostles that Judas will do this: “It is the one to whom I hand the morsel after I have dipped it.”  Judas could not have been unaware of this.  He feared neither Jesus nor even his fellow Apostles in his grim determination to hand the Lord over to those who hated him.  The Lord Jesus, for his part, offers Judas many chances to change his mind so that he will not sin, practically forcing him to give up his plan by revealing it, in his presence, to loyal men who will act against him if called upon to do so.  But Jesus protects Judas (“What you are going to do, do quickly.”) even as he warns him that for the one who betrays him, “it were better for him, if that man had not been born” (Matthew 26, 24).  The Lord so desperately desires that save us from sinning that he would do anything up to the point of using force to do this.  

“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.”  With the dismissal of Judas who goes to alert the chief priests, the Passion of our Lord begins.  The Father is glorified by the obedience of his Son, “becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the Cross” (Philippians 2, 8).

“Master, where are you going?”  The Greek text has the word Kyrie, which means not “master” (in the sense of “teacher”) but “Lord” or “Sire”.  Peter fears the Lord going where he cannot come for he knows that without the Lord he is nothing.  His life has meaning only with Jesus.  We should think of Peter speaking almost in a panic.  “You will follow later.”  The Lord refers both to Peter’s eventual death and also to his death, like his Lord’s, on a cross.  “Master, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”  This is better understood by a correct translation: Lord, why can I not follow you now?  That is, Peter understood Jesus to be the King of Israel who would assume his throne in the next few days, and he most emphatically wanted to take part in the action.  If Jesus departs now, as he says, then either this will not happen at all, or Peter will be left out of it.  Sensing that perhaps the Lord will engage in battle with the forces of the chief priests or even with the Romans, Peter vows now to sit on the sidelines but to defend Jesus to the death.

Matthew 26, 35, following Peter’s protest: “And in like manner said all the disciples.”  Jesus waited for the clamor to die down and then spoke so that everyone could hear him: “Amen, amen, I say to you, the cock will not crow before you deny me three times.”  Jesus does this not to shame Peter, but to warn the other Apostles: if Peter’s constancy was shaken, how much more that of the others, whose faith did not match his?  It is a warning to all those who would come after, that it is easy to believe when things are going well, but when tribulation and even persecution comes, as it inevitably will, is our faith sufficient or lacking?  Do we grow stronger in it or does it fall away?