Homily — Easter Vigil

THESIS: The witness of the women in the gospel is an inspiration for us, even as monks, to announce the good news of the resurrection in our hidden life of prayer, our common life and our desire to be with Jesus. 

I have been thinking about a very simple, one line summary, of all we have been celebrating this night. It is given to us by the Church as both an exhortation and a mission. It is the dismissal, “Go and announce the gospel of the Lord.” All that we have heard and seen tonight is a foundation for that mission – Lumen Christi; “O happy fault”; passing through the Red Sea and the cloud; renewal with water and the Spirit; the angel’s word, “…He has been raised from the dead.” So many mysteries have been placed before us, we might be tempted to ask, “Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Well, the answer is, to us. To our community. To our friends and family. To the Church, and through her to all people. The mighty arm of the Lord has raised our crucified Lord from the dead. “He died for our sins, and has been raised up for our justification.” Let us turn to the holy women who first heard the gospel to learn more about how to welcome and announce this good news.

First, I am sure you notice who it is that keeps vigil beside the tomb of Jesus; who it is that works into the night preparing the perfumed ointments; who rises early to go to the tomb – it is the women. Even more, consider their boldness. While all the other disciples had stayed behind locked doors, they go out at dawn to care for the body of Jesus. Whatever fear they feel is overcome by their love and gratitude. Notice is was only when the women brought back their message of the resurrection that Peter and the Beloved Disciple ran to the tomb. They were the catalyst. They may not have had the strength to remove the stone before the tomb, but their witness to what they had seen and heard had its own authority. Even the fear they experienced in the presence of the angel God turned to their benefit. It led them directly into the path of Jesus, who told them not to be afraid. And they responded with a fully feminine response; “…they approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.”

We have to marvel at the zeal of these women. As monks our vocation urges us to make haste with “with all dignity and decorum” to arrive at vigils. When sleepiness slows us down, at least we can make up for it by heeding the example of others who are already there, like the holy women. We have to convey the good news of Jesus’ resurrection with a message similar to that given by Martha to her sister Mary: “The Lord is asking for you.” Better to be with a community that seeks the Lord day and night. That is our charism. The holy women help us to choose the better part which staying close to our risen Lord.

Brothers and sisters, let us immerse ourselves in this holy night. From the depths of the Most Holy Trinity, we are called to announce the gospel of the Lord, each of us according to our vocation. This is what the holy women did, because they loved much.

Homily — Good Friday

On this Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion, it is good to face, insofar as we are able, the inexpressible horror of Jesus’ passion. Not only the pain, the utter desolation, and the shattering of all expectations, but the tragedy of human sin. But at the same time, we want to turn our faces to the immeasurable mercy of God. The holy women standing at a distance from Jesus’ cross felt helpless in the face of the reality, bewildered perhaps, and maybe even stupefied at what had happened. This was the inexpressible horror that was difficult to face. On the other hand, we have the scene of Jesus’ mother and the beloved disciple at the cross. Even greater sorrow, but with Our Lady, an absolute acceptance of God’s will. I mention this because of one consolation that God gives to us in the face of all this: the prayers of the psalms, the divinely chosen prayers that enable us to pass through even the valley of darkness which is the Passion of Jesus.

The psalms feature prominently in our Holy Week Liturgies. Divinely inspired songs, they are – laments, thanksgivings, praises, curses – you name it, the whole gamut of human responses to the realities of our world, are summed up in the psalms, especially those used in the liturgy. They accompany us as we watch the mission of Jesus unfold. At each point in the liturgy, the Church sets before us psalms that correspond to the inner heart of Jesus.

Here are some examples. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This was the psalmist’s cry taken up by Jesus when he could not shield his face from buffets and spitting which he endured out of love for us unto death. Or again, from the Holy Thursday liturgy, “I will take up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,” which was literally fulfilled when Jesus took up the cup of Passover wine and changed it into the cup of his blood in the institution of the Eucharist. Or today, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” that is, the moment when Jesus experienced the ultimate abandonment by his Father and yet embraced the mystery of the Father’s will. There are many other examples we could bring forward, examples from our daily rounds of psalmody that carry us throughout our days as monks. How else could we carry out our mission of intercession for the world without the psalms? How else could we bear the alternation of joys and sorrows which are our lot in this life. The psalms give us hope that the last word will be God’s as Jesus showed us with his cry, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

The psalms give us hope that we can express the inexpressible – both the absolute horror of the cross and the evil that our human race is capable of, and the absolute love that God showed in raising Jesus from the dead and us from the death of sin. The psalms, especially as we hear them on the lips of Jesus, are the healing balm that the Father gives us in these holy days. Let us sing them in union with Jesus who alone is capable of expressing the inexpressible in his sufferings and his joys. 

The More Christian Person

The “greater,” more Christian person is the person who serves more deeply; like Jesus, who serves at the eucharistic table and washes the feet of his enemy, Judas.

HANS ERS VON BALTHASAR New Elucidations

Deification

Because God has become man, man can become God. He rises by divine steps corresponding to those by which God humbled himself out of love for men, taking on himself without any change in himself the worst of our condition.

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR Theological and Economic Chapters

This Seed of Fire

‘God built humanity so that humanity might build for him’: churches, yes, but also societies, culture, the visible or invisible networks which sustain a ‘Eucharistic’ relationship between human beings and the earth. God comes near to us unendingly in the bread of life, the food of resurrection. Everything has to be built up around this seed of fire.

OLIVIER CLÉMENT The Roots of Christian Mysticism

Homily — Palm Sunday

When we began our Palm Sunday procession, we heard this passage from the gospel of Matthew: “And when (Jesus) entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken and asked, “Who is this?” Who is Jesus? This is the most important question for us this Holy Week. Everything revolves around it: “Who is this?” We will hear many answers to this question during Holy Week. What answer will we give? God is waiting.

The crowd following Jesus into Jerusalem gave this answer: “This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.” Why would they refer to Jesus as a prophet. The prophet Isaiah just gave us a list of the most prominent characteristics of a prophet. He speaks on behalf of God and interprets what God wants. He suffers for his prophetic mission, but he will not be deterred. This is what many saw in Jesus. He spoke with a well-trained tongue to rouse us from our torpor. He did not turn back or rebel against divine providence, even under persecution. Jesus’ determination is like a rock when it comes to completing his mission. The crowd could see these characteristics in Jesus. But eventually they could see that he was more than a prophet. He was the mysterious Servant of the Lord, the origin of all prophets. They have all been stamped with his image. No wonder the whole city was shaken. 

The early Church recorded its own answer in the Letter to the Philippians: Jesus is fully a man, but he is also equal to God. The hymn points to this identity: “Although he was in the form of God…” Bue even more, he shows his divinity by his willingness to empty himself of all the honors of God because of his love for his Father’s plan: “… (he) did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.”  Here we are immersed in the depths of the Holy Trinity. Jesus voluntarily unites our human nature with his divinity in perfect harmony with his Father’s will. He will overcome our revolt against the God by his obedience, something we could not do on our own. The Holy Spirit effects this emptying by bringing about the conception of Jesus in the womb of his virgin mother. He prepares a body in which Jesus can carry out the Father’s work, taking upon himself our guilt and removing it by his obedience. That is why God so highly exalted him. 

Finally, the gospel provides another answer to the all-important question of who Jesus is: He is a man like us with all the human emotions and affections that we feel but without sin. The scene in the garden of Gethsemane reveals this clearly. Jesus trembles at his approaching death. He longs for human companionship and support. In his deepest moments of anguish, he asks his three disciples to remain alert and watch with him, imploring their support as his friends. But they fall asleep. He bore this human disappointment, not once but three times, urging his friends to rouse themselves. He needed their love and support at this hour. This loss of human, and even paternal support, was crushing. In the end with human resignation, all he can say is, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Get up, let us go. Look, my betrayer is at hand.”

As we continue our journey through Holy Week, we will hear more answers to the question “Who is this?” Who is this prophet, this emptied one, this man whose heart felt the bitter disappointment of friends who could not watch with him one hour? The Church invites us to ponder all this today and give our answer to the question, “Who is this?” answer the question for ourselves. It is the most important question we face in life. 

The Will of God

The will of God often appears repulsive, but faith enables us to see it as it really is. If we live by faith we shall judge things very differently from the way people do who rely only on the evidence of their senses and so remain unaware of the priceless treasure hidden under appearances.

JEAN-PIERRE DE CAUSSADE Abandonment to Divine Providence