Psalm 71:1, 5-6

In you, O Lord, I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame. 
For you, O Lord, are my hope,
    my trust O Lord, from my youth. 
Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
    it was you who took me from my mother's womb.
My praise is continualty of you.

In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses compares God's training of his people to an eagle training an eaglet to fly In ancient times it was believed that eaglets learned to fly by being pushed out of the nest, which was usually perched on the edge of a cliff. This is a marvelous image of what we feel is happening to us. God seems to push us into something that we feel totally incapable of doing. We wonder if he still loves us. Or again, he pushes us out of whatever nest we are in. Like the eaglet desperately flapping its wings, we seem to be heading straight for the abyss. But like the mother eagle, God swoops down and catches us just before we hit the rocks. This happens again and again until the eaglet learns to fly.

After we have been treated in this fashion a number of times, we too may realize that it is not as dangerous as we first believed. We begin to be content with these hair-raising escapes. We learn to trust God beyond our psychological experiences. And we become more courageous in facing and letting go of the dark corners of ourselves and begin to participate actively in the dismantling of our prerational emotional programs.

~ Invitation to Love

Prayer

O Holy Spirit,
may we know Your gentle touch
and the grip of Your protecting arm.

Sheer Vulnerability

Wednesday in Holy Week

Isaiah 50:6-7

I gave my back to those who struck me,
    and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;
I did not hide my face
    from insult and spitting. 
The Lord God helps me;
    therefore I have not been disgraced; 
therefore I have set my face like flint, 
    and I know that I shall not be put to 
        shame.

The love of Christ manifested itself in his sheer vulnerability. The crucifix is the sign and expression of the total vulnerability of Jesus: the outstretched arms, the open heart, the forgiveness. of everything and everyone. This sheer vulnerability made him wide open both to suffering and to joy.

It was this vulnerability that caused him to experience the pain of Judas's betrayal, as well as the joy of celebrating the Pasch with his disciples.

If there had been no possibility of betrayal, there could have been no Eucharist. If the disciples were to be admitted to his intimate friendship, there could only be loneliness and disappointment when they all abandoned him and fled. Only in the heart of one with boundless readiness to forgive could there have been the pain of Peter's triple denial, and afterwards the joy of reinstating him as chief of the apostles.

Vulnerability means to be hurt over and over again without seeking to love less, but more. Divine love is sheer vulnerability--sheer openness to giving. Hence, when it enters the world, either in the person of Jesus or in one of his disciples, it is certain to encounter persecution--death many times over. But it will also encounter the joy of ever rising again. "For love is stronger than death . . . Many waters cannot quench it" (Song of Songs 8:6-7). Being vulnerable means loving one another as Christ loved us. If we did not have to forgive people, we would have no way of manifesting God's forgiveness toward us. People who injure us are doing us a great favor because they are providing us with the opportunity of passing on the mercy that we have received. By showing mercy, we increase the mercy we receive. The best way to receive divine love is to give it away, and the more we pass on, the more we increase our capacity to receive.

~ The Heart of the World

Prayer

Holy Spirit of God,
Your Presence is greater than all consolation
whether human or divine. 
Your Presence is always available to us. 
May we by Your Grace, always be available to It.

The Last Supper

Holy Thursday

John 13:3-5

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.

The texts read in the liturgy during Lent provide us with the means to understand the sacred mysteries of Holy Week. We think of the penitent woman who washed our Lord's feet with her tears and of Mary of Bethany who anointed his feet with the perfumed oil. It was the custom of the time to wash the feet of a guest, to offer him a kiss of welcome, and to anoint his head with ointment. It was not the custom, however, to kiss those feet or to wash them with one's tears; nor to place precious ointment of great price on the guest's feet rather than upon his head. Why such extremes on the part of these two devoted women?

They evidently wished to show that he was no ordinary guest. Surely the divine goodness, which praised the extravagance of these two women, would not do less than offer you and me the ordinary courtesies, if he invites us to his banquet table.

With this background in mind, we can understand why Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. They were to be his guests at the first eucharistic supper, just as we are his guests at the commemoration of it. This sharing in the body and blood of the God-Man is the pledge of a still greater banquet: the eating and drinking of immortal life and love at the eternal banquet of heaven, where our nourishment will be the divine essence itself.

But as guests at the banquet table of the Lord in this world, and as recipients of the divine hospitality, the disciples had to receive at least the ordinary marks of courtesy; that is, the washing of the feet, the kiss of welcome, and the anointing with oil.

These three acts form an organic whole. Omitting any one of them would have been to fail in courtesy, something the Father would never do to guests invited to his supper. These three marks of courtesy correspond to the three stages of Christian initiation.

First comes the washing of the feet, symbol of baptism, which must precede the Eucharist. The Eucharist represents the kiss of welcome, the intimacy of union, and the mutual sharing of deep love. The anointing of the head with perfumed oil suggests the grace of the sacrament of confirmation.

These reminders of the divine hospitality, of the inconceivable courtesy that God has extended to us, make us approach the Paschal Mystery with humble and grateful hearts. How can we thank the Lord for his invitation, for the incredible depth of his sharing?

~ Awakenings

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,
may we knew the full extent of
Your divine hospitality,
which is the Gift of Your Holy Spirit.

The Paschal Mystery

Good Friday

Isaiah 53:3-5, 10

He was despised and rejected by others;
    a man of suffering and acquainted with 
        infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces 
    he was despised, and we held him of no 
        account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities 
    and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
    struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, 
    crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us 
        whole,
    and by his bruises we are healed.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with 
        pain.
When you make his life an offering for sin, 
    he shall see his offspring and shall 
        prolong his days;
through him the will of the Lord shall prosper.

To become sin is to cease to be God's son--or at least to cease to be conscious of being God's son. To cease to be conscious of being God's son is to cease to experience God as Father. The cross of Jesus represents the ultimate death-of-God experience: "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" The crucifixion is much more than the physical death of Jesus and the emotional and mental anguish that accompanied it. It is the death of his relationship with the Father. The crucifixion was not the death of his false self because he never had one. It was the death of his deified self and the annihilation of the ineffable union which he enjoyed with the Father in his human faculties. This was more than spiritual death; it was dying to being God and hence the dying of God: "He emptied himself, and took the form of a slave . . . accepting even death, death on a cross!" The loss of personal identity is the ultimate kenosis.

In the crucifixion, his relationship with the Father disappeared and with it the loss of his experience of who the Father is. In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus discovered all that the Father is, and in doing so, became one with the Ultimate Reality: all that God is emerging eternally from all that God is.

This passing of Jesus from human to divine subjectivity is called in Christian tradition the Paschal Mystery. Our participation in this Mystery is the passing over of the transformed self into the loss of self as a fixed point of reference; of who God is into all that God is. The dismantling of the false self and the inward journey to the true self is the first phase of this transition or passing over. The loss of the true self as a fixed point of reference is the second phase. The first phase results in the consciousness of personal union with the Trinity. The second phase consists in being emptied of this union and identifying with the absolute nothingness from which all things emerge, to which all things return, and which manifests Itself as That Which-Is.

~ The Mystery of Christ [slightly revised]

Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ,
in Your death and descent into hell
You took away the sin of the world and
manifested the Father's infinite Love for us.
May we too enter into God's plan for the
redemption of the human family.

The Burial

Holy Saturday

Luke 23:50-56

There was a good and righteous man named Joseph, who, though a member of the council, had not agreed to their plan and action. He came from the Jewish town of Arimathea, and he was waiting expectantly for the Kingdom of God. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in a linen cloth, and laid it in a rock hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning. The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid. Then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments.

On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

Jesus died on the day before the sabbath. His body was taken down in a hurry and laid in the tomb. The sabbath commemorates the seventh day of creation, the day God rested from all his works. In honor of creation and at God's express command, the Jewish people observed the sabbath as a day of complete rest. But its most profound meaning is contained in this particular sabbath in which, having laid down his life for the human family, Jesus; the Son of God, rested.

Out of respect for the death of the Redeemer, there is no liturgical celebration on Holy Saturday In honor of Jesus' body resting in the tomb, the church also rests. There is nothing more to be said, nothing more to be done. On this day everything rests.

~ The Mystery of Christ

Prayer

Father, Your Son Jesus Christ descended into hell,
the ultimate experience of alienation from You
in consequence of taking our sinfulness into Himself.
You raised Him from the dead as the sign
of Your forgiveness of everything and everyone.
In the name of the Risen Christ,
we ask for the grace of boundless confidence
in Your Infinite Mercy.

Alleluia!

Easter Sunday

Responsorial Psalm of the Easter Vigil

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

When you hear the triple "Alleluia" that introduces the Easter season in a burst of joy, what do you hear? What happens inside of you when you hear those thrilling acclamations?

Perhaps your thoughts revolve around the meaning of the word "Alleluia," recalling that it means something like "hurrah"--a cry of victory--and you reflect, "This is Easter! I must rejoice!" Perhaps some of you perceive a spontaneous joy at the thought of Christ's triumph over death; a peaceful sense of gratitude to God for his goodness; or a sense of how much He loves you, or how much you love Him.

You may even experience something like a volcano exploding inside you--a tremendous burst of joyful energy coming from the deepest place inside of you, which causes you to forget all your own thoughts, the fatigue of the evening of the Paschal Vigil, and what happens afterward.

Anyone who responds to the sound of the "Alleluia' with the sheer experience of oneness with Christ has understood the resurrection. Those who have not yet experienced this union should have no doubt, no hesitation, that God is calling them to this experience. He is calling us, especially through this liturgical celebration of his resurrection, to become what baptism has already made us. Baptism has been done to us. We did nothing to bring it about--even if we were baptized as adults. It is the sheer gift of God. Eternal life has begun in us. We are the sons of God, incorporated into Christ's body. His Spirit dwells in us. All our sins are forgiven. The darkness of our ignorance and the weakness of our will are being healed. And if anything is lacking to us, Christ, who is interceding for us in heaven at the right hand of the Father, will give us that too.

We were responding to this intuition if, at the moment we heard the "Alleluia," we identified with Christ. He is ours by baptism. It only remains for us to become what we are and to enjoy what we possess.

~ Awakenings

Prayer

Holy Spirit of God
as a mighty wind coming,
drench with grace our dried-out hearts.
Pour down torrents of mercy to wash away our sins
and to uproot every secret inclination that may lead to sin.
Renew and enhance in all who trust in You Your sacred Seven Gifts.