VIGIL REFLECTION

     I was asked to preach at our house Vigil celebration this year.  What follows is my reflection given this past Saturday evening to the men of the Neumann House residence for retired priests.

     We began our Triduum liturgy on Thursday by remembering - calling to mind as we heard the scriptures from Exodus the Passover supper of the first covenant - and then entering into the supper of the new covenant, doing as Jesus asked of us "in memory of me".  We recalled on Friday the suffering and death of Christ as we remembered the act of our redemption, the source of our salvation.  We reached out and touched the Cross which becomes our sign of victory.

      Tonight we continue to remember as we pledge to continue to walk in his way.  Our remembering involves the telling of our story, part one of our history.

     In 1981 there was a Mel Brooks comedy that came out entitled "History of the World, Part 1".  It presented a number of comedic scenes from human history from the cave man to Moses to Nero to the Spanish Inquisition to the French Revolution.  The Church tonight, in the beauty of the full liturgy and scriptures, gives us the REAL history of the world, part 1.

     From darkness and chaos and nothingness the Lord God said "Let there be light" ... he brought order to all created things ... and out of nothingness he brought life.  He crowned his creation by fashioning us (human beings) "in his image and likeness" and the befriending us.  But temptation and sin entered the picture and things went downhill from there.

     He called a people to himself in Abraham - and in the pivotal moment of our story freed them from slavery and bondage in Egypt and led them to a land flowing with milk and honey, a promised land.  There were highs and lows in this journey, all leading to the close of part 1 and the beginning of something new.

     That new thing, that new covenant was sealed with the ultimate sacrifice - the life of the Son of God on the tree of the Cross.  From this new Passover we experience a new exodus - from the darkness of our sin to reconciliation and the light of truth, through the chaos and confusion of a life lived in a troubled world to a way of living that IS peace, and from death in all of its forms to the new life of the risen Lord and the empty tomb.

     We will be invited in a moment to recall our baptismal promises and renew our commitment to this new covenant and the beginning of "the history of the world, part 2" - a journey that, while still not lived in perfection, is lived in hope and the assurance that the victory has been won ... the tomb is empty ... and we walk again, like in the garden of old, side by side in the friendship of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

     Then, coming again to the table and recognizing him "in the breaking of the bread", we can go forth to witness with ALLELUIA on our lips and in our hearts. 

VIA DOLOROSA - completion

      I missed last Friday's post on the Way of the Cross, so I will complete our reflections on this Good Friday.

The Eleventh Station

JESUS IS NAILED TO THE CROSS

    The action of "nailing" the convict to the cross was not commonplace but reserved for the circumstances when a "point was to be made".  Usually the hands and feet were securely bound by ropes.  However we are bound to our cross, the pain is always there and usually excruciating.

    Sometimes our will is bound to the cross through the people that we are forced to bear or who we must serve or obey.  Sometimes it comes through sickness and disease without our being able to do anything about it.  Sometimes our being bound to our cross crushes our dreams, plans, and ambitions that keep us from touching the living God.

    Jesus willing allowed himself to be bound, with nails and ropes, to a cross for the redemption of all creation.  

The Twelfth Station

JESUS DIES UPON THE CROSS

    At the foot of the cross was his mother, Mary.  She stood there in anguish and sorrow.  Though Mary can do nothing at this moment, her inactivity is not paralysis.  It is an inward churning of love and wonder and sorrow.  If this is where her son leads her, then this is where she will stay.  She will want nothing else if this is the appointed end of the son whom she loves; the son who, far from receiving her loving care has become the master of her soul.

The Thirteenth Station

JESUS IS TAKEN DOWN FROM THE CROSS

    He has commended himself into the hands of his Father.  The crowds begin to disperse.  Those who love Jesus stay with him in stillness; those who hate, betray, or deny him leave, with many words and emotions.  Waiting with Christ in stillness, like Mary, means union with him.  It means knowing "the tragedy and the victory of his love."  It is called contemplation.  Are we found at the foot of the cross in prayer and contemplation, or have we moved on?  The great "Pieta" is the image of this Station.

The Fourteenth Station

JESUS IS LAID IN THE SEPULCHER

    The scriptures take the view that in living and dying, the best thing available to us is the knowledge of God.  As to knowing ourselves, that will come with knowing God.

    The Cross of Christ reveals God most truly because that is where he redeems the human beings that he has made, bringing them fully and finally into his purposes.  Wonderfully he allows us to embrace his Cross.  When the crucified comes to live with us, we die into his glorious Resurrection.

Remember, that Easter morning this sepulcher will be found empty ... but he is found in our midst.

VIA DOLOROSA - 9 & 10

      We continue with our journey to the Cross on Calvary with these next two Stations.

The Ninth Station

JESUS FALLS THE THIRD TIME

    Jesus fell three times, the Scriptures tell us.  Why?  Was there a reason beyond pain and exhaustion?  Maybe this third fall was for us, that we might find strength in his weakness and might not fall ourselves.  Or, if we do fall, we might love him whose battered face and pain filled eyes cast the look of love our way - and who picks us up because he fell bearing a Cross of love.

The Tenth Station

JESUS IS STRIPPED OF HIS GARMENTS

    Not since Adam and Eve clothed themselves with the skins God gave to them as he cast them out of the Garden has man's nakedness been anything other than a mark of his shame.  Christ's nakedness reverses that curse, and all who believe will be given robes of white, washed in the blood of the Lamb.

    That day they removed all his earthly clothes in order to prepare him for his robes of glory and triumph.