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. 

A FRESH START

      At this stage in our Lenten journey we see invitations to parish Lenten Penance Services where the Sacrament of Reconciliation is celebrated.  It is a part of the penitential nature of the season.

The first reading for this Tuesday in Lent is from chapter 65 of the prophet Isaiah.  We read: "Thus says the Lord: Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.  The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind.  Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create; For I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight; I will rejoice in Jerusalem and exult in my people."

    What powerful and affirming words ... what a reassurance to the heart that is lost in sin or the struggle to follow the Lord's way.

    The Sacrament of Reconciliation is about forgiveness of sins.  Recognizing our failures and desiring to be be set free and to begin anew, we come with a sincere heart and an open mind to the truth that the Lord is creating a new thing, opening for us the possibility to begin again, to make a fresh start, to be reconciled.

    A very important part of that gift is found in the words: "The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind."

    How hard it is for us to not remember - the hurts that we have experienced, the hurts and failures that we have inflicted upon others, the burden of our guilt and pain.  But God's word is clear.  Come to him with a truly repentant heart, trust in his mercy and love, and start fresh to walk in the way of the Lord.

    If you are contemplating taking part in a Lenten Penance Service this year, remember God's assurance that his grace will bring about a recreation in you.  Make a fresh start and be blessed.

VIA DOLOROSA - 7 & 8

      We continue with our journey with Jesus to the hill of Calvary with the next two Stations of the Cross.

The Seventh Station

JESUS FALLS THE SECOND TIME

Jesus fell once.  It was from weakness and pain but it was for something or someone.

    He fell the first time for those who set the murderous wheels of his passion and death in motion, Pilate and his emperor, the chief priests and religious leaders calling for his death, those blinded by power and their weakness.  He showed them the power of weakness when that power and weakness are called love.

    This second time he fell it was for those who followed and watched, sometimes at a distance as passive bystanders and sometimes as the crowd jeered his and called for his death.  They were caught in spiritual paralysis and guilt and blindness to suffering and death.  He fell that they might run to their merciful God.  

    He fell a second time and he got up again and stumbled forward to his death and our freedom.

The Eighth Station

JESUS MEETS THE WOMEN OF JERUSALEM

In Luke 23:28 Jesus says to these women along his path "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children."

    Jesus predicts a harsh future that his people will have because of their rejection of God's works of mercy and grace.  Jerusalem will ultimately fall to the Romans, the temple again destroyed and God's people once again dispersed.  When sorrows and pain touch our lives we must remember that redemption and joy are our destiny, when we weep for the crucified one and rejoice in the risen Lord. 

ACT OF CONSECRATION - Part 2

      We continue with "The Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary" of Pope Francis given at Saint Peter Basilica on March 25, 2022.

"Therefore, O Mother, hear our prayer.

Star of the Sea, do not let us be shipwrecked in         the tempest of war.

Ark of the Covenant, inspire projects and paths     of reconciliation.

Queen of Heaven, restore God's peace to the            world.

Eliminate hatred and the thirst for revenge, and     teach us forgiveness.

Free us from war, protect our world from the         menace of nuclear weapons.

Queen of the Rosary, make us realize our need         to pray and to love.

Queen of the Human Family, show people the         path of fraternity.

Queen of Peace, obtain peace for our world.

    O Mother, may your sorrowful plea stir our hardened hearts.  May the tears you shed for us make this valley parched by our hatred blossom anew.  Amid the thunder of weapons, may your prayer turn our thoughts to peace.  May your maternal touch soothe those who suffer and flee from the rain of bombs.   May your motherly embrace comfort those forced to leave their homes and their native land.  May your Sorrowful Heart move us to compassion and inspire us to open our doors and to care for our brothers and sisters who are injured and cast aside.

    Holy Mother of God, as you stood beneath the cross, Jesus, seeing the disciple at your side, said: 'Behold your son' (Jn 19:26).  In this way he entrusted each of us to you.  To the disciple, and to each of us, he said: 'Behold, your Mother (v.27).  Mother Mary, we now desire to welcome you into our lives and our history.  At this hour, a weary and distraught humanity stands with you beneath the cross, needing to entrust itself to you and, through you, to consecrate itself to Christ.  The people of Ukraine and Russia, who venerate you with great love, now turn to you, even as your heart beats with compassion for them and for all those peoples decimated by war, hunger, injustice and poverty.

    Therefore, Mother of God and our Mother, to your Immaculate Heart we solemnly entrust and consecrate ourselves, the Church and all humanity,  especially Russia and Ukraine.  Accept this act that we carry out with confidence and love.  Grant that war may end and peace spread throughout the world.  The "Fiat" that arose from your heart opened the doors of history to the Prince of Peace.  We trust that, through your heart, peace will dawn once more.  To you we consecrate the future of the whole human family, the needs and expectations of every people, the anxieties and hopes of the world.

    Through your intercession, may God's mercy be poured out on the earth and the gentle rhythm of peace return to mark our days.  Our Lady of the "Fiat", on whom the Holy Spirit descended, restore among us the harmony that comes from God.  May you, our "living fountain of hope", water the dryness of our hearts.  In your womb Jesus took flesh; help us to foster the growth of communion.  You once trod the streets of our world; lead us now on the paths of peace.  Amen. 

ACT OF CONSECRATION

     After the apparitions at Fatima the Church offered prayers of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for Russia, what I remember were for the "conversion" of Russia.  A terrible atheistic communism was spreading and we offered prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary for assistance.  During Pope John Paul II's pontificate he dedicated the entire world to the protection of Mary.  In light of the present unrest between Ukraine and Russia, Pope Francis is asking the Church once again to make an Act of Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for her intercession.  He will do so at Saint Peter on the Solemnity of the Annunciation on March 25th of this year, 2022.  The Act of Consecration is long - two pages.  I would like to share it with you - but will do so in a few segments which you may piece together in your prayer.

    "O Mary, Mother of God and our Mother, in this time of trial we turn to you.  As our Mother, you love us and know us: no concern of our hearts is hidden from you.  Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence!  You never cease to guide us to Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

    Yet we have strayed from that path of peace.  We have forgotten the lessen learned from the tragedies of the last century, the sacrifice of the millions who fell in two world wars.  We have disregarded the commitments we made as a community of nations.  We have betrayed peoples' dreams of peace and the hopes of the young.  We grew sick with greed, we thought only of our own nations and their interests, we grew indifferent and caught up in our selfish needs and concerns.  We chose to ignore God, to be satisfied with our illusions, to grow arrogant and aggressive, to suppress innocent lives and to stockpile weapons.  We stopped being our neighbor's keepers and stewards of our common home.  We have ravaged the garden of the earth with war and by our sins we have broken the heart of our heavenly Father, who desires us to be brothers and sisters.  We grew indifferent to everyone and everything except ourselves.  Now with shame we cry out: Forgive us, O Lord!

    Holy Mother, amid the misery of our sinfulness, amid our struggles and weaknesses, amid the mystery of iniquity that is evil and war, you remind us that God never abandons us, but continues to look upon us with love, ever ready to forgive us and raise us up to new life.  He has given you to us and made your Immaculate Heart a refuge for the Church and for all humanity.  By God's gracious will, you are ever with us; even in the most troubled moments of our history, you are there to guide us with tender love.

    Now we turn to you and knock at the door of your heart.  We are your beloved children.  In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion.  At this dark hour, help us and grant us your comfort.  Say to us once more: "Am I not here, I who am your Mother?"  You are able to untie the knots of our hearts and of our times.  In you we place our trust.  We are confident that, especially in moments of trial, you will not be deaf to our supplication and will come to our aid.

    That is what you did at Cana in Galilee, when you interceded with Jesus and he worked the first of his signs.  To preserve the joy of the wedding feast, you said to him: "They have no wine" (Jn 2:3).  Now, O Mother, repeat those words and that prayer, for in our own day we have run out of the wine of hope, joy has fled, fraternity has faded.  we have forgotten our humanity and squandered the gift of peace.  we opened our hearts to violence and destructiveness.  How greatly we need your maternal help!"

    [to be continued]