The Vigil. The incredible news: "HE IS RISEN!"

The Triduum - Three Days - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday - are a somber time, a time of darkness. On Holy Thursday, the liturgy starts with a joyous sort of atmosphere. The Gloria is sung for the first time since Ash Wednesday. But the mood darkens. The end of the liturgy is the celebrant removing the Host from the altar - the altar is stripped. Jesus' crucifixion rapidly approaches. He is about to be betrayed and undergo an unfair, illegal trial, and be handed over to Pilate. At the conclusion of the liturgy on Holy Thursday, we leave in silence.

On Good Friday we have a liturgy, but no Mass is said, anywhere in the world, on Good Friday. The Hosts we use on Good Friday would have been consecrated on Holy Thursday. The liturgy is very solemn. Jesus has died. As we put ourselves in the place of the early disciples - was there ever a darker day? He's gone. Gone. Our hopes - dashed. He is wrapped up and placed in a tomb.

Then there was a gray, gray Saturday, a day that neither heard his voice nor saw his face. And then sunset and the darkness and the end of Shabbat.

And then. . .and then. . .

We enter a dark church. Darkness, despair. . .

And then a fire is lit - a fire that symbolizes life. Some grains of incense are placed in the wax of the candle, and the words are spoken:

Christ yesterday and today;

The beginning and the end,

The Alpha and the Omega,

His are the times and ages.

To Him be glory and dominion

Through all ages of eternity. Amen.

The candle is lit from the fire and is raised. As the candle is raised in the still-dark church, we hear the proclamation:

Lumen Christi! Light of Christ!

The reply from all:

Deo gratias! Thanks be to God!

 

And with the Paschal candle, and the proclamation in the darkness, the words from the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel never fail to come to my mind:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

To me, this is the most powerful moment in the entire liturgical year. I don't have words to say how powerfully that one moment impacts me. I am surprised when I find out how many Catholics - Catholics, mind you - have never attended an Easter Vigil Mass. I would go so far as to suggest that even non-Catholic Christians should attend one of these in your lifetime. The symbols and their impacts don't stop with the candle. Everything we do litutgically comes about in this one Mass. It is rich in symbol - fire, water, light, dark. New members are baptized, confirmed, receive their first Eucharist. And the joy at the beginning does not fade by the end. Because we worship a risen Lord.

He is Risen!

Mass starts at 8:15 (the church must be dark, so the Vigil Mass must start after sunset.)

Thanks for hanging out.

Were you there? I was.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble - tremble - tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble - tremble - tremble.
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?

Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble - tremble - tremble.
Were you there when they pierced him in the side?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble - tremble - tremble.
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Yes. Yes I was. After all, He did it for me.

History, meet Eternity. Eternity - history.

I didn't know what I wanted to write about tonight. Then I went to the Holy Thursday evening Mass.

Lent ends with the beginning of the Holy Thursday Mass. We do have one more meatless Friday, and our attitude of fasting and penance doesn't decrease. Rather, it intensifies as we enter the Triduum. The Triduum - "three days" - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday - forms a mini liturgical season of its own. The Mass on Holy Thursday isn't a full Mass. It's the first 1/3 of a Mass that starts on Thursday, has a middle section on Friday, and concludes with the Easter Vigil on Saturday night.

My watch came off before tonight's Mass. It won't go back on until Monday morning. The events we celebrate this weekend occurred in time, but they are not of time. They occurred in history, but they are not of history. Rather, they are the events in which eternity touched time and history. The eternal God became the historical Jesus, and on this weekend Jesus completes his work on earth and brings the eternal to us, in a wafer of unleavened bread, a cup of wine. And you can't really ask, "How?" It's too much for the human mind to bear. You can only ask, "Who?" "Who is the God-Man that brought eternity to earth, and presents humanity to God?" "Jesus of Nazareth."

Mass started at 7:00. That would have probably been about the time that, in three of the Gospels Jesus was presiding over the Last Supper. John tells us that, when Judas Iscariot left to betray Jesus, the supper was just wrapping up, and it was dark. By 7:00 in these parts it's not dark yet.

Mass ended about 8:15. By then it was dark. We exited the Church. On that night so long ago, Judas exited that upper room. Before this night is out, there will be a trial before the Sanhedrin - Peter's bravado - Peter's triple denial - the appearance before Pilate, then Herod, then Pilate again. Then beating - flogging - crown of thorns. . .

So tonight, in Mass and after, we keep watch. We keep company. We honor the sacrifice that no other human being ever born could have made.

And time and eternity meet.

Other thoughts:

St. Mary's in  Davenport is about 75% Latino. Most of the major Masses are bilingual. So, the reading from Exodus (the account of the Passover) was read in English, with the Spanish in print. The New Testament reading - from 1 Corinthians - was the other way around. And Father Ed read the Gospel in Spanish and English. Prayers and the homily were in both languages. I'm a Eucharistic minister, and I was distributing the host, to some with "The body of Christ" and to others with "El Cuerpo de Cristo." It was all a celebration of something else - no matter the skin color, no matter the language spoken, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus. Bilingual Masses are a highlight of my year.

Tomorrow is Good Friday. Time meets eternity, and it does seem that time wins, doesn't it?

Thanks. Hasta luego!

Quit the Bible-thumping already

I know my way around the Bible, a little. . .

Some years ago I attended a seminary. I was preparing to become a Presbyterian minister. That came to an end with the culmination of a gradual process. I found myself thinking more like a Catholic every day, and the market for Presbyterian ministers who think like Catholics is kind of limited. In September, 1992, with open heart surgery looming on the horizon, I was bvaptized, confirmed and took my first Eucharist as a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

Back to the seminary. The Presbyterian Church requires of its ministerial candidates the demonstrated ability to do exegesis on biblical texts in Greek (for the New Testament) and Hebrew (for the Hebrew Scriptures.) So, on my first day of classes the very first class was Hebrew. Dr. Wallace told us to open our copies of the Biblia Hebraica to Deuteronomy 6:4-5. A couple of things to keep in mind about this venture. Hebrew is read from right to left, instead of left-to-right as we're used to. And, the alphabet is not like anything we've seen before. Find Deuteronomy? We don't even know which way is up in these things. But get there we did, and found perhaps the most powerful passage of Scripture in the Hebrew Scriptures:

Sh'ma, Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad.

It is the key passage in Jewish belief, and countless Jewish martyrs have died with this on their lips:

Sh'ma, Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad.

"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one."

It was Jesus' first and most important command: Ve' ahav'tah eth adonai elohei ka v'col l'vav ka, uv col nafshe ka, uv col maode ka. You shall love the Lord your God with all your hearts, with all your souls, with all your (and here it's tricky; maode ka doesn't translate precisely) - muchness? abundance? You get the idea.

Then Jesus' second command: Ve ahav ta larea ka kamo ka, ani Adonai. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

I am no naif in Biblical interpretation. I know my way around. There is much I don't know, of course, and I would tell anyone who goes to the Bible in search of answers to their questions to not be surprised if the outcome is that they wind up with questions for their answers. But I do know this:

Nowhere in my Bible am I given the right to thump that Bible in condemnation of another. NOWHERE. And I am not willing to be the first stone-thrower.

So, to my LGBT friends, I am given one command: to love you. I hope you win the marriage equality battles. I hope you find the joy and contentment and wonder in your marriages that I have found in the 38 years of mine. I love you, my brothers and sisters.

Thanks.

What to write. . .what to write. . .

Oh heck, I dunno.

Tomorrow night is the monthly meeting of the Immigration Task Force of Quad City Interfaith. The meeting doesn't require much prep from me, unlike some of the other things I do for the task force. So, easy night tonight, easy night tomorrow.

Holy Week. Started with Palm Sunday. Lent doesn't end with Easter. Rather, Lent ends at the beginning of the Holy Thursday evening Mass. And that Mass is really long; it doesn't end until the end of the Easter Vigil, on Saturday night. On Holy Thursday we will do a foot washing. In the Fourth Gospel the Last Supper is not there. It's replaced by a foot washing. We will have a foot washing at St. Mary's. I was one of those whose foot was washed last year - probably explains that look on Fathe Ed's face sine then - and I will be again this year.

Tired - time for beddy-bye.Thanks for hagng out.

Sunday! Sunday!

(was that an annoying commercial or what? sorry I even brought it up.)

My reading: I have made my way through most of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. One theme that does seem to come up frequently in western literature is reflected in Mark Twain's famous statement that he would prefer heaven for the climate and hell for the company. In Dante, in Milton, Satan does seem to have the more interesting people around him. In Prometheus, the character cast out of heaven - Prometheus - is hardly a major character, not at all in he mode of the Satan of Milton. There are parallels, to be sure: in the beginning, both Prometheus and Satan lie bound in hell. The being that cast out Satan in Milton is the Judeo-Christian God; the being that cast out Prometheus is the Roman Jove. I haven't finished the work, so I don't know yet where Shelley is going with this. I do know that his use of the language is sublime.

Other reading: Yves Congar: Essential Writings. Congar was a Dominican friar. His work started before Vatican II, and his was an influential voice in Vatican II. Much of his work was on eccesiology - the study of the church - and ecumenism. I'm a bit peeved at this collection. Excerpting the work of a theologian like Congar, whose body of work was very extensive and who never in his life, I think, used the short-form thought about anything, is probably too much of a challenge. I would read a segment and wish more was there. Still, if the purpose of such a collection of shorter pieces is to entice the reader to read more of this person's work, this book may succeed.

So, back to my quiet, deliciously quiet and lazy Sunday. Thanks for hanging out!

Got no deeds to do, no promises to keep. . .

Women, the Church, today's Bible stuff

At some times of the year my mind moves in a certain way each year. One of those times is the period from about September 10 to October 2. That's typically a rough time emotionally. The annivesary of my mom's passing, my dad's birthday, the anniversary of Dad's passing, the anniversary of my mother-in-law passing - all fall within that three-week period.

This is another such time, for a different reason. During Lent I, and much of Christendom, reflect much on faith and life. Lent is a season of penitence. I just listened to Don Wooten, on Saturday Morning Live on WVIK, talking about a conversation he'd had years ago with a Jesuit scholar who said that, confronted with the mysteries of life - birth, death, love, even the scope of this great universe - we should hve two reactions: we should kneel before the mystery and we should question the mystery. We should do both. To say somthing very similar: you must experience the walk through the valley of doubt before your faith takes on a reality. A comprehended God is no God at all.

My thoughts also turned toward the nature of God. The God I worship is the holy Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There seems to be no room for any feminine dimension of God. There should be, but I'm not sure how to reimage God to allow for that. We should. Jesus did more than hint at this: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem. . .how often have I desired to gather your chldren together as a hen gathers her brood. . ." That's a very feminine image of God - unless you know of some male hens.

The Hebrew word Ruach, and the Greek word Pneuma, translate the same way into English: three meanings, one of which is spirit. Both nouns are feminine nouns. I do realize that the feminine/masculine division, in the linguistic sense, makes no reference to the object to which the word refers. A ship is "she" in any language, although a ship has no gender. Still, I find it interesting that these nouns are feminine. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to see the Holy Spirit as a refection of a feminine aspect of God.

There is a genre of literature in the Old Testament, the Wisdom literature. Hebrew for "wisdom" is kochma. Wisom is not identified as God. Rather, Wisdom is the principle by which God orders the creation. Wisdom is often personified in the Hebrew scriptures, and it is always as a woman. Even if God is male - and my conception of God does not require that God be male; God is beyond gender - but even if God is male, he uses a woman to mintain order.

In the New Testament and in early Church history Mary Magdalene is very highly thought of, as esteemed as St. Peter. I don't need to say how highly we regard Mary the Mother of Jesus. The Letter of St. Paul to the church at Philippi is to a church in which Lydia, a seller of purple, may well have been the person in charge. Someone looking at our church 2000 years from now would see all of this and would say, "What a wonderful, feminine orientation they have."

Then they would wonder, "Did they really not ordain women?" (Alert! Alert! This is an area in which I am at odds with my church.) The rationale from the hierarchy has been that, well, that's the way it's always been, and we don't feel that we have permission to change that. But - what if that's not the way it's always been? What gave you permission to change?

Thanks for letting me think out loud - or online or whatever. Love the journey, love that we're together on it.