Fourth Sunday of Easter: The Loving-Kindness of God

Homily given on the Isle of Iona (where Br Haavar has been on retreat), Sunday 29th April:

Readings: Acts 4:8-12; Psalm 118; 1 Jn 3:1-2; Gospel John 10:11-18

We hear in the psalm of today a characteristic of God, not formulated by the Church or even the early Christians, but by the chosen people of God from the time of the old covenant.
The psalms we just heard says:

'Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.' (Psalm 118,1)

The Lord is good, and his mercy endures forever. The Hebrew word used for 'mercy' in this psalm is hesed. It is true that this word implies mercy, but the word contains much more. If we were to chose only one word to describe it, we would probably say that hesed means loving-kindness. It indicates a profound attitude of goodness, and this goodness surpasses an attitude of simply doing each other well; it also implies faithfulness rooted in an inner commitment.

Hesed then, is rooted in fidelity, and through this fidelity, love and grace is given and shared. Hesed expresses faithful love in the Old Testament, and so it naturally connects to the covenant between the Lord and his people. The covenant is rooted in God's hesed, and it implies faithfulness and care, but it is above all a love that remains constant regardless of the circumstances.

The loving-kindness of the Lord, the hesed, is repeated throughout the whole of the Old Testament. But from where has Israel got this expression?

The answer is: From God himself! When God passes in front of Moses on the mountain Sinai, during the great exodus from Egypt, the Lord himself proclaims:

'The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty...' (Exodus 34: 6-7)

Our knowledge of God's faithful loving-kindness is given us through God's self-revelation. God is loving-kindness because God tells us so. And he proves this again and again, until the final exodus, not the one through the Red Sea, but through death itself. God's loving-kindness is ultimately expressed in the revelation in Christ. Christ is the one who cares. He is the one who loves us without measure. He sees each one of us, he watches over us, he remains faithful. He is the good shepherd.

And Christ the shepherd is present in our lives and in the life of the Church. He is present when the word of the Lord is proclaimed. He is present in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist and in the Holy Communion we receive, but his presence goes farther. Christ is present in his Church, in his body, and when we come together to celebrate the very meaning of life given us in Christ, Christ is already here with us. We are surrounded by Christ, and we are filled with him: for the good shepherd does not leave us as orphans (John 14: 18).

Now, there is one dimension of Christ's presence that I have not yet mentioned, that is the role of the priest. It is true that the priest re-presents Christ in a special way. The words being said during the consecration are Christ's own words, and the priest prays on behalf of the community just as Christ prays for the chosen ones, the ones God the father has given the Son (John 6,37). And the priest has become so through the sacrament of Holy Orders. He is marked in an irreversible way.

I think of this quite a lot these days, because I am going to be ordained priest in Oslo in October this year, God willing. Being ordained priest implies a question of identity. Who am I, what will I become, and how will others see me? Am I going to be the good shepherd, like Christ? Will I possess authority, like Christ the King does?

Let me now just share with you an enlightening encounter that brother Arnfinn, prior of Oslo, and I had during this week here on Iona. We were having lunch down at the sea side when a little grey and white sheepdog came towards us. It had these very awake grey-blue eyes, and it was very playful. It disappeared, but suddenly came back with a little stone in his mouth that it dropped before our feet. 'Shall we play?' it asked, and got ready to sprint after the improvised toy. We totally fell in love with this dog, and we could easily see in this little fellow an example of a good Dominican; creative, curious, playful, ready to move, with good capacity of communication. Said in all humility of course...

Now, the Dominicans, if our name is written in Latin and then split up, becomes Domini canes - God's dogs. And that is exactly what a priest may be described as, and especially a Dominican priest, because we stand under the Lord's command, and on his word and signal, we do as the master tells us; go left, go right, go forth, around, guide, lead, encourage, and watch out, we might even bite a bit now and then... We are the Lord's servants, ready to do what we are told, and thereby following the example of him who laid down his life for us. Christ acts through his priest. Let us just pray that the priest always seek to act in Christ.

As it is today also the feast of St Catherine of Siena, let us give her the final words, as she summons up the loving-kindness of our Saviour:

O unfathomable depth! O Deity eternal! O deep ocean!
What more could You give me than to give me Yourself?"
(St. Catherine of Siena on the Blessed Sacrament)

bror Haavar Simon Nilsen O.P.

Sacraments: Baptism

‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ (Mt 28: 19). So Jesus commands the apostles at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel, and so the Church, faithful to that command, has sought to do ever since.

What, though, is the significance of Baptism? Why does Jesus tell his apostles that this is what they must do? It’s important here to notice that he doesn’t say, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, then baptise them,” but rather, “Go and make disciples …, baptising them … ” Baptism is what makes people disciples of Christ, not just something we do to show that people are his disciples: that, after all, is one of the basic definitions of a sacrament – a sign which brings about what it signifies.

‘Isn’t it faith in Jesus that makes us his disciples, though?’ some might say. ‘Yes,’ is the short answer. But we must remember that faith is God’s gift, and not something we can come to on our own: that is why, at the start of the rites of Christian initiation of adults, the priest asks the candidate, ‘What do you seek of the Church of God?’ and the answer is, ‘Faith.’ It is God’s grace, of course, that also draws us to the Sacrament (directly or through our parents), that plants the first seeds of faith in our heart, inviting our cooperation, but it is in the Sacrament of Baptism itself that he gives us the faith which saves us.

Nevertheless, the Church has always held that some who have not received the actual sacrament are saved: how are we to reconcile that? The Church’s understanding is that all who are saved by Christ stand in some relation to the Church and the Baptism which incorporates people into it: there is some desire, explicit or implicit, to do what must be done to enter into the relationship with God which he makes possible for Christians.
How are we saved through this faith that Baptism gives us and shows forth? Among other things, this faith is what constitutes the Church (of which we receive membership by our Baptism), that community of faith which is also the Body of Christ. By our Baptism, we are incorporated into Christ’s Body, the body of him who died and rose again in the glory of the Father: indeed, as St Paul teaches us, our Baptism is a sharing in the death of Christ, symbolised by the descent into the water, that we might also share his resurrection (cf. Rom 6: 3-4; Col 2: 12).

Our sharing in Christ’s death is also symbolised in Baptism by the death to sin which it entails: Baptism is that new birth of water and the Spirit of which Jesus speaks to Nicodemus (Jn 3: 5), which washes away all the sin of our past life and begins a new life in Christ.

Christ’s death and resurrection, we have seen, is central to Baptism: it is what has won for us the salvation we receive for ourselves in Baptism, and it is the sacramental incorporation into that death and resurrection which brings it about. It is unsurprising, then, that from the earliest times the Church has celebrated Baptism especially on Easter Night, as the whole Church gathers to celebrate the Resurrection.

So central, however, is the importance of Baptism that, although at the one end the ideal is a celebration on Easter Night by the Bishop amidst a large assembly of the faithful, this sacrament can be conferred by anyone (even an unbaptised person), so that no one should be denied the possibility of receiving the sacrament: all that is required is that someone, intending to do what the Church does, pour water over the candidate’s head, saying, “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
Such a Baptism, just like any other, confers all the graces discussed above, graces which leave a permanent mark, or ‘character’, on our soul: this character marks us out as Christ’s, however much we may fail to live up to all that that entails, and lays on us the responsibility of a Christian life and witness so that, conformed to our baptismal calling, we may enjoy the eternal life with Christ which it makes possible.

Dominican Theology Summer School at Buckfast Abbey: June 25th-29th

Sacraments: The Sacraments in General

We live in a world of signs: the coloured lamps of a traffic light, the flags which identify nations and the complex cluster of laundry symbols in the label of a jumper are all physical things, perceived by the senses, which penetrate beyond the senses, to communicate something to the mind. In the medical world, an empirically identifiable ‘sign’ - pointing beyond itself to the hidden existence of an illness - is differentiated from the subjectively reported but otherwise invisible ‘symptom’.

The Sacraments of the Church belong to the order of signs, because they are physical realities that point to a hidden spiritual reality that they ‘contain’. The seven Sacraments of the Church, instituted by Jesus Christ, are not merely human signs however, but signs of the ever-creative Word of God: they not only signify meaning, but they actually accomplish what they signify, penetrating not only the human intellect, but also the will, to the very depths of our being. The things of the natural world which signify God’s presence, and the rites of the Old Testament, are ‘sacraments’ insofar as they point to God, but they lack the supernatural causal power to effect grace that characterises the Sacraments of the Church.

As signs instituted by God to communicate grace to man, the physical aspects of the Sacraments are determined by God, and cannot be the subject of arbitrary human determination. Certainly, there is a time for creative expression, but signs that have constantly shifting meanings cease to be reliable as means of communication, and therefore fail in their mission. The sacraments are divine – and therefore perfect – signs, and thus the material of the sign (the water of baptism, or the oil of confirmation, for example) is joined to a consecrated form of words, which refines and perfects the natural symbolism of the matter, revealing its signification – and thus the grace it effects - beyond doubt.

 

As the Sacraments are instituted to communicate grace – to incorporate us into Christ by the gift of sanctifying grace – the sacraments are elevated by God to become causes of grace. For this reason, St Augustine rigorously opposed the heretical view of the Donatists that sacraments celebrated by wicked ministers were invalid and in need of repetition. The ‘power’ of the sacraments to communicate grace does not depend upon the moral character of the minister, but upon the power and glory of God and the merits of Christ’s paschal victory. The subjective disposition of the minister or recipient is not the cause of grace, therefore, but grace is communicated by the power of the completed sacramental rite, or – in scholastic terminology – ex opere operato. It is, of course, possible to interpose the obstacle of mortal sin to the flowering of grace within the soul, but this does not compromise the objective efficacy of the sacramental rite performed.

Some theologians of the reformation alleged that by seemingly giving the (albeit sacred) activities of man a quasi-divine power to communicate grace, we had fallen into the other great heresy that St Augustine fought, that of Pelagianism, which saw salvific value in purely human activity. It is, however, Christ Himself who presides as High Priest at every sacramental celebration. God always respects the freedom of man, and so the human minister never loses his authentic causal relationship to the world, but serves only as a subordinate and instrumental cause of grace: the priest at Mass is an instrument deployed by the Sacred Humanity of Christ, one who God ‘causes to be a cause’ without loss of freedom.

Different causes produce different effects, and therefore the existence of seven sacraments points to the diversity of work done by them. The work of sanctification done by each of the sacraments, by the conferral of sanctifying grace, is one and the same, but each sacrament also addresses a particular human need by a particular effect of ‘sacramental grace’. Together the sacraments form a coherent system for the communication of the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection, known as the sacramental economy. This sacramental economy is the opening of the inner life of the triune God to humanity, offering to us the possibility of participating in the very life of the Godhead.

Third Sunday of Easter - The Real Presence and the Trinity

 Readings: 1 Acts 3:13-15,17-19; Psalm 4; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48

The 25th March is the feast of the Annunciation. It's Nine months to the day before Christmas day and it marks the occasion on which the angel Gabriel announced to Mary 'The Lord is with you' and she conceived her son. So it's a celebration of Christ being present among us. Now the 24th March, the Eve of the Annunciation, this year coincided with a rather less edifying occasion, the first ever 'Reason Rally' a celebration of irreligion, atheism and secularity. On the Eve of the Annunciation this year, Richard Dawkins effectively announced to the world 'Christ is not present among us.' At the rally, he proclaimed to cheering crowds:

Religion makes specific claims about the universe which need to be substantiated, and need to be challenged – and if necessary, need to be ridiculed with contempt. For example, if they say they're Catholic ask them: Do you really believe, that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ? Are you seriously telling me you believe that? Are you seriously saying that wine turns into blood?

If the answer is yes, Dawkins suggests atheists should show contempt for believers instead of ignoring the issue or feigning respect. “Mock them,” he told the crowd. “Ridicule them! In public!”

So how should we deal with Richard Dawkin's question. The disciples in today's Gospel had a hard enough time believing that Jesus was truly among them, and they could see His hands and His feet. What hope is there for us who can only see what looks like bread and wine? Well lets ask a slightly different question. Is Christ's body and blood really present in the Eucharist, or is the Eucharist symbolic? This is actually a trick question.  Christ's body and blood is really present in the Eucharist but the Eucharist is also symbolic. In our culture we automatically tend to think that symbolic means less real, but this is not always the case. The Eucharist is simultaneously both the most real and the most symbolic of anything in the whole of creation.

To unpack this a little we need to think a bit about what symbols are. Symbols are certain kinds of relations which give meaning to our lives. For example, food is symbolic. On the most basic level, food means something to us in the first instance because there's a relationship between some stuff and us, the relationship that this stuff is edible. And there's something very real about this relationship. Whether or not we like the taste of something, it doesn't change the fact that it can provide us with nourishment.

Eating a meal together is also symbolic. It means something not only because there are relations between us and the stuff we call food, but also because there are relations between us and those who we eat with. It means something when we engage in some mutually beneficial activity with someone and enjoy each other's enjoyment. It means we love them. Eating together with friends and family is related to the very real love we have for each other, and the symbol of eating together embodies this love.

Now not all symbols are as real as each other. For instance, usually a kiss is a symbol of love, but when Judas kissed Jesus, it was a symbol of betrayal, it wasn't a real kiss. The reality of the symbol depends on the reality of the  relationship which gives the symbol its meaning. When Judas kissed Jesus, the reality of love wasn't there.

So when thinking about what are the most real symbols, we need to think about when the relationships which give meaning to the symbols are most real. What are the most real relationships? If we knew the answer to this question, we might be in a position to say which symbols are most real, and discover what is most meaningful in our life. So what are the most real of all relationships? I'll give you a clue. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Well, actually that was a bit more than a clue. The persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the names of the distinct relationships within the Trinity, but they are not like any kind of relationship we find in creation. In creation, relations always exist between things, but in the Trinity, the relations are the things, the relations are God, the source of all reality, and it is these most real of all relations, Father, Son and Holy Spirit which are revealed to us in those symbols we call sacraments.

We should never try to explain the sacraments in terms of anything natural even if people would ridicule us for refusing to do so, but rather we should try to explain nature in terms of the sacraments. The sacraments show us the sacramentality of creation, they show us the true meaning of life. The relationships we have with other people, the thoughts we have, the things we do can all be understood sacramentally. We're made in the image of the Trinity. God is real, He is truly among us, He loves us and is constantly drawing us to Himself. 

The sacrament which most powerfully reveals the persons of the Trinity is the Eucharist, and the whole point of our lives is to show and understand how this is so. So we believe the Eucharist is real. It shows us what reality is. In the Eucharist we commemorate Christ's Passion.  It's at the point when Jesus dies on the Cross that the centurion says 'Truly this man was the son of God,' so the Cross shows us most clearly what God looks like in our sinful world. It's through Jesus' body and blood we know that He is truly among us. And He died because He wanted to be with us. He loves us, and this is made apparent to us in the Eucharist when the bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ. But also in the Eucharist, we offer a sacrifice of thanks and praise. That's what Eucharist means – thanksgiving. The same Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from death to life raises our hearts and minds to God, and so the Eucharist is our deepest form of nourishment because it makes us who we're most fully meant to be. The celebration of the Eucharist has more right to be called a meal than any other meal we'll ever had, and the body and blood of Christ has more right to be called food than any other food we'll ever eat. 

Maybe I haven't explained this very well, but I can't think of anything better to do with my life than to come up with deeper and more profound explanations of why and how the Eucharist reveals the persons of the Trinity. This is what every Christian life should be about. Every Christian life should be a revelation of the Trinity.

Perhaps Richard Dawkins will always want to mock us for saying we seriously believe that the bread and wine on the altar become Christ's body and blood, but all the same, we should thank Richard because by asking us these questions, he is giving us the opportunity to delve ever deeper into the mystery that Christ is truly present among us.

This is a sermon preached to the 9:30 Mass at Oxford.

New Series: The Sacraments of the Church

Traditionally, the fifty days from Easter to Pentecost Sunday are a period of ‘mystagogical catechesis’, a time of post-baptismal instruction given to new Christians who have been initiated into the Christian mystery by the Sacraments of Baptism and/or Confirmation at the Easter vigil. 

This time of reflection is primarily ordered towards helping new Christians to ‘settle in’ as they make their first steps as members of the Church, and to help them to apprehend more deeply the meaning of the rites they have received and in which they now participate as full members. Yet the presence of neophytes in our midst is a tremendous gift of God, bringing new life to the ever-youthful Body of Christ, and inviting Christians of all ages to reflect upon the faith they received at the Baptismal font (called by one Easter hymn the “grave of sin”), a faith which they practice pre-eminently at the Eucharistic table.

Over the next few weeks, therefore, the Godzdogz team will be reflecting on the Sacraments of the Church. Our lives as Christians are punctuated by the Sacraments, as it is by Holy Baptism that we are born into the Church’s sacramental life which is ultimately consummated (God willing) in the Sacrament of Anointing. As Catholics, the Sacraments lie at the heart of our faith, for they are the enduring presence of the Easter mystery, through which the power of the cross can be operative in every generation and through which the merits of Christ are applied to all people. The Sacraments, then, are the ordinary means by which God reaches out to us, to reconcile us to Himself, and in which we are enabled to reach out to Him, to bring our needs and our petitions before Him in a particularly direct way. For this reason it is distressing that so many people today see Church services as 'boring' or 'irrelevant', since the celebration of the Sacraments is not reducible to an adjunct to the liberating and saving power of the gospel, but is its very presence and vitality in our often turbulent world, offering to all people a new way of living with God and with one another.

April to July 1994: the Rwandan Genocide

Last year, my friends and I were watching a movie (Sometimes in April) about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, and they said at the end:”This is a violent movie.” However, it does not even show, in my understanding, 2% of the violence that happened during that Genocide and times that followed it. I will try to say something about that unspeakable episode of the History of humanity. Or should I say “inhumanity”! I do not promise to put any scholarly order in the following article.

Every year, since 1995, from the 7^thApril to the 4^th July, the entire world commemorates the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. On the 7^th April 1994, started what was going to be known in the history of humanity as the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. In 100 days, more than 800,000 human lives of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were lost. Most of those were butchered by their neighbours, their family members who did not want to be associated to them and some others by indoctrinated strangers. Since then, many have been those who refer to the Rwandan Genocide in their speeches, lectures and debates. But do they really grasp what it was all about and how indescribable it is?

On Easter day, the 3^rd April 1994, two of my best friends and classmates, fraternal twins, were baptised. Their mother had taught us in grade 3. After the Holy Mass we had a reception in the hall of the Cathedral. Both of them, their brother and their mother were killed a few weeks later. They had been hiding for weeks and were discovered hiding in bushes sometime during the genocide. Hundreds of thousands of people were butchered in churches where they had gone to seek protection. Sometimes they were betrayed by their parish priests, superiors, or pastors. Some pastors chose to die with the victims; some others were among on lists of those to be killed. At the end of the genocide, more than one million and a half of Rwandans went to exile in the then Zaire (today Democratic Republic of Congo). Hundreds of thousands died in refugee camps.

Genocide memorial in Kibeho. Brs. Gustave and Peter.

The general and obvious feeling of all the persecuted Rwandans in that time was that they had been abandoned by a careless world. They might not have known that their number was going to join other numbers of slaughtered populations found in History books on genocides, natural disasters, “just wars”, colonialism,  slavery, etc. They never thought about studies that would be done about their fate, controversies would rise about the gravity of the “events’ and some people might deny that they actually died. 

The survivors still struggle to understand how humanity works! The fact is that most of them have completely lost trust and interest in international justice and look sceptically at political and religious leaders who attempt or have strived to give moral lessons since then. Most of the survivors have adopted a few habits that became addictions, some of them destructive, some others less harmful; this is a kind of escape from reality and a hope to create another reality different from the horror they lived through. Fortunately, many other chose to pray about it and became very spiritual people.

It is difficult for people who saw death under its ugliest colours to know that they have to keep on “living”. The usual sentence that one hears is:”God spared your life for a reason!” But does this kind of ‘magical’ sentence work? What about their eradicated families? The daily problems they have to live with knowing that their chances to find solutions are insignificant. One confidence: the scars of wounds endured during those times reopen easily, even after going through the most experienced counselling. It is always better to know that one will live with them and the best and most helpful attitude would be to teach the survivors to accept that sometimes human beings become inhuman but that they [the survivors] are victims and not perpetrators. That is because most of the surviving victims do often think that they were guilty of some wrongdoing. It is also dangerous to let them deal with their problems alone.

While Rwandans do not claim that their suffering is superior to any other people’s, they do expect, at least, a common respect towards their beloved departed ones. At the same time, they are always grateful for the world to still welcome them with their wounded personality and the obvious incurable affliction that the 1994 Rwandan genocide left them with. However, they must make a superhuman effort to keep the air and normal not to scare people around them. And their inner pain, which is like lava from a volcano boiling inside, they should let escape a few bubbles at a time in order not to ignite themselves and their environment. It is a heavy burden and Rwandans are able to carry it on them with dignity and serenity.

Genocide Memorial in Kibeho. Photo by Br. Gustave Ineza OP

What is the use of discussing the Rwandan genocide on a blog that is supposed to share about spiritual experiences and preach a little bit? In my understanding, it helps us to grasp the danger of polarized identities, especially when they look at other identities as evil. That applies well to civilizations, religions, races, ethnic groups and any other major identities that could lead people into violence. The major question for the Rwandan Christians today is: what is the most important message of the Gospels and do we really focus on that and strive to love each other instead of looking for divisive ideas and doctrines?

Let us pray for the victims, both deceased and those alive, of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and for the world to care about suffering populations and, most of all, for people to know that their primarily identity is humanity as they were all created by the same God. A true love of humanity and of its creator would not allow such a thing to happen. Otherwise, how could we claim to be saved, civilized, and more intellectual than other living things if we sit and watch our brothers tearing each other apart and do nothing?

After genocides, the world always says these famous words: “Never again!” For once, may it say them with seriousness and may we, as Christians, join in with love, faith and hope.

Easter Sunday - The Resurrection is Real

Readings: Acts 10: 34, 37-43; Psalm 117; Colossians 3: 1-4; John 20: 1-9

Several people encounter the Risen Christ today: Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, and others. A few bystanders, such as the guards, see only the empty tomb, and they leave perplexed. And there are people, such as the high priests, so threatened by Christ in his earthly ministry, that they fear the witness of anyone spreading news of his resurrection.

Today, each one of us is a descendant of one of these people. Today the world marks an event of great Truth for Christians, skeptical interest for curious nonbelievers, and outright absurdity for hardened naysayers.

It should be no surprise that skeptics abound. As St. Paul warned us, “We proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Paul does not speak of God’s power and wisdom while leaving Christ in the tomb, nor is his accusation against naysayers of his day based solely on the Crucifixion. The thrust of his argument is that God brought salvation to all the world through Christ’s death and resurrection.

Although this message has persisted through two millennia of hardship, when men of every age have tried to deny Christ, today’s naysayers are trying more clever tactics. Today’s critics have gone so far as to endorse the Good News of Christ on earth, or at least their interpretations of it,  but not the reality of his resurrection. A recent book entitled The Sign explains how the Shroud of Turin represents the physical impression of Jesus’ dead body on a burial cloth – it does not deny the existence of Jesus, or his death, or even the authenticity of this relic. Instead the book uses evidence to present the disciples as primitive and distraught mourners, struck by the very realistic image of the body on the shroud, anthropomorphizing it into the risen Christ in their midst.

This theory and so many others not only fly in the face of 2,000 years of belief in the physical resurrection, they make Christ’s disciples look nonsensical. They implant a modern skeptic’s doubt and spiritual turmoil onto the very real witnesses of the physical resurrection.

These theories are examples of how a world turned against God cannot explain the work of God, so the world aims for the next nearest target: God’s holy ones. If skeptics cannot ridicule God to His face, they make the His Church look like fools. They have been doing it since the foundation of the Church – and Christ warned us about them from the very beginning. In the coming weeks we will hear several accounts of the high priests persecuting the early Church for proclaiming the resurrection.
But in focusing their attack on Christ’s resurrection as an historical event, skeptics (then and now) miss the whole point of our Paschal celebration. There is more to our faith in the resurrection than God’s work in Christ. We celebrate more than Christ alone overcoming the power of death for his own sake.

Our Easter is a celebration of a present reality, namely, Christ’s risen life in us, here and now. Our Easter celebration is a renewed sharing in the physical dying and physical rising of Christ, as we die to sin and come alive in a fuller way in the Holy Spirit of the risen Lord.

As St. Paul teaches us in the second reading today, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above.” It is no wonder that skeptics abound in the attack on the faith. Christ’s death and resurrection make no sense to those on the road to self-destruction, those obsessed with demonstrating clever theories and basking in human accolades.

We are a people of faith. But faith in what? We do not seek to aggrandize Christ’s life for the sake of God, or to glorify God for the work He can do for Himself. What would be the point of celebrating the resurrection annually if it marked a one-time event for Christ alone? Our faith reminds us of Christ’s resurrection, but it points us towards our own. Our celebration today is a foretaste of our own destiny and the confirmation of God’s promise in the psalms: “I will not let my beloved know decay.” We are God’s beloved.
Any skeptic who devotes himself to reading historical documents finds evidence of Jesus on earth and Jesus’ death. And history demonstrates that a number of people have died for worthy causes. Certainly dying to atone for all the sins of the world is a worthy cause. But any assessment of Christ’s Passion is incomplete without viewing it in light of the true and tangible bodily resurrection. Seeing the risen Christ, not an image on cloth, compelled men and women to face public humiliation, torment, and even death for their belief. They knew, as we know because of their teaching, that Salvation itself would be incomplete without the resurrection of Christ and our own resurrection from death.

The crowing achievement of the Passion is God’s restoring us to life, as he does first in Christ and then for all of us. Man could have been satisfied if Christ’s death had washed away sin, and we were simply free to die in God’s peace. However, that would imply God’s love reaches some endpoint or some final satisfaction. There is no point at which God says to us, “I have loved you enough.” The love of God cannot be exhausted – even on the Cross.

Through the Resurrection of Christ, God gives us new life. Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, God opens the way for us to offer that new life fully to God, eternally. This love is both the foundation for and result of the Passion we have commemorated throughout these holy days. The truth of the resurrection goes far beyond the sunrise encounters of that first Sunday or shrouds kept under glass. These things point us to the reality of Christ’s love, a love as real as his resurrection, witnessed by those holy women and men, and experienced and shared by all of us who believe in the Gospel.

Stations of the Cross 2012: Jesus is buried in the tomb

Br. Oliver Keenan offers a reflection on the Fourteenth Station of the Cross, 

which has been specially recorded for Godzdogz this Good Friday.

N.B. There are no Stations of the Cross in the priory church today.

The Liturgy of Our Lord's Passion will be at 3pm.

Maundy Thursday: Darkness or Light

Today’s Gospel reading is typical of John. It is richly laden with sign and meaning. In it we find the call to the Christian life; the example of our Lord loving and serving others, as we should love and serve in all humility; we are pointed through this intimate scene to the communion of fellowship which is fully expressed in the Eucharist. But there is a false note, a note of discord, which plays through this touching scene of gift and preparation; the note of discord is Judas.

The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over.

A reading of Judas’ life that based the beginning, as well as the end of his betrayal, on the night of the Lord’s Supper, would be a superficial reading. However, both are closely associated with Christ as the Bread of Life. The first is at Capernaum where he states; "I am the Bread of Life" but goes on to reveal; “did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” (John 6:70) Betrayal bookmarks the public life of Christ; it begins with his public ministry and finds completion at the Last Supper. In this weeks gospel readings, we are pointed to see how Judas succumbs to the temptation of avarice, which finds its completion this night at Gethsemane.

It is one thing to be called and chosen by Christ, yet quite another to fulfil the obligations of that call. Christ knows well our weakness and yet, what was Jesus’ response to Judas’ betrayal? That he must have felt a deep sorrow for him is certain, yet he bore no resentment. He does not denounce Judas to the assembled disciples, quite the opposite, instead; “he 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.” He treats Judas with the same loving kindness as the other disciples; he invites Judas, in the most poignant and personal way, to turn from sin.

To allow Satan to take hold of us we must be willing. Judas should have known that when the Son of God bent low to wash his feet, he extended his love, his friendship and his mercy. Judas rejects this offer and must go out into the night, into the darkness and away from the Light of the World. This evening we will see repeated that most poignant of acts, the washing of the feet. We will see, in this communion of discipleship, that close bond of love and fellowship which finds its fullest expression in the Eucharist, instituted on that blessed night. Are we to be humbled by the loving mercy of a God who stoops to wash our feet, to wash us from the sins we carry? Are we to join with him and allow the Bread of Life to transform us? Or are we to turn away and go out into the night and away from the Light?

Holy Week Services at Blackfriars Oxford

Godzdogz readers are warmly invited to join the Dominican community at the Priory of the Holy Spirit, Oxford, for our celebration of Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum. Below are the times of the main services. Regular attendees should note the slightly earlier than usual start for the Easter Vigil.

Maundy Thursday                                                    

9.30am Tenebrae                                                       

1.05pm Midday Prayer                                             

6pm Polish Mass                                                        

8pm Mass of the Lord’s Supper (followed by Watching at the Altar of Repose until Midnight)                       

(NB: No Vespers) 

Good Friday

9.30am Tenebrae

1.05pm Midday Prayer

3pm Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion

6pm Polish Service

(NB: No Vespers)

Holy Saturday                                                   

9.30am Tenebrae                                                       

11am Polish – Blessing of Food                                             

1.05pm Midday Prayer                                             

6pm Vespers                                                               

7pm Polish Service                                                    

10pm Easter Vigil

Easter Sunday

8am Mass

9.30am Mass

11.15am Polish Mass

1.05 Midday Prayer

6pm Solemn Vespers

Tuesday of Holy Week: Can you trust those nearest to you? Should you?

Readings: Isa 49:1-6; Ps 71:1-6, 15, 17. Jn 13:21-33, 36-38.

When Jesus says he is deeply disturbed (stirred up) and then immediately declares that one of those with him at table will betray him, I think it is natural to assume that the prospect of the impact of the betrayal on Jesus is what is distressing him. Perhaps he does not know who will do it, and this adds to his distress, one might think as well.

But the way the text unfolds in John it is clear that none of this is the case. Jesus clearly knew the betrayer was Judas, and even tells him to get on and do it quickly (v 27). He sees it all as leading to his glorification by the Father (v 32). So neither of these factors is the cause of his distress.

I therefore suggest that what is distressing him is the impact upon his closest followers - John does not name those at table with him explicitly as the Twelve - of his betrayal by one of their own number. What impact will it have on the rest of them? Will they think worse of Jesus? Or worse of his skill in character assessment and job appointment because of his choice of Judas to be among them? Will their confidence in themselves be smashed as they might then wonder if each of them might also do something similar? Will their confidence in each other be undermined by suspicion and fear because of this risk?

Quite possibly Peter was wrestling with something of this fear, or he just felt that Jesus needed to know that at least he will not let Jesus down, when he makes his bold, but rash, promise to lay down his life for Jesus (v 38). (In passing, this makes clear that the disciples knew Jesus was talking of his own death.) Jesus then adds Peter to the list of people who will badly let Jesus down, something that can only have added to the lack of ease, lack of self-confidence, and lack of mutual trust among the whole group.

What then is the strategy of Jesus? It is not to give them an immediate ‘feel good’ factor. It is not to assure them they have been chosen as the best natural communicators and preachers available in Palestine. It is not to persuade them that they have been chosen because of their innate goodness, irresistible zeal, and constant virtue. Rather they have been chosen in spite of the lack of these qualities. Jesus came to heal the sick. Those closest to him, those who will be leaders, are no different: they too are sick, and are with him on that basis. If Jesus accepts them as sick, as sinners, then they should accept each other on that basis. Even when entrusted with ministry and leadership, their basic weakness and need for ongoing medicine remained. And they should not forget it.

That in effect seems to be the kind of message that Jesus is trying to get through to them. But he is troubled because he fears that may not get it and so be scandalised not just by what is about to happen to him but by what their colleagues, and each of them, will do. It could irreparably rip this little group apart. Verses 34-35, which are omitted from today’s reading of this part of John’s gospel addresses this very theme: in them Jesus tells them to love each other, and it is by this that others will recognise them as his disciples.

In the end Jesus got through to them: they had gathered together by Easter Sunday and loved each other thereafter, despite their failures.

And us today? How do we view those around us? Should we trust them? We are not called to place a naïve trust in each other. Or to expect people always to get things right or be perfectly moral disciples. We are not called to cover up our sins or those of others – this can add to any sin and scandal already called. We are to encourage virtue and generosity in and from each other, and also ministerial competence. But we are called to realise we are all sinful and sick, all in need of God’s mercy and medicine and that we have been called to be with Jesus for this very reason, whatever ministry or vocation, big or small in the eyes of the church or world, that we get along with this. Therefore we are called to be merciful to others – and also to ourselves, with God’s mercy to us all as the foundation of our life and work together.

Should Jesus be troubled at us too or are we properly immersed in the merciful love of God, for us and for each other?

Monday of Holy Week – The Unction of Love

Readings: Isaiah 42:1-7; Psalm 27; John 12:1-11

When Norwegians participate in surveys and are asked to describe their habits on different matters, like: ’How much do you drink? How much money do you spend on coffee bars? How often do you have sex?’ –the answer is always the same: ’Oh, I’m probably the average type, I guess I’m somewhere in the middle.’ Whatever kind of question is posed, and whatever may be the actual habits, they usually end up describing themselves as the average person. They don’t want to stick out. They don’t want to draw attention. They want to hide them self behind the cover of what they believe is ‘normal’. In today’s Gospel, we are far from the average pattern, for good and for bad. Through Judas, we meet the vices always present in our humanity; selfishness, covetousness and fraudulence. Mary on the other hand bears witness of humility, of gratitude, of compassion and of love.

In today’s Gospel we witness a general truth concerning relations between Christ and every man and women: it is rarely a matter of ambivalence. People come to him, and they leave him in deepest joy and gratitude, like the woman caught in adultery (John 7) or the blind man at the Siloah pond (John 9). Or they leave him in anger or sadness, like the many Pharisees and Scribes, or the rich man who was told to sell everything and follow Jesus (Mark 10). To be around Jesus is to leave the neutral zone behind. Why? Because being close to Christ is to approach revealed love in its essence. Our world consists of forces that are being constantly confronted; good or evil, love or hate, compassion or selfishness, humility or pride... When we search God in our lives, these forces are not being left behind. They are being confronted, just as Christ himself confronts these forces in his own life.

Christians have since the earliest days come together to worship and pray. In the assembly that in time becomes what we know as the Church, we find ourselves in the place where God’s love is revealed in its most intense form; through worship, songs and praise in the fellowship of believers, in listening to and receiving the Word of God, and in the Eucharist where Christ’s sacrifice is made present and given us. We are being exposed to the source of love, the source that is capable of giving us what we truly long for. And we are exposed to ourselves in the light of this source. We are called to see ourselves as we are. For good and bad.

Mary anoints the feet of Jesus and dries them with her hair. Christ is being anointed king, and we become part of his kingdom. In something of a foreshadowing of the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, Christ is consecrated to his suffering and death by which we receive healing and eternal life (Catholic Cathecism § 1521). Mary anoints the feet of Christ with her hair, as if she said: ‘I’m not worthy to untie his sandal straps’, but her hair is filled with a sweet fragrance given the groom of the Church. Six days before the feast of Passover Mary pours out the oil over her master’s feet, as she pours out her love from her heart. Our great feast is approaching. Christ is preparing to reveal his everlasting, self-giving love for us. Are we ready to reveal our love for him?