Homily for April 4, 2004
Year C - Cycle II
Palm Sunday
by Fr. John Carney
Topic:
Holy Week
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Gospel Reading:
Luke 22:14 - 23:56
"When the hour came, Jesus took his place at table with his apostles. He said to them, 'I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for, I tell you, I shall not eat it again until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God.' Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and said, 'Take this and share it among yourselves; for I tell you that from this time on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.' Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.' And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.'..."
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That was a long Gospel, wasn’t it? I have some brief remarks, but I think they are important remarks. I want you to put your thinking caps on, because what we are about to do this week, although serious, is complex and important. There is nothing more important that we do throughout the year. We have just begun Holy Week, the holiest week of the year and challenging to our church this year, of course, is spring break. It used to be called Easter break and people got a break at this time to celebrate Holy Week. Now because it’s called “spring break”; they don’t celebrate Easter because they’re going to Disneyland. If you’re going to Disneyland, have a great time. But remember there are churches all over California and Florida. That’s the great thing about being Catholic…wherever you go, well, there you are.
This week is much more holy than Christmas week, and yet you know how we celebrate Christmas. Christmas is absolutely essential to our salvation; if Jeses wasn’t born, he couldn’t have died for us. But this is the week when so much happens; this is the week when all of us are asked to participate as fully as we can in the mystery of Christ’s Passion. Well, you’ve seen the movie, now you’ve just read the book, the Passion of the Christ. But, we are not to participate in the Passion of the Christ by watching it and eating popcorn. We are to participate in the Passion of Christ by actually participating in it as best we can. Thursday we begin what is known as the Sacred Tridiuum, the 72-hour period from sunset on Holy Thursday to sunset on Easter Sunday – Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday. But we are not supposed to celebrate these days, this Tridiuum, as separate events; rather, we should see the Tridiuum as one unfolding reality of Christ’s Passion. Holy Thursday makes no sense without Good Friday. The Lord’s Supper makes no sense if you don’t understand it in the context of his suffering and death. Some of you who saw the film said, “What were those flashbacks about?” They’re all one thing. And certainly Good Friday makes no sense without Easter Sunday. Any fool can die, but only Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, can be raised again. And so it’s really one event. That’s why we even celebrate the hard parts, because without the hard parts, without the suffering, without the passion, there is no love; there is no redemption.
We celebrate this sacred three days, we’re supposed to in any case, the way our Jewish parents celebrated it. You know they celebrated the Passover. Even today, this week, Jewish families will celebrate the Passover. Now that Passover occurred some 3,500 years ago when Moses led the people out of Egypt, from slavery to freedom, from darkness to light, from sin to grace. Religious Jews celebrate the Passover this week, and I spoke with a Rabbi several years ago, and I asked him to tell me what they do. He said, “The youngest says to the eldest, ‘Grandfather what night is this?’ and the Grandfather says, ‘This is the night when we are delivered from Pharaoh. This is the night when we are delivered from slavery to freedom.’” He doesn’t say, “Well, 3,500 years ago this happened and we are remembering it this night.” Rather, he says, “We are now participating in the actual Passover.”
There is a Greek term called “antimethexis” which means “to remember,” but when we hear this word “remember,” we get out the photo albums and think, “Oh yeah, boy I look young in that one. Look at this!” That’s not what we’re doing. When Jesus says, “Do this in memory of me” at the Last Supper, that’s not the kind of remembering he was talking about – not that kind of memory, but antimethexis, this actual participation. That’s why at each and every Mass we actually participate in his Passion here as if we were there at the Last Supper, and at the foot of the cross, and at the tomb on Eater Sunday. Not remembering something long ago, rather, actually participating in it.
Now, how is that possible? This has already happened. How can we participate in something that has already happened? This is a scientific question. We live in a scientific age; we’ve got to dot our I’s and cross our t’s. If we can’t explain it, it’s impossible. That’s because we are uncomfortable with mystery. We are bound by time. If you don’t believe that, look in the mirror…you are getting older. God isn’t. God doesn’t live in time. God is. When he was asked his name, he said, “I am who am.” God is. So what happened then is happening now, because there is not time with God. There is time with us, but not with him. That’s mystery. That’s what God is, mystery. When I studied theology, the theologian said on the first day of class, “God is mystery.” After four years and 136 credit hours at the graduate level, he said, “In conclusion, God is mystery.” I said, "Why’d I have to take all that other stuff?"
A lot happens this week. We celebrate the Passover. Remember the story there in Exodus? To deliver his people from Egypt, God said, “I want you to take a sacrificial lamb and slaughter it. Take its blood and put it over the lentils of the doors of your homes so when the angel of death comes over Egypt to kill the firstborn human and animals, he will pass over those doors marked by the blood of the lamb.” It is the blood of the Lamb, the blood of Jesus Christ, that you drink. Death will pass over you if you are marked with that blood. You see, this is the New Passover that we celebrate. There is a new covenant. God has always made covenants with men…with Abraham and Sarah. He made his covenants with Moses, with Noah, with Adam, and man always broke the covenants. So finally, he said, “I’ll send my own son, and I’ll make a deal with him, and that covenant will never be broken.” That’s the new covenant we celebrate on this table and instead of a sacrificial lamb, a perfect unblemished lamb, the victim is Jesus Christ, the Son of God himself. So Jesus is the priest who offers the sacrifice. He is the sacrifice, and he’s the promise that comes with the sacrifice.
This week we are going to celebrate a new priesthood. The Jews had many priests and each day they had to offer sacrifices for sin. We have one priest, the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ. In Hebrews 7 St. Paul writes, “It is fitting we should have such a priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.” I participate in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. By ordination I am another Christ, as weak and vulnerable and sinful as I am. It is Christ here, not me, who offers this sacrifice. This week we celebrate a call of service. On Holy Thursday there is no mention of bread and wine in the Gospel; rather it’s the washing of feet. “What I have done, you must do.”
We celebrate communion this week. The first Eucharist is offered by the first priest on Holy Thursday by the Great High Priest. He says, “Do this in memory of me.” As we share the consecrated bread and wine, we experience the fullness of Jesus’ gift to us. He literally joins us, becomes part of us, when we eat his body and drink his blood. We are with him in prayer this week. “Can you not spend one hour with me?” It’s a big week. There is a lot going on here. This is the week. This is Holy Week.
Remember the show years ago, You Are There with Walter Cronkite? “That’s the way it is.” You are there. If you believe that, you will be there with Jesus on Holy Thursday, on Good Friday, and during the night some time when he rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. I encourage you to do the best you can this week to use this week, to experience it, to participate in it; not watching it, but being a part of it. If you can, come here on Holy Thursday night, come here on Good Friday afternoon and evening, come here to the Easter Vigil. We are going to welcome our new Catholics into our Church, and the liturgy we will use Saturday night was written by Saint Apolotus in the year 210. It was written in a book called The Apostolic Tradition and we will welcome them into the Church. Use this week well. It is God’s gift to us, so use this gift well.