Paschal Triduum 2014
Holy Thursday
As
we begin our celebration of the greatest of all feasts allow me first to remind
you that we are celebrating an anniversary.
This is not a simple commemoration but an anniversary. We can commemorate something anytime of the
year – we can commemorate the death of a loved one anytime of the year or a
wedding anytime we like. But to
celebrate it as an anniversary we have to more or less approximate it to the
exact day and time it happened. It may
not be very precise but it has to come approximately within the time it
happened. What are these anniversaries
which we are celebrating beginning today?
From
the Jews, our elder brothers in the faith, we celebrate three anniversaries: first, the anniversary of the Passover with
its Passover meal, second, the anniversary of the creation of the world, and third,
the anniversary of the entry of the chosen people into the Promised Land when
they were finally allowed to cross over the river Jordan.
It
was however when the Jews were celebrating these anniversaries more than 2,000
years ago that the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus also happened, thereby
augmenting, and even replacing and superseding the anniversaries that they, the
Jews, celebrated. Now as followers of
Jesus, we celebrate the Passover with its meal, however this time with Jesus as
the Paschal Lamb, with the Eucharist replacing the bread of affliction.
Secondly,
we are celebrating on these three days no longer just the anniversary of the
creation of the world but the anniversary of its re-creation, the day when
Jesus made us a new creation with his death on the cross.
And
finally with the resurrection of Jesus we celebrate the anniversary of our
crossing over the waters baptism, from the slavery of sin to the land of
promise in order to live in the freedom of the sons and daughters of God.
This
is what we are celebrating as an anniversary and it is good to be conscious of
these anniversaries as we go through the celebrations in these three most
sacred days. Again allow me to remind
you that these are not separate anniversaries but one single anniversary which
will take us three days to finish.
Today
we begin with the celebration of the anniversary of the Passover Meal with
Jesus as our paschal lamb and it might be good to begin this by talking about
food and meals. What makes food taste
good? What is good food? My brothers cook very well. I can attest to that and people can attest to
that. But when I go home on many
occasions I am served, or should I say I prefer to be served with home cooked
food. Sometimes these will be slipped
surreptitiously on my plate, sometimes quite openly for all to see but only for
me to touch. Are they better tasting
food? For me, yes. And what made them better tasting food? Ingredients, spices, timing, sauces? No. Memories. They taste good because they taste familiar
and they taste familiar because they bring memories. Consciously and sometimes unconsciously, there
are food that are eaten because of the memories they evoke.
Our
first and second readings are examples of these meals. In our first reading God commanded the Jews
to eat the Passover meal yearly to remember the sufferings and afflictions they
endured in the land of slavery and how the Lord saved them by passing over
their houses. This is the Passover meal,
the supper that Jesus ate with his disciples.
In
our second reading Jesus, as recalled by Paul, commanded his disciples to
celebrate this meal of bread and wine in his memory, to remember the bitter
affliction that he underwent that we might be saved from our sins. This supper is the Eucharist, the supper that
we the disciples of Jesus now partake.
These
are meals that continue to be celebrated even today because of the memories
they bring, and they are not just any memories.
Specifically, they are memories of suffering, affliction, pain,
betrayal, loss and the hope of salvation.
Why
is this so? Why is our meal of memory
one of affliction and suffering? Do we
not have better memories to remember about Jesus, more happy memories to
celebrate about his life? Why would God
make us recall, why would God want us to remember suffering, loss, betrayal and
pain?
I
believe this is because of what suffering does to us. When we recall our past and talk about them
we don’t only recall our happiness. We
also recall and talk about our ordeals and difficulties, and if you notice, we
always talk about these in a more profound way.
Why, because we feel formed by suffering. We are ennobled by suffering. We are shaped by suffering.
When
we suffer sickness or when we suffer a loss, we are thrust into another part of
ourselves that we thought was never there, and we are forced to confront the
fact that there are things that we cannot control and determine. In suffering,
people find that they are not who they believed themselves to be. Try as I might, I can’t tell myself to stop
feeling pain. Try as I might, I cannot stop missing someone who has just died. And when relief comes, it is not even clear
where it comes from and how it came about.
Suffering makes us always aware that we are part of a larger, much wider
providence that directs our lives.
Most
of us do not come out of our suffering healed, but we do come out different, we
come out different, we come out called to something higher.
This
is what the memories of this meal which is the Eucharist evoke in us. It makes us aware of what suffering does to
us, how difficulties transform us, how pain ennobles us. Loving too will always
be difficult, washing each other’s feet will always entail swallowing one’s
pride, and stooping down to a level which may well be beyond us. But as always it is not what we do that makes
us good, but it is what suffering and difficulties do to us that make us into
the persons God wants us to become.
Good Friday
In
this second day of re-living an anniversary, we focus our hearts and minds on
the self-offering of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, so that on the day
when the Jews were celebrating the anniversary of the creation of the world,
Jesus re-created the world by his passion and death. Jesus created the world anew when he suffered
and died on the cross.
Rightly
then Jesus is called by St. Paul as the new Adam or the second Adam. Just as the old Adam brought sin into the
world by his disobedience, so the new Adam, Jesus, brought redemption and restored
grace by his obedience. Later the
Fathers of the Church would attach to the new Adam the new Eve, the church,
born at the side of Christ. In the same
way that Eve was made from the side of Adam while he was sleeping, so the New
Eve, the Church, was borne out of the side of Christ, the new Adam, while he
was sleeping on the cross. From his side
flowed blood and water, St. John said.
Blood and water are symbols of the church, the new Eve. And this New Eve will become the mother of
all the living. We are all children of
the New Eve, we are all children of the church through baptism and the
Eucharist, we are the new man and the new woman born from the side of Christ
when he died on that first Good Friday afternoon. This is what we celebrate today. We have to measure this day through a
complicated formula of equinoxes and full moons, using both lunar, solar and
the seasonal cyclic positions of the earth vis-à-vis the sun, because we want
to get in touch with that very day when the world was created by God, and
recreated by Christ re-creating the old world into the new heavens and the new
earth.
Yesterday
we affirmed the power of suffering and sacrifice, of what it can do for us, of
what it can make us. Our first reading
today underlines the fact in the life of the suffering servant that suffering
can heal another, pain can transform, that the door to new life is weakness and
vulnerability. Our second reading today presents
the example of Jesus, when the letter to the Hebrews says, that he was made
perfect because of what he suffered, and because of what he suffered, he became
the source of eternal salvation. In
Jesus the cross became the way of suffering love.
This
is how we were re-created, this is how we became the new man and the new woman
in Jesus – we were re-created by his act of suffering love on the cross.
This
then is the invitation. We can only
become the new creation, we can only usher in the new heavens and the new earth
when we are willing to embrace vulnerability and weakness, when we allow
ourselves to be overwhelmed by the consequences of suffering love.
For
many, forgiveness is weak, revenge and getting even is power. In the new creation we go the way of weakness,
we go through the difficult task of forgiving, of swallowing one’s pride and
even self-worth.
For
many, giving, sharing is a waste, accumulating is security, hoarding is taking
precautions and making self-assurances.
In the new creation we go through the way of generosity and sharing, we
go the way of detachment, trusting in God’s loving providence.
For
many of us control is important, the need to determine outcome is important, we
want to be in total control of our lives and even the lives of our children,
and we thought we have all our bases covered.
But many times in the new creation we are called upon to let go, to
learn to embrace failures and defeat and to face the harsh reality that not
everything works according to plan.
We are sons and daughters of the new Eve born out of the blood and water that gushed forth from the side of Christ, the New Adam, as he slept the sleep on the cross. Our God is a Good Friday God and we affirm that only a suffering God can save and only suffering love can recreate us anew.
We are sons and daughters of the new Eve born out of the blood and water that gushed forth from the side of Christ, the New Adam, as he slept the sleep on the cross. Our God is a Good Friday God and we affirm that only a suffering God can save and only suffering love can recreate us anew.
Paschal Vigil
Today
is the third and last day of our celebration.
We have completed the celebration of the anniversaries of the greatest moments of our
faith. We have celebrated on Holy
Thursday the anniversary of the Passover Meal with Jesus as the Paschal Lamb. Yesterday, on Good Friday, we have celebrated
the anniversary of the creation and re-creation of the world in Christ, the new
Adam. We have revisited the day when
from the side of Christ, dead on the cross, we became the new man and the new
woman, transformed by his suffering love.
Today,
on the vigil of Holy Saturday, to culminate these great anniversaries, we
celebrate the crossing over to the Land of Promise. Like the chosen people of old we leave behind
the slavery of Egypt which is the slavery to sin and the seemingly aimless
wanderings in the desert, to finally cross the waters so as to live in
freedom. This crossing over, our
crossing over is marked by the resurrection of Jesus.
St.
Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians calls the resurrection of Jesus as
the first fruits. Curiously Paul does
not call it the end, or the final moment or the culmination of a life or a
graduation to something. Rather he calls
it the first fruits. When a tree bears
fruit it has come to the fulfilment of all its potential as a fruit tree. It has reached its full purpose. It has finally succeeded in becoming what it
should be from the time it was a seed, to the time it became a sapling, to the
time it became a tree. Jesus has reached
that full stature, that full potential of his humanity and his incarnation. Thus his resurrection is the fruit, and it is
the first, for ours will follow his. In Jesus death is no longer the end for in
Jesus the resurrection becomes the completion, the fulfilment and the realization
of the full potential of human life – it is the fruit.
So
what is the invitation for us now? How
can we experience the resurrection of Jesus?
When
Fr. Ronald said mass at the wake of my mother in our home he asked those who
attended the mass kon sin-o sa ila ang luyag magpalangit. Of course sin-o abi sa aton ang indi luyag
magpalangit. Duha man lang na ang
pilili-an mo, indi bala? - mapalangit ka
ukon mapaimpierno. So, ang tanan siempre
luyag magpalangit. Pero siling niya, antes
kita magpalangit dapat anay kita mapatay, so sin-o ang luyag mapatay? Wala na may luyag. But we need to die if we want to rise
again. This will always be the pattern
of our crossing over – we need to die in order to live. And to experience the resurrection, this
crossing over while I am still alive something in me has to die.
Allow
me to share something personal. They say
that the best example for something is one’s own experience. My mother died just last month and for
several weeks after I was quiet listless, sometimes thinking that I was only dreaming
all these series of events. It was only
in this holy week that I begun to order my thoughts and put things in a
perspective. In doing so I realize that
it was not only my mother who died but also part of me was dying beginning when
she was hospitalized last February.
When
she was confined in the ICU for what was a mild stroke I noticed that she could
no longer remember certain things. And
so I asked her, Ma, kilala mo ko? She
said huo e, kilala ta ka. Ti ma, sin-o
ako? Gintulok niya ako sing madugay kag
nagsiling. Si Fr. Kenneth ka. (Si Fr. Kenneth by the way is the chaplain of
the hospital.) So siling ko sa iya, Ma
indi ako si Fr. Kenneth, si Fr. Andy ako.
But she insisted, indi a, si Fr. Kenneth ka. Ma si Fr. Andy gani ako. And the next reply is the bombshell. She said, Indi ka ya si Fr. Andy kay ka gwapo
sa imo. Bombshell. Bisan tuod nagatalikod sila bal-an ko gid nga
pati ang mga nurses utoy-utoy kadlaw.
In this
particular episode of my life this was the first dying. It dawned on me. One day we will forget. One day we will be forgotten. Even the good that we do, even the good that
was done to us. Even our mothers will
forget us. Many times we have this indecent
preoccupation on how we would want to be remembered, how we want to be known,
the achievements that we need to do to reach recognition so that we can be
immortalized. But then one day, we will
be forgotten. And worst, one day we will
forget. Then I realized the truth of the
prophet Isaiah. Can a mother forget her
child, even so, the Lord will not forget.
Only the Lord remembers, forever, only the Lord. If the Lord alone remembers forever then I
should only work to be remembered by the Lord.
That is the first dying and rising.
The
second death happened when we were so secure that she would go home after a
month in the hospital. My brothers and
sister had the house repaired, she had a new room with a garden, she had a
hospital bed, the wheel chair had been ordered, a ramp had been made, her
nursing aid had just been hired. Then
when we were about to go home she died.
We were so sure, we had plans, and worst for my personal neglect to her
through all these years, I planned to makeup; I planned to go home at least
twice weekly and even to say mass to her every Sunday. But that was not to be. We go through these situations every now and
then in our lives. We don’t want this
and yet it happens, we avoided it and yet we encounter the very thing we were
trying to avoid; we asked and prayed fervently for something and yet the
opposite happens; we planned for this and that, and in an instant those plans
were completely changed.
It
is in situations like this that God allows us to come to terms with what
we don’t want, with what we don’t want to undergo or even face. It is in situations like this that God gently
coaxes us to accept a change of plan. It
is in situations like this that God widens our horizon to the possibilities of
his will and purpose for each one of us.
That was the second dying and rising.
There
are still other dying and it is ongoing.
I have to go through all these because this is the only way I can rise
again, this is the only way I can cross the water. You have also your own stories – stories of
suffering love, stories that brought death to some part of you so that you may
be transformed, so that you may be resurrected.
Christ is risen, alleluia, alleluia.
Death, dying is not the end. The
resurrection is the fruit and so we become complete when we rise and live
again. Amen.
Easter Sunday Morn
The
holy week is celebrated at a time when the day is getting longer and the night
is getting shorter. The holy week is
celebrated at a time when the night is brighter because of the presence of the
full moon. The holy week is celebrated
at a time when the moon rises even before the sun sets, and the sun rises even
before the moon sets – thus it is celebrated when there is an uninterrupted
succession of sun and moon. And so
because of this the light of the sun during the holy week intermingles with the
light of the moon. It is always brighter
when we are in the Holy Week. Do you
know that?
When
I say this during seminars on the church calendar, all of a sudden people start
noticing saying, ay tuod no, ay amo na gali, ay tingala ko man. Many of us especially us city dwellers no
longer notice the sky and the sun and the moon and the stars. Our eyes are glued on our televisions and on
our computer screens. But in ancient
times from which these ancient rituals begun, nature was a sign and even the
place itself of divine intervention and of human encounter with God. We encounter God in the changing of seasons,
God intervenes in our lives through water and fire, we are catechized by the
moon, the signs in nature make it easier for us to understand God, and enable
us to relate with God and God with us.
This
is nature’s message during the holy week.
We are no longer sons and daughters of darkness but of light. Just as there is an uninterrupted succession
of the sun’s and the moon’s light our life must be fully lived in the light
without any mixture of darkness. Wala
sang bisan isa lang ka minuto nga nadulman ang kalibutan, tungod kay wala pa
gani nakapanaog ang adlaw nagsaka na ang bulan, kag wala pa gani nakapanaog ang
bulan nagsaka na ang adlaw. Tani siling
sang mga santo amo man ina ang aton kalag, wala sing instance nga nadulman,
wala sing corner ukon bahin nga may kadulom.
It is all in the light, no longer made upo f the yeast of malice and wickedness.
In
our gospel today Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early in the morning while it
was still dark. It was still dark but
there was already the promise of the morning.
Naga-agaw-agaw ang kasanag kag ang kadulom. Siling sang mga tigulang amo ini ang
tigpululi sang mga tamawo. Sa ciudad
damo tamawo, naagahan sa diskohan.
But
you see the play of contrast in the gospel – the scene at the time of the
resurrection – light and darkness are struggling, pulling and pushing each
other. In the gospel last night the
beloved disciple on seeing the linens lying on the floor saw and believed – he
saw and he believed. Peter saw the same
thing but he remained quiet. Mary
Magdalene saw but she interpreted it differently saying that somebody stole the
body of Jesus. Darkness and light are
still struggling, as faith and doubt do, belief and incredulity, certainty and skepticism. Many times ang aton pagtuo
kasubong pa sini. There are those among
us who are strong in faith, there are those who are still struggling and there
are those nga sala-sala man sa gihapon.
Peter took some time to believe.
Mary Magdalene need to be called by name kay pati si Jesus ginhimo niya
hardinero kag ginsal-an pa niya nga nagkawat sang bangkay ni Jesus. Sige lang. This is our situation, like the
personages in the gospel each of us is struggling at different levels, at
different capacities.
Resurrexit
sicut dixit. This the Latin of our
prayer and greeting today. He has risen
as he has said. Our faith in the
resurrection is not just he is risen.
Our faith is he is risen as he has said – sicut dixit. And what does that show - Jesus is
reliable. He promised that he will rise
and he did. Jesus promised too that he
would have us rise from our graves. We
will also share in his triumph, one day we will share in his victory, we will
share in his life. Jesus is reliable
because resurrexit sicut dixit, he has risen as he has said.
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