April – 2015 – The Catholic Spiritual Life

Every year on this Fourth Sunday, halfway through Easter, we read from the tenth chapter of John, on the Good Shepherd. We continue our meditation on how Jesus’s resurrection penetrates into our lives.

The readings this week focus on the power of faith.

In Acts, the authorities ask Peter, “by what power or by what name do you do this?” The discussion, we learn, is about a healing. Peter talks about the power of healing, and says “this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” He concludes, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” The power of salvation is by the name of Jesus. The power goes with the name.

The Gospel reading takes up the same theme, though less obviously. Jesus says, “I lay down my life and take it up again,” then emphasizes his power: “I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again.” Here he doesn’t talk about the “name” but he does talk about personal knowledge: “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” We enter into the power of Jesus: the power of his resurrection, by which he enters into our death so that we can enter into his resurrection. And we enter in by knowing him.

This (says St. Thomas Aquinas) is what all the business about the “name” really means: we know him. We recognize him.

In the Bible, sheep are not stupid. Sheep are the one kind of herd animal that don’t have to be beaten and driven, but follow after their shepherd, because they know him and trust him. They are like dogs, which we consider for that reason to be smart. But unlike dogs, sheep also flock together. That is the image of the Christian: he finds himself in the Church, the flock who know and trust and follow the Good Shepherd. They are joined together by the name of Jesus.

***

In Year B of the Lectionary, we spend Easter in John’s magnificent First Letter. The reading this Sunday is short but potent, and beautiful.

Again the theme is knowledge and power, the name and the reality. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called” – receive the name – “children of God; and that is what we are.” Indeed, the name we receive is the name of Jesus: Son of God. The fabulous thing is that he has the power to make it so.

“The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” It is all rooted in knowledge – not obscure textbook knowledge, but personal knowledge, knowing the Father, knowing the Son, knowing the person, knowing them by name.

“When he is revealed,” when we finally know him fully, “we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” How do we receive the power of Christ? By seeing him, knowing him. Now we see dimly, by faith – and already we are transformed. The ultimate transformation will come through knowing him fully.

***

The reading from Acts and the Psalm use another metaphor: “the stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Corner sounds like the bottom, but in both the New Testament Greek and the Old Testament Hebrew it’s literally “the head of the angle.” This is the keystone of the arch, the piece without which the structure collapses.

That is a powerful stone. If it is there, everything stands, in magnificence. If it is missing – or too weak, or the wrong shape, poorly chosen – everything collapses. Jesus is the keystone. “There is salvation in no one else.”

And the focus is so beautifully on knowing the cornerstone. Human wisdom has chosen the wrong support, the wrong way of building. Only when we know Christ can we stand. (And notice, again: like the sheep, the stones stand or fall together, in the Church.) And so, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name.” If we do not know him, recognize him, it all collapses.

***

Finally, let us look one more time at this line from the Good Shepherd: “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”

First: John stakes everything on the Trinity. God himself is the eternal mystery of knowing and being known, of persons in communion. That is what we enter into when we know and are known by Christ: the eternal love of Father and Son – a love that knows.

Second: we know as we are known. We look at him and he looks at us. He knows his sheep by name, just as we know him.

Easter is the power of Resurrection. But it is a power that we enter into through the name: we love him as we know him.

Let me only add that this is the power of Scripture, and of the rosary: to gaze on Jesus, to know him more deeply, to speak his name.

What could you do to know Jesus better?

Third Sunday of Easter: The Realism of the Word

April 21, 2015 Leave a Comment

ACTS 3:13-15, 17-19; PS 4:2, 4, 7-8, 9; 1 JN 2:1-5a; LK 24:35-48

Each of last Sunday’s three readings juxtaposes the same three apparently unrelated ideas: Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament, his bodily nature, and repentance. To see the connection is to see deep into the heart of Christianity.

Let us recall where we are. It is the third Sunday of Easter. The previous Sunday was still the Easter Octave: the direct celebration of Christ rising from the dead. During the Octave, the Gospel readings are the same every year: last Sunday was Doubting Thomas.

This Sunday, the third, is the last one in which we read stories about the Resurrection, though now the three years break up, to pick up the remaining stories from Luke and John. After this Sunday, on the Fourth Sunday we read different sections of John 10, the Good Shepherd; then on the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh we read selections from Jesus’s priestly prayer, John 13-17.

Easter is the season of Christ’s resurrection. But it is also the season of understanding the impact of the resurrection, its meaning for us. Throughout the season we read the Acts of the Apostles. Acts has been called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit: in it we see the disciples filled with the power of the Spirit of Christ. The pattern of his life is repeated in theirs; his strength is present in their weakness. His resurrection bears fruit in their transformation.

That is why in the next weeks we will read about Jesus the Good Shepherd and his prayer for the Church: when we celebrate the power of the Resurrection, we celebrate Christ’s power for us. The resurrection is present in our lives.

And so this past Sunday we once more read about the power of God in the resurrection of Christ – and his power in the Church.

***

Our reading from Luke’s Gospel was the story following the road to Emmaus. At first glance it seems a bit of a catch-all. Jesus appears and again says “Peace be with you.” He proclaims the physical reality of the Resurrection: “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones”; he even eats some fish. Again he reads the Bible to them: “‘everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” And he concludes by telling them “that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name.” What a jumble of themes!

Oddly enough, though, the same themes are in the reading from Acts. Peter is preaching at the temple gate. He too speaks of the physical reality of Christ: “you rejected the Holy and Righteous One”; here it is not the resurrection, but it is again the theme that we touch God in the physical body of Christ. Then he talks about the Bible: “In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets.” And again he concludes with repentance, “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.”

And, strange enough, our reading from 1 John hits the same three points. First he stresses the physical significance of Jesus: “he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Then he talks about repentance and the Bible, together: “by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments.” “Whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection.”

***

The physical reality of Christ, repentance, the Bible.

Perhaps it is easiest to see the connection between the first two. It points in two directions. First, Christ is no ghost; Christ’s religion is no ghostly religion. To love Christ is to love him in the flesh; to reject Christ in our flesh is to reject Christ. The Christ who dies in the flesh and rises in the flesh calls us to a faith-hope-love that takes flesh.

Even more importantly, he comes to help us in the flesh. He who can raise the body can raise our bodies; he who enters into human life in Christ can enter into our human life. The grace of Christ is grace that enters not just into our ideas, but into our lives. The Spirit who raises Christ from the dead is powerful enough to raise us up to righteousness in the flesh.

It’s not primarily what we do for him, but what he does for us: and he comes into human flesh, to give new life, moral resurrection. Repentance is the fruit of the Resurrection.

***

But this takes flesh, even more, in the Bible. God speaks to us in human words, calls to us not just vaguely, like a ghost, but concretely. He speaks commandments – of many kinds: every line of the Bible is a kind of commandment. His word enters in. His word speaks specifically, calls us to a conversion that is not just in general, but specific, concrete. The God who takes flesh in Christ also takes flesh in his Word of Scripture, to enter in and call us to a very tangible, specific, real repentance.

Does your faith ever get a bit vague? How could you use the Bible to make it more concrete?

Jesus in the Hail Mary

April 21, 2015 Leave a Comment

We might know Jesus better, and pray the Hail Mary better, if we see how his portrait is painted in that prayer. There are at least six images of Jesus there.

***

“Full of grace.” The first word we hear, before we even hear mention of Jesus himself, is grace. Grace that fills. Grace that brings happy greetings, and blessings: Ave!

The Hail Mary – and the Angel Gabriel, who speaks these first words – makes a striking choice, putting Mary before Jesus. Hail Mary! Not yet Jesus. Full of grace! It is as if to say, the one who is coming is good news. The one we are about to speak of impacts you, for the better.

Imagine turning it the other way: “The Lord is with you. Full of grace.” Lucky you. Perhaps, maybe, we would say, yes, all that “full of grace” means is that the Lord is with you. You’re lucky – for something outside of you. But it has no real impact on your inside.

Instead, the Angel says to Mary, and the Hail Mary says to us, hey look, look at the joy that has burst into her heart. That joy begins with Jesus – it is grace. But it is a joy we can see in Mary already, before we even get to Jesus. He really transforms her! Fills her with his blessings.

***

“The Lord is with you.” Now we get to the real portrait. LORD, of course, is Biblical language for the God of Israel; it’s the way Jews (and Mary and Gabriel are Old Testament people) avoid saying the unspeakable divine name, YHWH.

Again, there’s rhetorical genius in putting this first. We’re about to see a baby. At the very least, we will see something present to human beings. But the first word is: beware! This is God! This is infinitely more than you can imagine! The one who is with you is . . . the LORD! And everything else, everything about how grace works, and the Christian life, and Christian spirituality, and what it means to be Mary: it is all about our relation to the great I AM before whom Moses removes his sandals.

***

“The fruit of your womb.” But the very next image of Jesus is the opposite: after speaking of his divinity, the Hail Mary speaks of his humanity. Her womb: what heaven cannot contain, has been contained in a small space – the small space of her belly, and the small space, too, of an infant.

Fruit: as if to emphasize that this is not just something “in” her womb, it’s something that comes from her, something proportionate to her, really her child. After seeing him as God, we now see that he is profoundly human, as well. He is the great I AM who has become, truly, a poor woman’s child.

***

“Jesus.” “You shall call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21). Jesus means savior.

And it is like a culmination of what has come before: anything less than God, the LORD, could not save us. But the way he chooses to save us is by becoming one of us. He blesses us (“blessed art thou among woman,” in your humanity) by himself sharing in our blessedness (“and blessed is the fruit of your womb”).

He shines his grace into us – truly into us, truly permeating our humanity – by radiating that grace from his own humanity. He makes our hearts love by having himself a human heart that loves. Fills our suffering with divine love by himself making suffering divine.

That is the salvation he brings – that is “Jesus”: man filled with God, the LORD becoming the fruit of Mary’s womb.

***

“God.” Then the second half of the prayer asks Mary to pray to God for us. From this image of Jesus we look heavenward, and ask the Divine to bless, transform, divinize our sinful humanity.

“God” is the only part of this prayer common to all religions. We all look heavenward and ask for blessings. But we who know Jesus – the Jesus of the first part of the Hail Mary – look to that God in a new way, beseech his blessings in a new way, beg, indeed, for new blessings, the blessings of Jesus, of God entering into the very heart of man.

***

“Mother of God.” The final image of Jesus in the Hail Mary is relational. Mother of God is a statement first of all about Jesus, not Mary. It says, not that she is raised above God, but that he has subjected himself to his people. She cannot make herself mother – only God can make her to be mother.

And yet he has. “Mother of God” stands for all the fantastic-ness of God daring to put himself in our hands, to come that close to us, to make it so that we can beg to him not just as the divine, but as the one who has become ours. As an old Marian hymn says, qui pro nobis natus, tulit esse tuus: who, born for us, suffered himself to be (truly) yours.

Let us pray!

A Thursday Meditation on the Wedding Feast at Cana and the Heart of Mary

April 17, 2015 Leave a Comment

Let us enter into one of the luminous mysteries by considering the virtues and the beatitudes.

Consider Mary’s Faith. Cana seems to be the very first miracle of Jesus (though even if we’ve seen miracles before, it’s hard to believe they can happen again). She has absolute confidence that Jesus can do the impossible and that he loves us enough to do it, even in this thing, so insignificant and so concretely miraculous. And her faith draws her to Jesus.

Consider Mary’s Hope. She believes in Jesus’s power over creation. And she believes in his love for his creation, a love that does not destroy the couple, does not destroy his creation, but builds them up, in the happiest, most affirming way. And her hope draws her to Jesus.

Consider Mary’s Charity, her love for God and for man. She loves God’s creation, loves marriage, loves the celebration, loves the wine that blesses it! She loves the couple, thinks of the couple, frets over the couple. Ah, but most of all, think of how she must have loved Jesus, the deep, joyful affection she must have felt when she saw his love for the couple. And love unites her, profoundly, in an ever new way, to Jesus.

Consider Mary’s Poverty. She has nothing. She has nothing to offer but her prayers. She asks nothing for herself, but for their happiness. Even what she asks is nothing that can be hoarded, only the pleasure of celebrating human and divine love. And in her poverty she relies on nothing but Jesus, and loves nothing but Jesus, and the joys of his kingdom, celebrated in the marriage feast.

Consider Mary’s Sorrow. Such a rich, real, human sorrow: “they have no wine!” Not a selfish sorrow, not a whining sorrow, but a deep compassion for the needs of others, for the deeply human needs of a bride and bridegroom to celebrate their wedding. And because this is what she sorrows for, she is consoled by the presence, the love, the concern of Jesus, only Jesus, who brings the most abundant consolation.

Consider Mary’s Meekness. She does not fight, does not blame, does not strive – she only inherits. Meekness does not grasp, but trusts in the Father to provide. “Whatever he says”: we receive everything as total gift, trusting that he will not leave us orphans. And he gives her the earth – not just pie in the sky, Jesus provides wine, here and now, for this celebration, of this marriage. He cares for the meek on the earth – and her meekness binds her to him even more.

Consider her Hunger and Thirst for Justice. Justice doesn’t mean punishment or vengeance. It means things should be right. The poor couple! This isn’t right, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be! At Cana, Mary doesn’t only long for heaven, she longs for things to be right here on earth (and so glimpses the true heavenly city, where all is right). She thirsts not for the wine, but for the blessing of their wedding, the celebration as it should be. And Jesus always satisfies. How that love of Justice makes her love him all the more.

Consider her Mercy. Misericordia: it is a heart for misery, a feeling of others’ pain. In Greek we say Eleison, connected to begging for alms, eleemosyne. She feels for them; her heart is totally united to their disappointment when their wedding feast isn’t as it should be. She begs for them. And mercy is hers! When she feels mercy for them, she feels even deeper the merciful heart of Jesus.

Consider her Purity of Heart. There is nothing selfish here. Nothing worldly, either. What a wonderful mystery, the wedding feast at Cana: there is nothing impure about weddings, nothing impure about feasts, nothing impure about good wine. It is all the gift of the Creator. Our hearts are impure, and so we experience all these impurely, to be sure. But the pure hearts, Jesus and Mary – in these goods things they see only God, the giver of good. Purity of heart does not hate the world, it just loves God – and loves Jesus, the God who enters into the world, with blessings!

And consider how she Makes Peace. Fascinating: there is no war here. To the contrary, what is happening in a wedding, and in a feast, is a union of hearts. The true peacemaker goes far beyond disarming combatants, or putting them in separate corners. The true peacemaker makes a banquet, celebrates real fraternity, real, deep union. Daughter of God, Mary witnesses God as the Father who makes union among his children.

And so she sees the real heart of Jesus, the adorable, wonderful, peacemaking Jesus, the Bridegroom who brings joy to every wedding and every feast, here and in eternity.

How could you contemplate the loving heart of Jesus today?

Second Sunday of Easter: Faith and Mercy

April 11, 2015 Leave a Comment

ACTS 4:32-35; PS 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24; 1 JN 5:1-6; JN 20:19-21

This Sunday, by decree of St. John Paul II, is Divine Mercy Sunday. It is obviously a time to think about God’s mercy. But let us truly think about it. Let us think especially about why this, of all Sundays, should be the celebration of mercy.

This Sunday used to be called “Low Sunday,” or “Sunday of putting off the White” (garments): both references to it being the end of the Easter octave. In short, this new feast urges us to think of mercy in terms of Easter, as the culmination of Easter. It is not a Friday feast, not particularly focused on Christ’s death. It is a resurrection feast. Indeed, this is the rare feast that does not get its own readings: the readings are unchanged from when this was merely the octave of Easter – indeed, basically the same as they were even before Vatican II.

Divine Mercy Sunday does not replace the old Octave of Easter, it is just a new name for the old celebration. Why?

***

The readings are (and always have been) heavy on John. The first reading is from Acts, but the second is from the First Letter of John, and the Gospel is John.

The Gospel is Doubting Thomas. First Jesus brings peace and the mission of reconciliation to the Apostles, on Easter Sunday. But Thomas is not there on Easter, so the next Sunday, Jesus appears again, for Thomas. Divine Mercy Sunday is first of all Doubting Thomas Sunday.

Thomas says, “Unless I see . . . and put my fingers . . . I will not believe.” When Jesus appears he says, “Do not be unbelieving, but believe,” and then “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?

Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” John concludes, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples . . . . But these are written that you may come to believe.”

A lot of “believing”!

And in the Epistle, John says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God.” “Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” Believe! Like Paul, but in his own key, John is very insistent on salvation by faith.

***

We always do well to return to John’s Prologue, which also culminates in a call to faith:

“Whoever received him, he gave them power to become children of God:

to those who believe in his name, who are born,

not from [their] blood, nor from the will of the flesh, nor from the will of man,

but from God.”

How do we become children of God? By faith: “to those who believe in his name.” (Through Baptism, yes – but we forget that when we have our children baptized, the priest asks, “what do you ask of the Church,” and the answer is, “faith!”)

John adds an explanation. We are not children of God by human nature (not by our bloodright), and we who are in the flesh certainly can’t “will” ourselves to be sons of God. No, “the will of man” cannot reach to this. Jesus gives us a rebirth we cannot possibly attain by mere act of will: we are born “from God.”

And so, says John, the “power to become children of God” is given “to those who believe in his name”: who trust in Jesus (Jesus I trust in you!) to do what we cannot do.

***

This is Jesus’s double mercy to Thomas: to reach out to him to nurture faith, and then by that faith to give him new life.

It is his mercy to the Apostles. On Easter, and again on Thomas’s Sunday, John says they were hiding: “the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews.” But Jesus gives them his peace, breathes his life into them, gives them new birth in his Spirit and so says, “I send you” – and in Acts we find that now “With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.”

It is only his mercy, only their trust in him, that takes them from fear to powerful witness. They believe in his name, and he gives them his peace: there is no other way.

And through them he extends his mercy to us. Through their preaching: “these are written that you may come to believe,” says one of the Apostles, “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.” And through the sacraments that he gives to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them.”

This is the mercy of Easter, the mercy of rebirth in Christ, the mercy of rebirth through faith.

Where is Jesus calling us to trust more deeply in the power of his resurrection?

A Baptismal Meditation on Easter

April 7, 2015 Leave a Comment

The heart of Easter, of course, is the reading of the Gospel accounts of Christ’s resurrection – or rather, the impact of that resurrection on those who discovered it. But what does it mean? What do we discover when we discover the Resurrection of Christ?

We can perhaps better understand Easter if we understand that, in another sense, the heart of Easter is Baptism. Historically, that is the reason for the celebration. In the early Church, every Sunday celebrated the Resurrection – but Easter (originally tied more to Passover) became the time to baptize catechumens. We noted at the beginning of Lent that the pre-Easter season, too, was originally about the catechumens.

In the Middle Ages a strange thing happened: the Easter Vigil withered away, and gradually became a sort of liturgical odd duck on Holy Saturday morning. The reason, again, seems to have been the catechumens – once there was no one to baptize, Easter Vigil lost its original significance, though Easter was still celebrated as, by now, the center of the cycle of Christ’s mysteries.

The Easter Vigil was restored to Saturday night only recently, by Pope Pius XII, in 1951 – both as part of a rediscovery of liturgical spirituality, and as a rediscovery of the catechumenate.

In fact, I recently learned that the Church’s liturgical norms specifically say that baptized non-Catholic Christians should NOT be received at Easter Vigil (as I was!), precisely because it undermines the centrality of Baptism in that Mass. (And, indeed, undermines the doctrine of Baptism, by confusing the radical rebirth which is Baptism with the less radical reception into full communion of those who are already baptized.)

***

Though the Gospel is central, as Christ is radically central, the interpretive key to Easter is in the New Testament readings.

At the Vigil, the great reading that follows the Gloria is from Romans 6: “we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Absolutely essential to Paul’s understanding of the Paschal mystery – at the very center, in fact, of Christianity itself – is what Augustine calls the “two resurrections.” There is the resurrection of the body – but also the resurrection of the soul. Christ promises to raise up our body, yes – but far more important, far more central, is that he raises up our soul, from death in sin, to life in Christ.

Easter is not primarily about bodies, it is about souls. “Our old self was crucified” – not bodily, but spiritually, in Baptism – “with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. The death he died, he died” not primarily in the body, but “to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

The Epistle for Easter morning, from Colossians, repeats the same theme: “If you have been raised with Christ” – in the soul, by Baptism, though we have not yet risen bodily from the dead – “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. . . for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” No, we have not yet received the resurrection of the body – but we have received the resurrection of the soul.

That is the joy of Easter: we find that God has the power to raise up, not only our bodies, but our sinful souls.

***

The readings at the Vigil all attest to this great reality. They go through salvation history, yes, but they speak above all about the resurrection that Christ will bring to our souls.

This is most clear in the later readings, from the prophets. The seventh, Ezekiel, says, “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you.” The waters of Baptism give new life to the soul.

The sixth, from Baruch, says, “O Israel, why is it that you are in the land of your enemies?” Why do we dwell in death? “Learn where there is wisdom, where there is strength, where there is understanding.” Find conversion in Christ: this is the message of Baptism and repentance.

In the fifth, Isaiah asks: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy?” The solution is not a deeper focus on the body – that is what is crucified – but, “Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good.” Catechumen, be converted by God’s holy Word! Renounce the empty promises!

And in the fourth, Isaiah says, “For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you,” likening their situation to Noah and the flood. We have been abandoned to sin and death – but Christ rescues us, by conversion: “All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the prosperity of your children. In righteousness you shall be established.” Not only in bodily life, but in the life of the soul.

***

The first three, more narrative readings teach the same things. Creation culminates in the image of God, and God’s blessing of man. God did not only make our bodies, he made our souls. God who can lift up the body can lift up our souls as well.

At the sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham says, “The Lord will provide.” Abraham has absolute trust in God’s provision for him – and lives the coresponding life of conversion.

And in Exodus, “the Israelites walked on dry ground through the sea,” as we walk through Baptism, “the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians,” as he saves us from sin.

In what areas do you doubt God’s power to bring resurrection to your soul?

A Holy Thursday Meditation for Good Friday

April 4, 2015 Leave a Comment

Ugolino di Nerio, Last Supper

A few details from Holy Thursday give us an interesting angle on Good Friday. Christ feeds us and washes us. . . .

First: Christ feeds us. “And as they were eating, he said, ‘Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, ‘Is it I, Lord?’ He answered, ‘He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me’” (Mt 26:21-23).

Now, there are a few ways to interpret this, and indeed the Evangelists take it in different directions. Matthew reminds us that Jesus is (as so often) quoting the Psalms: “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Ps 41:9).

It is poignant that the disciples say, “Is it I, Lord?” To be with the Lord at table is no sign that we are not a Judas. We cannot even know ourselves – Peter is not Judas, but despite his gallant attitude in the Upper Room, he too will abandon the Lord before the Cross.

The Cross is the test of our friendship. “Do you love me more than these?”

***

Indeed, our closeness to Jesus at the table is not to our benefit if we will not follow him to the Cross. Mark (Peter’s disciple) always simplifies, but the lines he keeps go straight to the heart. “He said to them, ‘It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born’” (Mk 14:20-21).

Better if he had not been born! How those words must have pierced Peter’s heart!

Indeed, the reading from I Corinthians ties this to the Eucharist: “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Cor 11:29). Our presence at the Eucharistic table is dangerous.

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26 ). “I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread” (1 Cor 11:23). The Eucharist is the memorial, also, of betrayal.

***

John, who always takes us to the interior of things, adds two significant details. First, he contrasts the closeness of Judas with the closeness of John: “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’” (Jn 13:23-25).

Three kinds of closeness: Judas sits at the table, but betrays Jesus. But John leans on the heart of Jesus, and follows him all the way to the Cross. Let this meditation not be too negative about prayer! That table fellowship is the source of Judas’s condemnation – but it is also the source of John’s closeness.

The lesson here is not that closeness to Jesus accounts for nothing. It is everything! We cannot follow Jesus to the Cross unless we lay close to his heart in the Eucharist. The lesson is not that only suffering matters. The lesson is that we must distinguish between true and false intimacy. We can think we are close, but we need to be closer.

(So it is nice that John gives us a third, in-between intimacy: Peter, who like us, is not close enough to follow Christ to the Cross – but who is close enough to return.)

***

Then John gives us a second detail, “Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him” (Jn 13:26-27).

In the other Gospels, it is “he who has dipped his hand in the dish.” But in John, Jesus dips, and gives – he feeds Judas as a mother feeds a child. What exactly happened at that dipping, I don’t know. But John reminds us that we must let Jesus feed us. It is precisely the refusal to receive everything from Jesus, the demand that we feed ourselves, that we rely on our own strength, that keeps us far from Jesus.

That is the true lesson of the Cross: only Jesus has the strength to carry us to true intimacy.

How could our prayer lean more truly on the heart of Jesus?

Month: April 2015

Good Shepherd Sunday: The Power of the Name