XIV. Jesus is Laid in the Sepulchre

V. We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee.
R. Because by Thy holy Cross, Thou hast redeemed the world.

Somehow death always feels like the end.  Even though we say that we believe in the resurrection of the dead, it is hard not to face a parting as if it were forever.

Think of how the apostles must have felt to see the body of Jesus laid in the tomb.  The finality of it must have struck their hearts with numb terror.  Everything they had given up to follow Him must have seemed in vain.  They had followed Him, believing that He was the Messiah, the Christ, the One who would set them free.  Instead, He had died the most horrible death of a criminal and now His body lay in the coldness of a sepulcher intended for another.

Our Lady must have sustained them by her presence, by her faith in God, but still what consolation could she give them?  How do you ever speak words of comfort to one who has suffered loss?

When one is in the darkness of grief, no light seems possible.  In the face of death, how can one believe in resurrection?

Yet it is precisely through that death and darkness that God crashes with His tremendous power, destroying all our expectations of gloom and doom.  What of the sealed tombs in our own lives?  Do we close off our hearts at the loss and turn our back on all that was good when it turns out wrong?  Or do we linger, waiting for the moment when the angel will roll back the stone?

Oh, my buried Jesus, I kiss the stone that encloses Thee. But Thou didst rise again the third day. I beseech Thee, by Thy resurrection, make me rise glorious with Thee at the last day, to be always united with Thee in heaven, to praise Thee and love Thee forever. I love Thee, and I repent of ever having offended Thee. Never permit me to offend Thee again. Grant that I may love Thee always; and then do with me what Thou wilt. (From the Stations of the Cross according to Saint Alphonsus Liguori.)

~

As we descend with our Lord into the darkness with the beginning of the Triduum tomorrow, I pray that each of you will deeply encounter the Paschal Mystery.

Please share any more particular prayer intentions with me if you wish.

Blessings to you this Holy Week!

Death Comes for Us All

Death has been on my mind increasingly of late, and not merely because we have just come through the intense commemoration of Christ's death in the Easter Triduum.  That mystery, however, casts its shadow upon every experience of death and every pondering thereof.  For where our Lord has conquered death by His death there must also be life.

The reality of death never affected me much as a child.  Even now I can count on one hand the times that death has touched me closely, butchery of chickens and viewing of murder mystery shows notwithstanding.

I think of a priest I met who shared with us words his mother had repeated to him about how where there is death there will come life.  That priest knew a couple who received a newborn boy after they had longed eagerly for a child they had been unable to conceive on their own and had prayed through the intercession of the priest's mother.  Their new child was born on the same day that the priest's mother had died.  Where there was death there came life.

I think of tulips planted in rocks beside the ocean with their roots sheltered by soil carefully patted around them.  As their bright colors caught my gaze, I found my heart reflecting on death contrasting with their bright and vibrant life, for I thought perhaps the tulips stood as testimony to some lost love.

Before the mystery of death I have no words, writer as I am.  Still, writer as I am, I must strive to put words where only silence can adequately respond.  I must speak out from my heart what I know in its quiet beating, even though in the end I will say nothing of what I know with all my many words, but speak only of all that surrounds it, of all the little petty details that seem to mean nothing.

Perhaps it is best to rely upon poetry whose imagery speaks what prose cannot.  Here a little piece from G.K. Chesterton:

The Skeleton

Chattering finch and water-fly
Are not merrier than I;
Here among the flowers I lie
Laughing everlastingly.
No; I may not tell the best;
Surely, friends, I might have guessed
Death was but the good King's jest,
It was hid so carefully.

Maundy Thursday

Today I would like to share with you words from a character of mine—a pirate captain turned priest.  Here is his meditation, roughly translated, which conveys at least some of the beauty of the original language and thought I hope:

How eagerly He desired that moment, how eagerly He desired that they might understand, how eagerly He desired that He might share His suffering with them by sharing His very life! For what does love desire except to give itself wholly to the beloved and to keep nothing for itself? So much He loved us that He would not keep even that to Himself!

So it was that on that night He knelt and washed their feet, teaching them how greatly He wished to turn their preconceived notions upside down. And so He still does. He calls us to follow Him and then reverses all that we expect in following Him.

He sat there then, asking them to come to Him, even as He asks of us now, as He said to them: “This is My Body,” and “This is My Blood.” This He said because it was His life He gave for us, and so it was that He asked us to do the same, to give our lives for Him and for our brothers.

This is what a priest is called to do, whether a ministerial priest or any baptized person sharing in the life of Christ. We are asked—for He always asks and rarely commands, begging our love—to become ourselves a living sacrifice, to pour forth our blood for others and to let them eat of our body in His memory, not as we eat of His Body and Blood, but in a spiritual way that is in communion with His sacrifice so that all we do, all we suffer, all that others ask of us, and all that each moment brings may be an offering of love to Him.

Yet always, weak and sinful creatures that we are, our time is cut short. We think that we are in the garden to keep watch with Him, but then we find ourselves sleeping and all our efforts lost, all our attempts to pray in vain. When He says it is time to go, we do not understand. We want to beg Him to wait, but it cannot be so. We can only let go the past and meet the next moment for love of Him, trying once more to be faithful where we have so often failed.