This Saturday we went to the Cities for the Life Line. It began with an amazing Mass which we discussed spiritual blindness. The actual Lifeline discussion this month was worship in the context of Holy Week which is coming upon us soon. Holy week is an ongoing liturgy that begins on Holy Thursday, then Good Friday, and then to the Resurrection which begins at the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. These three liturgies are intimately intertwined. If one has never gone to all three of these liturgies you should! As always this is a combination of notes and personal reflections upon what the speaker said and what happened. So let us begin...
What is worship? Worship is when one realizes that God gave everything for you and you are giving oneself back to God. Wow! We are called to worship Christ constantly which means we are called to be constantly giving oneself back to God. So many times we throw the phrase "Praise and Worship" around without full understanding what we are saying or doing. How many time do we go to "Praise and Worship" just because we like the music or our friends are going or because it makes us feel good? Worship does not always mean music. Yes, music is a beautiful way to worship Christ but it is not the only way. When we pray we are worshiping Christ. And the central act of worship in the Catholic Church is the Mass. At the Mass, we get to worship Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Not only do we get to worship Him but we are allowed to receive Him into our bodies. What a beautiful gift! His Body becomes a part of our body. His Precious Body and Blood nourishes our body but more importantly our soul. How awesome is that to know that God is in you physically not just spiritually?
HOLY THURSDAY
Now that we have a better understanding of what worship is let us move to Holy Thursday. On Holy Thursday we celebrate the Last Supper. Let us first start with the Gospel of Mark...
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb was being sacrificed, His disciples said to Him, "Where do You want us to go and prepare for You to eat the Passover?"And He sent two of His disciples and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him; and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, 'The Teacher says, "Where is My guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?"' "And he himself will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; prepare for us there."The disciples went out and came to the city, and found it just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover.When it was evening He came with the twelve.As they were reclining at the table and eating, Jesus said, "Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me--one who is eating with Me."They began to be grieved and to say to Him one by one, "Surely not I?"And He said to them, "It is one of the twelve, one who dips with Me in the bowl. "For the Son of Man is to go just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born." While they were eating, He took some bread, and after a blessing He broke it, and gave it to them, and said, "Take it; this is My body."And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank from it.And He said to them, "This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many"
The Jewish people celebrated the Passover to commemorate when God led the Israelites out of Egypt. This was a time when God made the first covenant. He told the the Isrealites that "I am your God and you are my people" This was the beginning of a relationship with the Isrealites.
Jesus changed the Passover meal dramatically and He made it into the Last Supper, the Initiation of the Eucharist. He became the New Covenant. He made it possible for us to have a relationship with God.
Now at the Last Supper Jesus said "Eat my body and drink my blood" this statement would have been empty if it was not for the cross he would later endure because at the Cross he gave up His body for us and poured out His blood for us. The Eucharist and the Cross are both gifts that are freely given to us from Christ. The cross and the Eucharist are intimately connected without either of these the other does not make sense. The connection between the two is amazing to meditate on.
"The Body of Christ" "Amen" That "amen" becomes such an automatic response when receiving Communion do we really know what it means? We don't translate this word because it has so many meanings. Some of them include: "Yes, I believe!", "Let it be done unto me.", "I want to live for you" are just a few the speaker mentioned. Amen is a covenant word. A word that invites us to have a relationship with Christ. St. Augustine said that when we receive communion we need to pause and be ready to lay down our lives for Christ just as He laid down His life for us. Are we ready to do that when we say "amen"? Are we ready to die for Christ as He died for us? Pause for a moment before receiving the Eucharist next time and fully ask yourself those questions. Remember when you are saying Amen you are saying "Lord Jesus I fully believe that you are present in the Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and I am willing to live for you and to die for you do with me as you will."
The presenter then asked us to enter into a time for worship and to lay all of our faults, sins, hurts etc. at the feet of Jesus and the band played this song... Lay it Down Jesus was so present in that room! Teens were lifting their hands toward the massive crucifix on the wall. You saw some walls being torn down and they were truly laying their burdens down at Christ's feet! It was a beautiful sight.
THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN
The Agony in the Garden shows the extent at which Christ loves us and His desire to do the Father's will not His own. Let us continue reading what the Gospel of Mark has to say...
They came to a place named Gethsemane; and He said to His disciples, "Sit here until I have prayed."And He took with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be very distressed and troubled. And He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved to the point of death; remain here and keep watch." And He went a little beyond them, and fell to the ground and began to pray that if it were possible, the hour might pass Him by. And He was saying, "Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will." And He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? "Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Again He went away and prayed, saying the same words.
And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to answer Him. And He came the third time, and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? It is enough; the hour has come; behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. "Get up, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!" Immediately while He was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a crowd with swords and clubs, who were from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now he who was betraying Him had given them a signal, saying, "Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him and lead Him away under guard." After coming, Judas immediately went to Him, saying, "Rabbi!" and kissed Him. They laid hands on Him and seized Him. But one of those who stood by drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus said to them, "Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest Me, as you would against a robber? "Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize Me; but this has taken place to fulfill the Scriptures." And they all left Him and fled.
The presented posed an interesting questions, "How do you think Peter, James and John felt?" These three have always seen Jesus in control of the situation. They have never seen Him cry out to the Father as He was doing while in the Garden. Never once have they seen Him sweating blood through His skin. That is why they slept because they could not deal with the reality of the suffering that Jesus was experiencing at this time. I could only imagine how it felt for them to see their master in this state and they could do nothing to help Him.
There are many lessons that one can learn from Christ during the Agony in the Garden. One of them being, how to pray in your most desperate times. Christ knew he was going to be betrayed with a kiss by Judas and then handed over to the Pharisees. Instead of escaping He prayed. He cried out to God the Father. He was feeling the weight of the sins of the whole world on His shoulders. He continued to pray! His prayer was one of complete surrender to the Father's will. He asked that the Father remove the cup from Him but He also prayed that He would do the Father's will not His own. In our own life we need to remember to do God's will not our own even in times of trial. It is important in our own prayer that we pray both parts. "I want what you want" It is amazing when our prayer life goes from always asking God for our wants to asking God what He wants and being open to His answer. I was reflecting on this because it was when my prayer started making that shift was when I began being more open to what God wanted concerning my vocation. I was more able to hear Him and His will. We need to be constantly asking the Father what He wants.
The presenter then challenged us to always remember to praise God even in the hard times because He is always there. Sonar played this song for us to worship with: Blessed Be Your Name but they did tone it way down to keep with the soft meditative feel. Once again the Spirit was moving in the crowd and people were responding. I could still sense that some teens were holding back and not allowing God to do His work in them. He is a gentleman and will wait and as always He did.
JUDGMENT AND SUFFERING OF JESUS
We have now come to Good Friday. This is the only day in the year that Mass is not being celebrated anywhere around the world. Good Friday is the day we remember the suffering and death of Christ. Let us look now at the Gospel of John..
Therefore Pilate entered again into the Praetorium, and summoned Jesus and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?" Pilate answered, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm." Therefore Pilate said to Him, "So You are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say correctly that I am a king For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, "I find no guilt in Him. But you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover; do you wish then that I release for you the King of the Jews?" So they cried out again, saying, "Not this Man, but Barabbas." Now Barabbas was a robber. Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him; and they began to come up to Him and say, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and to give Him slaps in the face. Pilate came out again and said to them, "Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him." Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold, the Man!" So when the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out saying, "Crucify, crucify!" Pilate said to them, "Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him." The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God." Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid; and he entered into the Praetorium again and said to Jesus, "Where are You from?" But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to Him, "You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?" Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin." As a result of this Pilate made efforts to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, "If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar." Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour And he said to the Jews, "Behold, your King!" So they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified. They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha. There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, "JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS." Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews'; but that He said, 'I am King of the Jews.'" Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written." Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be"; this was to fulfill the Scripture: "THEY DIVIDED MY OUTER GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND FOR MY CLOTHING THEY CAST LOTS." Therefore the soldiers did these things. But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" From that hour the disciple took her into his own household. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
Wow! This Gospel is passage is always so moving. To know that Christ had to suffer like this for all of us so that we may have life. It truly astonishes me.
We notice that once Jesus surrenders to what His fate is to be he has a sense of peace knowing that He is doing this out of love for each one of us. His love and the love of the Father called for a pure sacrifice because He knew that we could not do it on our own.
Suffering is measured by the person's ability to suffer. Suffering is all relative to the person. Christ, because He is both fully man and fully God (the hypostatic union), suffered more than anyone else. His creation is condemning Him to die. He created Pilate, he created the one's shouting "Crucify him", He created the pharisees, he created you and I. And He suffered for all of us, His creation. He suffered out of love for us. How amazing is that love. He calls each and everyone of us to His love and all He asks in return for that love is our love. We are called to love and to be loved!
At anytime during His suffering He could have ended it. He could have called ten thousand angels down but alas He did not get distracted. He desired to suffer out of love for His creation. Each moment He was walking to Golgotha and every moment He was on the cross He was remembering us, His beloved. He desired us to be free from sin. He poured everything He was out for us. He used His whole body to suffer and die for us so we should use our whole body to worship Him. In everything that we do we need to be honoring Him and expressing our gratitude for His gift.
Then Sonar played Amazing Love.
Many people finally opened up and allowed God's love to just come as a flood over them. They allowed His peace to swell up in them. People began worshiping with their whole bodies. It was a beautiful thing but not the most beautiful thing the whole evening; that was about to come...
The priest then asked us all to kneel as he went to go get the Blessed Sacrament for Adoration. He asked us to prepare our hearts. To reflect and meditate on the Amazing Love that Christ has for each of us. The time between when he left and when he brought Jesus into the room felt like an eternity. My whole body yearned to see Him, my Savior, my Love, my One Desire. Despite the fact that the gym floor was hard and cold, my body never once wanted to stop kneeling in anxious anticipation of Christ. The moment that I first saw the monstrance coming in from the far end of the room I knew that the moment of waiting was over. He was physically present in our midst. As I gazed upon Him as the priest said an opening prayer all I could think about was His love and how beautiful He was. His love allows me to do everything that I do, including simply taking a breath. Then Sonar began playing one of my favorite Christian songs, How He Loves Us, this song always makes me think of how amazing God's love is. It does not matter how many times I hear it. God's love began to fill up my entire body and all I could do was smile and look at the Blessed Sacrament with love.
We then entered a time of silence and I remember just telling Jesus how much that I loved Him and thanked Him for all that He has done. I kept asking the Holy Spirit to come upon all those in this room. The priest then told us that silence is valuable but sometimes it is important to say our prayers out loud. He invited us all to begin praying out loud and the room came alive with whispers of the prayers that people were saying. A year ago, I would not have been able to do this and would have felt very uncomfortable but this time I was able to trust God and give Him my worship freely. I was allowing the Holy Spirit to be a part of my worship and my prayer. Then the lead singer of Sonar began playing chords and lifting his voice in praise to our God. The priest then invited us to do the same thing. This past month I have been struggling with my voice to keep a pure and consistent tone, the joys of being sick, and I was able to as I sung my praise to God. I do not remember all that I prayed but it was a wonderful feeling. I was then given the gift of laughter and joy. I am not terribly charismatic so this was definitely a new experience for me but a good one that is for sure. I could not stop laughing and smiling and having this feeling of joy and pure happiness. I know that this joy can only come from God alone. We worshiped God with music for a few more songs ending with Fire Fall Down which had almost everyone standing and reaching out toward the monstrance desiring nothing but Christ. The Holy Spirit was really working on all those in the room. Words cannot describe the emotion in that room. WOW!!!
Then at the end of the song we were all asked to kneel as the Benediction, the Divine Praises, and closing prayer were done and then Jesus was taken out of the room but as the Blessed Sacrament passed the people many were moved to reach out toward the Blessed Sacrament as if to touch the monstrance even if they were so very far from it. We then closed with Mighty to Save. As the night closed we were all reminded that God loves us so much and that we need to be constantly praising His name and loving Him. It was an amazing night as always!
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