Passion Sunday, March 25, 2012
(Epistle Hebrews 9: 11-15 – Gospel John 8: 46-59)
Passiontide began yesterday, Saturday, at 3:00 o’clock and runs until midnight on the day before Easter, called Holy Saturday. Lenten fasting continues until 12:00 noon on Holy Saturday.
The first prayer in the Divine Office today, called Matins, is this invitation from Psalm 95: “If today you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts.” Written by King David, these are the words of our suffering Jesus directed at us. We become our own enemies by indifference and hardness of heart. Jesus is about to give us the last and greatest proof of the love that brought Him down from heaven; His death is close at hand. Let us enter into ourselves, accept the grace He gives us and leave our old life of sin and pride behind. The anniversaries of His death and Resurrection have a renovating power that matches the grace that is offered to us. But these anniversaries also increase insensibility in those who let them pass without allowing His grace to work their conversion. Therefore, “If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”
However, the Synagogue in Christ’s day was obstinate in her errors, refusing to hear and deliberately perverting her judgment. She had extinguished within herself the light of the Holy Ghost, sinking deeper and deeper into evil and falling into the abyss. Today’s sinners are doing the same thing, and what happened in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago happens again today in every sinner’s heart. While we listen to the Gospels relating the history of the Passion, let’s turn the anger we may feel against the Jews against ourselves and our own sins and weep over the sufferings of our Victim Lord, because our sins caused Him to die.
St. Paul’s Epistle today calls Christ a High Priest Who by His own Blood, entered once into the Holies, having obtained eternal redemption. And, if the blood of goats and oxen “sanctify . . . to the cleansing of the flesh; how much more shall the Blood of Christ . . . cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Dom Guéranger writes of this: “It is by blood alone that man is to be redeemed. And God tells us in Psalm 49: 7-14: “Hear, O My people . . . I am God thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices, and thy burnt-offerings are always in my sight” [but] I need them not. Here God both commands the blood of victims to be offered to Him, at the same time declaring neither the blood nor the victims are precious in His sight. Is this a contradiction? Of course it isn’t. He wants us to understand that it is only by blood that man can be redeemed, but the blood of animals cannot do this. What was needed was the Blood of a God and such was the Blood of Jesus. He came to shed His Blood for our redemption. Let us not harden our hearts today. Let us open our hearts that Christ’s precious Blood may, as Paul says, “cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
With regard to today’s Gospel, this entire Chapter 8 of John takes place in the Temple in Jerusalem and consists of Jesus demonstrating His patience, forgiving an adulteress, and His discourse to His people, the Jews. I want to speak today about His patience. He asks those present in the Temple, which of them can convict Him of sin, and then asks and answers a question: “If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe me? He that is of God heareth the words of God. Therefore you hear them not.” His enemies took this to heart and in turn accuse Him of being a Samaritan and having a devil. How does Jesus answer this insult? With patience. He does not respond to their charge that He is a Samaritan because Samaritan means Guardian or Watcher, and Jesus is the guardian spoken of in Psalm 126: “Unless the Lord keep [guards] the city, he watches in vain who keepeth it.” Jesus accepts the charge of being a Samaritan as true in that sense.
Jesus says, “I have not a devil: but I honor my Father, and you have dishonored me.” Jesus first told them that they cannot hear the word of God because they are not of God. This was a lesson, but they considered it an insult. So they responded with a greater insult, accusing Him of having a devil. That is how they dishonored the Son of God.
Christ’s lesson in the Temple is also meant for us today. What should we do when someone wrongfully accuses us of something we didn’t do? A patient denial followed by silence. Most people would say that if we remain silent it is an admission of guilt. But in denying the charge we have not remained silent. Following our denial, it is not necessary to respond to a false charge. If we argue about it, then we are really defending our image, defending our ego. Remember, we are called to focus on eternal life, not on our short lives on Earth. After telling his enemies that they had dishonored Him, what were Christ’s next words? “I seek not my own glory.” Neither should we seek glory by boosting our egos or our image. If we are in a state of grace then we already are a perfect image of an obedient child of God. What follows from that is Heaven.
Earlier in this long conversation in the Temple Christ tells the people that, “When you shall have lifted up the Son of man, then shall you know that I am he [the Messiah], and that I do nothing of myself; but as the Father hath taught me, these things I speak. And he that sent me is with me, and he hath not left me alone; for I do always the things that please him.” Upon hearing these words, many in the Temple that day understood who Jesus was and were converted. But many were not converted, and to them He asks, and answers, His own question: “Why do you not know my speech? Because you cannot hear my word.” He tells them that, “You are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father will you do.” He acknowledges that they are trying to kill Him because, as He says, “my word hath no place in you.” Truth, meaning God, does not reside in a soul that is full of pride. Jesus continues, “He that is of God, heareth the words of God. Therefore, you hear them not.” He then promises eternal life to those who keep His word, but his detractors cannot accept this either, and again accuse Him of having a devil because Abraham and the prophets, who were just men, are all dead. The discourse ends with Jesus telling them “before Abraham was made, I am.” Then the Jews picked up stones to kill him with because He used the name of God to describe Himself. This name goes back to Exodus Chapter 3, the second book of the Bible, when God told Moses His name, “I Am Who Am.” This struck Christ’s enemies as blasphemy, which in theology means assuming the qualities of God to oneself. Christ’s time had not yet come, so He “hid himself, and went out of the temple.”
Why did Jesus walk away from the wrath of His enemies? Pope St. Gregory the Great asks: why did Jesus hide Himself if not that our Redeemer tells us some things by His words, and others by His example? What does He tell us here by this example? That we should humbly turn aside from those who, in their anger worketh pride (Proverbs 21: 24); even when we are able to resist them. For this same reason St. Paul also tells us: Give not place unto wrath (Romans 12: 19).”
If we wish to follow the example of the Son of God when someone insults us, we turn away and we do not defend ourselves. God showed us this example. Why shouldn’t we follow it? If we worry what people will think, this only means that our minds are firmly fixed on our short life on Earth. It is far better to think of our eternal future, to think of pleasing Him who gave us this courageous example of humility. +++
(Thanks to Dom Guéranger for today’s sermon)
We Celebrate the Traditional Tridentine Latin Mass
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