A Maundy Thursday Reflection

 

Here we are, it's Maundy Thursday and we're faced with two mandates, to "love one another as I have loved you," and "This is my body... this is my blood... do this..." With Christ washing his disciples' feet and then celebrating the first Mass on the night before he suffered.

The two might seem unrelated or even discordant, especially liturgically, but hold on, the one follows the other. Jesus washing his followers' feet is an act of humble love and where is this brought to a point, exemplified, played out to the full? 

On the Cross. "He humbled himself taking the form of a servant and became obedient, even unto death on a cross," and again, "Greater love hath no man but to lay his life down for his friends." The foot washing, then, serves as a type or figure of the crucifixion.

And what is the Last Supper, the first Eucharist, but that same sacrifice made present for us under the forms of bread and wine? This is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for us upon the Cross to cleanse us from  sin. So we find ourselves back at Jesus washing his disciples' feet.

In the face of such a gift, of God's unfathomable love for us given in sacrifice on Calvary, what can we do but love him back and in doing so keep his commandment to love one another as he loved us.

Watch and Pray,

LSP

Maundy Thursday Pistol

 

One of the things which happens on Maundy Thursday is that the priest gets to wash peoples' feet, as Christ washed his disciples' feet. My MC doesn't like it because he thinks it's "hokey," which perhaps it is. That in mind, most definitely a lesson in humility.

Regardless, there I was, about to wash a rancher's right foot, and there on a sock next to his boot was a compact S&W(?), a 9 or 40 I think. So I looked at the pistol, looked at the foot and did some quick math.

Should I bless the pistol and make it part of the rite or not? I chose the latter path, deciding to store up value for a later a date, a churchwide blessing of guns. Go long and hold, went the arithmetic.

Later, at the Pax, I told  my friend, "That was the safest footwashing I've ever seen." He replied, embarrassed, "Padre, I just forgot it was there, in my boot!" He needn't have worried, "Brother, next year we'll make it mandatory."

And that, all five of you readers, is the story of that. A short tale of God, country life and guns in Texas.

God bless,

LSP

Holy Wednesday

 

In between cleaning all the guns that I don't have and watching scenes from Tombstone on continuous loop, I look forward to Maundy Thursday with it's double mandate, do this and love one another as I have loved you, the former realized in the Eucharist, was ever a command so obeyed?, and the latter signified by Christ washing the feet of his disciples.

The connection is clear and lies in the Cross, from which Jesus washes away our sins in his supreme act of love. And it's precisely this sacrifice that's made present to us in the Sacrament of the Altar. The extent to which we receive the grace offered, think Parable of the Sower, depends on our obedience to the commandment to love. 

Benedict XVI reflects:

In it (Confession), the Lord continually rewashes our dirty feet, and we are able to sit at table with Him.

But in this way, the word takes on yet another meaning, in which the Lord extends the "sacramentum" by making it the "exemplum," a gift, a service for our brother: "If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). We must wash each other's feet in the daily mutual service of love. But we must also wash our feet in the sense of constantly forgiving one another. The debt that the Lord has forgiven us is always infinitely greater than all of the debts that others could owe to us (cf. Mt. 18:21-35). It is to this that Holy Thursday exhorts us: not to allow rancor toward others to become, in its depths, a poisoning of the soul. It exhorts us to constantly purify our memory, forgiving one another from the heart, washing each other's feet, thus being able to join together in the banquet of God.

Holy Thursday is a day of gratitude and of joy for the great gift of love to the end that the Lord has given to us. We want to pray to the Lord at this time, so that gratitude and joy may become in us the power of loving together with his love. Amen.

Amen to that. We must and should hunger and thirst for righteousness, swords about the Cross. But by the same token, there is no place for the poisonous serpent of hatred within our hearts. It is the hallmark of our Adversary, Satan. And remember, though it seems counter-intuitive, the enemy's lost and lost hard.

Be on the side of Light,

LSP

Christ's Prayer In The Garden

Today we're looking forward to Maundy Thursday and with it the events of the Last Supper and beyond. Christ washes his disciples' feet, institutes the Eucharist, then goes to the Garden of Gethsemane where he prays before falling into the hands of sinful men.

Such mystery, and we tend to concentrate on the prophetic action of the foot washing and the sacrament of Jesus' body and blood. The one, of course, begets the other. As the disciples are cleansed by Christ and made fit for the Passover feast, so too are we cleansed by the blood of Calvary and participate in the heavenly banquet of the Eucharist. 

True enough and that's the least of it, but what of Gethsemane and Christ's prayer in the garden. Here's Benedict XVI:

Jesus says: “Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14:36). The natural will of the man Jesus recoils in fear before the enormity of the matter. He asks to be spared. Yet as the Son, he places this human will into the Father’s will: not I, but you. In this way he transformed the stance of Adam, the primordial human sin, and thus heals humanity. 

The stance of Adam was: not what you, O God, have desired; rather, I myself want to be a god. This pride is the real essence of sin. We think we are free and truly ourselves only if we follow our own will. God appears as the opposite of our freedom. We need to be free of him – so we think – and only then will we be free. 

This is the fundamental rebellion present throughout history and the fundamental lie which perverts life. When human beings set themselves against God, they set themselves against the truth of their own being and consequently do not become free, but alienated from themselves. We are free only if we stand in the truth of our being, if we are united to God.

This is the fundamental rebellion present throughout history and the fundamental lie which perverts life. And what a perversion it is, the same tormented falsehood, for example, that tells Mothers they'll find meaning and fulfillment if they kill their children.

We know where this comes from, "He was a murderer from the beginning." We also know that Hell was broken on the hard wood of the Cross.

Have a blessed and holy Triduum,

LSP

Maundy Thursday

It's Maundy Thursday and time to concentrate on higher things than the Archbishop of Canterbury's latest mall brawl antics. So here's a couple of prayers, or Collects, for the day:

ALMIGHTY Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, did institute the Sacrament of his Body and Blood; Mercifully grant that we may thankfully receive the same in remembrance of him, who in these holy mysteries giveth us a pledge of life eternal; the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

And for all you Roman Catholic trads out there, here's the Extraordinary Form Collect (1962 Missal):

DEUS, a quo et Judas reátus sui pœnam, et confessiónis suæ latro prǽmium sumpsit, concéde nobis tuæ propitiatiónis efféctum: ut, sicut in passióne sua Jesus Christus Dóminus noster divérsa utrísque íntulit stipéndia meritórum; ita nobis, abláto vetustátis erróre, resurrectiónis suæ grátiam largiátur. Qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum.

(O GOD, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, and the thief the reward of his confession: grant unto us the full fruit of Thy Clemency; that even as in His Passion our Lord Jesus Christ gave to each retribution according to his merits, so having cleared away our former guilt, He may bestow on us the grace of His Resurrection: Who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.)

Have a blessed Triduum,

LSP