Old World Swine

Good Friday

Went to Holy Thursday mass last night, one of the most profound masses of the year and the beginning of the Easter Triduum - Holy Thursday (which commemorates Christ's Institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper), Good Friday (the Passion and Crucifixion) and Easter (the Resurrection).

The holy oils were presented (oils used in the anointing of the sick, the anointing of catechumens, and at baptism), and at the end of the mass, the Holy Eucharist was covered (more like shrouded) and removed in a solemn, silent  procession for a period of special adoration.

Today, Good Friday, is a day of fasting and remembrance of Christ's passion, and is the only day of the year when there is no mass - that is, the elements of the Eucharist are not consecrated on that day, though communion is offered (from wine and bread consecrated on Holy Thursday). Catholic Encyclopedia explains,

The omission of the Mass proper marks in the mind of the Church the deep sorrow with which she keeps the anniversary of the Sacrifice of Calvary. Good Friday is a feast of grief.

There is also the Veneration of the Cross (wherein the faithful kneel and give reverence to the cross by touching or kissing it). You can find out more about the liturgical traditions of the Good Friday in this Catholic Encyclopedia entry, which explains to those who might object to such veneration of objects that...

While we bend down in body before the cross we bend down in spirit before God. While we reverence the cross as the instrument of our redemption, we pray to Him who redeemed us...

This all helps to emphasize more clearly the joy of Easter and the resurrection, and helps us to remember that there is no path to the resurrection but through the suffering of the cross. There is no path around the cross. The pain of the cross is our gateway to eternal bliss. As Father Corapi would say... "No pain, no gain"...

Or as St. Paul said, "Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." (Romans 8:17)

And according to St. Peter, "...rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed." (1 Peter 4:13)

Big, Fat Tuesday

I just read on Facebook a comment passed on by Barbara Nicolosi, summarizing an age old truism;

"If you like Lent, you're doing it wrong.".

I used to be one of those people who actually looked forward to lent, and would say so. I was a new Catholic, and everything Catholic was fresh and novel and interesting, so Lent seemed like a positively exotic spiritual exercise. I thought I would feel like Kwai Chang Caine at the Shaolin temple, probing spiritual truths, lifting sizzling cauldrons with my bare arms, inhaling peace and exhaling enlightenment (well, all except for the cauldrons thing).

What I discovered over the next several Lenten seasons is how weak, fleshly (not to mention fleshy) and self-centered I truly am, and that's always fun. Lent, in other words, has kicked my butt... up, down and sideways. It still does.

And that is the point, maybe. Not that Lent is supposed to make us feel shallow, weak and selfish... it just shows us that, yeah, we really ARE shallow, weak and selfish, no matter how we like to spin some more flattering narrative, and no matter how we would like to feel about it.

There is good news, of course. Great news, in fact. But before we can genuinely understand and embrace the Good News, we have to come to some real grasp on the Bad News that makes the Good News so necessary. We are fallen. We are preternaturally self-centered, weak and prone to sin. We begin to understand this more readily when we make the effort to deny ourselves some favorite thing, or change a bad habit, or stir ourselves to some good work that involves actual inconvenience.

Not that Lent is about being miserable. It is about realizing our sinfulness and our need for redemption. It is about repenting and firmly resolving to do better. It is about offering our Lord the praise of sacrifice. It is about spiritual training (as St. Paul said, "...train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things..."), it is about turning some of our faith flab to muscle. The Good News is that, through the Holy Spirit and in the strength of Christ, we can progress toward the heavenly ideal. We can be more godly, and find a deeper life in the Kingdom of Heaven. We can "produce fruit in keeping with repentance"... but only by the grace of God.

Lent, in other words, is a complex reality, taking on different shades of meaning at different times to different people. I have to say, again, that - even as difficult as it can be - I do look forward to it, if only for what it may teach me about myself, and (in spite of all my weakness) about the fathomless, unconditional love of Christ.

Here is a brief history of Lent from Catholic Exchange.

The Agony in the Garden

This post is a day late (and likely more than a dollar short) but I wanted to pass along something that has occurred to me again and again while meditating on the First Sorrowful Mystery, the events of which Christians commemorate on Holy Thursday.

It's clear from biblical texts like Mark 14:34 - "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," that Jesus was very much aware of his approaching passion, and that this knowledge figured large in the agony of spirit that he endured at Gethsemane, as he again confirmed a will completely submitted to the Father - "Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.".

But it is difficult to contemplate the scene, and Jesus' words, "Could you not keep watch for one hour?" without feeling that there is more at work than just the prospect of pain and death.

One, I think, can sense it as well in Jesus' heartbreaking soliloquy; "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.".

At Gethsemane, our Lord, in the fullness of his humanity, is not only deeply grieved at his own approaching death, but seems also to be mourning for his own people, and for the earthly Kingdom that might have been; "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.".

I'm convinced that when "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people" he was holding out to his people the real prospect of paradise, of an earthly and heavenly kingdom with the Son of God on the throne, reigning in justice and truth. It was no mere rhetoric... mankind had the chance, for a few years, to choose the undoing of original sin, to usher in the Eternal Kingdom... if only we had followed.

But we would not. We were blind.

And then, one feels a profound loneliness, as well; "Do you still not understand?". It wasn't just Jesus' teachings that the disciples failed to comprehend, it was Jesus himself. He had been revealing himself to them for years - everything he did and said was toward that end - and yet in the end, there was no one he could confide in, no one he could rely on... not one true friend who would go with him to the end.

This is all speaking of our Lord in his humanity, of course. Yes, he was the Creator God, the Alpha and Omega, but he was also fully human and responded to human disappointments as even a perfect man would. Jesus knew he was about to die, knew his people had rejected him and his kingdom for good and all, and he was completely alone (save for the love of his Mother). His impending death was, perhaps, the easiest of all to take.

(The painting is The Agony in the Garden, by El Greco)

The Egg and Eye

If Easter eggs are of pagan origin, then frankly, we owe the pagans (the real, historic ones - not the modern field hippies) a hat-tip for paving the way for such joyful exuberance and frivolous beauty as these Sorbian Easter eggs.

The Slavic charm of these designs brings to mind a happily contented and industrious peasantry, something which in the modern West seems to have gone the way of the hitching rail or the hand-written letter... at least if you can believe the television. Such a people may be largely a myth or fantasy to begin with, but then, whence these eggs? It seems a stretch to imagine they could have been conceived by either wealthy people or miserable people.

In any case, I like them so much I'm going to try and make some with my happily contented and industrious daughter this weekend.

I got this picture from Michael Abrams' photo essay at Stars and Stripes, where you can see (and read about) more traditional Easter eggs.

Meatless Fridays

All I can do is add my "amen" to the sentiments expressed so pithily over at Shrine of the Holy Whapping.

Fasting and foregoing meat on Fridays during Lent is not only a valuable spiritual discipline for the individual, it also binds us together in devotion and fellowship with so many other Catholic Christians - past, present and future. It's what we do, folks.  I know the current rules for those of us in the U.S. are very amorphous on the whole issue, but I'm talking about what we ought to do, not what we are precisely required to do by the letter of Canon Law.

Here are my Top Ten Lame Excuses for Catholics not fasting and abstaining from meat during Lent:

1. Giving up something else, like "negative thoughts"
2. "But Friday is my Steak Night"
3. "What's worse, my eating meat or my cousin's pigging out at Red Lobster?"
4. "It's old fashioned"
5. "I'll be embarrassed when I eat out with my co-workers" (which is also why I don't pray)
6. "It's not fair, because vegetarians don't have to 'give up meat' "
7. "C'mon... God won't strike me dead if I eat meat"
8. "It's unfair to ranchers"
9. "Nobody else in my family is giving up meat"
10. "What about the Inquisition? And pedophile priests? And..."

Feel free to add your own.

Theotokos

Tomorrow - January 1st - is more than just the beginning of a new calendar year in the West. It is, much more significantly, the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God for all Christians, north, south, east and west.

The USCCB site gives the SCRIPTURE READINGS for the day.

From the Council of Ephesus, 431 A.D. -

"We confess, then, our lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God perfect God and perfect man of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the virgin, according to his humanity,  one and the same consubstantial with the Father in godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place.  Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy virgin to be the Mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her"