March 29, 2018

The Triduum - Into the Silent Fullness of God

The deepest and most beautiful pathway of prayer is opened up in the Triduum. Each liturgy opens into an even deeper silence in the fullness of God. This is the fullness open when Christ's heart was pierced by the lance -- one which gushes forth with new life for those whose prayer aches with thirst.

The Savior of the World on Holy Thursday in thanksgiving and blessing binds us to Himself by the Blood of the New Covenant. At that Sacred Banquet in which the Word of the Father washes feet and offers Himself as true spiritual food, prayer takes us into the mysterious source and summit of everything we believe! Those who will partake of this mystery offered, broken and given, taste on their own tongues a glory that the world cannot give.  

On Good Friday, the realization of this supreme prayer of the Lord passes through betrayal, denial, passion and the silence of death.  In the agony and blood of the One whose wordless cry reaches the Heart of the Father, prayer beholds an obedient love that no height or depth or power can overcome. Those who will come to adore the Cross enter the very threshold to the bosom of the Trinity and find the only place where the human heart can rest.

On Holy Saturday the pathway of the Lord's prayer leads through Hell itself. Guided by His Rod and Staff in that Valley of the Shadow of Death, prayer discovers an invincible fountain of hope. Those who follow Him through such pain know the light, warmth and victory that are His.

In the dark hours of the Easter Vigil, the unvanquished Word of the Father rises and appears in our midst.  This enfleshed Word, having conquered death and sin, lifts the whole world into a new creation, and makes of everything in our lives, an acceptable offering to the Father. Prayer beholds on this night the light that shines in the darkness and the truth that darkness cannot overcome it. Prayer plunges into those new waters of that new creation and it gives birth with the Church to new sons and daughters in grace. Easter Prayer proceeds from this new life and, even when uttered on dying lips, knows the antidote for death and the medicine of immortality -- for it beholds the One whose silent fullness makes all things new.

March 4, 2018

Self-discovery and Gift of Self - the Truth Christ Reveals

John Paul II sincerely believed that we are so created that we can only discover the truth about ourselves when we give ourselves to another.  He believed this from his own experience. He marveled how it was possible to meet someone and be so overwhelmed by their beauty that you should want to sacrifice everything for their sake, that this other person might thrive. In this he glimpsed not only the beauty of God's plan for man and woman in marriage, but also the beauty of Christ's love for each and every soul.

The communion Christ has come to share surpasses the fulfillment and mutual possession meant to be ours in the institution of marriage. When we see His beauty, we realize that the deepest joys shared in the marriage of man and woman only foreshadow a more wonderful communion that is to come.

Before the Beauty of His Face, even the sorrows and disappointments that we bear in our families, no matter how crushing, take on a new perspective. He who was abandoned and betrayed captivates us in His radiance even as we struggle with humiliation and resentment. Those who we thought we could never forgive, we find the courage to forgive whenever we glimpse Him gazing on us in love.

His beauty, the beauty of a love that holds nothing back, evokes a response from the deepest part of our being. For when our eyes are opened by faith in Him, we are moved to believe at once that Christ has perceived our beauty before the dawn of creation -- and in perceiving it, brought it into being and offered His life in sacrifice for it, that each soul that believes in Him might know a greatness far beyond its power to surmise.

The Son who forever rejoices in the sheer goodness of His Father, rejoiced anew to make this known to all creation. He chose to do this through friendship with each of us - so that each of us participate in the revelation of glory the Father has given to His Son. This friendship and participation is nothing less than a dwelling in his presence - by faith in this life, and glory in the next. For this purpose and out of nothing, the Word of the Father summoned a beauty so deep in the human heart that, even when the human heart is diminished by sin, He has already resolved to sacrifice everything in order that all that is good, noble and true in it might not perish.

Nothing forces his loving sacrifice save the divine predilection for humble humanity that lives deep in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The Father is drawn by our plight to speak His Word into our difficult  personal circumstances. With His Word, He breathes His Holy Spirit into us that we should have hope and thrive. In the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ journeys across the vast horizons of our hearts "like a Bridegroom coming from his tent, a champion running his course." For what He finds most beautiful in us is that we are in His own image and likeness -- creatures who are meant to mirror in time the love that He offers without reserve to the Father from eternity.

The work of redemption that He wrought on the Cross is about bringing to completion this intimate and faithful communion of sacrificial love for which we were created. He reveals the beauty of an unimpeded love on the Cross to capture our hearts so that we might finally be able to love without impediment. Though such a love seems so far beyond our limitations and sins, He offered his sacrifice for our sake in a way that allows us to participate in what He has done -- and, in this, we become what we are meant to be: living sacrifices of love, the praise of His glory.