HOLY WEEK at All Saints' Benhilton, Sutton

 Click on the flyer to enlarge it . . .

Holy Week 2021 at All Saints' Benhilton, Sutton, Surrey SM1 3DA

Although the Holy Week liturgies are simplified this year according to the rules relating to Covid-19 precautions, a full schedule of services is provided to enable our people (and visitors) to share in the Lord's way of the cross, and in his glorious triumph over sin and death. 

Holy Week and Easter at All Saints' Benhilton

We invite you to join us for our special Holy Week services - especially if you haven't been to church for a while. 

All Saints' Benhilton (in Sutton, south London) is just 500 yards from the Sutton Common Station.

(CLICK on the flyer to enlarge it)

In addition to the great liturgies, the evenings of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday will be A HOLY WEEK RETREAT AT HOME. All welcome! Here are the details:

Wednesday in Holy Week - more on the Betrayal

FIRST READING (Isaiah 50:4-9a)

Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be smitten, that you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they are not pressed out, or bound up, or softened with oil. Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; in your very presence aliens devour your land; it is desolate, as overthrown by aliens. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city. If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom.

GOSPEL (Matthew 26:14-25)

O one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?”

And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.

And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain one, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples.’” And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the passover.

When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; and as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me. The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” Judas, who betrayed him, said, “Is it I, Master?” He said to him, “You have said so.”

FURTHERMORE . . .

“I looked for sympathy, but there was none; for comforters, and I found none.” (Psalms 69:21)

Many great spiritual writers have written about “the dark night of the soul.” This is a time when we experience a sense of complete abandonment and aloneness. We are slowly being surrounded by the darkness with no one there to help us or even walk with us. One religious sister told me of her experience with the dark night. She was in chapel praying and was overcome with a sense of God’s complete absence. There was nothing there to pray to. She was so scared she had to run from the chapel!

Of all the days in Jesus’ life, today is one of the darkest. The readings show us a Jesus Who is abandoned and betrayed. He is facing His most difficult moment, His death, and the people He most relied on are deserting Him. Isaiah prophesies that the Messiah will face His pain and tortures alone. The responsorial psalm echoes his soft cry for help: “Lord in Your great love, answer Me!”

We have all faced dark nights of the soul when everything seems lost and we are forsaken. In this darkness, we stand with Isaiah, and Sso many Saints down through the ages. Mostly, though, we stand with Jesus. And we trust the voice of God, as it did in the first moments of creation, to create a dawn in the darkness.

(Reflections On The Passion by Charles Hugo Doyle)

DOROTHY SAYERS AND JUDAS ISCARIOT

In 1943, Dorothy L. Sayers wrote a series of radio plays “Man Born to be King” on the life of Jesus. She had also written commentaries on the Gospels, not as a textual scholar so much as a playwright interested in human nature. She wanted to show how the story hung together with truly believable human characters. 

For Dorothy Sayers, Judas is an idealistic young man, genuinely seeking the coming of God’s Kingdom here on earth. He wants Jesus to establish a political kingdom and drive out the Romans (and, of course, give him an administrative role!). As the plays go on, Judas becomes increasingly disillusioned with Jesus' humility, and finally decides to force his hand by putting him into a situation where he will have to either overthrow the Romans or face humiliation and death. Of course, Jesus, does not do what Judas thinks he should do, but embraces the way of suffering and death in order to redeem all us from our sins.

Judas as understood by Dorothy Sayers is very believable, very human, and all too common. He's like us. Aren't we prone to betray Jesus in order to get our own way or forward our own advancement? Let us cry out with the publican, “God have mercy on me, a sinner,” (Luke 18:13).

PRAYER

O Gracious Father,

we humbly beseech thee for thy holy Catholic Church;

that thou wouldest be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace.

Where it is corrupt, purify it;

where it is in error, direct it;

where in any thing it is amiss, reform it.

Where it is right, establish it;

where it is in want, provide for it;

where it is divided, reunite it;

for the sake of him who died and rose again,

and ever liveth to make intercession for us,

Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord.

Amen.

Archbishop William Laud (1573-1645)

Tuesday in Holy Week: Betrayal

The Mass readings for Tuesday in Holy Week focus on the betrayal of the Lord. I share with you this powerful article, by a Poor Clare Colettine Sister, from the website of the Boston Catholic Journal.

BETRAYAL AND JUDAS

One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, 

"What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?" 

They paid him thirty pieces of silver, 

and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over ..."

St. Matthew 26.14-25

We betray others — and sell ourselves — so often for such a paltry return, for some trifling personal gain or some fleeting temporal recompense.

More often than not we betray others for profoundly selfish reasons, as a means of extricating ourselves from blame, as an act of subtle or less than subtle revenge, for emolument ... in one way or another we are all guilty of betraying the love and confidence of others, of something which has been entrusted to us.

The very word itself is fraught with withering darkness. Betrayal means calculated disloyalty to another, the breaking of innocence in the breaking of trust; it is to lead, with purpose, another astray or into error. It has a rich and varied parlance: to sell down the river, to mislead, to stab in the back, to misguide, and all of us have known of its bitter, bitter fruit.

Until we ourselves are the victims, we do not fully comprehend the compromising of trust as a tremendously and intrinsically destructive breach between individuals, the effects of which can be far reaching beyond our anticipation, and long lasting, perhaps even irreparable.

Judas betrayed Christ. His name has become synonymous with betrayal, infamy. Bt none of us may stand in judgment of Judas. His weakness is within us all. However reluctant we are to concede the weakness, it intrinsic to our fallen human nature from which none of us can prescind. It is just one deleterious aspect of a deep moral fissure resulting from the Original Sin we inherited from Adam and Eve.

The heart of Christ was one of perfect love and forgiveness. Judas knew this. He saw it day in and day out as he walked beside Jesus. He saw it in everything Christ did. Judas' betrayal is, in the face of this, a great mystery, something the Father allowed for His purpose – but Judas's greatest sin was not his betrayal of Christ, but his despairing of God's forgiveness.

Both Peter and Judas betrayed Christ. The paramount difference, as most know, is that Judas despaired ... while Peter repented.

We have ALL betrayed Christ ... 

What is very important to understand is that while Judas is the paradigm of betrayal, each of us has been, at one time or another, an inflection of it. Yes, Judas betrayed Christ. But so did I. So did you. Our betrayal has simply been less publicized, but so often no less notorious. 

For this reason, the consequences of betrayal and the endemic nature of betrayal through sin, should be kept in our minds and hearts. It is a necessary remembrance, for it will assist us in resisting sin — which is always a betrayal. resist the terrible sin of breaking the trust of another human being, and at the same time, what one is really doing is breaking a child's trust, for we are all, each of us, despite the masks and pretences that we wear, we are each children, vulnerable and fragile.

Trust, to be trusted, to be found trustworthy, is not simply conducive to love, but enhances love, enabling it to grow beyond all the uncertainties that would would otherwise impede it, constrain it ... it is the nurturing of a beautiful bond between persons.

This point is well illustrated in the story of the father who placed his young son on a table and urged him to jump into his arms. While apprehensive of the height, the trusting child nevertheless flung himself toward his father — who let the child fall painfully to the floor. "Let that be a lesson, son. Trust no one." It is very likely that the child never did. We must never be that parent, that spouse, that friend. For everyone who leaps in trust to our arms ... is a child.

Broken trust can be healed through the renewal of trust. It is possible. All things are possible with God. But if the breach has been deep, the journey to renewal may be long and arduous – and that is all the more reason why we should reflect well upon our words before we speak and give thought to any act in anyway that may damage that innocence implicit in trust. 

If truly you can find no occasion within yourself in your dealing with men, know that you do with God. How often we betray God. All of us. Every time we sin. How often! ... and how are we requited? We encounter His great love and mercy ... His forgiveness.

Having been dealt with mercifully, can we do less to those who have betrayed us? Whatever their purpose, our purpose is Christ — in Whose love, by Whose love, we are bound to requite them as Christ requited Peter ... and you ... and me ...

* * * * * * * *

And this by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861):

THE LOOK

The Saviour looked on Peter. Ay, no word,
No gesture of reproach! The heavens serene,
Though heavy with armed justice, did not lean
Their thunders that way: the forsaken Lord
Looked only on the traitor. None record
What that look was, none guess: for those who have seen
Wronged lovers loving through a death-pang ken,
Or pale-cheeked martyrs smiling to a sword,
Have missed Jehovah at the judgment—
“I never knew this man”—did quail and fall, call.
And Peter, from the height of blasphemy
As knowing straight THAT GOD—turned free
And went out speechless from the face of all,
And filled the silence, weeping bitterly.

THE MEANING OF THE LOOK
I think that look of Christ might seem to say—
“Thou Peter! art thou then a common stone
Which I at last must break my heart upon
For all God’s charge to his high angels may
Guard my foot better? Did I yesterday
Wash thy feet, my beloved, that they should run
Quick to deny me ‘neath the morning sun?
And do thy kisses, like the rest, betray?
The cock crows coldly. —GO, and manifest
A late contrition, but no bootless fear!
For when thy final need is dreariest,
Thou shalt not be denied, as I am here;
My voice to God and angels shall attest,
Because I KNOW this man, let him be clear.”

Holy Week and Easter at All Saints' Benhilton

This is YOUR invitation to join us for our journey through Holy Week and our celebration of Easter.

Our regular worshippers come from a wide range of backgrounds and age groups, and quite a few from outside the parish. What we have in common is the discovery of God’s love in the ups and downs of everyday life. Joining together at Mass we lift our hearts and voices in praise to the Lord as brothers and sisters together, we gain insights into his ways as the Scriptures are taught, and we draw strength from him for our daily life as we pray and receive him in the miracle of Holy Communion.

It is possible that, like many other people, you have a suspicion that there is more to life than what you have so far experienced. You might even be wondering if there is, after all, a spiritual dimension to reality. 

Or you might look back half nostalgically to a time when you were very conscious of God’s presence and love; but your career, your ambitions, or just the stresses of keeping up with modern life, have caused you to drift away.

What better time than Holy Week to think about these things, maybe for the first time, or maybe dipping your toe back in the water after years of trying to make it through just in your own strength? What better time to reach out to God? 

You’ll find a real welcome at All Saints Benhilton.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

There are many ways of looking at what happened when Jesus died on the Cross that first Good Friday. Some speak of the Cross as a demonstration of God’s love, others as a battle in which darkness and evil are conquered, and others, still, as the sacrifice that takes our sins away.

I find it really helpful also to see the Cross as God’s way of sharing with his people - and with the whole of creation - in the anguish and pain we know only too well, not just “helping us through it”, but, even in the midst of it, pouring his love and strength into our lives. Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware puts it like this:

“ . . . there was a Cross in the heart of God before there was one planted outside Jerusalem; and though the Cross of wood has been taken down, the Cross in God’s heart still remains.  It is the Cross of pain and triumph - both together.  And those who can believe this will find that joy is mingled with their cup of bitterness.  They will share on a human level in the divine experience of victorious suffering.”

The Cross is God’s way of loving the world back to himself - transforming it - and that includes you and me.

HIS JOURNEY AND OURS

The services of Holy Week are arranged with music, Bible readings, art, drama and traditional ceremonial so as to draw us deeply into the suffering, dying and rising of Jesus.

  

We do not pass glibly to the joy of Easter Day without treading the road to Calvary with its pain and sorrow. Our journey is measured and reflective. It changes us. Holy Week is a fresh experience of God’s wonderful transforming love, a deeper knowledge of sins forgiven, and a new grasp of the victory God is trying to win in our lives over sin, evil and hatred.

  

I know that if you make the most of Holy Week 2018, you will emerge on Easter Day a new person. That is just as true for those who have been through 70 or 80 Holy Weeks as it is for those experiencing Holy Week for the first time.  If you tread the way of the Cross and journey to the Empty Tomb in sincerity of heart and - however falteringly - reach out to God, your relationship with him will be made new.

Sharing in these special services will help you put the world’s problems and tragedies in perspective, and make a little more sense out of your own life. 

See you at Mass!

SERVICE TIMES

PALM SUNDAY

8.00 am Low Mass

9.30 am The Commemoration of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem

and Procession leading into the SOLEMN MASS OF PALM SUNDAY
6.00 pm STATIONS OF THE CROSS

MONDAY & TUESDAY

7.30 pm Mass & Homily

WEDNESDAY

7.30 pm Agape Meal & Mass

MAUNDY THURSDAY

8.00 pm EVENING MASS OF THE LORD'S SUPPER, 

procession to the Altar of Repose,

stripping of the Altars

and watch of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament until midnight.

GOOD FRIDAY

9.00 am Morning Prayer

1.30 pm THE LITURGY OF THE LORD'S PASSION 

with Veneration of the Cross and Holy Communion

7.30 pm Evening Prayer

HOLY SATURDAY

10.00 am Morning Prayer

8.00 pm THE EASTER VIGIL & THE FIRST MASS OF EASTER

EASTER DAY

8.00 am Low Mass

9.30 am SOLEMN MASS OF EASTER DAY

Today's readings and reflection

FIRST READING  (Isaiah 42:1-7)

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations.

"He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not fail or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. "

Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: "I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness."

GOSPEL  (John 12:1-11)
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at table with him.

Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.

But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was to betray him), said, "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?"

This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it.

Jesus said, "Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."

When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came, not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus also to death, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

REFLECTION

Extravagant love for Jesus - Servants of the Word 

FURTHERMORE . . .

"Before the triumphal procession moved towards Jerusalem, Jesus stopped at the home of His friend Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. There were two persons at the supper that distinguished themselves by their behaviour: Mary, the sister of Lazarus, and Judas, the disciple of Jesus, whose surname was Iscariot.

"Mary, sensing somehow that the earthly ministry of Jesus was drawing to a close, takes a pound of pure and expensive alabaster and anoints the feet of Christ, wiping them with her hair. The house was soon permeated by the sweet fragrance of the alabaster.

"Judas, however, always acutely conscious of the monetary value of everything, censured the pious act of Mary, charging her with the wanton waste of that which 'might have been sold for much, and given to the poor' (Matthew 26:9). We then see Jesus in His role as Defender of the poor and the oppressed. Chrysostom remarks that the piety of Judas here is certainly hypocritical, as is his condemnation of Mary.

“St. Paul tells us that Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. (II Corinthians 11:14). Judas is unsuccessful at hiding his real motive; he would have liked to have stolen the ointment, and sold it for his own personal profit. Many of us today are guilty of this sin of Judas, particularly those that would rob the church of its liturgical appointments, condemning them as luxuries. Not that they would steal from the church; but whenever a new chalice is needed for Holy Communion they will object that the money is being squandered foolishly, and the same with vestments, icons, and even with Bibles for the Sunday School. Any money spent for religious purposes, and especially for bringing others to the saving faith of Christ, is, according to these people, not necessary. It would be superfluous to comment upon the spiritual condition of these avaricious souls.”

Rev. George Dimopoulos 

". . . anointing with such expensive oil was the traditional practice reserved for the deceased, the dead. But Jesus was not dead yet, he was very much alive. Then why did all this happen now, you may ask? Mary was foretelling the crucifixion of our Lord on the cross, and His burial in the tomb by her simple actions motivated purely by love. Our Lord specifically states that 'she (Mary) has kept this for the day of My burial.' (John 12:7). Here the actions of Mary teach us that Jesus was already dead to this world and to His human temptations. We too who attempt to live a life in Christ must also be dead to this world if we ever want to receive Christ.”

Kosmas Damianides

PRAYER

Alone to sacrifice thou goest, Lord,

giving thyself to Death

whom thou hast slain.

For us thy wretched folk is any word?

Who know that for our sins this is thy pain?

For they are ours, O Lord, our deeds, our deeds.

Why must thou suffer torture for our sin?

Let our hearts suffer in thy Passion, Lord,

that very suffering may thy mercy win.

This is the night of tears, the three days' space,

sorrow abiding of the eventide,

Until the day break with the risen Christ,

and hearts that sorrowed shall be satisfied.

So may our hearts share in thine anguish, Lord,

that they may sharers of thy glory be;

Heavy with weeping may the three days pass,

to win the laughter of thine Easter Day.

- Peter Abelard (1079-1142)

Holy Week begins - The final showdown

Father Alexander Tefft is the priest at the Antiochian Orthodox Parish of Saint Botolph, London, U.K., as well as Chaplain and Tutor at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies at Cambridge. Here is the sermon he preached for Palm Sunday 2010. 

Like the children with the palms of victory, 

we cry out to Thee, 

O Vanquisher of Death … 

(Troparion of the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem) 

We are at war: so choose your sides, now! No one is neutral. No one stands idly by and says: This war has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with you! Do you know what is at stake? Your home, your freedom. Your family and all your loved ones. All that you have, or ever had, or ever will have. Everything you treasure is at stake. The enemy is everywhere, there is nowhere to hide. Wherever you flee, you run straight into his line of fire. His bombs are planted where you least expect; his landmines, wherever you set your foot. His gun is pointed at your gut.

This enemy wants more than victory. He wants to watch you whimper, to see you crawl on all fours and plead for your life. He prolongs your agony until you curse the hour you were born. You can never buy him off – you can never frighten him away. Try to negotiate with him: you will only hand over the ones that you love, straight into his hands. The only question is: Will you collaborate? Or will you resist? In this fight, there are no neutrals: whoever is not with us, is against us. So form ranks, now! The oldest war you have ever fought, you are engaged in; the oldest enemy you have ever known is at your throat. You have been fighting this enemy from the hour that you were conceived in the womb. 

The enemy … is death. 

How can you recognise him? A masked figure in a black cape, lined with scarlet? Death is subtler than that. He creeps up behind, like an assassin. He infiltrates all your lines of defence. He stirs up a panic. He strikes and retreats, wears you down until you lose the strength to resist. Worst of all, he places his allies all around you. Biologists, professors of the public understanding of science tell you: ‘Death is natural. Your heart stops, that’s is it’. Professional atheists, sipping port in the members’ common room, saying: ‘When you die, you decay. No harps, no angels, no nothing. So stop bothering our high society with your fairy tales about life after death’. So-called bishops in stiff clerical collars join in and tell you: ‘Jesus never rose again in his body. His Resurrection means that his moral teachings live on forever’. The allies and accomplices of death never need to form ranks at all. Young atheists are too full of themselves to think about death; old atheists are too full of irony to notice, they are dead already. But make no mistake. Whoever denies the Resurrection is the accomplice of death: above all, if he (or she?) wears a clerical collar.

He collaborates: he negotiates to hand over your loved ones to the enemy. He holds the door open to death and says: ‘Come on in!’ ‘Sell all the candles, the robes and the ritual ointment’, the atheist shouts. ‘Give it to the poor!’ That is what Christianity is about, not fairy tales about rising from the dead. 

But, if you have ever watched a loved one die, you know death isn’t natural. Death does not begin when your heart stops. Death begins as soon as you give him the victory. The enemy, the obscene, unnatural monster, yawns in front of you. He opens the black pit of his throat, until you give him the last word. Today, we deny him the last word. 

This day, Palm Sunday, we declare war on death. Death in all his forms. Your baby, too weak to move in his incubator. Your husband or wife, your father or mother, wasting and confused: a mind demented, a body darkened with sores, slipping like sand out of your hands. A child left to bleed in the street. The black pit of death opens up before us – and Christ, the enemy of death, stands at the pit and calls inside. His voice echoes in the pit, in the dark. Yesterday, he stood at the mouth of the cave and called out: ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ Now, his friend Lazarus sits at table with him. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anoints his feet with the most costly ointment. Already, the accomplices of death complain: ‘Sell the ointment, give it to the poor’. But the ointment is for more than anointing the dead. It is the oil of a wrestler, preparing for combat. ‘Kill Lazarus!’ cry the accomplices of death. On account of him, the crowds begin to see why Jesus has come. This is no carpenter’s son, teaching morals on a mountain top. This is the final Vanquisher of Death. He does not ride into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. He rides out into the field of battle. This is the final showdown. This is the conquest of death. 

The crowds that surround him throw branches of palm trees on his path. They shout out ‘Hosanna to the Liberator! Hosanna to the King of Israel!’ They await his final showdown – but they mistake the enemy. This is no freedom fighter, seated on horseback to meet the Romans face to face. He wears no armour, no helmet or breastplate. He rides on to victory; but it is no ordinary victory, in no ordinary war. If the enemy is everywhere, so is he; if the enemy is ruthless, he is more ruthless; if the enemy prolongs your anguish, he absorbs that anguish into himself. This day, he rides right into the line of fire. Yesterday, he stood at the mouth of the cave and called Lazarus forth; in five days, he will ride into mouth of hell. He will plunge into the throat of death. He will stand firm, like the stubborn colt of a donkey that he rides into Jerusalem today. He will stand his ground – and the fire of his divine being will burn out the enemy from inside. Death will groan in agony: ‘What was this flesh I swallowed up? A mangled, tortured body, a body abandoned by his friends: I swallowed it, and met God face to face! I took what I saw and crumbled at what I could not see. Now, I surrender all the dead’. This Sunday, death opens its throat to swallow us live – and Christ rides in, on an ass’s colt. By the eve of Friday, he will cut death open from inside. On Saturday, he will burn out the chambers of hell. On Sunday, death will vomit him out; and, with him, all the dead will arise. 

Brothers and Sisters in Christ: this is not a piece of folk art in my hand. It is a weapon. A token of the worst that death can do. Two bars of wood, hoisted up from the ground in a desolate place. A victim, stripped naked, his hands and feet nailed into the wood; then, exposed to sun and wind, flies and birds – left to die a slow, obscene death. But every death is obscene. Every death is an insult to a creature made in the image of God. But see! This cross is not made of wood. It is woven from palm branches, strewn on the streets of the Holy City. Branches, trampled under the foot of a donkey; just as the One who rides on that donkey, will trample down death by death. Everyone here who has lost someone he or she loved; everyone here, whom death has robbed: let him go forth into the battle this day. This is the final showdown. Christ enters the Holy City, on his way to win back your loved ones. He rides down the throat of the monster. This day, carrying palms of victory, we cry out ‘Hosanna!’ to the Vanquisher of Death.

Palm Sunday High Mass, All Saints' Wickham Terrace, Brisbane, 2003

How do we handle Holy Week?

A thoughtful meditation for today from Metropolitan Anthony. (For details about him go HERE)

Today, on the day of Palms we stand in awe and amazement before what is happening in a way in which the Jews of Jerusalem could not meet Christ because they met Him imagining that He was the glorious king who would now take over all power, conquer and reject the heathen, - the Romans who were occupying their country, that He would re-establish a kingdom, an earthly kingdom of Israel. 

We know that He had not come for that, He had come to establish a Kingdom that will have no end, a Kingdom of eternity, and the Kingdom that was not open only to one nation but was open to all nations, and the Kingdom that was to be founded on the life and on the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God become the Son of man.

And Holy Week is from one end to another a time of tragic confusion. The Jews meet Christ at the gates of Jerusalem because they expect of Him a triumphant military leader, and He comes to serve, to wash the feet of His disciples, to give His life for the people but not to conquer by force, by power. And the same people who meet Him shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” in a few days will shout, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” because He has betrayed their expectations. They expected an earthly victory and what they see is a defeated king. They hate Him for the disappointment of all their hopes.

And this is not so alien to us in our days. How many are those people who turn away in hatred from Christ because He has disappointed one hope or another. I remember a woman who had been a believer for all her life and whose grandson died, a little boy, and she said to me, “I don’t believe in God any more. How could He take my grandson?” And I said to her, “But you believed in God while thousands and thousands and millions of people died.” 

And she looked at me and said, “Yes, but what did that do to me? I didn’t care. They were not my children.” This is something that happens to us in a small degree so often that we waver in our faith and in our faithfulness to God when something which we expect Him to do for us is not done, when He is not an obedient servant, when we proclaim our will, He does not say, “Amen,” and does not do it. So we are not so alien from those who met Christ at the gates of Jerusalem and then turned away from Him.

But we are now entering  into Holy Week. How can we face the events? I think we must enter into Holy Week not as observers, not reading the passages of the Gospel which are relevant, we must enter into Holy Week as though we were participants of the events, indeed read of them but then mix in the crowd that surrounds Christ and ask ourselves, Who am I in this crowd? Am I one of those who said, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’? And am I now on the fringe of saying, ‘Crucify him’? Am I one of the disciples who were faithful until the moments of ultimate danger came upon them?.. You remember that in the Garden of Gethsemane three disciples had been singled out by Jesus to support Him at the hour of His supreme agony, and they did not, they were tired, they were despondent and they fell asleep. Three times He came to them for support, three times they were away from Him.

We do not meet Christ in the same circumstances but we meet so many people who are in agony, not only dying physically (and that also happens to our friends, our relatives, people around us) but are in agony of terror one way or another. Are we there awake, alive, attentive to them, ready to help them out, and if we can’t help, to be with them, to stand by them or do we fall asleep, that is, contract out, turn away, leave them in their agony, their fear, their misery? And again I am not speaking of Judas because none of us is aware of betraying Christ in such a way. But don’t we betray Christ when we turn away from all His commandments? When He says, “I give you an example for you to follow,” and we shake our heads and say, “No, I will simply follow the devices of my own heart.” But think of Peter, apparently the strongest, the one who spoke time and again in the name of others. When it came to risking - not his life, because no-one was about to kill him - simply rejection, he denied Christ three times.

What do we do when we are challenged in the same way, when we are in danger of being mocked and ridiculed and put aside by our friends or our acquaintances who shrug their shoulders and say, “A Christian? And you believe in that? And you believe that Christ was God, and you believe in His Gospel, and you are on His side?” How often? O, we don’t say, “No, we are not,” but do we say, “Yes, it is my glory, and if you want to crucify Him, if you want to reject Him, reject me too because I choose to stand by Him, I am His disciple, even if I am to be rejected, even if you don’t let me into your house any more.”

And think of the crowd on Calvary. There were people who had been instrumental in His condemnation, they mocked Him, they had won their victory, so they thought at least. And then there were the soldiers, the soldiers who crucified Him. They had crucified innumerable other people, they were doing their job. It didn’t matter to them whom they crucified. And yet Christ prayed for them, “Forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they are doing.” We are not being crucified physically, but do we say, “Forgive, Father, those who offend us, who humiliate us, who reject us, those who kill our joy and darken our life in us.” Do we do that? No, we don’t. So we must recognise ourselves in them also.

And then there was a crowd of people who had poured out of the city to see a man die -the fierce curiosity that pushes so many of us to be curious when suffering, agony comes upon people. You will say, it doesn’t happen? Ask yourself how you watch television and how eagerly, hungrily you look at the horrors that befall Somalia, the Sudan, Bosnia and every other country. Is it with a broken heart? Is it that you can not endure the horror. and turn in prayer to God and then give, give, give generously all you can give for hunger and misery to be alleviated? Is it? No, we are the same people who came out on Calvary to see a man die. Curiosity, interest? Yes, alas.

And then there were those who had come with the hope that He will die because if He died on the cross, then they were free from this terrifying, horrible message He had brought that we must love one another to the point of being ready to die for each other. That message of the crucified, sacrificial love could be rejected once and for all if He who preached it died, and it was proved that He was a false prophet, a liar.

And then there were those who had come in the hope that He will come down from the cross, and then they could be believers without any risk, they would have joint the victorious party. Aren’t we like that so often?

And then there is a point to which we hardly should dare turn our eyes - the Mother of the Incarnate Son of God, the Mother of Jesus, silent, offering His death for the salvation of mankind, silent and dying with Him hour after hour, and the disciple who knew in a youthful way how to love his master, standing by in horror, seeing his Master die and the Mother in agony. Are we like this when we read the Gospel, are we like this when we see the agony of men around us?

Let us therefore enter into this Holy Week in order not to be observers of what happened; let us enter into it mixed with the crowd and at every step ask ourselves, who am I in this crowd? Am I the Mother? Am I the disciple? Am I one of the crucifiers? And so forth. And then we will be able to meet the day of the Resurrection together with those to whom it was life and resurrection indeed, when despair had gone, new hope had come, and God had conquered.

Fr David's Holy Week Invitation

The following is the text of a message we sent out last week to worshipping parishioners as well as enquirers:

This is YOUR invitation to join us for our journey through Holy Week and our celebration of Easter.

Our regular worshippers come from a wide range of backgrounds and age groups. What we have in common is the discovery of God’s love in the ups and downs of everyday life. Joining together at Mass we lift our hearts and voices in praise to the Lord as brothers and sisters together, we gain insights into his ways as the Scriptures are taught, and we draw strength from him for our daily life as we pray and receive Holy Communion.

It is possible that, like many other people, you have a suspicion that there is more to life than what you have so far experienced. You might even be wondering if there is, after all, a spiritual dimension to reality. 

Or you might look back half nostalgically to a time when you were very conscious of God’s presence and love; but your career, your ambitions, or just the stresses of keeping up with modern life, have caused you to drift away.

What better time than Holy Week to think about these things, maybe for the first time, or maybe “dipping your toe back in the water” after years of trying to make it through just in your own strength? What better time to reach out to God? 

You’ll find a real welcome in our services!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

There are many ways of looking at what happened when Jesus died on the Cross that first Good Friday. Some speak of the Cross as a demonstration of God’s love, others as a battle in which darkness and evil are conquered, and others, still, as the sacrifice that takes our sins away.

I find it really helpful also to see the Cross as God’s way of sharing with his people - and with the whole of creation - in the anguish and pain we know only too well, not just “helping us through it”, but, even in the midst of it, pouring his love and strength into our lives. One of my favourite writers is the Orthodox spiritual guide, Bishop Kallistos Ware. He puts it like this:

“ . . . there was a Cross in the heart of God before there was one planted outside Jerusalem; and though the Cross of wood has been taken down, the Cross in God’s heart still remains.  It is the Cross of pain and triumph - both together.  And those who can believe this will find that joy is mingled with their cup of bitterness.  They will share on a human level in the divine experience of victorious suffering.”

The Cross is God’s way of loving the world back to himself - transforming it - and that includes you and me.

HIS JOURNEY AND OURS

The services of Holy Week are arranged with music, Bible readings, art, drama and traditional ceremonial so as to draw us deeply into the suffering, dying and rising of Jesus.

  

We do not pass glibly to the joy of Easter Day without treading the road to Calvary with its pain and sorrow. Our journey is measured and reflective. It changes us. Holy Week is a fresh experience of God’s wonderful transforming love, a deeper knowledge of sins forgiven, and a new grasp of the victory God is trying to win in our lives over sin, evil and hatred.

  

I know that if you make the most of Holy Week 2013, you will emerge on Easter Day a new person. That is just as true for those who have been through 70 or 80 Holy Weeks as it is for those experiencing Holy Week for the first time.  If you tread the way of the Cross and journey to the Empty Tomb in sincerity of heart and - however falteringly - reach out to God, your relationship with him will be made new.

Sharing in these special services will help you put the world’s problems and tragedies in perspective, and make a little more sense out of your own life. 

See you in church!

Maundy Thursday washing of the feet

Here is the 2004 Maundy Thursday homily of Fr John Klassen OSB,  Abbot of St John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN USA. 

In her long poem "Feet" Denise Levertov wrote:

"I watched a man whose feet were neatly wrapped in green plastic.
He entered a restaurant that advertised a $2.00 special — Sloppy Joes.
And I saw him come out immediately again.

"It was cold and wet,
and I was taking shelter under the awning,
waiting for a bus.
The man was angry.

"'What happened?'
He looked at me —
'No shoes,' he said.
We all know the rubric —
No shoes, no shirt, no service."

You can drag dirt into an eatery with shoes
but not with feet covered in plastic.

On this holy night,
we remember the Passover of the Lord.
The readings are a treasury of meaning
and hold together in powerful ways.

The foot-washing scene in John's Gospel
has no parallel in ritual meals of the Judaism of Jesus' time.
It is innovation, par excellence.
In the time of Jesus
the streets would have been filled
with human and animal waste.
The washing of feet was usually done by a slave.
That is why the disciples are stunned
when Jesus takes off his outer garment
and puts a towel over his shoulders
and begins to wash their feet.
Peter, of course, speaks what everyone is thinking and feeling.
The first level of meaning is that of humble service.

But there is another level of meaning as well.
In biblical times the hands and feet symbolize human activity.
It is with hands and feet that we sin.
With the echo of Psalm 51 in our minds,
to wash them, to cleanse them,
is to wash away sin,
it is to forgive.

When Jesus urges his disciples to repeat this action
he is not merely talking about washing of feet.
He is insisting that we forgive one another
as he has forgiven us,
that we love one another
as he has loved us.

What about hands?

We remember Jesus
as taking, breaking, giving bread and wine.
The handing over of food and drink
became an embodied symbol
of that other "handing over,"
the "handing over" when Christ,
betrayed into the hands of sinners,
surrendered his body to death on the cross.

Human hands connect Eucharist and cross,
Holy Thursday and Good Friday;
hands outstretched to take, break and give;
hands cupped to hold, receive, eat and drink;
hands nailed east and west on a cross.

On this holy night,
we pledge once again to use our hands and feet
for the work of forgiveness,
for the work of loving each other.
We pledge to wash each other's feet,
to hand over our lives for each other,
for the sake of the world.
We pledge ourselves to do Eucharist,
to do this in memory of the One who gave His life for us.
We do so because Jesus is our Passover Lamb,
who takes away the sins of the world.

Judas . . . melodrama villain, or just like us?

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) one-time Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, said with characteristic wit: “I must believe in the Apostolic Succession, there being no other way of accounting for the descent of the Bishop of Exeter from Judas Iscariot.” 

Poor old Judas Iscariot! Our simplistic reaction to his role in the Passion is to hiss and boo when he appears as if he is the stylised villain in a Victorian melodrama. But that, it seems to me, trivialises Gospel passages such as the one we read at today's Mass (Matthew 26:14-25): 

"Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, 'What will you give me if I deliver him to you?' And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him. 

"Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, 'Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the passover?' He said, 'Go into the city to a certain one, and say to him, "The Teacher says, My time is at hand; I will keep the passover at your house with my disciples."' And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. 

"When it was evening, he sat at table with the twelve disciples; and as they were eating, he said, 'Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.' And they were very sorrowful, and began to say to him one after another, 'Is it I, Lord?' He answered, 'He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me, will betray me. The Son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.' Judas, who betrayed him, said, 'Is it I, Master?' He said to him, 'You have said so.'" 

Between December 1941 and October 1942 the BBC broadcasted Dorothy Sayers’ series of radio plays on the life of Jesus, "Man Born to be King." Her brief remarks on the Gospels were from the standpoint of a playwright trying to create a believable human context based on the texts themselves. 

When I first read Sayers' characterisation of Judas Isacariot, I couldn’t work out why I hadn’t seen him that way for myself ... a young, idealistic man, sincerely looking for the coming of God's Kingdom, who REALLY believes in Jesus as the one who can and will bring in the kingdom and get rid of the Roman occupying forces. As time goes on, however, Judas grows impatient and even disillusioned. Why isn’t Jesus using his “powers” to do what needs to be done? So - as a last resort - Judas decides to force Jesus' hand by putting him into a situation where he will either have to act decisively to overthrow the Romans or else face humiliation and death. Jesus, of course, does not act as Judas thinks he should, and instead treads the Calvary road of suffering and pain in order to redeem us, not from the Roman taskmasters, but from slavery to sin and death. 

Dorothy Sayers' Judas is very believable, very human, and far more realistic than the melodramatic villain! After all, how many REAL BELIEVERS, like Judas, love Jesus, but also try to manipulate him for our own ends (or for the sake of our ministries or churches!), thinking that by so doing we are working for the Kingdom of God? 

All we end up doing is betraying Jesus afresh. 

*****

I’m not the only one who likes Sayers’ interpretation of Judas. Go HERE to read another commentator’s article comparing the mistaken Judas with the comforters of Job. I give you two extracts:

". . . Sayers does an excellent job of portraying Judas as she intends. There is always a hint, even when Judas is at his most sincerely devoted to Jesus, that it is always in his eyes Judas standing in judgment of Jesus (even if only to approve him) and never once Judas standing before Jesus in order to be judged. Judas knows what Israel needs; the question on Judas' mind all along is: Does Jesus know what Israel needs? He is walking, as Sayers says of him later, by sight and not by faith: so long as Jesus obviously seems conforming to his standards, Judas is the most loyal of followers. Once Jesus doesn't seem to be, however, Judas assumes that Jesus has sold out (and, worse, it turns out that Judas was simply mistaken in his interpretation of Jesus' actions) . . . 

". . . It seems to me that this is always a very deep danger; and that the more educated and intelligent people are, the more likely they are to make it. Hence the need for us all to cultivate the virtue of intellectual humility."

Dealing with BETRAYAL - Tuesday in Holy Week

Over at the Catholic Spirituality Centre is a great meditation by Father William Goh on the first part of today's Gospel - John 13:21-33: 

"While at supper with his disciples, Jesus was troubled in spirit and declared, ‘I tell you most solemnly, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, wondering which he meant. The disciple Jesus loved was reclining next to Jesus; Simon Peter signed to him and said, ‘Ask who it is he means’, so leaning back on Jesus’ breast he said, ‘Who is it, Lord?’ ‘It is the one’ replied Jesus ‘to whom I give the piece of bread that I shall dip in the dish.’ He dipped the piece of bread and gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. At that instant, after Judas had taken the bread, Satan entered him. Jesus then said, ‘What you are going to do, do quickly.’ None of the others at table understood the reason he said this. Since Judas had charge of the common fund, some of them thought Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the festival’, or telling him to give something to the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the piece of bread he went out. Night had fallen." 

One of the most painful experiences of life is to be betrayed by those whom we love dearly and deeply. The deeper the trust and love, the more pain we suffer. This is true in all relationships, whether of close friends, among colleagues and particularly in marriage. Once betrayal is discovered, it is extremely difficult to repair the relationship, for trust has been broken. Without trust, no relationship can ever blossom, since no communication is possible. The intimacy of love is dependent solely on trust. A relationship cannot thrive as there is no fertile ground to germinate the seed of love when one lives in constant suspicion of the other party. That is why, although we know from experience that setbacks, disappointments, frustrations in relationships happen in life, we must still choose to trust again, otherwise we are doomed to loneliness.

Go HERE to read the entire article.

The Bible kept me sane - Catherine Doherty

Catherine Doherty in 1941

I have referred to Catherine de Hueck Doherty (1896-1985), the foundress of Madonna House in Combermere, Canada, a number of times on this blog. She is among those whose causes for “official” sainthood are being worked on at the moment in Rome. 

Go HERE to find out more about her, or HERE to the Madonna House website. 

I was moved by the following short reflection of hers, which I think is particularly important early in Holy Week. More than at any other time of the year, this is when the Church's liturgy absolutely drenches us (especially those who are able to come to everything!) in life-giving Scripture. And that's a very good thing. We hear large slabs of the Bible read; we hear sermons on specific texts; we hear it sung and chanted hauntingly in all the special services as a backdrop to the spiritual journey of these days. This Holy Week let's allow the Scriptures - the Bible - to expand our spiritual horizons, to strengthen us in our suffering and grief, to encourage us in our struggles, and to increase our thanksgiving to Father God for his goodness. Catherine Doherty says:

   

I have been exposed to the Gospel (I should say the Bible) since childhood. My Father used to gather everybody together and read aloud the lesson of the day according to the Eastern Rite. 

Mother and all the servants would also gather to listen to the Holy Words. So the habit of referring to the Bible, but mostly to the Gospel, has been with me since childhood and has stayed with me until old age.

As I read more of the Holy Book with its incredible wealth, I realized more and more my own poverty. When, after the Russian Revolution, I was thrown on the shores of America, or I should say the new continent, the Bible was the only consolation that I had in various "brown rooms." 

I call them "brown rooms," those shabby boarding house rooms that I had to live in for quite a while. What else could I read at 111 Wabash Avenue in Chicago when all around me people were fornicating? What else could I read in the depths of the sorrows and pain into which the Lord plunged me? 

Yes, the Bible was a companion, a strange and unusual companion. I wonder if many people understand what it means. 

It is like a door opening. You can walk right into it, close it, and be in the midst of God’s heart. 

The Bible speaks of the New Covenant of love. When you are down and out and haven’t a friend in the world; when you stand on a corner of Broadway and 42nd Street in New York looking at people longingly, hoping that somebody would say "hello" to you—at times like these the Bible is your friend.

You go back to that brown room and what do you see? You see a door, you see a poustinia (a room of solitude and prayer). You go in, you lock the door, and the world is yours. 

Truly the Kingdom of God is yours. That Book really keeps you sane. It can make you holy, if you let it. Yes, it’s a strange book, the Bible. 

But I always read the Gospel first. The Gospel was like a voice, God speaking to me and I speaking to God, in all the brown rooms of the world that I had to live in. Yes, it was beautiful. But so lonely. 

You know something? This Book protects you. At least it protected me from the waters that you can see from Brooklyn Bridge. They were so enticing. 

And a page of that Book floated, it seemed, down before my eyes. And a voice spoke, and I left the bridge. If it hadn’t been for that Book, I don’t think I would have left the bridge or many other dangerous places, where near despair would have dragged me into suicide like the undertow of the sea. 

There is something about the words of that holy Book that are melodious and poetic. But, as I said, I am a poor woman. 

 —Adapted from The Gospel of a Poor Woman, (1992), pp. 9-10, Madonna House Publications, out of print.