Our parish Why Catholic? coordinator and parish liturgy team wanted to contribute something this Lent to other parishes. They decided to present a walk through the paschal triduum, the three days the church celebrates Christ’s last supper, death and burial, and resurrection. Called “Glory in the Cross,” it will be held on Saturday, April 4, from 9:30 until 11 a.m. at St. Cabrini Parish Church, 1020 N. Milton Ave. in Springfield. The public is welcome; there is no cost.
This reflection fits this year’s Why Catholic? theme, which is the sacraments of the church. Announcing next Saturday’s event also fits nicely with the theme of my column for this Lent which is reflection on the Sunday Mass readings. We are reading from Cycle-B at our parish. This week Jeremiah (31:31-34) announces God will bring about a new covenant in which everyone will be able to know God personally and have the commandments written on their hearts. Through this new covenant our sins will be forgiven and God will remember them no more.
This Sunday’s Gospel reading (John 12:20-33) finds Jesus approaching the hour of his death and resurrection, God’s supreme work of establishing this new creation. Jesus prays that the Father would glorify the Son and acknowledges that the way to that glory is the way of the seed planted in the earth which must die in order to produce a harvest. Christ is the first fruit of his own death, the first harvest of resurrection.
On Holy Thursday, the Mass of the Lord’s Supper celebrates this new covenant made by Jesus at the Passover meal, his last with his disciples. Once called Maundy Thursday, from Old English for the Latin mandatum (commandment), Holy Thursday is the night Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment which he in turn fulfilled for them in his own blood. They were to love one another as he loved them. God, present in the person of his Son, both personally teaches what he is all about and at the same time fulfills his own teaching. His love for us is shown in giving his body for our sake and spilling out his blood so that our sins would be forgiven and remembered no more.
During the early Christian centuries, this was the day those who had confessed their grave sins of murder, adultery or leaving the practice of the faith and who had finished their penances — some may have lasted from one to 20 years — were publicly reconciled to the church so they could participate in the evening Lord’s Supper.
This night the priest washes the feet of parishioners during this Mass to remind us that Jesus continues to humble himself in the Eucharist, giving us an example of how we are to love one another and empowering us to serve others in his likeness. In this way, by loving as he loved us, our faith is brought to completion through love like his.
Good Friday is the only day of the year the church forbids Mass to be celebrated, although Communion left over from the Holy Thursday evening Mass is shared during the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion. This distribution of Communion used to be called the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified and is significantly different than the Mass. During Mass or the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the whole people of God are taken up with Jesus in his gift of himself to his Father on the cross. We offer his sacrifice and ourselves become a portion of the sacrifice we offer. But in receiving Communion on Good Friday without participating in the Eucharistic Prayer, we are reminded that Christ’s sacrifice alone both saves us from our sins and makes us sharers in his gift of himself to God.
This Sunday’s reading from Hebrews (5:7-9) stresses that Jesus depended solely on God to save him from death, was perfected in his obedience to God’s love through suffering, and in turn became our High Priest before God. His priesthood is celebrated during the Good Friday Liturgy by reading the Lord’s Passion and by our veneration of the wood of his cross. The passion account is always taken from the Gospel according to John which emphasizes that Christ’s death on the cross was not the result of any mere human cause, not even of sin. Rather, it was God who led Jesus to the cross and by God’s own plan that he died. With a simple kiss or by reverently touching a wooden cross, each person present personally confesses faith in the obedient love of Jesus to his Father’s plan for our redemption.
After sunset on Holy Saturday, the church begins the Easter Vigil in which we celebrate the new creation God has begun by raising Christ from the dead. All who are baptized into his death will share his resurrection in their own bodies. During the Easter Vigil Mass, new members of the church are baptized, confirmed so as to share the Spirit by which God raised Jesus from the dead, and are given for the first time a share in his Body and Blood.
If you wish to know more about the church’s celebration of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus during the Easter triduum, come on April 4 and share with us as we walk through and reflect on these sacred mysteries.
Father Richard Chiola is a certified counselor, pastor of St. Cabrini Parish in Springfield and diocesan director for the ongoing formation of clergy.