Holy Thursday Reflection, 9 April 2009

BLOOD COVENANT

"'Then he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, "Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."' Have we done it so often that we have forgotten to be shocked by it?

When Jesus holds up the cup and offers what is in it as the fluid of forgiveness, he is not talking to people with a short list of minor sins. He is talking to people who will turn him in, who will scatter to the four winds at the first sign of trouble, and who will swear that they never knew him. He is talking to people who should have been his best friends on earth, who will turn out not to have a loyal bone in their bodies, and he is forgiving them ahead of time, as surely as if he had said, 'I know who you are. I know you will not be innocent of the blood in this cup, but I will not let that come between us. Look, here, I bless it. I make it my gift to you. Let it mean life to you, not death. Let my life become your life, through the blood of this covenant.'

The death cannot be overlooked, but it is the life that is being offered, the life that rushes out of that cup like a spring of living water. It is the new covenant and the last one--new because it is offered to us fresh each day and last because there is nothing more that God can say or do. This is as close as God can get: blood kin, indissoluble union, friend bound to friend for life, forever. 

When we lift the cup to our lips and drink, we accept the gift, renewing the covenant and reminding ourselves that we do not live for ourselves alone. We are possessors of a double life, having taken our friend's life and nature into ourselves. Inside of us God rides our bloodstream straight to our hearts where the covenant is written: I shall be your God and you shall be my people."

--Barbara Brown Taylor

Holy Week Reflection, 8 April 2009

JUDAS AND JESUS

"Whatever Judas's degree of guilt and whatever his motive, it is extremely important to note that Jesus identifies his betrayer by feeding him. Not by turning over the table and casting him out. Not by tying him to his chair so he cannot carry out his plan, but by feeding him--dipping a morsel into his own cup and giving it to Judas, whose feet he has just washed.

Knowing who Judas is and what he is about to do, Jesus does not throw him out. He bathes hm and feeds him, which means that Judas is never--never--excluded from the circle of friends. He is included until he excludes himself.

Jesus went on giving himself away to the one who would give him away, because his faithfulness did not depend on theirs. When he dipped the morsel in his cup and handed it to Judas, he not only revealed who Judas was, he also revealed who he was. The one who feeds his enemies--who goes on treating them as friends--loving them to the end."

--Barbara Brown Taylor

Holy Week Reflection, 7 April 2009

EVEN PETER, EVEN US

"Peter said a number of important and good things but he also said some very foolish things. Here is what Peter said to Jesus after the Last Supper: 'Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.'

Have you ever disgraced yourself like that? Of course you have; we all have. Think how many times you and I have said, 'I would never do what that other person is doing. I would never lie, steal, eavesdrop, hit and run, cheat on an exam, slap my child or drive drunk . . .,' whatever.

Now here is a question for us. How did this episode get saved by the Church? It could have easily been suppressed. Why wasn't it? Here's the reason. Peter himself wanted it to be there. Peter wanted the church to remember.

Until the cock crowed, Peter had never really looked into himself. He had never known what he was capable of. He had not seen his dark side clearly. He had believed his own words. Now he is unmasked, not only in the sight of the Lord, but in his own sight.

And so we come to Easter morning. "Go and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you." (Mark 16:2-7)

. . . and Peter! Have you ever heard anything more wonderful than that? All the disciples had failed Jesus, but Peter had failed him the most, because he had been the biggest braggart of them all. Yet it is Peter who received the message of the Resurrection specifically, by his own name. We can translate the Greek to read, 'even Peter!'

Sometimes people speak of what happened in terms of Peter's sin being forgiven. That's true, of course. But it isn't really strong enough."

--Fleming Rutledge

Holy Week Reflection, 6 April 2009

THE PROPHET MARY (John 12:1-11)

"No one notices that Mary has gone until she comes back holding a slender clay jar in her hands. Without a word she kneels at Jesus' feet and breaks the neck of the jar, so that the smell of spikenard fills the room--a sharp scent somewhere between mint and ginseng.

When Mary stood before Jesus with that pound of pure nard, for a moment--just for a moment--it could have gone either way. She could have anointed his head and everyone there could have proclaimed him a king. But she did not do that. When she moved toward him, she dropped to her knees and poured the salve on his feet, which could mean only one thing. The only man who got his feet anointed was a dead man, and Jesus knew it. 'Leave her alone,' he said to those who would have prevented her. 'Leave her alone.'

So Mary proceeded to rub his feet with ointment so precious that its sale might have fed a poor family for a year, an act so lavish that it suggests another layer to her prophecy. There will be nothing prudent or economical about the death of this man, just as there has been nothing prudent or economical about his life. In him, the extravagance of God's love is made flesh. In him, the excessiveness of God's mercy is made manifest."

--Barbara Brown Taylor

Holy Week Reflection, 5 April 2009

THE VOICE OF LOVE

"By noon he was panting on a cross, receiving the fury of those whose values he had offended. They worked things he had said to them into their insults, so that his own words came back at him like rocks. Even those who were crucified with him got in on the act. So they insulted him too, filling his ears with filth and hate while he strained--strained--to hear the voice of love that had sustained him all his life. If there were ever a day he needed to hear it--but there was no sound from heaven, no sound at all.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It was all he had left in him, and when it came out of him he died. 

Why him, why this, why today? I wish I knew. All I know is that, because of it, none of us ever has to feel what he felt again. Because he was alone, and most forsaken by God, we have this companion who has been there and will be there with us. If we say, 'Where are you, God? I'm all alone here,' he said it first. 

Jesus died talking to his Abba, who would not talk back to him. In his suffering, he is the comfort of those who have no comfort. In his abandonment, he is the God of those who have no God. Hearing no voice of love, he cried out, making a sound that--for many--became the voice of love."

--Barbara Brown Taylor

Lenten Reflection Series, 4 April 2009

PRAYER FOR THE RIGHT SPIRIT OF CHRIST'S PRIESTHOOD

On this joyful day, please join me in praying this prayer for my Jesuit brothers--Reverends Javy Alpasa, Francis Alvarez, Jason Dy, Ody Dy, Frank Savadera, and Robbie Sian--who today, because of God's mercy and faithfulness, receive, for the sake of the Church, the precious gift of ordination to the priesthood.


"Grant us, above all, the grace of prayer, and make us love You, O Jesus. What are we without You? Lost. We can only have You if we make You, by love and prayer, again and again and more and more the focus of our heart.

If You want us to be Your priests, then grant us, O Lord, that gift without which we cannot truly be Your priests. Grant us the grace of prayer, of collection, of inwardness, stop us when we want to run away from You in our distraction and absent-mindedness; bring us crazy people back to You, if need be by the prick of pain, the bitterness of heart and of distress.

Give us just one more gift: the grace to pray truly and become daily more. When we pray, we are and remain in fellowship with You, then we shall increasingly become what we are and ought to be according to Your will: Your disciples, Your apostles, Your priests, the witnesses of Your truth and the dispenser of Your mysteries."

--Karl Rahner, SJ

Lenten Reflection Series, 3 April 2009

PRAYER ON THE EVE OF ORDINATION

As you read this excerpt from a lovely prayer written by the great Karl Rahner, please join me in praying for my Jesuit brothers who will be ordained to the priesthood this Saturday, April 4, 2009: Reverends Javy Alpasa, Francis Alvarez, Jason Dy, Ody Dy, Frank Savadera, and Robbie Sian. 

"The bishop will lay his hands on me. And then, still silent, he will take them from my head. But Your hand, O my God, will still remain upon me.

Your hands will remain upon me.

The hands of the Omnipotent, gentler than a mother's hands . . .

And finally the bishop will take my hands in his hands, and I shall promise the Church obedience and loyalty: exacting and unwavering obedience, selfless obedience, obedience in a which a man forgets his life in work that matters more than he does . . . Behold, I lay my hands in Your hands, my God. So take my hands and lead me: through joy and grief, through honor and disgrace, in labor and anguish, in my ordinary life and at great moments, in the holy stillness of Your house but also on the long, dusty roads of the world. Lead me today and always, lead me into the kingdom of Your eternal life. "

--Karl Rahner, SJ

Lenten Reflection Series, 2 April 2009

RECONCILIATION

"Another trademark of the Holy Spirit is to give people a way back into relationship. Maybe this has happened to you. You are estranged from someone you really care about--because of something you said or did or something the other person said or did--it really does not matter which. The point is, you are tired of it, so you start plotting ways to get through. You draft letters, rehearse phone calls, only none of them sounds right. You are still hanging on to your hurt, or your anger, and it keeps leaking through.

Then one day for no apparent reason something inside of you says, 'Now.' You grab the phone, the persons says, 'Hello?' and the rest is history. Your heart opens and the right words come out. A reunion gets underway. You can call that anything you want. I call it an act of the Holy Spirit."

--Barbara Brown Taylor