Readings:
• At the procession with palms, Gospel: Lk 19:28-4
• Is 50:4-7
• Ps 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24
• Phil 2:6-11
• Lk 22:14—23:56
It is done. We have judged our God and have ordered Him slain.
We will not have Christ with us more—He is in the way.
Those lines open Paul Claudel’s poem, “The Way of the Cross”, a lyrical, moving reflection on the fourteen Stations. Claudel, who is one of my favorite poets, had a profound love and knowledge of the Bible (in fact, he wrote a book titled The Essence of the Bible). His poetry has often opened up new and wonderful perspectives in my study of sacred Scripture.
In writing that Christ “is in the way,” Claudel emphasizes the two choices before each one of us: to embrace Jesus as The Way or to try to remove him from our way.
Those choices are evident throughout today’s reading from St. Luke’s Gospel. There is, in this reading, a series of gifts offered by Jesus as he, the King of kings, makes his way to his throne, the Cross. These gifts involve choices, not only on the part of man, but also on the part of the God-man.
In the Upper Room, reclining with the apostles, Jesus took the bread and blessed it, and said, “This is my body, which will be given for you…” He took the cup, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.” This, of course, is the gift of the Eucharist, “the source and summit of the Christian life,” the Body and Blood which nourishes the sons and daughters of God. This gift was offered along with the gift of the priesthood, through which this perfect and holy sacrifice has been perpetually offered (CCC, 611).
Yet one of the Twelve rejected the gifts. Judas—grasping and greedy—had spitefully judged Jesus and believed he was now in the way. Judas refused to accept and be part of a kingdom rooted in self-sacrifice, suffering, and redemptive love. “But woe,” said Jesus, “to that man by whom he is betrayed.”
The gift of the cup of the New Covenant, the Catechism remarks, “is afterwards accepted by him from his Father’s hands in his agony in the garden at Gethsemani…” (par. 612). This gift of Jesus—offering himself, his fears, and his horror of death—is a profound mystery, for it is bound up in mystery of the Incarnation. The second person of the Trinity, St. Paul states in today’s Epistle, had “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” and had “humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death…” The first Adam had failed the test of love in the Garden of Eden when faced with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But the new Adam, whose sweat in the Garden of Gethsemani “became like drops of blood,” humbly embraced the torturous trial of the tree of Golgotha. The anguish endured in private prayer in the Garden would soon be a public lamentation: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
The third gift is that of love, redemption, salvation, reconciliation. It is the gift of the Cross, the gift of the Incarnate Word who did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. “The shame of his passion was not the fruit of his own will,” wrote St. Cyril of Alexandria, “but he still consented to undergo it that he might save the earth.” Arms stretched wide, Jesus embraced the world. He embraced the thief, who asked to be remembered in Paradise. He embraced the centurion, who gloried God. He embraces each one of us as we kneel in silence and contemplate those humble words of trust and filial devotion: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Jesus, for many people, is in the way. But for those who gaze upon the gift of the Cross, Jesus is the Way. In the beautiful words of Claudel:
There is no cross of our living where His body will not fit.
There is no sin of ours for which He has not a wound.
(This “Opening the Word” column originally appeared in the March 28, 2010, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Second gift [I assume since I have difficulty in determining the order given, Example: Gifts of Eucharist, Priesthood {1} Gift of the Cup {2} Gift of love {3}], “The gift of the cup of the New Covenant” nevertheless is what I wish to address as you identify the significant moment in which Christ hesitates, an issue previously disputed here because it touches on the corresponding significance of Christ possessing a complete human nature [St Cyril of Jerusalem] with two wills one human one divine [St Cyril of Jerusalem], a theological issue with the Orthodox East, which recognizes one will, the divine.
The objection, or query I addressed then was whether Jesus did indeed hesitate since he was determined to save us. My response then as now is the theology of two wills, in which as man Christ suffered intensely and hesitant, asked the Father if this cup of suffering could be avoided. For this writer, the key to Christ’s saving act of acceptance of suffering, and the key to our own salvation, is that we are truly tested on whether we are willing to pay the price to prove our love for and and for others [your 3rd gift].
“His fears, and his horror of death—is a profound mystery” (Olson). As you then note this mystery is “bound up” with the incarnation. Again, from this writer’s understanding of this most profound mystery is the authenticity of the sacrifice, and with that the re presentation of the sacrifice of the Mass and the priest’s active participation, and the laity’s participation as members of the Mystical Body in Paul VI’s definition of the Mass as an “Act of the Church”.
As Jesus in his human nature, and human will we are, as alluded to make a choice. A choice as you show that Judas refused, likely not consistent with his vision of a King David type warrior messiah prepared to establish the kingdom by force of arms. For ourselves, like Jesus in Gethsemane, our moment of truth. Whether the Word who became incarnate to save would even consider refusal is not the relevant question, since the Word made flesh possessing two wills nevertheless is the divine second Person of the holy trinity. Furthermore, as Aquinas argues even in his humanity Jesus free of all evil far surpasses ordinary human nature, and as such was far more determined to do the Father’s will. And as such meritoriously achieved our salvation with the words, “Not my will but your will be done”. This speaks to a real decision that makes irrelevant the question whether he might have refused simply because of the mystery of the Word Incarnate which as a mystery remains a mystery of the faith escaping human reasoning and judgment. Although, for each of us the knowledge through faith of the requirement to make the decision in favor, and the reality that in and through Christ we possess the capacity to make it. Out of love for Him, and for the salvation of yourself, and for others. That charity, in a Trinitarian sense, is communal in nature. That love isn’t exclusive to self rather inclusive of others.
Last sentence first paragraph should read, “to prove our love for God, and for others [your 3rd gift]”.
And to clarify, when I cite the issue previously discussed “here”, I meant in an article in CWR, not in Carl Olson’s weekly essay on Sunday readings.