Holy Thursday: A Life of Serving the Lord is a Life well spent

HOLY THURSDAY 2019

YEAR OF THE YOUTH

April 18, 2019

Jesus, I trust in you!

Holy Thursday this year means a lot to me as I am currently celebrating my silver jubilee year as a priest. The anniversary of the institution of the Eucharist and the Priesthood during the Year of the Youth gives me the occasion to go back to the day of my ordination as a priest. I was 25 years old then, with more hair and with greater idealism. I remember that afternoon of November 30, 1993 in the Manila Cathedral when the deacon called my name. At that time, I answered: “Ad sum! Present!” I was called and so I answered: “Here I am, Lord! I come to do your will.” So inflamed was I with the love of God that I was willing to say “Yes” to every question Cardinal Sin asked me. Maybe, at that time, I did not know better. Maybe I did not realize the cost of these “yeses.” All I knew at that time was that I wanted to serve. I wanted to offer God my life. And true enough, I have offered the best part of my life to God. I have spent my youth in his service. I am now 50 years old and I am feeling that my body is slowing down. There are many priestly tasks that I used to do easily but now, I experience certain limitations. But whenever I look back to the day of my ordination, I smile and say to the Lord: “Lord, I offered to you the best years of my life and I want to serve you until the end.”

The Lord Jesus was 33 years old at that time. He was at the prime of his life, the prime of his youth. He must have seen himself in that 1 year old lamb that was sacrificed on the eve of the Passover. That year old lamb has experienced a life independent of its mother only for 10 months and now, it is chosen to be sacrificed to the Lord and to be eaten in the Passover meal. We pity the lamb for it was not even allowed to live a full life. But what accounts for fullness of life? Is it the number of years? The lamb of sacrifice teaches us that life is full not because it was spent for many years but because it was offered to the Lord. Although it is very young, the chosen Lamb lived a full life because it was offered in sacrifice to the Lord. We may have spent many years but if none of them were offered to God, it would have been an unfortunate wasted life.

And this is how Jesus spent his life. Last Palm Sunday, Jesus declared to his disciples: “I am among you as the one who serves.” And tonight, he shows us what he meant: he took off his garments, wrapped his waist with a towel, and began washing the feet of his disciples. It was the most menial task. It was a task assigned to the lowest of slaves. And yet, he insisted to do it…even with the protest of Simon Peter. It simply had to be done. “He took the form of a slave and was born in our human likeness.” Jesus teaches us that this is life well spent. It is spent as an offering to God. It is spent in service of others. He challenges the world which teaches us to live lives with a sense of entitlement. He says: “I did not come to be served but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many.”

This is the mark of those who wish to follow Jesus: “the kings of the gentiles lord it over them and those in authority over them are addressed as benefactors. But among you it shall not be so. Let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant…I am among you as the one who serves…” Dear brothers and sisters, let us allow Jesus to lead us to a meaningful life: a life of giving more than receiving, a life of serving more than entitlement. “I, your Lord and Master, washed your feet. You must also wash each other’s feet.”

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Our Humble God (late Maundy Thursday posting)

Praised be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

“Fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, (Jesus) rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist…”

Lest we have the wrong impression that Jesus was weak and so ended unto the Cross, we are shown in the Holy Gospel the real glory of Jesus: the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God. He was fully aware of who he was: You call me master and teacher, and rightly so, for indeed I am. His knowledge of his Divinity all the more makes his gesture very significant. From what he did, we could see the humility of God. Jesus did not cling to his Divine nature and took upon himself the lowliness of ours. Not only did he wash his disciples’ feet, he washed us of sin with his precious blood shed upon the wood of the Cross. He practiced what he preached. He said that the gentiles lord it over them and the great ones make their presence felt (Luke 22:25) but it should not be so amongst his disciples. For the ones who are greatest must be the servant of all. He who was given power over everything, he who was from God, he who is Lord and Teacher – he bent down and performed the most humiliating service than any servant can render, that is, to wash another person’s feet. The sacrifice that he was about to make upon the wood of the Cross is the utmost humiliation of God – for what God is there that would sacrifice himself in order to save his lowly creatures. It is this Divine humiliation that takes place in the holy Sacrifice of the Mass. God does not only take upon himself human flesh. He goes even further down by hiding beneath the humble appearance of bread and wine, food and drink. He heeds the voice of his priests and comes down upon our altar when his words are repeated by them over bread and wine. God who becomes food and drink, God who obeys his priests – this is our God, our truly humble God! God who lays down his life for us, God who washes not only our feet but our souls as well – this is our God, our truly humble God! God who no longer calls us his servants but his friends, God who reveals to us everything – this is our God, our truly humble God!

And then he tells his priests: Do this in memory of me. He tells us: If I who am your Master and Teacher washed your feet, so should you wash each other’s feet. God, our truly humble God, leads us along the way of humility. He reveals to us the only way to his kingdom is by the way of humiliation and self-emptying, the way of self-denial and sacrifice. By his Incarnation and Paschal Mystery, our blessed Lord goes down into the depths and by doing so, is exalted! The Son of Man enters into his glory! 

Jesus, I trust in you! O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!

Maundy Thursday Ordinary Form

Thanks to Karen Buensuceso for the pictures

Maundy Thursday 2011

Thanks to Dennis Maturan

Late Posting of Good Friday Meditations

When the High Priest questioned him about his doctrines, the Lord Jesus responded: “I have spoken publicly in the world. I have always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing.” In his Sacred Humanity, he was true to himself as the Word of the Father. The Holy Father wrote in his Apostolic Exhortation, Verbum Domini: “Reading the Gospel accounts, we see how Jesus’ own humanity appears in all its uniqueness precisely with regard to the word of God. In his perfect humanity he does the will of the Father at all times; Jesus hears his voice and obeys it with his entire being; he knows the Father and he keeps his word (cf. Jn 8:55); he speaks to us of what the Father has told him (cf. Jn 12:50); I have given them the words which you gave me” (Jn 17:8). Jesus thus shows that he is the divine Logos which is given to us, but at the same time the new Adam, the true man, who unfailingly does not his own will but that of the Father. He “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man” (Lk 2:52). In a perfect way, he hears, embodies and communicates to us the word of God (cf. Lk 5:1).”

We have just meditated on the 7 last words of Jesus. I am really amazed at the fact that even as he hung upon the Cross, Jesus continued to preach to the world. The Cross was his pulpit and the 7 last words were probably his greatest sermon. Towards the end, he declared: It is finished! “And bowing his head, he gave up his Spirit.” The Word says no more! “…here we find ourselves before the “word of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18). The word is muted; it becomes mortal silence, for it has “spoken” exhaustively, holding back nothing of what it had to tell us. The Fathers of the Church, in pondering this mystery, attributed to the Mother of God this touching phrase: “Wordless is the Word of the Father, who made every creature which speaks, lifeless are the eyes of the one at whose word and whose nod all living things move”. Here that “greater” love, the love which gives its life for its friends (cf. Jn 15:13), is truly shared with us.”

“The Word is muted, it becomes mortal silence…” We stand before this mortal silence…before this powerful “word of the Cross.” We are used to say: Dead men tell no tales. Such cannot be said about the Lord because if he had taught us so much while he preached along the Sea of Galilee, he taught us more as he hung lifeless on the Cross. So many have found strength and solace simply by looking at that silent and lifeless God on the Cross. “They shall look upon him whom they have pierced” Looking at him, what do we see? In him, we see our iniquities and the sufferings we deserve on account of them. In him we see the gravity of our offences and the consequences of our sins: “For it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offences, crushed by our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way, but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all.”

But not only the ugliness of sin do we see as we look at him. Ironically, in his hideous appearance, we behold the countenance of his love. The love that we see in him is one that exhausts itself, one that bears sufferings for the sins of others, one that forgives, one that triumphs over evil. Yes, it is a love that triumphs over evil. Suffering does not have the last say in him. And neither does death. “The Cross represents the humiliations of Christ; but since the day when Jesus was nailed to it, it occupies a place of honor in our churches. Instrument of our salvation, the cross becomes for Christ the price of his glory: ’Did not the Christ have to suffer these things before entering into His glory?’ (Lk. 24:26)” (Bl. Columba Marmion, Christ In His Mysteries, 306.) Christ’s passion is the measure of his glory. “The glory of Jesus is infinite because He, being God, has in His Passion gone to the utmost degree of suffering and humiliation. And it is because He has so deeply abased Himself that God has given Him such glory: ‘Therefore God the Father has exalted Him’ (Phil. 2:9).” (Marmion, 304.)

Powerful in life, Jesus is even more powerful in death – for in dying, Jesus restores to us what the devil has destroyed: the likeness of God in the human soul. “So marred was his look beyond human semblance” and he allowed it to be so in order to restore to us the beautiful likeness of God. The baptised soul, the saint in heaven, is the wonderful masterpiece of Him who hangs lifeless upon the Cross.

“Because of his afflictions, he shall see the light in fullness of days, through his sufferings, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear. Therefore, I shall give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; and he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses.”

Late Posting of Holy Thursday Meditation

With this Mass of the Last Supper, we enter into the holiest time of the liturgical year: the Sacred Triduum of the Passion, Death, Burial, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The events of the Passion, Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus constitute what we call the “Paschal Mystery”. Like the crossing by the Israelites from slavery to freedom through the Red Sea, so did Christ cross from this world to the Father through the sea of suffering and death which he endured. This is what Sacred Scriptures constantly refer to as the Hour of Jesus: “Before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.” The Paschal Mystery is opened by the Last Supper. Why the Last Supper? Well, it is because the Last Supper was the moment when our Lord was obviously free to do what he did. Hours before the Kiss of Judas, hours before he was chained by the temple guards, hours before he was violently tortured by evil men, Jesus ate the Passover supper with his disciples. Long before he was surrounded by enemies, he was surrounded by friends – his disciples. Long before his hands were restrained by heavy chains, he took bread and wine. Long before his body was lacerated by thorns, whips, and nails, he said: This is my body which will be given up for you. Long before his blood flowed from his gaping wounds, he said: This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant, which will be shed for you and for the many, so that sins may be forgiven. It would be hard to believe that Jesus freely laid down his life when we see him surrounded, chained, and tortured by his enemies. That is why before he was physically restrained, he tells us that his Body is given up for us and his Blood is the Blood of the New Covenant which is shed for the forgiveness of our sins. By this, he makes it clear to us that his passion is not simply a violent story of torture and inhumanity. More than this, his passion is a sacrifice – an act of homage, an act of worship which Christ offers his Father. It is a priestly act with which Jesus mediates between God and humanity. In this priestly act, he is able to reconcile us with the Father. He brings about the forgiveness of our sins. Thus, St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.” (1 Cor 11:26) The Eucharist, which the Lord instituted at the Last Supper, is essentially the Death of the Lord not only being remembered and proclaimed but also made present and accessible to those who approach it with faith.

Christ makes this great and saving mystery accessible to us by humbling himself. He who is God humbled himself and assumed our human nature. He further humbled himself by accepting death on the Cross. And as if it were not enough, he humbled himself even further – he made himself lower than man, and even lower than the animals: he became food and drink. He takes bread and makes it his Body. He takes wine and makes it his Blood. He takes off his outer garment to put on one of lower kind. He subjects his Body and Blood, his Soul and his Divinity to the appearance of Bread and Wine. He did this because he was “fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God.” He knew he had so much power that he used it – not to exalt himself but to humble himself: he contained his divinity in his humanity and then contained both his divinity and humanity into bread and wine. He had come from God and he was returning to God. He came from on high and was about to ascend to that height of heights. But before doing this, he uses his power to go to the depths – he goes to the depths of suffering and death; he goes to the depths of hell. In his humility he continues to be who he always is: our Lord and Master. In his humanity he continues to be God. In the Eucharistic species, he continues to be God and Man. Thus, no matter how humble the appearances may be, we bend our knees and bow our heads before this Holy Sacrament because faith makes us see clearly what is apparently hidden from mortal eyes. Tantum ergo Sacramentum veneremur cernui:…praestet fides supplementum sensuum defectui.

Easter Vigil in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite

Exultet

Just want to share pictures of our Easter Vigil in the Extraordinary form of the Roman Rite at the Parish of the Lord of Divine Mercy, Sikatuna Village, Quezon City. Thanks to Jesus Felix Valenzuela, our Cantor, for the wonderful photographs

HOLY WEEK IN THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM OF THE ROMAN RITE

SCHEDULE OF HOLY WEEK CELEBRATIONS

IN THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM OF THE ROMAN RITE

AT THE PARISH OF THE LORD OF DIVINE MERCY,

1 MAAMO STREET, SIKATUNA VILLAGE,

QUEZON CITY, THE PHILIPPINES

March 28, 2010 PALM SUNDAY

1:00 pm Solemn Blessing and Procession of Palms / Mass

March 29, 30, 31, 2010 HOLY MONDAY, TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY

8:30 am Mass

April 1, 2010 MAUNDY THURSDAY

10:00 am Mass of the Last Supper

April 2, 2010 GOOD FRIDAY

10:00 am Celebration of the Lord's Passion

(Mass of Catechumens, Adoration of the Cross, Holy Communion)

April 3, 2010 BLACK SATURDAY

April 4, 2010 EASTER SUNDAY

12:00 midnight Easter Vigil