TRIDUUM OF SALVATION.
A Hungarian proverb says: “Every wonder lasts three days.” And a Chinese proverb adds: “Yesterday, today, and tomorrow -- these are the three days of man.”
The mystery of our salvation, like a theatrical scene is
played on three days: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Day. They are
three days that give meaning to the whole Christian life. They are the
mysterious three days of our faith.
On the night of the Maundy Thursday, the Lord gave himself
to his followers under the Eucharistic Bread, the species of his true presence
always active in the Church and the faithful. On Good Friday, in the ultimate
sacrifice of the Cross, the Lord fulfilled all the prophecies that concern him.
He gave his life for the sinners to live. And lastly, on the solemn day of the
Resurrection, he was restored unto life, a sign of our own future Resurrection.
His victory over death preluded our individual and personal victories over sin
that leads us to death, spiritual as well as physical. We are celebrating the
three days of our daily existence, our past as sinners condemned to death, our
present as saved in the blood and the death of the Lord, and our future in
God’s glory, when we will rise unto life with him.
We will, in this meditation of this Triduum recall in mind
the mystery of our faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come
again...
The Paschal Triduum begins with this evening Mass, the
Lord's Supper, which is emphasized on the Good Friday's Celebration, centered
on the Cross, reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil and closes with the
Easter Sunday.
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A. MAUNDY THURSDAY: Christ for our Life: The Bread of Life.
“For 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)
A Portuguese proverb says: “In a breadless home, everyone
complains and nobody is right.” And a British proverb adds: “Bread is the staff
of life, but beer is life itself.”
The Holy Eucharist is the center of tonight's celebration.
In it, the Lord our God, before climbing the wood of the Cross for his singular
and unequal sacrifice, gave himself as the bread for our life, the bread of our
spiritual journey.
“By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the
course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive
meaning. Jesus' passing over to his father by his death and Resurrection, the
new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist,
which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the final Passover of the
Church in the glory of the kingdom. "Do this in memory of me".” CCC
1340. And that is rightly what we do at every Eucharistic celebration, and most
especially tonight, memorial of the Lord’s Supper.
In tonight Eucharistic celebration, another element of
meditation is the rite of the washing of the feet, the act of humility of the
Lord. The Collect of this celebration is itself a beautiful summary of what we
live: we are called by God to participate in this most sacred supper, in which
the only Begotten Son of God, when about to hand himself over to death
entrusted to the Church a sacrifice new for all eternity, the banquet of his
love.
In the first reading, the Eucharist is described as the food
of the journey. Through the Passover meal of the children of Israel in Egypt,
the Lord comes to journey with us in the journeys of our daily existence. He is
the Lamb whose blood saved us from sin and imminent death. In the blood Jesus
will pour on the Cross, we are given a sign, a protection from the plague of
sin.
We are day after day called to participate in the Lord's
sacrifice and become signs of his love for others. As often as we come at mass
and partake of the Eucharistic Bread, Paul tells us, we actualize his
sacrifice, we proclaim his death until he comes again in glory.
The sacrifice of the Lord gets all its meaning when we
understand it as the sacrifice of love and humility. That is what says the
Apostle John in the Gospel. "Having loved his own who were in the world,
he loved them to the end..." This love to the end, the Lord showed it
through the washing of the feet and the Institution of the Eucharist.
We are urged to think of genuine humility as the greatest
act of love. Our first act of humility is to God. Then, when we have humbled
ourselves before God, we can show His love to others by humbling ourselves
before them, esteeming them better, and giving them the best of ourselves. It
is exactly what the Lord did throughout his life. He searched in everything the
will of his Father, and as that will of the Father was to lead him to the
greatest expression of humility through the humiliating death on the cross, he
also humbled himself to wash the feet of his disciples. The Lord then told
them: “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and
‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and
teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have
given you a model to follow so that as I have done for you, you should also
do.”
Humility here becomes a model of life, obedience, and true discipleship. We cannot claim our belongingness to the Lord if we are not able to humble ourselves and wash others' feet, that is, put ourselves at their service. Humility is the sacrament of service, just as the Eucharist is the Sacrament of love. In this Easter Triduum, may we learn from the Lord to love and serve our brothers and sisters the way the Lord loved and served us.
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B. GOOD FRIDAY: Wounded out of Obedience.
“Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not
his mouth…” (Isaiah 53:7)
A Sicilian proverb says: “A wounded head can be treated and
heals, but a wounded heart never heals.” And a Danish proverb adds: “A wound
never heals so well that the scar cannot be seen.”
On this and the following day, by a most ancient tradition,
the Church does not celebrate the Sacraments at all, except for Penance and
Anointing of the Sick. The author of all the Sacraments, their institutor, and the
one we celebrate and receive through the Sacraments is about to die for our
sins. He made himself the expiation victim for sinners to be forgiven and live.
We celebrate today the mercy of God, his greatest love for
us. We journey with the Man of Sorrows, the King of Glory, on the way as the
people of the cross, carrying our crosses with him.
As we can see in the liturgical settings, no songs, no
hymns, no vestments on the altar, no candles... nothing, a sign of the void
that is going to reign, a sign also of our nothingness. We are but sinners.
Nevertheless, God loves us in this nothingness of ours and dies for us.
“It is love "to the end" that confers on Christ's
sacrifice its value as redemption and reparation, as atonement and
satisfaction. He knew and loved us all when he offered his life. Now "the
love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all;
therefore, all have died." No man, not even the holiest, was ever able to
take on himself the sins of all men and offer himself as a sacrifice for all.
the existence in Christ of the divine person of the Son, who at once surpasses
and embraces all human persons, and constitutes himself as the Head of all
mankind, makes possible his redemptive sacrifice for all.” CCC 616
In the first reading, we are brought to meditate on the
fourth song of the Servant of the Lord. Isaiah tells us that our salvation
comes from his wounds. "He was wounded for our transgressions." These
songs of the Suffering Servant are an announcement of the passion, death, and
resurrection of Christ. The author of the letter to the Hebrews sees in that
passion of Christ an act of obedience. He tells us that by suffering and dying
on the Cross, the Lord learned obedience and so became the source of eternal
salvation for us who believe and obey him. If Jesus learned obedience through
suffering, as his disciples, we should also face our daily suffering as a
contribution to his sufferings and obey God's will whatever that may cost.
In the narrative John gives of the Passion of the Lord, we
are given to see how deep were the sufferings he endure obediently for our
salvation. There is no other word that could qualify the event of Good Friday,
if not love. We are celebrating the passionate and sacrificial love of God for
our humanity. And the last word of the Lord, while dying on the Cross expresses
that love: "I am thirsty." The Lord is thorned and tortured by
thirst. He thirsts for seeing our humanity discovering the true meaning of
love, Agape, the selfless love, not Eros. He thirsts that the Kingdom he came
to instore be realized in our hearts and in this world. He thirsts for mankind
to become instruments of peace.
And while everything seems to be accomplished for him, while he seems to have drunk the cup of sorrow and humiliation to the last drop, everything now begins for you and me. By his death, Jesus has opened a new era, a new dawn of life for us, new days in human history. It is the era of the New Covenant of God with our humanity. Now has come the days for us to walk in the footsteps of the Lord, carrying our crosses, loving as we are loved, and patiently enduring love and what it cost while obeying God's will. The Passion of Christ opens the way to our human passion.
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C. HOLY SATURDAY: The Saturday of Glory.
“We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father…”
(Romans 6:4)
A Filipino proverb says: “There’s no glory without
sacrifice.” And a Latin proverb adds: “If glory comes after death, I'm not in a
hurry.”
From the tomb to the throne of glory. From the sorrow to the
great Hallelujah. Tonight, our Savior is victorious over death. New light
springs from the darkness and the sorrowful valleys of this world. The Lord is
Risen, Alleluia.
This night is unique. It is the night of our redemption. The
night of God's recreation. The Catechism stretches on the singularly of this
night saying: “O truly blessed Night, sings the Exsultet of the Easter Vigil,
which alone deserved to know the time and the hour when Christ rose from the
realm of the dead! But no one was an eyewitness to Christ's Resurrection and no
evangelist describes it. No one can say how it came about physically. Still
less was its innermost essence, his passing over to another life, perceptible
to the senses. Although the Resurrection was an historical event that could be
verified by the sign of the empty tomb and by the reality of the apostles'
encounters with the risen Christ, still it remains at the very heart of the
mystery of faith as something that transcends and surpasses history. This is
why the risen Christ does not reveal himself to the world, but to his
disciples, "to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who
are now his witnesses to the people."” CCC 647.
All the readings which are given for our meditation sing
creation, life, recreation, regeneration, and redemption. We have to sing today
our redemption song. We are called to emancipate ourselves from the slavery of
sin, free our minds and life from sin and embrace the righteous life the Lord
inaugurates today...
In this Vigil, the Mother of all Vigils, nine readings are
provided, namely seven from the Old Testament and two from the New... They are
all songs of new life, of new light, of a new dawn... While meditating on these
readings, but also looking back on the events that took place on Good Friday,
the words of this prophetic song of Bob Marley resound more and more in my
heart... Redemption Song. Could we sing it together and think of what we are
living tonight...
“Old pirates, yes, they rob I. Sold I to the merchant ships.
Minutes after they took I, from the bottomless pit. But my hand was made
strong, by the hand of the Almighty. We forward in this generation
triumphantly. Won't you help to sing. These songs of freedom? 'Cause all I ever
have, Redemption songs. Redemption songs.
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but
ourselves can free our minds. Have no fear for atomic energy, 'cause none of
them can stop the time. How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand
aside and look? Ooh! Some say it's just a part of it, we've got to fulfill the
book. Won't you help to sing. These songs of freedom? 'Cause all I ever have,
Redemption songs, Redemption songs, Redemption songs.”
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