Passover

 

The great Jewish holiday of Passover begins tonight. It was, of course to celebrate the Passover that Jesus and his disciples traveled to Jerusalem. Instead of sacrificing the Passover lamb in the Temple, however, Jesus offered himself as the Lamb of God on the Cross. In place of the Passover supper that he and his disciples never got to celebrate, he left us the eucharistic meal which is the central act of the Church's worship.

Passover possibly pre-dated Exodus as an ancient nomadic, pastoral, spring-time sacrifice, celebrated at the end of Nisan 14, on what would have been the brightest night of the month (the full moon). Roland de Vaux considered the possibility that this was the feast that the Israelites sought permission from Pharaoh to go to celebrate in the desert (cf. Exodus 5:1). That permission famously having been denied by Pharaoh, the ritual with its lamb and blood acquired a new meaning as a night of vigil, to bring them out of the land of Egypt ... a vigil to be kept for the Lord by all the Israelites throughout their generations. (Exodus 12:42). 

By Jesus' time, the sacrificial meal of the Passover festival had effectively been united with the  seven-day agricultural feast of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15-21), which originally marked the beginning of the barley harvest. The week-long Unleavened Bread festival was long observed as one of Judaism's three great pilgrimage feasts. The combined Passover and Unleavened Bread feast gathered great crowds - including Jesus and his disciples - in Jerusalem. 

According to the Gospel of John (the Gospel that shows the. most knowledge of Jerusalem and Judaism and that has traditionally set the chronological tone for the Triduum), Jesus and his disciples celebrated a pre-Passover meal together ante diem festem (John 13:1). That meal we remember as the Last Supper, which soon became the ritual basis for the Christian Lord's Supper. According to John, Jesus, the Lamb of God, died late on Passover eve, the "Preparation Day," while the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in the Temple. Having identified Jesus' death with the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb, the New Testament further identifies Jesus with the "first fruits," the sheaf of new grain which was to be ritually waived before the Lord either (interpretations vary) on the day after the first day of the Unleavened Bread or the day after the Sabbath during the feast of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:11). Either way, according to John's chronology, that would have been Sunday, the day Christ the first fruits of those who have died was raised from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20).

With the Roman destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, the prescribed ritual sacrifices could no longer be performed - including the Passover sacrifice, which despite its domestic origins had long before become something to be done in Jerusalem. Accordingly, the Passover was transformed into a domestic family meal which could be celebrated anywhere - a ritual retelling of the Exodus story in a symbolic remembrance of the lost sacrificial meal. The Seder ("order") formatted the ritual into a non-sacrificial festive meal, incorporating a shank bone as a symbolic representation of the missing passover lamb. This is the festival meal which Jews throughout the world will celebrate tonight. 

The Passover seder serves as a joyful commemoration of the exodus from Egypt, a permanent recollection of Jewish liberation and the creation of the nation. At this problematic  juncture in our history, however, as anti-semitism increases worldwide on both ends of the political spectrum, it is also a sobering contemporary reminder of the ongoing challenge which that liberation and national creation entail. In every generation let all look on themselves as having personally come forth from Egypt, proclaims the Passover ritual. It was not only our ancestors, blessed be He, that the Holy One redeemed, but us as well did he redeem along with them. … In every generation they stand up against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their hand.

Holy Week

 

Today's Gospel reading [John 12:1-11], symbolically set six days before the Passover and read today six days before Easter, provides us a unique introduction to Holy Week.

On his way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover festival, Jesus visits his friends in Bethany, Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, his sister Martha, who plays part of the mistress of the house, and their sister Mary, who took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair. Such extravagant display naturally attracted attention and provoked criticism. But, just as Jesus would accept royal kingly honor from the crowds on Palm Sunday, so he accepted this extravagant display from his good friend Mary, giving it a longer-term significance: "Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial."

As we enter this great week - since 1955 it is officially called hebdomada sancta (Holy week), but before that it was known as hebdomada major (the Greater Week) - as we enter this great and. holy week, the Church, like Mary at Bethany, spares no expense. she pulls out all the stops, so to speak, celebrating lavish ceremonies intended to appeal to all our senses, thus to highlight beyond any doubt the importance, the greatness, the. holiness of the events being remembered.

For Holy Week recalls not just some long ago historical occurrence. Just as Jesus died and was buried, so through the Church he invites us to die with him symbolically in the renewal of our own baptismal experience so as to rise with him in his and our eventual resurrection. Then as now, the great and. holy message of this week was not well received by the political powers of the time. Now as then, the great and. holy message of this week again poses a challenge to our world's commitments to power, domination, and control.

Homily for Monday of Holy Week, Saint Paul the Apostle, NY, March 30, 2026.

Palm Sunday

 

33 years ago, on my second day studying in Israel, my former novice director took me to the West Bank village of Aboud for the First Mass of a newly ordained local priest. We all gathered at the village boundary around an arch of palm branches and balloons, and waited there for the new priest’s entry into his hometown. As the procession began and all the villagers started shouting and waving palms in the air, my former novice director said: now you see what Palm Sunday looked like!

 

The Gospel [Matthew 21:1-11] which we read before our own Palm Sunday Procession tells us about Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem for the Passover holiday and his truly triumphal entry – minus the balloons but full of messianic symbolism – into the Holy City.  The rest of the story, which we have just heard [Matthew 26:14 – 27:66], reveals the next phase of that journey – to the cross and to the tomb, the eventually empty tomb of the Risen Christ.

 

All the Gospels agree that Jesus went to Jerusalem to observe the Passover, that ancient sacrificial feast that could only be celebrated in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is 2500 feet about sea level. So, Jesus literally went up to Jerusalem, which is always how that journey is described. Of course, in literally going up to Jerusalem, he was also symbolically going up to ascend his cross.

 

Normally I suppose Jesus probably travelled less obtrusively, but, on this occasion, he deliberately entered Jerusalem as a king coming into his capital, and he made sure his actions could be recognized as such in terms of Old Testament messianic prophecies. Certainly, the pilgrims, who accompanied Jesus and entered the city at the same time he did, sensed this. Hence, their acclamation: Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest.

Revealingly, the Church has since adopted their words of expectation and acclamation. At every Mass, we likewise say, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

 

That should remind us that Palm Sunday is not just some long ago historical occurrence. Just as Jesus entered Jerusalem, so he comes to us again in the eucharistic sacrifice, which recalls his cross and eventual resurrection -  and invites us to hope for ours as well. Then as now, the message of Palm Sunday, the message of Christ the King's royal entry into our world was not well received by the political powers of the time. Now as then, the message of Christ the King's royal entry into our world again poses a challenge to our world's commitments to power, domination, and control.

 

Jesus’ cross constitutes God’s great act of solidarity with us in our human world of day-to-day suffering and our final mortality.

 

On the cross, Jesus confronted the power of evil in the world. Having done so, he invites us this week to accompany him to his eventually empty tomb – because, thanks to the cross of Christ, death no longer has the final word in our world.

 

Homily for Palm Sunday, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, March 29, 2026.

 

78

 

Old men ought to be explorers                                                                                                  

Here and there does not matter                                                                                                    

We must be still and still moving                                                                                                

Into another intensity                                                                                                                

For a further union, a deeper communion                                                                                  

(T.S. Elliot, Four Quartets, "East Coker," V).                                                                            

Birthdays come predictably, on schedule, year after year - until, of course, they simply stop coming.  With each increasing year, the number of birthdays to be celebrated in the future inevitably becomes fewer, which to my mind makes each presently occurring birthday so much more precious, to be cherished that much more.

Today, I celebrate the completion of 78 years on this planet, 78 years of life lived more or less well, more or less interestingly, more or less faithfully and devoutly, a "Boomer" both technically and truly. 

At my age, I suppose, one ought to be profoundly grateful just for having made it thus far - grateful for antibiotics and vaccines and the multitude of modern marvels that have made longer, healthier, and easier lives possible and even probable. Of course, the history of progress has been mixed. I am inclined to agree with Stefan Zweig, who famously wrote in The World of Yesterday, "Never until our time has mankind acted so diabolically, or made such almost divine progress."

That said, I am admittedly of an age when the personal takes precedence over the political. Like so many of my contemporaries, I increasingly feel I cannot do all of the things that I used to do, and I can no longer confidently aspire to have the opportunity to do so many of the other things that I might still wish to do - or that maybe that I would wish I had done but that I never quite got the chance to do. (I often think of that lovely line in the Anglican General Confession: We have left undone those things which we ought to have done.) Health is relative, of course, and lifestyle limitations vary from the extreme to relatively modest, but anyone can safely predict that, at this age, opportunities diminish and choices increasingly narrow, as does whatever confidence one still has in one's future possibilities.

There is a plus side to all that, which is a certain simplicity and the freedom that comes with that. Life is surely simpler when one has less to do. (Unfortunately, it may also be more boring!) It is always better by far to have purpose and remain active. There is, however, certainly some comfort in not having to care anymore about  everything - and certainly not about some things. In a public-facing vocation, one's appearance obviously matters a lot. Things like clothes and style matter much less, however, when one's age automatically makes one both less interesting and less noticed. Simplicity brings with it a certain freedom. How much freedom may inevitably vary from person to person. There is, for example, freedom from the imperious demands of contemporary technology. I have a smartphone, and I use the internet (both probably more than I need to). But age frees me from needing too much more. It frees me in regard to how much technology I am actually required to be mastered by. So I don't do Tic Toc. I don't create videos. I don't keep up with the latest AI innovations. I just don't need to do any of that, which, maybe if I were younger, I might feel much more compulsion to do. In that simpler life, there is some real freedom.

Aging also encourages empathy. In years past, perhaps I might have felt impatience when, for example, a bus was delayed by a handicapped person getting on or off. Of course, I was too well brought up to show any external sign of such selfish feelings, but inwardly I could and did feel impatient at being delayed. Now I not only feel no inner resentment at being delayed, I increasingly don't worry at all about the time it takes to get from place to place!

Unavoidably, of course, aging goes in only one direction. Diminishment goes in only one direction. Everyone inevitably must face the increasing closeness of the end. What one sees and observes on a birthday is the passing of another year. What one feels - and fears - is the inevitable passing of oneself. Who wants to end?  What did the Prophet Isaiah say? We have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind [Isaiah 64:6].

Of course, faith gives life's inevitable end a meaning it wouldn't otherwise have. But it also uniquely injects its own anxieties. What did Isaac Hecker say? There was once a priest who had been very active for God, until at last God gave him a knowledge of the Divine Majesty. After seeing the majesty of God that priest felt very strange and was much humbled, and knew how little a thing he was in comparison with God [Quoted in Walter Elliott, Life of father Hecker (1891)].

When confronted with such sobering considerations, I just fall back on trust in that old medieval axiom, Facienti quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam (To one who does what is in his power, God does not deny grace.)

As for the inevitable regrets about opportunities missed and friendships lost over the years, I find myself also increasingly attracted by the notion of an eternity of mutual forgiveness. There is a famous homily by Saint Fulgentius of Ruspe that we read very year in the Office on the feast of Saint Stephen about the eternal reconciliation between the martyr Stephen and his persecutor Paul,  in which he imagines how  "love fills them both with joy." When one recalls one's many mistakes in life, an eternity of mutual forgiveness seems increasingly appealing!

Equally appealing is the idea that it has all already begun.

As the Jesuit John Lafarge famously observed some six decades ago: "When it's all over and we look back at our old age as we now look back at our earlier life, we may apply these same words [Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! (Luke 24:25).] to ourselves and wonder why it was that we did not see the risen life already operating with us during the hours of darkness or suffering. The moments when that life was most evident were those when we imparted a bit of it, through love, to our neighbor. In those moments, we are joined, as it were, with the countless people in God's Kingdom who are lighting the torch of the resurrection." [The Precious Gift of Old Age (Doubleday, 1963; Sophia Institute Press, 2022] .

Risky Business

War is always a risky business. This is so not just in the obvious, literal sense that war risks the lives of its participants - soldiers and civilians alike. War is risky also in the broader sense that it inevitably disrupts the way things have been so far and are right now - and so renders the future that much more unpredictable. Governments and their militaries routinely make war plans, but war overwhelms routine, releases uncontrollable forces, and results in unpredictable events. 

In 1914 Europeans famously embraced war with an unexpected enthusiasm that in retrospect highlights how ignorant they were of what unexpected and uncontrollable calamities the war would bring. "A quick excursion into the realms of romance, a bold and virile adventure - that was how the ordinary man imagined war in 1914," recalled Stefan Zweig in his famous memoir, The World of Yesterday. After decades of illusory peace, perhaps our early 20th-century predecessors might be forgiven for not knowing what lay ahead, for not recognizing how unpredictably out of control their world had suddenly become. Perhaps. But, if so, what is our excuse? Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq - the most notable and prolonged wars of my lifetime - all unleashed consequences utterly unexpected and uncontrollable.

A lot of serious planning and preparation went into those "forever wars." Public support was sought domestically, and allies and coalitions were pursued internationally. Even so, those wars ended badly for us, in ways no one would have predicted at their outset.

Some wars do end well, of course, and the risks war entails may be necessary and justified. But that is an outcome that can never be taken completely for granted.  Yet, for some inexplicable reason - actually not quite so inexplicable - we tend to act as if we did not know this basic historical fact, and we instead expect to conduct our wars according to plan and to win on schedule. Again, Stefan Zweig's take on the European situation in 1914 appears perennially instructive: "How we all loved our time, a time that carried us forward on its wings; how we all loved Europe. But that overconfident faith in the future, we were sure, would avert madness at the last minute, was also our own fault. We had certainly failed to look at the writing on the wall with enough distrust."

All of which brings us to our present predicament. The constitutional imperative to consult with Congress, the political imperative to persuade public opinion in the nation and earn popular support, the diplomatic imperative to work with allies and create coalitions - none of these guarantee success, as evidenced by the unfortunate outcomes of the "forever wars" of the post-World War II world; but they do impose important restraints, without which the situation becomes even more unpredictable and uncontrollable, which is where we seem to be right now.

Revolutions almost invariably result in something way worse than what was overthrown. The great modern examples are obviously the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. That last revolution produced a spectacularly oppressive society which (like those other revolutions) has destabilized and threatened the region around it. There is nothing good to be said about the Iranian regime, and its diminishment would likely be a great benefit to both the Middle East and the wider world. But not every evil has a ready solution. It has never been clear how to solve the many problems posed by Iran's malice and belligerence without inducing all sorts of unintended problematic consequences for Iran itself, for the region, and for the world. Presumably this is why, for 47 years, the United States has resisted the temptation to attack Iran militarily.

Speaking on foreign policy to the House of Representatives on July 4, 1821, John Quincy Adams famously said that the U.S. "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." That appears to have been a wise policy in regard to Iran these past 47 years, which it might well have been wise to continue. 

Instead - without the constitutionally required congressional consultation (let alone any congressional authorization), and without convincing the country or our allies to support the effort, and ignoring all the lessons of recent experience - the U.S. has once again gone "abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." Iran may - or, more likely, may not - be destroyed. Its power will probably be significantly diminished, which is all to the good. But what else will be destroyed or damaged in the process?

The ripple effect of this conflict on the global oil market is but one tangible example of the damage that has been done. The damage is not just higher energy prices, which. for example, in turn enriches Russia, which further advantages Russia in its aggression against Ukraine, which further threatens the rest of Europe. (One positive lesson we might take from this sobering experience would be to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Experience, however suggests we will not in fact learn that lesson, no matter how obvious it may be.)

Domestically, the war against Iran is also so wildly inconsistent not only with the wishes of most Americans but even those of at least some of the President's core "America First" supporters. Many of them can undoubtedly be counted on to revise their views so as to continue to support the President, but at least some of them seem to recognize how diametrically opposed this policy is to their expectations from the last election and are willing to express their disappointment. Meanwhile, this war further threatens our foreign alliances - already destabilized by whimsical tariffs, gratuitous insults, and the unprecedented threat to attack and annex the territory of a faithful European ally.

Moreover, because wars are such risky activities that easily unleash unexpected and uncontrollable consequences, even were the President to declare victory and turn his attention back to redecorating the White House, the world would remain seriously unsettled. The war itself could continue, for (as has been said) once one goes to war the enemy also gets a vote on its outcome. In any case, our country, our economy, our politics would all also remain unsettled, as they already have been by this risky presidential adventure.

In 1855, Britain's Queen Victoria supposedly warned King Victor Emmanuel II, the founding King of modern Italy, that kings must be sure that their wars are just, for they will have to answer for them.