Gabriel and the Temple

Gabriel (Angel of the Annunciation), from the Averoldi Polyptych (1520-1522), Titian

Sometimes when I have trouble falling asleep, I pray the Rosary. (That is not a knock on the Rosary; I just find it comforting.) One recent Monday night, I began a mental recitation of the Joyful Mysteries. I only got about half-way through the Visitation before falling asleep, because I had spent quite a long time on the startling details of the first Joyful Mystery, the Annunciation.

This hinge-point of human history, marking the moment when God became one with us, opens with the following words:

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

Lk 1:26-27. I found myself wanting to know more about Gabriel, so I have been “reading up” on him. (Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture notes and essays cited in this post are authored by Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch and found in the Ignatius Study Bible – New Testament (Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition) (Ignatius Press 2010).)

First and foremost, I have learned, all angels work for and belong to Jesus: “Christ is the center of the angelic world. They are his angels[.]” CCC ¶ 331. Furthermore, names in the Bible aren’t casual; they have descriptive power. The name “Gabriel” means “God is strong” (https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2017/09/29/on-archangels-and-the-greatest-miracle/). The prefix “arch” in “archangel” means “high-ranking,” and Gabriel is one of the three archangels of scripture, along with Michael and Raphael. (Although they are “high-ranking,” according to medieval thought, archangels actually rank eighth out of the nine “choirs” of angels, just above our own guardian angels. P. Kreeft, Angels and Demons: What Do We Really Know About Them?, Question 45 (Ignatius Press 1995). If you have access to the excellent FORMED website, this title is available to download.)

What I discovered as I dug deeper leads me to contemplate the connection between Gabriel and the Jerusalem Temple, God’s Old Covenant dwelling place on earth. Gabriel’s divine task seems to be to prepare Israel to worship Jesus, the Messiah, whose body is the new Temple. Jn 2:21; CCC ¶586 (“[Jesus] even identified himself with the Temple by presenting himself as God’s definitive dwelling-place among men.”). This task unfolds in stages and across centuries.

Gabriel and Daniel

Gabriel makes his (named) debut in the apocalyptic book of Daniel, appearing to the prophet to explain a vision (Dn 8:15-25) and again in answer to Daniel’s prayer for the Jewish people (Dn 9:20-27). In the latter, Gabriel reveals that “the desolating abomination” (pagan worship) will for a time replace the sacrifices and offerings in the Jerusalem Temple, as happened during the persecution of the Jews under the Gentile ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes (167-164 B.C.). But the prophecy foreshadows more: the cessation of Temple worship altogether. Gabriel “explains to Daniel events that will accompany the Messiah’s coming[.]” Note to Lk 1:19. Jesus himself cites this passage from Daniel to foretell the destruction of the Temple under the Romans (A.D. 70):

“So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains[.]”

Mt 24:15. This passage, and the entire Olivet Discourse in which it appears (Mt 24-25), also has an eschatological meaning that points to the end of time and Christ’s Parousia. More on this below.

Gabriel and Zechariah

Gabriel’s next appearance is within the Temple itself, as the Old Covenant is about to give way to the New. It takes place on what is possibly the most important day in the life of Zechariah the priest. It fell to him on that day to offer incense within the “Holy Place,” the second most sacred chamber within the Temple, usually a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Lk 1:8-10 & Notes. Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth are advanced in years and childless, but an angel appears to him, standing next to the altar of incense, and announces that they will become the parents of a son and are to name him John (later known as the Baptist, last of the Old Testament prophets and precursor to Christ).

We can’t know what was in Zechariah’s mind at that moment, but let’s just say that, though he is described as “righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly” (Lk 1:6), he . . . doesn’t handle the announcement well. Instead of showing docility and gratitude, he issues a challenge: “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” Lk 1:18. That strikes me as the biblical equivalent of, “Yeah, right – prove it.”

Do angels get peevish? It seems this one did. Zechariah hears in reply:

“I am Gabriel, who stand in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you, and to bring this good news. And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things come to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”

Lk 1:19. Ouch. Thankfully for Zechariah, his speech returned once he obeyed Gabriel and named his son John when the appropriate time came. Lk 1:63.

Gabriel and Mary

Gabriel’s final attestation in scripture is the most glorious: His visit to Mary to announce the coming of Christ. Gabriel’s name is appropriate to his task: He tells her that she will conceive and bear the Messiah by the power of the Holy Spirit. To her question, “How will this be, since I do not know man?” (which we must assume was delivered in a spirit of honest inquiry, not scoffing doubt as with Zechariah), he tells her,

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will
overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called
holy,
the Son of God.”

As further reassurance, he tells her that her once-barren and aged cousin Elizabeth is then in her sixth month of pregnancy (hence, the “sixth month” of verse 26). He adds, underscoring the meaning of his name, “’For with God nothing will be impossible.’” Lk 1:34-36. Nothing! God is strong indeed!

The dwelling place of God, or “Temple,” in this tableau is the Blessed Mother herself. Indeed, the verb Gabriel uses, that God will “overshadow” Mary, “is the same used in the Greek version of Ex 40:35 to describe how Yahweh ‘overshadowed’ the Tabernacle, making it his dwelling place in Israel.” Note to Lk 1:35. (A fuller development of the Lucan theme of Mary as the “Ark of the New Covenant” appears on page 107 of the Ignatius Study Bible.) This beautiful moment marks the last time Gabriel is identified by name in scripture.

Gabriel and the End of Days

Some non-scriptural traditions name Gabriel as the angel who will blow the trumpet to signal Christ’s return at the end of time. Perhaps these traditions flow from his foretelling of the Temple’s destruction and the fact that Jesus cited the warning in his Olivet Discourse. Whatever Gabriel’s future role, here is how the Ignatius Study Bible interprets Jesus’ discourse in the essay, “End of the World?” (p. 50; citations omitted):

With the dawning of the New Covenant, God had to clear away the central symbol of the Old Covenant, the Temple. The Church is God’s new and spiritual Temple, built with the living stones of Christian believers. In this light, the devastation of the Temple and the judgment of Israel in A.D. 70 can be seen as an overture to greater things. That is, the termination of the Old Covenant world prefigures the destruction of the universe, God’s macrotemple, and the judgment of all nations by Christ. Thus, Jesus’ Olivet Discourse is initially fulfilled in the first century as he said. But imbedded in Christ’s words are spiritual truths that point forward to his Second Coming in glory and the end of the visible world.

###

I wonder what Gabriel, who “stands in the presence of God,” understands about our present age. As investigations continue into the burning of the California mission church that bears his name  (https://www.sgvtribune.com/2020/07/12/catholic-leaders-vow-to-rebuild-after-fire-tears-through-san-gabriel-mission/), we might be forgiven for feeling like we are experiencing the “end of the visible world.” I try to focus, however, on being a better “living stone” and Christian believer. That’s about all I can control.

St. Gabriel the Archangel, pray that we may be worthy “temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 6:19) while awaiting Christ’s coming in glory!

“Rhinocéros” and the Hive Mind vs. the Mind of Christ

In 1959, nineteen years after the Nazis marched into Paris – the same amount of time, for example, that now separates us from 9/11 – the Avant-Garde French-Romanian author Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994) published the play Rhinocéros. Because of our current upheaval, this work has been much on my mind lately.

The protagonist Bérenger is a simple office worker, not much given to grand ideas and a bit too fond of drink. His friends, neighbors, and co-workers, on the other hand, are ready and willing to engage in debating the “big ideas,” “logically,” and “scientifically,” from both the right and the left, with clichés and specious reasoning, loudly proclaiming their independence of thought. Yet, one by one, each turns into a rhinoceros, Ionesco’s symbol of groupthink, the hive mind, which renders the individual a brutish, herd-following animal. At the end of Rhinocéros, Bérenger is absolutely alone, the only human not to have succumbed to the herd.

I have a small, personal connection to Ionesco and this play. I had the immense privilege, when I was quite young, of attending a lecture by the playwright. After his remarks, during the Q&A, I asked him why he had left his protagonist all alone at the end of the play. Though this question elicited some titters from the audience, M. Ionesco’s answer was profound and very moving. He said that it mirrored his own experience during the Nazi era, when he watched those around him progressively adopting evil ideologies, leaving him feeling isolated. (The scholar Anne Quinney explores this idea in detail in her article, “Excess and Identity: The Franco-Romanian Ionesco Combats Rhinoceritis.” South Central Review, vol. 24 no. 3, 2007, p. 36-52. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/scr.2007.0044.) https://muse.jhu.edu/article/224549

So many of today’s headlines remind me of Rhinocéros because of the irrationality and arrogance of group-think. For example, after Bérenger has argued with his supercilious friend Jean, who has just stormed off in a huff, he remarks, “He can’t take being contradicted. The smallest objection makes him froth at the mouth.” Or, as Jean says later in the play, as he is gradually transforming into a beast, “Truth be told, I don’t hate people; I’m indifferent to them, or they disgust me, but they had better not get in my way, or I will crush them.”

This attitude is everywhere in our nation, particularly in the policing of speech and expression. The short-hand term for it is “cancel culture.” For example, in 2014 the head of the Mozilla Corporation was forced to step down  — i.e., “cancelled” — after eleven days on the job because it was discovered that six years earlier he had donated to California’s Proposition 8, which would have protected traditional marriage in the state. (It was approved at the ballot box but overturned by a Federal court.) Criticism came both from within the company and virulently from without, in the form of online petitions and pressure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich As for today’s atmosphere of don’t-contradict-me/us-or-you-will-be-crushed, some outlets are keeping a running tally of our “cancel culture” run amok. https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/12/welcome-to-your-new-world-order-a-rundown-of-woke-insanity-amid-the-newest-cultural-revolution/; and https://www.theamericanconservative.com/prufrock/dangerous-ideas-and-our-cancel-culture/ Today’s fever-dream-level fury can cost the jobs of unsuspecting people, apparently at random. https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/sdge-worker-fired-over-alleged-racist-gesture-says-he-was-cracking-knuckles/2347414/ 

The American answer to objectionable speech should be more speech, i.e., a counterargument. The answer is not bullying and suppression. (Such as, for example: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/nbc-news-attempt-to-demonetize-the-federalist-is-illiberal-insanity/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=home; and https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/mob-like-law-students-call-christina-hoff-sommers-a-fascist-shout-her-down. This is just a taste. There are many, many more such examples.) Free speech is endangered by such tactics; but the mob of our time feels emboldened.

Furthermore, it is an understatement to say that to participate in “cancel culture” is incompatible with Christian discipleship. Jesus’ commands to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” and “love your neighbor as yourself,” not to mention “love your enemies,” cannot be squared with the Twitter mob, the petitions to have supposed “wrong-thinkers” fired, and the deplatforming of unpopular writers and speakers.

In his original introduction to the play, Ionesco wrote*:

Rhinocéros is without doubt an anti-Nazi play but it is also, above all, a play against collective hysterias and those epidemics that hide themselves under the cover of reason and ideas but for that reason aren’t any less severe collective maladies for which ideologies are but alibis: if one perceives that History loses all reason, that lies and propaganda serve to mask the contradictions between the facts and the ideologies that push them, if one actually casts a clear eye upon it, that suffices to keep us from succumbing to irrational “reasons,” to senseless reasons, and to escape from all dizziness.

*(Translation, and any translation errors, mine.)

Clear eyes are in terribly short supply.

Human beings are perennially tempted to “run with the herd.” The surest way to escape from the dizziness of the present folly – to escape the hive mind – is to put on the mind of Christ:

Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

Phil 2:5-8. It is very intoxicating to “play God” and attack others, to “froth at the mouth” at the “smallest objection,” when we’re convinced of our own righteousness. To serve others with the humility of Christ is the way out of the morass: “’Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.’” Mt 11:29. By the way, “meekness” is not weakness. It’s power, harnessed and properly-directed toward achieving the good. https://aleteia.org/2017/03/22/do-you-know-what-meek-of-meek-and-humble-of-heart-really-means/ 

Finally, lest we forget the following mob scene:

Pilate called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was perverting the people; and after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him; neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Behold, nothing deserving death has been done by him; I will therefore chastise him and release him.”
But they all cried out together, “Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas [a murderer].” Pilate addressed them once more, desiring to release Jesus; but they shouted out, “Crucify, crucify him!” A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no crime deserving death; I will therefore chastise him and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed.

Lk 23:13-23.

Longing to Receive the Eucharist

We are getting closer to being able to gather together to worship God and receive the Eucharist, an oasis glimpsed on the horizon. 

Technology is truly amazing. Had this pandemic struck a generation ago, we would not have been able to “live stream” our church attendance, and our separation from the Mass would have been that much more complete. Still, even with all of our high-tech access, there is no substitute for Jesus Himself in the Sacraments.

Some commentators fear that many people simply won’t return to Mass once the restrictions are lifted. This fear is not unreasonable. Recent bombshell polls revealed widespread ignorance among self-professed Catholics of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2019/08/new-survey-only-one-third-of-catholics-believe-in-real-presence/  This cuts to the very heart of the Faith.

To view the Sacraments – especially the Eucharist – as mere “symbols” is, I believe, to miss the essential point about who Jesus is in relation to God’s covenant with Israel. He is, in every way, the FULFILLMENT of what came before. (For example, “’Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill'” Mt 5:17; “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to [the disciples on the road to Emmaus] what referred to him in all the scriptures” Lk 24:27.) And, if that is the case, then the actions He commands – “do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24); “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them” (Mt 28:19) – are likewise greater than what prefigured them.

The Eucharist is greater than manna, but manna is a prefiguring type of the Eucharist. Jesus specifically associates Himself with the manna that sustained the Israelites in the wilderness (Ex 16): “‘I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;  this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die.'” Jn 6:48-50. In roughly the year 387, St. Ambrose of Milan explained to his catechumens that the manna was the symbol which pointed forward to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist:

All this took place as a symbol for us. You know now what is more excellent: light is preferable to its shadow, reality to its symbol, the body of the Giver to the manna he gave from heaven.

https://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/media/articles/eucharisttruebodyofchristheavenlymanna/ To consider the Eucharist to be a mere symbol is actually to make it even less than the manna (which, after all, provided much of the Israelites’ daily sustenance).

As with manna, so, too, with the Passover lamb, which God commanded the Israelites to sacrifice and consume every year to commemorate their redemption from Egypt. Ex 12:26-27. Scripture tells us the Eucharist was instituted by Christ at Passover. (Mt 26; Mk 14; Lk 22.) We know Jesus is “the Lamb of God.” Jn 1:36. As Scott Hahn asks, 

But what does this mean to us today? How should we celebrate our Passover? St. Paul gives us a clue: “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us, therefore, celebrate the festival . . . with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor. 5:7-8). Our Passover lamb, then, is unleavened bread. Our festival is the Mass (see 1 Cor 10:15-21; 11:23-32). [ ¶ ] In the clear light of the New Covenant, the Old Covenant sacrifices make sense as preparation for the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our royal high priest in the heavenly sanctuary.

[. . .]

It is not enough that Christ bled and died for our sake. Now we have our part to play. As with the Old Covenant, so with the New. If you want to mark your covenant with God, to seal your covenant with God, to renew your covenant with God, you have to eat the Lamb –the paschal lamb Who is our unleavened bread. It begins to sound familiar. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (Jn 6:54).

Scott Hahn, The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth 25, 26 (Doubleday 1999) (italics in original). No longer simply a commemoration, nor just physical nourishment, the Passover lamb of the New Covenant is Jesus’ gift of His own body and blood, a sharing in His supernatural life.

***

It would be tragic for anyone to walk away from such an astonishing gift.

The following anecdote sums things up well.

Once, in the late 1940s or early 1950s, the author Flannery O’Connor was a guest at a dinner party with the author Mary McCarthy, a former Catholic. O’Connor related the ensuing conversation in a letter to a friend:

Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater [Mary McCarthy] said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the “most portable” person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, “Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest is expendable.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/20417/pdf

The Catechism states (¶ 1392) that the Eucharist “preserves, increases, and renews the life of grace received at Baptism.” Baptism is also more than a symbol, and I will try to delve further into that topic in a later post.

Truth, continued

Yesterday and today, the Mass readings present Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, from the Gospel of John, and the well-known statement of Jesus that “‘unless one is born from above [or “born again”], he cannot see the Kingdom of God.'” Jn 3:3. Catholics understand this exchange, in which Jesus also says that “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:5 (NRSVCE)), to refer to Baptism. (For explanatory notes and citations about this passage’s linkage to Baptism, the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible — New Testament (Ignatius Press 2010) is a good resource.)

It is an understatement to say that “Fundamentalist” Christians do not agree. To be “born again” in Fundamentalist/Evangelical parlance is to have had an experience of a conversion to Christ. Baptism merely confirms that experience; if Baptism is important, it is because Jesus commanded it (see Mt 28:19, for example), making it an “ordinance,” but of itself it effects no change in the one baptized. (Even some “mainline” churches view Baptism as merely symbolic, even if they call it a “sacrament.”) Ex opere operato is definitely not the Fundamentalist way. [https://www.catholic.com/qa/what-does-the-expression-ex-opere-operato-mean. For an interesting discussion of the view of the Reformed tradition’s rejection of the doctrine, see https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2019/01/sacramentism-ex-opere-operato-vs-calvin-37.html]

It just so happens (or, does it? Are there really “coincidences” of this kind?) that as the issue of being “born again” appears in the readings, I have been re-reading David Currie’s Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic (Ignatius Press 2009). Currie’s Fundamentalist/Evangelical pedigree is impeccable: his father was a preacher and both parents taught at various times at Moody Bible Institute. The elder Curries were married by famed Protestant preacher and author A.W. Tozer. Currie was “born again” as a young teen when he publicly professed his faith in Christ and was baptized (as confirmation of his profession). As an adult, he received a degree in philosophy and entered full-time ministry in Chicago (only later to leave ministry for the business world); then he attended Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (“TEDS”). At that time, he began to call himself an “Evangelical,” though there was no discernible change in his theology. Significantly, while at TEDS he studied Greek with a professor who “could be ruthless in his pursuit of what the [Bible] text actually said. God help the student in his class who was sloppy in exegesis. That approach reinforced the direction of my earlier upbringing. The truth mattered.”

The truth was so important to Currie that he found himself compelled to join the Catholic Church at age forty, if not against his will, then certainly against his desires. He admits he was very satisfied with his Evangelical church experience, even giving the one he left before becoming Catholic an “A.” He knew he would lose both friends and support from within his extended family. He wasn’t sure his wife was on board. He had never been to Mass. Why resolve to make the change?

He had long been troubled by aspects of Evangelical theology that didn’t provide adequate answers to his questions or account for troublesome verses of scripture. The Catholic Church had answers and a coherent theology. His pursuit of truth compelled him:

As an Evangelical, I was convinced that truth was objective and knowable. If something was true for one person, then it was absolutely true for all. Truth had an objective character, not merely a subjective one. . . . Now I found the truth breaking into my thinking with such effectiveness that I would never be the same. At the time, I did not want to be a Catholic, but eventually I felt I had to in order to keep my intellectual integrity.

(Emphasis his.) That is tremendously powerful testimony.

As to how he was “born again” in the Church, Currie writes,

I find it more true the longer I am here: I was “born again” as a child to worship with this Church. I would have vehemently denied it at the time, but I was “born again” a Catholic. Since that childhood experience with God, I had been on the hunt for truth. Now I had found it in a totally unexpected place: the Catholic Church.

Currie writes with both clarity and charity. If conversion stories, or the tensions between Protestant and Catholic theology, are of interest to you, I highly recommend this book. (It is available to download via the FORMED platform.)

Gilbert and Joni

I’m still making my way through In Defense of Sanity, a collection of essays by G.K. Chesterton. Today’s essay is “On Being Moved,” wherein the process of moving house, and having his belongings carried away around him as he tries to write, prompts him to meditate on death, deprivation, and gratitude:

In the end the dim beneficent powers will take the cosmos to pieces all round me, as my house is being taken to pieces now. . . . I go back to my writing table; at least I do not exactly go back to it, because they have taken it away, with silent treachery, while I was meditating on death at the window.

His chair remains:

I feel strangely grateful to the noble wooden quadruped on which I sit. Who am I that the children of men should have shaped and carved for me four extra wooden legs besides the two that were given me by the gods? For it is the point of all deprivation that it sharpens the idea of value; and, perhaps, this is, after all, the reason of the riddle of death.

A perfect meditation for these times.

Or, in the words of Joni Mitchell, don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?

 

“Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us”

Today’s Gospel presents one of my favorite scenes in the New Testament: Jesus eavesdropping on – and then “schooling” – two disciples as they walk from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus on Easter Sunday.

Yesterday, we saw the grief of Mary Magdalene as she remained weeping outside the empty tomb, and how she encountered the Risen Christ and was instructed to spread the good news.

We don’t know if the disciples we meet today had heard Mary Magdalene’s specific report, “I have seen the Lord” (Jn 20:18). Luke does tell us that they had heard the women’s claim that the tomb was empty and angels had told them He was risen (which “seemed like nonsense and [the eleven and all the others] did not believe them”(Lk 24:11)), and also that some of Jesus’ followers (Luke specifically names Peter) had confirmed the empty tomb.

Empty tomb or not, these two disciples seem to consider the other claims to be “nonsense.” That is about to change thanks to their own encounter with the Risen Christ:

“Now that very day [Sunday] two of them were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred.” Lk 24:13-14 (footnote omitted).

To a fellow traveler on the road, they confess their disappointment in the crucifixion and death of Jesus, “because we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel[,]” in other words politically, by freeing the Jews from Roman rule. Lk 24:21.

Their fellow traveler is, of course, Jesus Whom they do not recognize. Rather than immediately reveal Himself to them, He instead chides them for their “slow[ness] of heart” (Lk 24:25), and engages in some catechesis: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them what referred to him in all the scriptures.” Lk 24:27.

They still do not recognize Him.

Finally, as night approaches, they invite their companion to stay with them, where, “while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.” Lk 24:30-31.

At last, in this echo of Jesus’ actions at the last supper before His passion – in other words, in the Eucharist – they recognize Him for Who He is.

The two disciples’ reaction to this self-revelation of Christ is interesting. It’s as though they don’t trust what they have just experienced. Once Jesus has “vanished from their sight,” they ask one another, “’Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?’” Lk 24:32.

Even before they received definitive proof of the Resurrection, their hearts “burned” with their new-found understanding of how their scriptures (our “Old Testament”) prepared the way for Christ. They marvel at – and seem to reassure one another with – this fact. Only then do they return to Jerusalem to witness to the Resurrection. Lk 24:33-35.

Jesus treated these disciples gently. He took enough time with them on the road to unveil the prophetic meaning of the Old Testament, and He spent part of the evening with them at table. He must have spent hours with them.

In Life of Christ, Archbishop Fulton Sheen writes,

Mankind is naturally disposed to believe that anything religious must be striking and powerful enough to overwhelm the imagination. Yet this incident on the road to Emmaus revealed that the most powerful truths often appear in the commonplace and trivial incidents of life, such as meeting a fellow traveler on a road.

Furthermore, whereas Mary Magdalene trusted in her experience of Jesus, the two men seemed to require the added intellectual assurance of the scriptures to fully trust that the crucified Jesus really is the Messiah, and that He is risen. And Jesus honored that need.

I appreciate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1999 pastoral letter on Adult Faith Formation is entitled, “Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us” (http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/catechesis/adult-faith-formation/our-hearts.cfm). The bishops take this episode as the model for a new prioritization of adult catechesis:

§ 8 § To be effective ministers of adult faith formation we will first, like Jesus, join people in their daily concerns and walk side by side with them on the pathway of life. We will ask them questions and listen attentively as they speak of their joys, hopes, griefs, and anxieties.

§ 9 § We will share with them the living word of God, which can touch their hearts and minds and unfold the deep meaning of their experience in the light of all that Jesus said and did. We will trust the capacity of prayer and sacrament to open their eyes to the presence and love of Christ. We will invite them to live and share this Good News in the world.

I know that I, like the two disciples, can often be “slow of heart.” I need continued prayer, study, and the sacraments (even if, as now, only in spiritual communion) to stay in “the presence and love of Christ.” And I know He will be as patient with me as He was with them.

The Encounter

On the heels of “Women’s History Month” (every March, by Presidential proclamation), which can sometimes seem like nothing more than a media marketing tool, I am prompted to remember that, although women were of very little legal and societal importance in the ancient world, Jesus treats women with respect and compassion throughout the Gospels. In fact, women are privy to many of the most pivotal moments of His earthly ministry.

Easter is no exception.

The Gospel reading for today’s Mass is the continuation of the scene recounted on Easter, wherein the first person to return to the tomb of Jesus following the crucifixion is a woman, Mary of Magdala. John 20 opens with Mary’s arrival at the tomb on the first day of the week (Sunday) to fulfill the traditional obligation to anoint His body as part of Jewish burial ritual. Mk 16:1; Lk 23:55-56; 24:1. Although she had undoubtedly heard Him speak of “rising on the third day” (Lk 9:22), death, not life, was on her mind that morning.

The Gospel tells us that she reported the empty tomb to Peter and the “other disciple whom Jesus loved,” who both rush to the site to confirm her report. The Easter reading concludes at verse 9, which tells us that the disciples “did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”

Verse 10 (which was not read on Sunday) reveals that “[t]hen the disciples returned home.”

But not Mary. The readings pick up today with Verse 11, “Mary Magdalene stayed outside the tomb weeping.”

Mary of Magdala led a difficult, broken life until she encountered Jesus. The Gospel of Luke tells us that He drove seven demons from her. Thereafter, she accompanied Him as He preached and taught, along with the twelve Apostles and several other women. Lk 8:2. Mary Magdalene accompanied Jesus all the way to the Cross, where, with His mother Mary; Mary, the wife of Clopas; and the beloved disciple, she witnessed His agony and death. Jn 19:25-26.

It was out of her love for Jesus that she stood outside the tomb weeping.

There is a beautiful passage about this scene in the book Life of Christ by (Ven.) Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (Image Books/Doubleday edition 2008). In it Sheen describes the heaviness of soul of Mary Magdalene on that first Easter morning. When she finds the tomb empty, she thinks it has been desecrated and His body laid elsewhere. She tells the man whom she believes to be the gardener that if he will only tell her where Jesus has been laid, she will take Him away (Jn 20:15-16):

Poor Magdalen! Worn from Good Friday, wearied by Holy Saturday, with life dwindled to a shadow and strength weakened to a thread, she would “take Him away.” [Then the “gardener,” who unbeknownst to her is Christ, speaks her name, and she recognizes Him.]

After the mental midnight, there was this dazzle; after hours of hopelessness, this hope; after the search, this discovery; after the loss, this find. Magdalen was prepared only to shed reverential tears over the grave; what she was not prepared for was to see Him walking on the wings of the morning.

Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the Risen Lord changed everything. After revealing Himself to her, Jesus gave her a commission: She was to go forth to share the Good News of the Resurrection with His disciples, whom He now called “brothers”. Jn 20:17.

I long to have Mary’s same love for Jesus, to be renewed and “dazzled” as she was. That love leads to encounter. Will we encounter the Risen Christ in prayer, in his word, and most especially, in the Eucharist? Will we allow that encounter to change everything?

St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Happy Easter!

Christ is risen!
He is risen, indeed!

We have now concluded a very intense season of Lent, so much of which has been beyond our control. Because of COVID-19, we will be celebrating Easter in our homes and not our churches; many people continue to suffer from this virus, many have died, and more are expected to succumb; social and economic hardships continue.

However, we know that the troubles of this life will never have the final say, because Christ is risen from the grave. In the words of Pope St. John Paul II (Angelus, Adelaide, Australia, November 30, 1986):

We do not pretend that life is all beauty. We are aware of darkness and sin, of poverty and pain. But we know Jesus has conquered sin and passed through his own pain to the glory of the Resurrection. And we live in the light of his Paschal Mystery – the mystery of his Death and Resurrection. “We are an Easter People and Alleluia is our song!”.

Wherever you are, may you experience joy and hope in the Risen Christ!