A Little of This, A Little of That

Usually celebrated on March 25 (nine months before Christmas), the celebration of this feast was moved to today due to the fact that the 25th was on Easter Tuesday. Pope Paul VI called the Annunciation “a joint feast of Christ and the Blessed Virgin,” for it marks the moment when the Son of God became incarnate in Mary’s womb.

It’s a great day to reflect on Mary’s “yes” to God (Read Lk 1:26-3

We all have the choice to say “yes” or “no” to God - in small things and in large. Continuing with reflection from the Little White Book, we read:

The way it actually plays out is not usually our going head-to-head with God and saying “no.” Rather, it’s probably that we don’t take God into acount in our plans.

God, what is it you want me to do…in this situation…or as I lay out my plans for the next stage of my life?

Oh, and BTW, I think I finally see a light at the end of this tunnel of sickness! I’m still very congested but feel much better today, and boy, do I have a lot of catching up on things to do

Yes, it’s Friday - am I thankful? Well…I am thankful that it means my husband will be home for the weekend. It will be nice to have him around, and I don’t just mean for help with the housework and sick people (including me). I’m not sure he’s excited about being around all of us coughing and sniffling, but we sure appreciate his presence . It’s been a long week, and I didn’t get around to posting all the reflections from the daily gospels like I had hoped. I apologize to my few readers! I sure do hope that by Monday we are back on our feet - I’ve got too much to do to be sick for so long

I will take just the quick moment I have (before I get to catch a catnap?) to post on the gospel of Jn 21:1-14 for today. This is taken from the The Little White Book, which I linked to a few days ago.

The two details to notice in today’s gospel are: 1) location - it takes place on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, the same area where Jesus had miraculously fed the crowd with the loaves and fishes, and 2) recall that at the Last Supper Jesus said to the Apostles: “Who is greater: the one seated at table or the one waiting on him? Yet I am here among you as the one who serves.” That’s exactly what he’s doing now. He cooked their breakfast.

This is the Jesus who died, rose from the dead, and ascended to glory. And here he is, like a mother taking care of her children.

There are times when I especially need to be cared for.

(Like when I’m sick and pregnant, with sick children??? )

May you have a blessed weekend - celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday - spend some quiet time with the Lord.

So a good number of us have picked up a bug in the few days after Easter here. I’m assuming it came from some of the company we had over the weekend. I was feeling fortunate because I hadn’t been sick all winter, but I guess I couldn’t get away scott free! Hopefully, it will not get any worse…

The Easter Lily finally opened yesterday! I absolutely love the smell of lilies - second only to lilacs. It makes me wish I could have fresh flowers in the house all the time. You know, just like the homes I see in my Country Home magazine each month. Somehow a house full of kids and a budget just don’t mix with fresh beautiful bouquets around my home, although there are plenty of fistfuls of dandelions and wildflowers in plastic cups around come summer.

It was sunny this morning when I got up to let the puppy out, and warm…if you can call 31 degrees warm! Instead of seeing this in my front yard, now that’s it’s officially spring -

this is what I get instead:

And to top it off, the NWS has issued a winter snow advisory for Thursday - sigh, how uplifting. At least the dog was cute enough to bring a smile to my face this morning…

I really enjoyed sharing my spiritual reading and reflections for Holy Week last week. Our parish distributed “The Little White Book” for use in the Easter Season, which I’ve been trying to read each day. It is six-minute reflections on the weekday Gospels of Easter 2008, and I thought I’d try to share a few things here and there. During this first week after Easter, the daily gospel passages are taken from all four gospels and describe the different appearances of the Risen Lord. I’ve listed the passages and a brief note that caught my attention while I was reading “The Little White Book”.

Monday, March 24 Mt 28: 8-15 If Jesus wants to meet the disciples in Galilee, why doesn’t he go and tell them himself? Because the Risen Christ acts through others. His appearances were not favors to selected individuals. He manifested himself in order to send the newborn Chruch on its mission. In today’s passage, we see him send Mary Magdalene and the other Mary on a mission.

Tuesday, March 25 Jn 20: 11-18 How can someone who believes in Jesus, meet Jesus and not know it’s Jesus? Well, he wasn’t what she had expected. His risen body was transformed. I wonder if therer are times when the Lord is present to me in a special way and I miss it because it’s not what I expected?

Wednesday, March 26 Lk 24: 13-35 Remember, these two disciples are disciples of Jesus. They walk with him for seven miles, and they don’t realize who he is.

Luke, writing some 50 years after the event, is teaching his community (and us) something crucial. Things aren’t always what they seem. We may think the Lord is absent, but in fact he is present. Truly present. It’s a real presence, not just a memory.

Luke is also teaching us that one of the most powerful experiences of the Risen Lord is the Eucharist. That is where Jesus is specially present - in his words and in the breaking of the bread.

Stay Tuned for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday!
Lk 24: 35-48
Jn 21: 1-14
Mk 16: 9-15

Five birthdays in the family over the course of the week, as well as Easter, called for lots of cake and ice cream to celebrate when the family got together this past weekend.  The girls have taken cake decorating as part of their 4H projects the last two years, and they seem to really enjoy it.  A while back we purchased Creative Cakes by Jill Foster, so the girls looked through it and picked what they wanted to make.  We had one Easter cake and one celebration cake.  I think they did a great job!

  The book’s slogan is “if you can write your name, you can decorate a cake!”  The cake ideas are pretty creative and do-able even for a 11 and 10 year old.  We didn’t have much time, so we purchased cake mixes and the candy from our regular grocery store and ready-made Wilton frosting from the cake decorating section at Michael’s.  I also purchased two reusable plastic rotating cake plates - the girls said it made frosting and decorating so much easier to have the ability to rotate the cake!  The only disadvantage is the cake plate was just a little too large to fit in our cake takers.  They were so pleased with their cakes, they’re already talking about what cakes they want to try next.  Good thing we have lots of birthdays to celebrate in our family!

Today is normally viewed as a day for quiet time and reflection, the blessing of the Easter food, and any preparations for a grand celebration tomorrow. In our house, however, the family schedules have made this day Easter and birthday celebrations with extended family, so I am already feeling the pressure to get everything on my list done by noon. I think I will, and all will be fine. I leave you with a reflection on “He descended into hell” found on p. 381 of To Know Christ Jesus by F.J. Sheed.

Descent into hell sounds an odd way of carrying out the promise Jesus had made to the repentant thief - that he would be with him in paradise that day. But the word “hell” was used in earlier English as the word “inferos” was used in the Latin of the Apostles’ Creed, for everything in the next world that was not heaven. Where, then, did Jesus go in that time when his disciples were mourning him dead? He visited the souls of those who had died in the love of God but must wait until the sacrifice of redemption opened heaven to the fallen human race. Jesus had spoken of their waiting-place as Abraham’s bosom, naming it thus after that one of the great dead who mattered most to the Jews; to the thief he had called it Paradise, because there was no pain but the pain of waiting, and that in the certainty of redemption.

So “the Gospel was preached to the dead” (1 Pt 4:6). They were the first to have contact with the Savior after Calvary.

WE ADORE YOU, O CHRIST, AND PRAISE YOU.
BECAUSE BY YOUR HOLY CROSS YOU REDEEMED THE WORLD.

To begin with the reflection of today, I want to back up to the garden of Gethsemani when Judas showed up with a large crowd to arrest Jesus. F.J. Sheed’s comments in To Know Christ Jesus offered something I never would have noticed.

Judas told those with him that the man he should kiss was the one they should seize. The world he used for “kiss” applied to the somewhat sketchy embrace normal where the kiss is equivalent to a handshake. But the kiss he actually gave the Lord he was betraying was (as Mark and Matthew tell us) the kiss of warmest devotion. One marvels at the nerve of the man who so soon after would be driven by remorse to hang himself.

We see something of this when he presents himself to those who would seize him with the words, “I am he.” So much majesty was in him that “they drew back, and fell to the ground.” In that moment he could have passed through their ranks, as once or twice before. But it was not his will. He let them take him. (p.363-364)

You can read today all four evangelists giving their own account of the trial by Pontius Pilate (Mt 27, Mk 15, Lk 22, Jn1 Here again, as before, we must keep in mind that in these brief summaries, each gospel writer probably omitted a vast amount of information, choosing only to tell us, and in no particular order, what each thought necessary to tell of what was said and done. Sheed points out that the opening question in each of the four accounts, however, sets up for us an understanding of where Pilate was coming from in this whole situation. The question is “Are you the King of the Jews?”

For the Sanhedrin, “Son of God” had been the fatal phrase. For Pilate, Christ had to be shown as a threat to Roman rule. (p.369) If you read in Luke the indictment Caiaphas and the others brought against Him, there are two answers to these accusations that Christ gave that convinces Pilate that there is no reason for his intervention: “My kingdom is not of of this world” and “For this was I born, for this I came into the world, to give testimony to the truth.”

“Truth!” exclaimed the Pilate. “Is that all?” The Roman Empire, especially at its Eastern end, was littered with philosophers and sophists, mystics and mystagogues. The Roman civil service was trained to treat them with a sort of contemptuous tolerance - there might even be something in the stuff they were talking, but nothing that interested practical men, above all nothing that threatened Roman dominion. The Jesus whom they wanted him to kill for them was evidently one of that mystical sort. (p.369)

Sheed goes to point out that Pilate was no fool - he understood the Jewish leaders had their own reasons for wanting Jesus dead. He also knew that they had not the power to accomplish this, but he did. Why didn’t he play along? Enough is known about Pilate that we know he probably knew they were asking him to do their dirty work, and it wasn’t doing the dirty work that was the problem but that he resented it - resented by used as a convenience. It was no secret he disliked the Jews. He had three conflicts with them that we know of - one of which he won, two of which he had to concede and undergo censure from Rome. Pilate knew the Jewish leaders would have no problem reporting him again, and he didn’t like feeling like he was being pushed around. He thought of two loopholes, both of which he tried to avoid the situation, neither of which worked of course. One was an appeal to the crowd and the other a transfer of the whole case to Herod the Tetrarch. Failing these, Pilate was only willing to resist to a point, and he ended up yielding.

We now move forward to the Road to Calvary. As Sheed reflects on Jesus carrying his cross, this pharagraph particularly struck me as meaningful:

His enemies, we realize, saw him only as the victim and knew nothing of the priest. We know, of course, about the priest. But we also are in danger of seeing only the victim, to such a point do his sufferings afflict us. We miss too much of the meaning of passion and death if we do not realize that it was as celebrating priest that Jesus carried the cross, hung on the cross, died on the cross. (p. 375)

The seven things Jesus says in the three hours he hung on the cross, as recorded in the Gospels, are now discussed by Sheed. One of these seven things bears reflecting on, whether Catholic or non-Catholic. Let’s read what Sheed presents.

One third thing he said about others, which does not appear instantly to have to do with redemption, yet most profoundly has. To his mother, who was standing before the cross with John, he said, “Woman, behold your son.” And to John, “Behold your mother.” On the surface it is a purely personal, purely domestic remark. But the surface meaning will not do. If he had merely wanted to arrange for someone to look after his mother once he had left the world, he had had plenty of time to do it in the months before. It was not a sudden idea, come to interupt the offering of his redemptive sacrifice. If he chose to say it at this moment, it was because it belonged to the redemptive process.

John must have wondered what it meant to be given a new mother. So must the mother who bore him. For she was there too…..On Calvary she saw what looked like the end of the road for their king, saw too who were on his right and on his left, and in what posture. Now one of her sons was handed over to be someone else’s. (p. 376)

It was after tasting it that Jesus cried, “It is consummated.” (Jn 19:30). What he had become man to do was now done. Expiation had been made, sufficient and overflowing for the first sin which had made the breach between God and the human race, and all the sins by which the breach had been widened. This was Atonement. Disguised by our pronunciation, the meaning of the word is at-one-ment. God and the human race had been at-two: now, and for ever, they would be at one. Individual men might still separate themselves from God, but no one could separate the race of man.

With his work completed, Jesus let this earthly life pass from him. “Father,” the voice rang out, once more with a quotation from a psalm, “into thy hands I ocmmend my spirit” (31:6). The centurion in charge of the execution squad said, “Indeed this was the Son of God.” (p.37

WE ADORE YOU, O CHRIST, AND PRAISE YOU.
BECAUSE BY YOUR HOLY CROSS YOU REDEEMED THE WORLD.

Could there have ever been a dull moment being a disciple of Jesus? We begin reflection on this Holy Thursday with instructions from Jesus to his disciples to go and “prepare for us the Pasch, that we may eat.” The instructions, as at other times when Jesus spoke, must of again struck them as mysterious. Read Mt 26:18, Mk 14: 12-16, Lk 22: 10-13.

Let us read Sheed’s comments on these instructions and this meal about to take place:

They were to go into the city and meet a man carrying a pitcher of water. We might think the directions lacked precision; but in fact it was usually the women who carried pitchers of water, a man thus diminishing his dignity would be instantly observable. They were to give this man a message from their master: “Where is my guest-chamber, where I may eat the pasch with my disciples?” And Christ told them that the man would show them a large dining room furnished, and there they would make the preparations. It seems clear that the man, though not known to the apostles, was a friend of their master. Since we know that after the ascension the apostles would meet in the house of Mark’s mother, it seems not a fantastic guess that the man with the pitcher was a servant in her house.

The evening came and the thirteen gathered round the table. This meal stands out above all the meals that men have ever eaten together because of the institutuion of the Eucharist, and because at it John shows Christ giving his fullest teaching on the Trinity and on the church as his Mystical Body. But it is memorable also for the cold realism of his vision of the church as a society of men, with all their failings thick upon them - yet loved by him. (To Know Christ Jesus by F.J. Sheed, pp.352-353)

Read all four gospel accounts of the last supper: Mt 26: 20-35, Mk 14: 17-31, Lk 22: 14-38, Jn 13-17. Remember these things as you read: 1) not one of the accounts sets out to tell everything that happened (each selects a handful of things from the great number of things said and done that specially concern him as a writer of his own particular book); 2) none of the accounts are any too concerned about the order in which things happened (it is sufficient enough to them, as it should be for us, that Christ did and said these things); and 3) in Lk 22:15-16, Jesus mentions that word “kingdom” again - the word that always touched a nerve in the apostles and would have immediately commanded their attention (Their impatient expectation of the kingdom’s establishment had become an obsession. (ibid p. 353)).

Sheed takes time at this point to address the fact that Luke indicates in his account that there was “strife among them which of them was to be accounted the greatest.” On the subject of greatness in the kingdom, Sheed remarks on the following:

“Satan,” he told them, “has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat” - run them through his fingers, leaving the winds of false doctrine to scatter them, the most disruptive of winds. Christ’s answer to Satan’s design for their scattering was Simon Peter. “Simon, Simon, I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren” (Lk 22:32). God would guard Peter’s faith, false doctrine would never come through him; Peter’s faith would support theirs.

The question who among them should be the first really was settled now. It never rose again. But Jesus was concerned with a profounder question - not only which of them should be the greatest but in what does greatness in his kingdom consist. He had said it before, now Luke has him saying it again. Greatness was not splendor, not glory in the sight of men. In fact, it was not glory at all. It meant work to be done, a function to be performed necessary for the conduct of the kingdom. The essence of the function was to serve…” (p.354)

I found great comfort and reinforcement in these words - as a Catholic, faithful to the Magisterium, and as a wife and mother, a vocation that consists so much of work to be done and service to be given!

Let’s look as briefly as we can, for this is difficult, on the Eucharist and its relation to this night.

“Judas went out immediately. And it was night.” (Jn 13:30). Jesus seemed to feel that the room was better for his going. There is almost exultation in the words he uttered: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” With the one hating element removed, he could say: “As I have loved you, do you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.”

He could hardly have said that with Judas in the room. Yet how, we wonder, with the immediate future clear in his mond, could he have said it all? Certainly he was in no doubt as to the way the men around him, the men he loved, were so soon to behave. As they were leaving the supper room he would say: “Tonight you will all lose courage over me; for so it has been written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of his flock will be scattered” (Mt 26:31). (p.357)

Of course, anyone familiar with scripture knows that Peter follows this comment by Jesus by saying he surely won’t leave Christ, even if it means death.

But, when the moment came, they all ran as they had been told they would; Peter denied him, as he had been told he would. And these were the men, so clearly known by him in their weakness, to whom he entrusted that very night the sacrament of his own body and blood. We read about it in Matthew, Mark and Luke; and in Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians (11:23-5), the first written account we have. (p.357)

Stop here and read John chapter 6 before continuing. Here in this chapter you will see, a year before in Capernaum, Jesus saying a half dozen times over that unless they ate his flesh and drank his blood they would not have life in them. You will see many of his followers at this point leaving him - thinking him either insane, or if his words did indeed have any meaning to them, it was a monstrous and revolting meaning! Did any of the Twelve go? No, and we are shown Peter giving the answer: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.” This was, for those who stayed, sheer and blind faith. They didn’t know what all of this really meant anymore than any others did, but somehow they figured it just couldn’t be insane or revolting. They must have talked about it amongst themselves, and now, here it was at this Last Supper, an answer.

…He had said in Capernaum that they must eat his flesh: now he gave them bread he had blessed, saying: “Take and eat, this is my body which is given for you.” He had said that they must drink his blood: now he gave them wine he had blessed, saying: “Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins.” So the question HOW was at last answered. It was not monstrous, it was not abominable, but was it sane? Had it ANY meaning?

For them at this first hearing, as for believers ever since, the test of faith lay less in believing that his body was there than in believing that bread was NOT there. Was it possible? Peter, at least, must have had his answer ready, for he had said it a year before: “Thou has the words of eternal life.” If Jesus said it, it was so. But this time there was something further - “Do this in commemoration of me.” What he had done, they must do. They could hardly have been very clear yet what it was that he HAD done, that they must do. (pp. 358-359)

Let us end with Sheed remarking that for most of us, rightly so, the Last Supper primarily signals the institution of the Eucharist; however, there is much other teaching besides. He asks us to read most carefully John chapters 14-17.

Not to have made them wholly ours is to have impoverished ourselves intolerably. Chapter 14 ends “Arise, let us go,” which links with the opening words of chapter 18, “When Jesus had said these things he went forth with his disciples.” There are scholars who think that chapters 15-17 contain teachings given by Jesus at various times and brought together here by the Evangelist. If so, we can only rejoice at the inspiration which moved him thus to assemble them.

In the discourse as he records it, we find the greatest body of teaching Christ ever gave on the Trinity. This was especially to the point here, for two reasons - because the Spirit was soon to be sent, and because the redemption was soon to be accomplished. Neither the sending nor the redeeming would be comprehensible apart from the doctrine of the Trinity. (p. 359)

From the supper room, they came down the hill to the brook Cedron, crossed it, and went up the Mount of Olives to Gethsemani - a half-hour’s walk. The “garden” was a small plantation of olive trees containing an olive-press. Who was the owner? A friend of Jesus’, surely; Jesus would hardly have made the private property of a stranger a frequent sleeping place for himself and the Twelve. (;.361)

It was on the evening of the last Tuesday before Calvary that Jesus, before lying down to sleep on the Mount of Olives, talked so mysteriously of the end of Jerusalem and the end of the world. It may very well be that he was at the end of his own public ministry too. There is no suggestion that he came into the Temple on Wednesday. We get nothing at all about the happenings of Wednesday, except as they concern Judas. Matthew and Mark, indeed, tell the story of the anointing with the precious ointment from the alabaster box, and the protest by Judas so instantly dismissed by his master, immediately before telling of the betrayal which took place on the Wednesday. One imagines that Matthew and Mark put the story here in order to link Judas’s resentment at the public rebuke with his betrayal of Christ, which did take place on the Wednesday. There was indeed a connection between the two, but there had been four days between, to allow the resentment to fester. (from To Know Christ Jesus by F.J. Sheed, pp. 345-346)

Back up to Tuesday evening to reflect on Jesus giving one of his longest and most mysterious discourses. Read Matthew 24 and 25; Mark 13; Luke 21: 5-37. We know at the very least Peter, James, John, and Andrew were present for His words. Sheed’s commentary on this discourse is admittedly sketchy. He follows mainly Matthew’s telling and points out the first forty-four verses of chapter 24 as having two main themes - one, the Destruction of Jerusalem and two, the End of the World, with the coming of Christ linked to one or the other. Jesus follows these themes with the admonition that each of us must be prepared for our own death, the end of our own private and particular world.

There are those who think Jesus was speaking of his coming at the end of the world to judge all mankind. There are those who think he was speaking of his coming to a new level of activity in his kingdom on earth. Perhaps he meant both; the one fundamentally related to the other, the same principles in operation in each. (p.344)

When speaking in relation to the end of our own lives, Jesus relates the parable of the five wise and the five foolish maidens. The point here is one we are all familiar with - we should always be ready for the coming of Christ to us, for we never know when that moment will come. In Mt 9:15, Jesus spoke of himself of the bridegroom, and he does it here again in this parable. To any Jew, what he was claiming was quite unmistakeable - for God himself was Israel’s bridegroom (note Is 54:6) (p.345) There is an urgency for us to be in a state of grace at all times, that we may be capable of banqueting with him at any moment.

It is also interesting to note that in the last sixteen verses of Matthew 25, when Jesus is telling of the Judgement, it is the first time that Jesus speaks of himself as “the king”.

Forward now to Wednesday and the telling of the betrayal. Read Mt 26: 3-13, Mk 14: 1-10, Luke 22: 1-6

What moved Judas to the act which ensured that his name would be known till the world ends? - even enemies of Christ automatically call a traitor “Judas.” “Satan entered into him” (Lk 22:3) - which is consoling, as far as it goes; to see Satan bringing about the death which would be his own destruction is a reminder that he is not omniscient and can make the most startling misjudgments as to his own best interests. Apart from that we have Judas’ resentment at the curt dismissal of his protest; and we have John telling us that he was a thief, who handled - and therefore, one presumes, had mishandled - the small funds of the apostles.

All the same he remains profoundly mysterious…The truth is that there is too much about Judas - the man of Kerioth, the only non-Galilean among the Twelve - that we do not know. So long before, Jesus had seen something in him that has not been shown to us, when he said (Jn 6:71), “I have chosen you Twelve, and one of you is a devil.” (p.346-347)

WE ADORE YOU, O CHRIST, AND PRAISE YOU.
BECAUSE BY YOUR HOLY CROSS YOU HAVE REDEEMED THE WORLD.

So much is contained in the gospels between the retelling of Palm Sunday and the betrayal on the Wednesday before Calvary. We have Jesus teaching in the temple, and the Pharisees, Saducees, and Herodians all putting their questions to Him, all hoping to ensnare Him in one way or another, although they had already decided on his death.

First we have the Sadducees, most concerned with doctrinal points, posing a problem of seven brothers, six of them dying childless, so that all seven had to marry the wife in turn. Whose wife should she be if there really was to be a resurrection? (Read Luke 20: 27-40) The Sadducees based themselves on the Mosaic law and were referring to Deuteronomy 25: 5-10 when they asked this of Jesus.

As for the Herodians, known for their heckling, they were more concerned with ensnaring Jesus in His speech rather than doctrine. They were looking for anything that would allow them to hand Jesus over to the Roman Procurator. (Read Luke 20: 20-26) In this situation, as in others we find Jesus in, a “yes” or “no” answer to the question posed had negative consequences either way. It would seem once again a perfectly planned trap, but of course, Jesus refused the trap and left them marveling at his answer.

The last group, a powerful one, was the chief priests and the scribes, with the elders. They publicly challenged Jesus to tell by what authority he acted as he did. (Read Mt 21: 23-27, Mk 11: 27-33, and Lk 20: 1- Here Jesus presents a problem to these chief priests and scribes. Now they cannot answer “yes” or “no” without each having its consequences, but unlike Jesus, they are unable to wisely answer. “We don’t know” is their answer, which Jesus clearly sees as not simply an evasion but a willful refusal to admit John had been sent by God. Sheed, in To Know Christ Jesus, offers the following commentary:

His own sending was clearer still, for he had worked miracles, as John never did. There was no point in offering light to a blindness so determined.

Then he said the most crushing thing yet: “The publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of heaven before you” - because these outcasts, the moral scum of Israel, the ones who had at first said No, had believed John, while the religious leaders neither believed him nor repented at his urging. Things technically worse than this Christ had said and would say, things that seeemed to them blasphemous, whereas this was not blasphemy. But to place publicans and harlots before them was the ultimate in insult. There was no further insult to go. (p.337)

Now read Luke 20: 9-19, Mark 12: 1-12, and Mt 21: 33-45 Sheeds notes that in this “parable of the wicked husbandmen, he told them that they would kill him.” (p. 337) In the parable just told the vineyard represented God’s chosen people, a regularly used metaphor, or it wouldn’t have to mean more than a literal vineyard. Now vineyard is used again, but this time Jesus leaves no doubt that this time he is referring to Israel. His description of the vineyard is almost a verbal quotation from Isaiah 5. Sheed points out that Jesus’ hearers had read and knew Isaiah 5, and they knew that in the parable they were now hearing, they were the husbandmen, the vinegrowers to whom God had entrusted Israel, and the owner of the vineyard was God.

Jesus told how the owner sent his servants from time to time: the vinegrowers began by beating and otherwise maltreating them, went on to kill them - the Old Testament has prophets slain by the Jews themselves. So the lord of the vineyard said, ” I will send my beloved son; it may be when they see him, they will reverence him.” Him too they killed.

In the fifth chapter, Isaiah gives as fierce an indictment of the leaders of the Chosen People as any that Jesus was ever to utter. (p. 33

Pharisees and Sadducees could read the chapter with reasonable calm - their fathers had sinned and been punished for it, but it was all eight centuries ago. Not so calmly could they listen to the parable. For the carpenter from Nazareth was applying it to themselves - “they knew that he spoke of them.” A like doom, he threatened, awaited the Israel of now, their Israel. Their fathers had slain the prophets. That they did not deny. But Christ was claiming to be greater than the prophets, not God’s messenger but God’s own Son, and he told them to their face that they would slay him too.

Worse, he took two Old Testament prophecies in which especially they gloried, and applied these to himself, not to them. In each word “stone” was the key word. (p.338-339)

(Reference Ps 118:22, the stone which the builders rejected, and Dn 2:34-45, the stone no hands had quarried.) Both of these references had been taken to be their own Israel.

Christ is telling them that it is his new kingdom, against which they themselves will come into conflict to their own undoing, and which will grind to powder those who finally reject it. (p.339)

On this Tuesday night, Jesus again leaves the city as the day ends. Tonight he went to the Mount of Olives where only two nights later, Judas and the Temple Guard would find him.

WE ADORE YOU, O CHRIST, AND PRAISE YOU.
BECAUSE BY YOUR HOLY CROSS YOU HAVE REDEEMED THE WORLD.