Witness To Crucifixion

THE CONTINUING NEWS of the Putin invasion of Ukraine,  Russian's support for it (apparently we can forget any dreams of them overthrowing his gangster mob rule), resurgent Republican-fascism, the fondest dream of Putin for us, the "free press" freed to lie and propagandize promoting it, the New York Times doing to Democrats in the mid-terms what it did to Hillary Clinton even as it made a pantomime gesture of endorsing her, the perfidy of Manchin and Sinema in the goddamned Senate, the Republican-fascist Roberts Supreme Court proving what Louis Boudin said about government by judiciary more than any court since the Taney Court, lower courts and alleged prosecutors hampering any attempt to bring Trump and his thugs to justice, the media and the comedians playing their role in that and a hundred other things that could be named has made this one of the most difficult Lent's in my experience.  

Now we're at Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week with evil closing in all around us.   

That's how I'd be going on if I were going to write a post but I think instead, something that might be more worth while is to recommend Sr. Mary McGlone's weekly column on the Sunday Liturgy:

Today, we begin the most solemn, liturgically charged week of the year. When we recite the creed, we bow at the memory of the Incarnation, and this week reminds us that the ultimate effect of the incarnation of Christ is that human nature participates in God.

While that can be said simply, the church’s prayer this week leads us to realize that it happens through a long and difficult process of watching Jesus be stripped of human power so that we can learn something about what divine power is.

Luke, like Matthew and Mark, tells the story of the last week of Jesus’ earthly life as if it were the opening of a theater production with a well-prepared script. We could say that Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem had been in process since the moment described in Luke 9:51 when, shortly after the Transfiguration and the conversation with Moses and Elijah about his “exodus,” Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Now, with carefully chosen vocabulary, Luke tells us that Jesus was “ascending” to Jerusalem.

Before arriving, Jesus sent disciples to a nearby village to bring him a colt whose owner simply accepted the mysterious explanation that “the master” had need of it. The disciples set Jesus on a borrowed beast as if on a pauper’s throne, and Jesus entered the holy city to the chanting of people acclaiming him as the king coming in the name of God. Their singing echoes that of the angels at his birth (Luke 2:14).

Luke’s narrative draws us into a liturgical drama. Preplanned and carried through with obvious references to ancient prophecies, Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem signaled the beginning of the final act of his earthly ministry, the baptism he said he had to undergo (Luke 12:50).

His meal with the disciples, prepared with the same mysterious precision, announced the immanent arrival of the reign of God, the realm where he would eat and drink with them after going through his own Passover.

Luke’s depiction of Jesus’ Passover supper adds to those of Matthew and Mark and even reflects John’s. In Luke, Jesus tells the disciples, “Do this in memory of me,” a phrase only he and Paul put on Jesus’ lips (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). By emphasizing that phrase, Luke teaches that all who share the “supper of the Lord” are called to do what Jesus did: consecrate their lives for one another and for the salvation of the world.

To remind us how challenging it is to share this communion of life with Jesus, Luke tells us that at the very table of the Last Supper the disciples got into an argument about who was the greatest. In response, Luke quotes Jesus as teaching in words what John portrays in gesture when Jesus washed the feet of his disciples: “I am among you as one who serves.”

That becomes the key to interpreting everything we hear in today’s Gospels, from Jesus’ humble and peaceable entry into Jerusalem through his last prayer for others, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

I've probably already given more than I should have, the whole of it is worth reading.

Witnessing the undeserved suffering of People today, in Ukraine, around the world, Nature, the flourishing of evil is going to make Good Friday a lot nearer to our experience than usual.  Covid continuing, the flourishing of lies,  it turns everyday experience into a meditation on the execution of Jesus by the Roman Empire and the local powers who held power by cooperating with it (Luke's account is being read today during Mass) is as fresh as the daily news.  Especially seeing what's happening to The Least Among Us.