Allocutio at March 2016 Concilium Meeting by Fr. Bede McGregor, OP

Grace of Holy Week
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Today, Palm Sunday, we begin the celebration of Holy Week, the heart of the liturgical year. As we know the Liturgy is not only about deepening our grasp of Christian ideals and values but is primarily about entering into the reality of Christ and His mysteries: it is about living the mystery of Christ and especially His paschal mystery. Pope Benedict in his retirement gives us a rare interview published last week that explains the essence of our Christian faith and identity. He writes: ‘The Christian faith is not an idea but a life…Faith is a profoundly personal contact with God, which touches me in my inmost being and places me in front of the living God in absolute immediacy in such a way that I can speak with Him, love Him and enter into communion with Him.’ Faith as personal intimacy with the Person of Jesus Christ must be the ultimate spirit of our celebration of Holy Week.

I wish to concentrate briefly on each of the last three days of Holy Week. First let us dwell on the evening of Holy Thursday when Our Lord institutes the Eucharist and the Priesthood. The Eucharist is the symbol and reality of the magnificent generosity of God giving Himself to us in total intimacy and friendship. Let us try and enter into this mystery through the theology of the Eucharist according to St. John in Our Lord’s washing of the feet of his disciples. This is an absolutely staggering image of the reality of God in relationship to us. Jesus says he is among us as one who serves. He gives us Himself totally in an un-bloody manner at the Last Supper, then in a bloody manner on the Cross the next day, and finally he never ceases to offer Himself to us in an un-bloody manner in the Sacrifice of the Mass and Holy Communion. There can only be one response to this infinite giving of God and that is thanksgiving.

There is at least one thing we can say with certainty of Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary: he was a man of the Eucharist. The Eucharist was absolutely central to his life and that of the Legion as he envisioned it. He not only wrote compellingly of the Eucharist in the Handbook and other works but he put into practice what he wrote. In his little booklet written while still in his twenties: ‘Can we be Saints,’ he writes: ‘Foremost in the consideration of our day – and on an eminence apart, like the Cross itself – must stand the daily Mass and daily reception of Holy Communion.’ It would be helpful to get into the spirit of Holy Thursday by reading chapter 8 of the Handbook on, ‘The Legionary and the Eucharist.’ Of course Our Lord not only gave us the Eucharist on Holy Thursday but he also gave us the gift of the priesthood and so it might be helpful to read slowly and prayerfully what the priesthood means to the Legion in Chapter 10 section 4: ‘The Priest and the Legion.’

On Good Friday a gentle silence should mark this day. Yes, we read or listen to the story of the Passion of Christ according to John and we make the Stations of the Cross but we need, I think, just to look at the crucifix and meditate on the truth and reality of just how much God loves us and is prepared to do for us. Pope Francis made a suggestion that on Good Friday we should pick up a crucifix and kiss it reverently and simply say: ‘Thank you Jesus, thank you Lord.’ Yes, Good Friday is a day for deep and sincere thanksgiving to God, to Jesus Christ. However, I think it would be a source of great grace if we began and ended every day by holding a crucifix and saying thanks for what God has shown and done for us on the Cross. It would only take a few seconds, but it would gradually transform our relationship of friendship with Jesus.

Let me conclude this reflection on Good Friday with a quotation from a beautiful book by Cardinal Sarah: ‘God or nothing.’ He says. ‘The physical experience of the Cross is a grace that is absolutely necessary for our growth in the Christian faith and a providential opportunity to conform ourselves to Christ so as to enter into the depths of the ineffable. We understand, therefore, that in piercing the Heart of Jesus, the soldier’s spear revealed a great mystery, for it went further than the Heart of Christ. It revealed God; it passed, so to speak, through the very centre of the Trinity.

‘I thank the missionaries who made me understand that the cross is the centre of the world, the heart of mankind, and the place where our stability is anchored. In fact, there is only one steadfast point in the world to guarantee man’s balance and steadiness. Everything else is moving, changing, ephemeral and uncertain. Only the Cross stands and the world revolves around it. Calvary is the highest point in the world, from which we can see everything with new eyes, the eyes of faith, love and martyrdom: the eyes of Christ.’

Finally, we come to the climax of Holy Week: The Easter Vigil, when we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. If Christ is not risen then everything else that we call to mind in Holy Week is worse than useless. But Christ is risen so that despite everything that may seem to be crushingly negative, the fundamental prayer of the Christian is Alleluia. Easter is about the Mystical Body of Christ.
In the Resurrection Christ makes actual his presence among us, with us, in us: ‘I am with you always.’ The limitations of time and space are irrelevant to the Risen Lord so his intimate presence in us constitutes his Mystical Body. This doctrine is central to our Legion spirituality but we will have to discuss it at greater length at another time.

Let me conclude with a quotation from St. Augustine from the Office of Readings of Monday in Holy Week that always makes a deep impression me: ‘Is there anything that the hearts of the faithful may not promise themselves from the grace of God? It was not enough that the only Son of God, coeternal with the Father, should be born as man from man for them – he even died for them at the hands of men, whom he had created.

What God promises us for the future is great, but what we recall as already done for us is much greater. When Christ died for the wicked, where were they or what were they? Who can doubt that he will give the saints his life, since he has already given them his death? Why is human weakness slow to believe that men will one day live with God?

A much more incredible thing has already happened: God died for men.

May Mary, who stood by the Cross and stands by every cross, who participates so intimately and cooperatively in the total work of our Redemption enable us to be open to the great grace of this Holy Week.