Mersey Leven Catholic Parish
Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
Mob: 0417 279 437
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
Mob: 0437 521 257
Postal Address: PO Box 362
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au
Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com
Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.
PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER
Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.
Parish Prayer
Heavenly Father,
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Mondays 7pm Community Room Ulverstone
and calling us to serve as your disciples.
as we use our gifts to serve you.
as we strive to bear witness
Amen.
Our Parish Sacramental Life
Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.
Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.
Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.
Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program
Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests
Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am), Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)
Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass
Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone
Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – Mondays 7pm Community Room Ulverstone
Weekday Masses 9th – 12th April, 2019
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 10:00am Karingal
10:30am Eliza Purton Ulverstone
Friday: 11:00am Mt St Vincent
7:00pm Devonport… Stations of the Cross
7:00pm Ulverstone…Stations of the Cross
Next Weekend
13th & 14th April, 2019
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
Ministry Rosters 13th & 14th April, 2019
10:30am: F Sly, J Tuxworth, T Omogbai-musa
Ulverstone:
Penguin:
Latrobe:
Port Sorell:
Readings this Week:
Fifth Sunday of Lent – Year C
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
Readings Next Week:
Palm Sunday of
the Passion of the Lord – Year C
CONGRATULATIONS
TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE:
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Andrew Kirkpatrick, Rose Kirkpatrick, Pat Mapley, Rita Dawkins, Noel Beha
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 4th – 10th April
May they Rest in Peace
Weekly
Ramblings
Next
week (Tuesday 9th & Wednesday 10th) we will be
celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation with the children of the Parish who
are part of our Sacramental Preparation Program for 2019. This is an important
moment for them and their families – I invite you to join me in Prayer for them
at this special time. The Parish Celebrations of Reconciliation will take place
the following week – see the Holy Week Notice in today’s newsletter.
I
would like to encourage everyone who is wondering what time they will be able
to participate in the 24 hours of prayer beginning on Wednesday 17th
at 6.00pm. We would like to be able to have a good indication of the times that
still need to be covered by early next week. You can access an electronic
signup page by going to this page - https://www.devonportchurches.org.au/24hr-prayer-easter-2019
As
we come towards the end of our Lenten Season I would like to encourage us all
on our journey of being renewed in our relationship with God through prayer,
fasting and almsgiving especially in our support of Project Compassion. Each
week in our newsletter we have been providing information about the work
Caritas is able to assist with through the generosity of Australians during
Lent. We are blessed to have such a focus on our Lenten Journey.
PROJECT COMPASSION –
GIVE LENT 100%
You may remember Salma, who featured in
Project Compassion 2013. At the time she was pregnant with her first child,
sick and terribly frightened. In distress, she sought the help of a midwife
trained by Caritas’ Safe Motherhood Program. Six years on, she’s now a healthy
mother of two strong, happy children. Salma is committed to giving her children
the education they need to provide them with the future she hoped for.
OUR LENTEN LITURGY IN 2019:
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS MEETING: Sacred Heart Church Community Room this
Sunday 7th April. Please
bring food for a shared meal commencing at 6.00pm followed by a meeting at
6.30pm.
EASTER
VIGIL – SACRED HEART CHURCH:
BBQ AND BOOK CLUB:
SACRED HEART CHURCH ROSTERS: Rosters are now being prepared for Sacred Heart Church.
Please let Jo Rodgers (6425:5818/ 0439 064 493)) know as soon as possible if
you are interested in taking on a role within the Church or if you are unable
to continue on the roster.
OUR LADY OF
LOURDES SCHOOL: Our Lady of Lourdes currently have
places available for enrolment in Kinder and Grade 1. Allow your children
or grandchildren to flourish in a learning community where we are
Christ-centred, student-focused with learning for life. Inquiries phone:
64241744 email: olol@catholic.tas.edu.au
Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall,
Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers Thursday 11th April
– Tony Ryan & Alan Luxton.
FOOTY MARGIN
RESULTS: Round 2 (Friday 29th March) Adelaide Crows defeated
Swans by 26 points.
Congratulations to the following winners; Brenda Paul, Jan
Cox, Kath Smith.
You’ve got to be in it to win it!!
The Law Says ... But I Say
This article is taken from the Daily Emails from Fr Richard Rohr OFM and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Today we will continue looking at the way Jesus used the
Scriptures with some specific examples:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, What Do We Do with the Bible?
(CAC Publishing: 2018), 46-49.
What We Haven't Got Right About Sex
This article is taken from the 2019 Archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article here
Several years ago, in the question and answer period after a public lecture, a rather disgruntled young man asked me a question that carried with it a bit of attitude: “You seem to write a lot about sex,” he said, “do you have a particular problem with it?” My lecture had been on God’s mercy and had never mentioned sex so his question obviously had its own agenda. My answer: “I write 52 columns a year and have been doing that for over 30 years. On average, I write one column on sex every second year, so that means I write on sex, on average, every 104 times I write. That’s slightly less than 1% of the time. Do you think that’s excessive?”
I highlight this exchange because I’m quite conscious that whenever a vowed celibate writes about sex this will be problematic for some, on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Be that as it may, by referring here to two insightful quotes by Gary Gutting, I want to suggest that our culture would do well to courageously examine its views on sex to see where our current ethos regarding sex might be not serving us well. Here are the quotes:
Writing in an issue of Commonweal (September 23, 2016), Gutting says: “We do, however, need an ethics of sexuality, and the starting point should be the realization that sex is not ‘fun’. That is, it’s not an enjoyable activity that we can safely detach from things that really matter. Sex isn’t like telling a joke, drinking good wine, or watching a basketball game. It’s not just that sex is more intense; it also taps emotional and moral depths that ordinary pleasures don’t. Core human values such as love, respect, and self-identity are always in play. ‘Casual sex’ is a dangerous illusion. Sex is a problem for us mainly because we conflate it with fun.”
Two years later, in another issue of Commonweal (March 19, 2018), commenting on the moral outrage that sparked the #MeToo movement, he writes: “Our outrage may seems anomalous, particularly in the Hollywood context, because the entertainment industry – along with advertising, the self-help industry, and the ‘enlightened’ intellectual – is a primary source of the widely accepted idea that sex should be liberated from the seriousness of moral strictures and recognized as just another way that modern people can enjoy themselves. … I’m not a cynic, but I do think it’s worth reflecting on the tension between moral outrage over sexual harassment and the ethics of liberated sexuality. The core problem is that this ethics endorses the idea that sex should typically be just another way of having fun. … This ethics is open of course to the idea that sex can also be an expression of deep, committed, monogamous intimacy, but is still sees no problem with sex that begins and ends as just fun.”
Can sex begin and end as just fun? Many within our culture today would say yes. It seems this is what we have evolved to.
In the short space of a half century we’ve witnessed a number of paradigm shifts in how our culture valuates sex morally. Until the 1950s, our dominant sexual ethos tied sex to both marriage and having children. Sex was considered moral when it was shared inside of a marriage and was open to conception. The 1960s excised the part about sex being tied to having children as birth control became acceptable within the culture. But sex still needed to be within a marriage. Pre-marital and extra-marital sex, though prevalent, were still not seen as morally acceptable.
The 70s and 80s changed that. Our culture came to accept sex outside of marriage, providing it was consensual and loving. Sex, in effect, became an extension of dating. Today’s generation was born and raised inside that ethos. Finally the 1990s and the new millennium brought still a more radical shift, namely, “hook-up” sex, sex where soul, emotion, and commitment, are deliberately excluded from the relationship. For many people today, sex can be understood as purely recreational – and still moral – purely for fun.
What’s to be said about this? Can sex be purely for fun? My answer is the same as Gutting’s. Sex purely for fun doesn’t work because, try as might, we cannot extricate sex from soul.
In the end, sex just for fun is not fun – except in fantasy, in ideology divorced from reality, and in naive novels and movies. For the sensitive, it invariably brings heartache, and to the insensitive it invariably brings hard-heartedness. To everyone it brings sexual exploitation. Most seriously, it leads to a certain loss of soul. When soulfulness is not given its rightful place within sexuality, worse still when it is deliberately excluded, we end up selling ourselves short, not properly honoring ourselves or others, and at the end of the day this results in neither happiness within ourselves nor proper respect of others.
Soul is a commodity worth protecting, particularly in sex.
Every Member A Minister
This article is taken from the weekly blog written by Fr Michael White - Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timonium, Maryland. You can find the blog here
God has prepared good works for us to do in advance, works that he is counting on us to do, that will remain undone if we fail to do them. And one of the principle places he wants us to serve in our church family: we call it ministry.
In last Sunday’s Second Reading St. Paul writes:
Whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. All of this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation. –2 Corinthians 5:18
We are made new in Christ. God has reconciled us to himself through the Cross. On the Cross he is the suffering servant described in Isaiah. When we serve we are acting like Christ, and becoming more like him. God gives us the ministry of reconciliation. What does that mean?
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting our trespasses against us but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. –2 Corinthians 5:19
As Christ followers God entrusts to us his message of reconciliation. A message that gets communicated effectively through ministry. The ministry of reconciliation means that our service is a deliberate reflection of Christ’s service on the Cross.
It means because we have been redeemed and come to know the truth of our redemption we have a job to do here, in our church family so that others can come to know that truth too.
To keep it simple we have only 5 ministries in which all our member ministers serve: Children’s, Students, Hospitality, Member Care and Operations.
Obviously we could hardly do even a small portion of what we do here without our member ministers. They are the very lifeblood of the parish. But it is not just about accomplishing tasks. All our ministries, parking ministers, greeters, the host team, ops, tech ministers, kids and student ministers, café, member care, and so many others, are all about the ministry of reconciliation.
Our goal is every member a minister….every member from 5th grade up a minister.
Honestly, we’re not quite there yet…but maybe you can help us get there
The Passion According to Luke
This article is taken from the thinkingfaith.org website. You can find the original article here
Weekday Masses 9th – 12th April, 2019
Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: 9:30am Latrobe
Thursday: 10:00am Karingal
10:30am Eliza Purton Ulverstone
Friday: 11:00am Mt St Vincent
7:00pm Devonport… Stations of the Cross
7:00pm Ulverstone…Stations of the Cross
7:00pm Ulverstone…Stations of the Cross
Next Weekend
13th & 14th April, 2019
Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Penguin
6:00pm
Devonport
Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port
Sorell
9:00am Ulverstone
10:30am Devonport
11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe
Ministry Rosters 13th & 14th April, 2019
Devonport:
Readers Vigil: A McIntyre, M Williams, C Kiely-Hoye
10:30am: F Sly, J Tuxworth, T Omogbai-musa
10:30am: F Sly, J Tuxworth, T Omogbai-musa
Ministers of Communion:
Vigil: B, B & B Windebank, T Bird, R
Baker
10:30am: S Riley, M Sherriff, R Beaton, D
& M Barrientos
Cleaners: 12th April: B Paul, D
Atkins, V Riley 19th April: M & R Youd
Piety Shop: 13th April:
L Murfet 14th April: D French
Ulverstone:
Reader/s: A & F Pisano Ministers of Communion: M Mott, W Bajzelj, J Jones, T Leary
Cleaners: M Mott Flowers: M Swain Hospitality: M & K McKenzie
Penguin:
Greeters G Hills-Eade, B Eade Commentator:
Y Downes Readers:
J Garnsey, A
Landers
Ministers of
Communion: M
Hiscutt, J Barker Liturgy: Sulphur Creek J
Setting Up: T Clayton Care of Church: G Hills-Eade, T Clayton
Latrobe:
Reader: M Chan Minister of
Communion: I
Campbell Procession of Gifts: Parishioner
Port Sorell:
Readers: G Gigliotti, G Duff Ministers of Communion: L Post Cleaners: C & J Howard
Readings this Week:
Fifth Sunday of Lent – Year C
First Reading: Isaiah 43:16-21
Second Reading: Philippians 3:8-14
Gospel: John 8:1-11
PREGO REFLECTION ON THE GOSPEL:
As I come to my time of prayer, maybe in my favourite
place, or wherever I am able to give a few moments to the Lord, I consider what
mood I am in. What am I hoping for today? I then read the familiar story a few
times, and put the text aside. I spend some time recalling it in as much detail
as I can ... the people, their actions, their words, their looks. Is there some
element of the story I find strange or surprising? If so, I tell the Lord about
it and ask him to enlighten me. Perhaps I find myself focusing on the woman. I
reflect on how she must have felt as the story unfolded. What are my feelings
towards her today? There may have been times in my life when I have been the
accuser ... perhaps self-righteous or condemning? With hindsight and the help
of the Lord, how would I act now? I ponder, and share what is in my heart with
the Lord, trusting that he will hear me and guide me. Maybe I have come across
a similar situation ... perhaps someone in trouble with the law or hounded by
the media, who was able to change completely and become once again a valued
member of society. Who or what caused them to change? I give thanks for them
and those who helped them.
Eventually, I conclude my prayer. Slowly, I make a grateful
sign of the cross.
Readings Next Week:
Palm Sunday of
the Passion of the Lord – Year C
First Reading: Isaiah 50: 4-7
Second
Reading: Philippians 2: 6-11
Gospel: Luke
22:14 – 23:56
CONGRATULATIONS
TO THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE:
Terry & Bev
Brakey on the occasion of their 66th Wedding Anniversary, celebrated 3rd April
Zillah Jones
celebrating 90 years next Wednesday 10th April.
May God bless you
all with love, joy and happiness.
Your prayers
are asked for the sick:
Fred Heazlewood, Thomas & Frances McGeown, Charlotte Milic, Jason Carr, John Kelly, Uleen Castles, Pam
Shepheard, David Cole, Rose Stanley & ….
Let us pray for those who have died recently:
Andrew Kirkpatrick, Rose Kirkpatrick, Pat Mapley, Rita Dawkins, Noel Beha
Andrew Kirkpatrick, Rose Kirkpatrick, Pat Mapley, Rita Dawkins, Noel Beha
Let us pray
for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 4th – 10th April
Meredith McCormack, Annie McCulloch, Lloyd Goss, George Archer, Fr Joseph Howe, Jenny Deegan, Vera Speers, Betty
Weeks, James Hannavy, Bob Mahony, John Roach
May they Rest in Peace
Weekly
Ramblings
Sadly
the Church in Tasmania has been in the news again this week with a rather sad
situation that developed in the Meander Valley parish. As is the truth in every
case there is much more to the situation than can be explained here but I can
assure you that (as a member of the College of Consultors – a body of Priests
assisting the Archbishop) every effort was made to ensure that every effort was
made to find a peaceful and equitable resolution to a difficult situation.
Anyone who has access to the Archdiocesan FaceBook page you can read the
statement from the Archbishop there otherwise there is a copy of the statement
on the Noticeboard today.
Next
week (Tuesday 9th & Wednesday 10th) we will be
celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation with the children of the Parish who
are part of our Sacramental Preparation Program for 2019. This is an important
moment for them and their families – I invite you to join me in Prayer for them
at this special time. The Parish Celebrations of Reconciliation will take place
the following week – see the Holy Week Notice in today’s newsletter.
I
would like to encourage everyone who is wondering what time they will be able
to participate in the 24 hours of prayer beginning on Wednesday 17th
at 6.00pm. We would like to be able to have a good indication of the times that
still need to be covered by early next week. You can access an electronic
signup page by going to this page - https://www.devonportchurches.org.au/24hr-prayer-easter-2019
As
we come towards the end of our Lenten Season I would like to encourage us all
on our journey of being renewed in our relationship with God through prayer,
fasting and almsgiving especially in our support of Project Compassion. Each
week in our newsletter we have been providing information about the work
Caritas is able to assist with through the generosity of Australians during
Lent. We are blessed to have such a focus on our Lenten Journey.
Please take care
PROJECT COMPASSION –
GIVE LENT 100%
LIVES CHANGE WHEN WE ALL GIVE 100%
You may remember Salma, who featured in
Project Compassion 2013. At the time she was pregnant with her first child,
sick and terribly frightened. In distress, she sought the help of a midwife
trained by Caritas’ Safe Motherhood Program. Six years on, she’s now a healthy
mother of two strong, happy children. Salma is committed to giving her children
the education they need to provide them with the future she hoped for.
Please donate to Project Compassion and
help reduce infant mortality rates in countries like Bangladesh and provide
hope to pregnant women in remote communities for happy and healthy families.
OUR LENTEN LITURGY IN 2019:
Our words, actions and music in the liturgy lead us ever
deeper into the paschal mystery this Lent:
After the introduction, Mass begins with the priest
greeting from the rear of the church and then proceeds while Kyrie Eleison or Lord have mercy is sung. On each of the Sundays of Lent, the Rite
of Sprinkling (Asperges) will take place during the singing of the Kyrie. The name ‘Asperges’ comes from
the first word in the 9th verse of Psalm
51
in the Latin
translation, the Vulgate.
By having moments of silence before and after the readings
and after the homily RGIRM (2007) 45.
At the breaking of the bread (the Fraction Rite) there will
be a short narrative before intoning the Lamb of God
There is no Gloria or Alleluia verse (replaced by a Gospel
acclamation).
The second collection will be taken up when stickers are
being given to children - not during the reflection hymn.
KNIGHTS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS MEETING: Sacred Heart Church Community Room this
Sunday 7th April. Please
bring food for a shared meal commencing at 6.00pm followed by a meeting at
6.30pm.
EASTER
VIGIL – SACRED HEART CHURCH:
Parishioners are invited to bring
a plate of food to share for supper after the Easter Vigil Mass.
BBQ AND BOOK CLUB:
Are you looking for something for your soul? Join us for
our next book conversation and sharing. We have finished our last book
which was great and we are preparing to continue. Our next author is the
brilliant Ron Rolheiser with his book The Holy Longing, Friday 12th April.
BBQ 6:30pm, Book Club 7:30pm. RSVP to join us and/or to order a book
Michael 0417 540 566 or Grainne 0414 968 731.
SACRED HEART CHURCH ROSTERS: Rosters are now being prepared for Sacred Heart Church.
Please let Jo Rodgers (6425:5818/ 0439 064 493)) know as soon as possible if
you are interested in taking on a role within the Church or if you are unable
to continue on the roster.
OUR LADY OF
LOURDES SCHOOL: Our Lady of Lourdes currently have
places available for enrolment in Kinder and Grade 1. Allow your children
or grandchildren to flourish in a learning community where we are
Christ-centred, student-focused with learning for life. Inquiries phone:
64241744 email: olol@catholic.tas.edu.au
Thursday Nights - OLOL Hall,
Devonport. Eyes down 7.30pm!
Callers Thursday 11th April
– Tony Ryan & Alan Luxton.
FOOTY MARGIN
RESULTS: Round 2 (Friday 29th March) Adelaide Crows defeated
Swans by 26 points.
Congratulations to the following winners; Brenda Paul, Jan
Cox, Kath Smith.
You’ve got to be in it to win it!!
The Law Says ... But I Say
This article is taken from the Daily Emails from Fr Richard Rohr OFM and the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the emails here
Today we will continue looking at the way Jesus used the
Scriptures with some specific examples:
• He openly
disagrees with Scriptures that emphasize non-essentials and “mere human
commandments” that made their way into what are presented as divine
commandments (see Mark 7:1-23 and almost all of Matthew 23).
• He
consistently and openly flouts seemingly sacred taboos like not working on the
Sabbath, not meeting with women, not eating with sinners and non-Jews, not
touching lepers, and purity codes in general. He is shamed and criticized for
ignoring: sacred hand washing (see Luke 11:38, for example); taboos against
touching the dead, unclean people, and unclean foods; and the practice of
stoning women adulterers. Jesus has Jewish common sense and can never be called
a legalist or a “conservative.” In fact, he is accused of being a libertarian
and a non-ascetic, instead of following the strict fasting of John the Baptist
and his disciples (see Matthew 9:14).
• Jesus
reduces the 613 clear biblical commandments down to two: love of God and love
of neighbor (Matthew 22:34-40).
• He
minimizes or even replaces commandments, as when he tells the rich young man
that it is all fine and good that he has obeyed the Ten Commandments, but what
he really needs to do is sell everything and give the money to the poor (see
Mark 10:21).
• He omits
troublesome verses with which he does not agree, as when he drops the final
half verse from the Isaiah scroll when he first reads in the Nazareth synagogue
(Luke 4:18-19). The audience would be familiar with the final line of Isaiah
61:2: “to proclaim a day of vengeance from our God.” Yet Jesus ends earlier
with “proclaims the Lord’s day of favor.” There he goes again, light and easy
with the sacred text! Good Protestants would call that “selectively quoting”
and pious Catholics would call it “cafeteria Catholicism.”
• Jesus
uses Scripture in rather edgy ways to defend people, like when he says that
David went into the temple and took the loaves of offering to feed his troops
(Mark 2:26) or tells the story of the poor man who works on the Sabbath to get
his donkey out of a ditch (Luke 14:5). His general principle seems to be
summarized in his famous line that “the Sabbath was made for humanity, not
humanity for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). This sounds a lot like what many
Christians would today call “mere humanism” or “situation ethics.”
• Jesus
feels free to reinterpret the Law—for example, when he says, six times in a
row, “The Law says . . . but I say” in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew
5:21-48).
Adapted from Richard Rohr, What Do We Do with the Bible?
(CAC Publishing: 2018), 46-49.
What We Haven't Got Right About Sex
This article is taken from the 2019 Archives of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find the original article here
Several years ago, in the question and answer period after a public lecture, a rather disgruntled young man asked me a question that carried with it a bit of attitude: “You seem to write a lot about sex,” he said, “do you have a particular problem with it?” My lecture had been on God’s mercy and had never mentioned sex so his question obviously had its own agenda. My answer: “I write 52 columns a year and have been doing that for over 30 years. On average, I write one column on sex every second year, so that means I write on sex, on average, every 104 times I write. That’s slightly less than 1% of the time. Do you think that’s excessive?”
I highlight this exchange because I’m quite conscious that whenever a vowed celibate writes about sex this will be problematic for some, on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Be that as it may, by referring here to two insightful quotes by Gary Gutting, I want to suggest that our culture would do well to courageously examine its views on sex to see where our current ethos regarding sex might be not serving us well. Here are the quotes:
Writing in an issue of Commonweal (September 23, 2016), Gutting says: “We do, however, need an ethics of sexuality, and the starting point should be the realization that sex is not ‘fun’. That is, it’s not an enjoyable activity that we can safely detach from things that really matter. Sex isn’t like telling a joke, drinking good wine, or watching a basketball game. It’s not just that sex is more intense; it also taps emotional and moral depths that ordinary pleasures don’t. Core human values such as love, respect, and self-identity are always in play. ‘Casual sex’ is a dangerous illusion. Sex is a problem for us mainly because we conflate it with fun.”
Two years later, in another issue of Commonweal (March 19, 2018), commenting on the moral outrage that sparked the #MeToo movement, he writes: “Our outrage may seems anomalous, particularly in the Hollywood context, because the entertainment industry – along with advertising, the self-help industry, and the ‘enlightened’ intellectual – is a primary source of the widely accepted idea that sex should be liberated from the seriousness of moral strictures and recognized as just another way that modern people can enjoy themselves. … I’m not a cynic, but I do think it’s worth reflecting on the tension between moral outrage over sexual harassment and the ethics of liberated sexuality. The core problem is that this ethics endorses the idea that sex should typically be just another way of having fun. … This ethics is open of course to the idea that sex can also be an expression of deep, committed, monogamous intimacy, but is still sees no problem with sex that begins and ends as just fun.”
Can sex begin and end as just fun? Many within our culture today would say yes. It seems this is what we have evolved to.
In the short space of a half century we’ve witnessed a number of paradigm shifts in how our culture valuates sex morally. Until the 1950s, our dominant sexual ethos tied sex to both marriage and having children. Sex was considered moral when it was shared inside of a marriage and was open to conception. The 1960s excised the part about sex being tied to having children as birth control became acceptable within the culture. But sex still needed to be within a marriage. Pre-marital and extra-marital sex, though prevalent, were still not seen as morally acceptable.
The 70s and 80s changed that. Our culture came to accept sex outside of marriage, providing it was consensual and loving. Sex, in effect, became an extension of dating. Today’s generation was born and raised inside that ethos. Finally the 1990s and the new millennium brought still a more radical shift, namely, “hook-up” sex, sex where soul, emotion, and commitment, are deliberately excluded from the relationship. For many people today, sex can be understood as purely recreational – and still moral – purely for fun.
What’s to be said about this? Can sex be purely for fun? My answer is the same as Gutting’s. Sex purely for fun doesn’t work because, try as might, we cannot extricate sex from soul.
In the end, sex just for fun is not fun – except in fantasy, in ideology divorced from reality, and in naive novels and movies. For the sensitive, it invariably brings heartache, and to the insensitive it invariably brings hard-heartedness. To everyone it brings sexual exploitation. Most seriously, it leads to a certain loss of soul. When soulfulness is not given its rightful place within sexuality, worse still when it is deliberately excluded, we end up selling ourselves short, not properly honoring ourselves or others, and at the end of the day this results in neither happiness within ourselves nor proper respect of others.
Soul is a commodity worth protecting, particularly in sex.
Every Member A Minister
This article is taken from the weekly blog written by Fr Michael White - Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timonium, Maryland. You can find the blog here
God has prepared good works for us to do in advance, works that he is counting on us to do, that will remain undone if we fail to do them. And one of the principle places he wants us to serve in our church family: we call it ministry.
In last Sunday’s Second Reading St. Paul writes:
Whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. All of this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation. –2 Corinthians 5:18
We are made new in Christ. God has reconciled us to himself through the Cross. On the Cross he is the suffering servant described in Isaiah. When we serve we are acting like Christ, and becoming more like him. God gives us the ministry of reconciliation. What does that mean?
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting our trespasses against us but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. –2 Corinthians 5:19
As Christ followers God entrusts to us his message of reconciliation. A message that gets communicated effectively through ministry. The ministry of reconciliation means that our service is a deliberate reflection of Christ’s service on the Cross.
It means because we have been redeemed and come to know the truth of our redemption we have a job to do here, in our church family so that others can come to know that truth too.
To keep it simple we have only 5 ministries in which all our member ministers serve: Children’s, Students, Hospitality, Member Care and Operations.
Obviously we could hardly do even a small portion of what we do here without our member ministers. They are the very lifeblood of the parish. But it is not just about accomplishing tasks. All our ministries, parking ministers, greeters, the host team, ops, tech ministers, kids and student ministers, café, member care, and so many others, are all about the ministry of reconciliation.
Our goal is every member a minister….every member from 5th grade up a minister.
Honestly, we’re not quite there yet…but maybe you can help us get there
The Passion According to Luke
This article is taken from the thinkingfaith.org website. You can find the original article here
As we prepare hear Saint Luke’s account of the Passion on Palm Sunday, we are invited to walk with Jesus in the final stages of his journey to the cross. Jack Mahoney SJ looks at the picture that Luke paints for us of Jesus’s arrest, trial and crucifixion. How can this narrative help us to understand that Jesus ‘loved me and gave himself for me’?
Try to imagine yourself as an educated member of the Roman Empire reading Luke’s account of the birth, life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, and at the end asking Luke: ‘If all that you write is true about the character and the behaviour and teaching of this good man who claimed to be a prophet of his god, how do you explain his death as a criminal condemned and crucified by the local Roman authorities?’ We can consider Luke setting himself the task of answering this question as he wrote for Gentiles the concluding section of his gospel, which described the arrest, trial and execution of his divine Master. The Passion According to Saint Luke is the reading for this coming Sunday, the final Sunday of Lent, which is called Palm Sunday and is the beginning of Holy Week in which we are invited to reflect on and pray about the painful death that Our Lord accepted.
Each of the four gospels contains a major concluding section devoted to describing the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus in Jerusalem, in which all follow roughly the same structure and chronology, differing only in minor details. It is thought, in fact, that the gospels all started simply as accounts of the Passion and Death of Jesus written down for the benefit of preachers and adult converts to Christianity, and that these in time were expanded by adding introductory sections to describe the teaching and deeds of Jesus in his public life leading up to his death. All of the gospels begin their Passion section by describing the final triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on what we know as Palm Sunday.
From triumph to tragedy
For Luke, this entry into Jerusalem was the culmination of Jesus’s mission to Israel (Lk 9:51): it was here that he felt, like previous prophets, called to confront the religious leaders of his people, to recall them to a more faithful adherence to the God of their fathers, and to die in the attempt (13:33); and it was from Jerusalem that Luke in his sequel, The Acts of the Apostles, would describe the spread of Christianity throughout the Mediterranean. The Gospel of Mark is followed by the other gospels in describing the triumphant procession of Jesus with his disciples riding in honour from Bethany into Jerusalem, with many people spreading their cloaks and branches of trees on the ground ahead of him. Mark has the crowds acclaim ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor, David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ (Mk 11:1, 7-10). Matthew renders this as ‘Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord [Ps 118:26]. Hosanna in the highest heaven’ (Mt 21:8-9), with no reference to the kingdom of David. Luke, however, has the crowd of disciples and others explicitly refer to Jesus himself as king, changing Ps 118:26 from: ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’ to ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Lk 19:38); while John, probably written last of all, informs us that a great crowd took branches of palm trees (providing us with the origin of the name Palm Sunday), and acclaimed Jesus, shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel’ (Jn 12:12-13).
The picture painted is of large crowds of Passover pilgrims giving an impressive welcome to the capital city to the famous prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. According to Luke, he is being recognised as a king because of all his ‘deeds of power’ (19:37) and is being acclaimed by an enthusiastic throng of people who are loud in their praise, but who will soon be manipulated by their religious leaders to change their cries and call for Jesus’s crucifixion. It is in keeping with Luke’s concentration on the hostility coming from the Pharisees that he has them protest at the acclaim, and demand that Jesus order his disciples to stop (Lk 19:39), presumably referring mainly to the political dynamite in a Roman-occupied territory of the people acclaiming Jesus as their king. But he would not stop them, or said he could not (19:40); and on they went in noisy triumph until Jerusalem came into view. At the sight of the city Jesus wept, aware that it was going to reject him (Lk 13:34) and dreading its tragic destruction by the Romans (Lk 19:41-44). Luke alone tells us of this event in his concern to stress Jesus’s humanity, as he also alone later records Jesus’s sympathy for ‘the daughters of Jerusalem’ who wept at his suffering on the way to Calvary (23:27-31).
For Luke, Jesus’s first act on entering Jerusalem was to proceed to the temple, which from his youth he had known as ‘my Father’s house’ (2:49), and to take possession of it, forcefully driving out from it all the people who were selling things there, and condemning them for turning God’s house of prayer into a bazaar (19:45-6). For the next few days before the Passover, Jesus was to teach in the temple (20:1-21:36), enthralling an audience who got up early each morning to listen to him (21:38); and only fear of whom prevented the chief priests, the scribes and the leaders of the people from getting rid of this troublemaker (19:47-48; 22:2).
As the celebration of Passover drew near, however, Luke informs us that the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to kill Jesus, and that Satan, who we were warned at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry would return to tempt Jesus (4:13), was preparing for his final assault by recruiting Judas Iscariot to betray his master to the chief priests and the temple police (22:2-3). All four gospels describe the Last Supper which Jesus was to share with his close disciples, but we are indebted to Luke for some particular details which only he provides. He recalls, for instance, how Jesus began by informing his apostles how much he had been looking forward to sharing this Passover with them ‘before I suffer’ (22:15).
Establishing the new covenant
Jesus then set about instituting the Eucharist. John does not include this in his account of the Last Supper, but we have four slightly differing versions from Mark, Mathew, Luke and St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11:23-26). In each case we have only a minimal, even skeletal description of the events, possibly partly for reasons of religious discretion; and scholars generally agree that the minor differences to be found show that each version that we possess derives from one of the liturgical traditions of ‘the breaking of the bread’ which were developing independently in the different churches when the gospels were being written down. A comparison of the four accounts shows similarities between Luke’s and Paul’s versions, indicating Luke’s connection with St Paul: both observe that Jesus took the cup of consecration only when supper was finished, and both stress explicitly the blood of Jesus as belonging to the ‘new’ covenant (1 Cor 11:25; Lk 22:20), as well as recording Jesus’s instruction to the apostles to ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ (1 Cor 11:24 and some manuscripts of Lk 22:19). It appears that for Luke, just as the old covenant between God and Israel is about to be replaced by a new one with the new Israel (Jer 31:31), so the annual symbolic celebration of ancient Israel’s liberation, the Passover meal, is now to be replaced for Jesus’s followers by the Eucharist, in which Jesus shares his body and his blood with his followers and enjoins them to keep celebrating it in his memory. Luke does not add, however (nor do Mark or Paul), that the blood of Jesus is to be poured out ‘for the forgiveness of sins.’ This is found only in Matthew’s account (26:28), where it possibly reflects the preoccupation with sin which is to be found in Matthew’s Gospel, and presumably in his Jewish-Christian community (Mt 1:21, contrasted with Lk 1:31 and 2:21). Covenant rather than sacrifice appears to be at the centre of Luke’s Last Supper.
When supper was concluded, Jesus and his disciples retired for the night as usual to the Mount of Olives (22:39), where Jesus, again as usual, devoted himself to prayer to his Father, as we discussed in our reflection on the transfiguration. On this occasion Luke draws our attention to the human apprehension of Jesus as he begs his Father, if he so willed, not to ask Jesus to drink the cup of suffering which he fears is going to be offered him, but concludes that he would accept whatever was his Father’s will (22:41-44). (Here, some manuscripts of Luke add a passage which is greatly disputed: that in the stress of his agony Jesus’s sweat was like drops of blood, but that an angel appeared to him and strengthened him [22:43-44]). Now resolved to accept his death as his Father’s will, Jesus returned to his sleeping disciples and shortly afterwards a ‘crowd’ arrived, comprising the chief priests, the officers of the temple police and the elders (22:52), led by Judas, and they arrested Jesus. Luke follows Mark (14:14:47) in recording the disciples’ weak attempt to resist and the wounding of a slave of the high priest, but only Luke informs us that Jesus healed the wound, rejecting any attempt to prevent his being arrested (22:47-51) and being led to the house of the high priest (22:54).
The complicated chronology of Jesus’s Jewish trial and the false charges introduced against him by the religious leaders are simplified by Luke, compared with Mark (Mk 14:53-64). Luke prefers first to highlight Peter’s threefold desertion of Jesus, of which the impetuous Peter had been forewarned by Jesus at the Last Supper (22:31-34). Luke tells us that the apostles’ leader was forgiven almost immediately as Jesus turned from his accusers to direct a private look at Peter, and straightaway his betrayal was bitterly repented of (22:55-62). Jesus himself was mocked and beaten up by his captors (22:63-5), and the next day, Luke tells us, he was brought formally before the Jewish council, who demanded to know if he was the Messiah. When Jesus agreed that he was the ‘Son of God’ they were satisfied that he merited death in Jewish law. Being aware, however, that only the Romans had the authority to impose the death penalty in occupied territories (Jn 18:32), they led Jesus off to the Roman authorities in the person of Pontius Pilate, determined to have him found guilty of a capital charge and be put to death (22: 66-23:1).
As mentioned previously, Luke’s Gospel was written to commend faith in Jesus to Gentile and Roman readers and it is understandable that it gives considerable attention to the Roman trial of Jesus by Pilate – in contrast with Mark, Matthew and even John – showing that the Roman procurator tried on no fewer than three occasions to resist the Jewish religious establishment and acquit the accused. Jesus’s innocence is highlighted repeatedly by Luke, and the political charges laid against him by the whole assembly before Pilate are obviously contrived, including the charge that he claimed to be a king (23:1-2). We may recall, however, that in Luke the crowds on Palm Sunday did change the psalm to acclaim Jesus as ‘the king who comes in the name of the Lord’, to the political scandal of the Pharisees (19:38-39). Perhaps this gave some credibility to the charge, for it was this allegation that Pilate picked up in asking Jesus if he was the king of the Jews (23:3). Hearing also that Jesus had started his prophetic activities in Galilee, Pilate sent him off to be dealt with by Herod, the ruler of Galilee (3:1), for whom Jesus had little time, referring to him as ‘that fox’ (13:32). In fact, Herod and his thugs could get nothing out of Jesus, and he was returned to Pilate in ridicule (23:6-13).
The Roman governor next attempted to release Jesus by declaring him innocent against the popular swell of rejection (23:13-16) and by offering to extend to him the traditional pardon that was given at Passover time to a convicted criminal; but ‘the chief priests, the leaders and the people’ demanded that Pilate release another criminal, called Barabbas, instead, and have Jesus crucified (23:13-21). Yet once more Pilate protested he could find no basis for the sentence of death and he now proposed to have the accused flogged and released, a common Roman procedure of acquittal. Yet again, however, he could not prevail and he ultimately surrendered to popular pressure: he gave his verdict ‘that their demand should be granted . . . and he handed Jesus over as they wished’ (23:22-25).
Luke leaves out mention of the scourging of Jesus by the Roman soldiers at Pilate’s orders and of his being ridiculed by them with a purple kingly robe and a derisory crown woven of thorn branches, which other gospels mention here (Mk 15:15-20; Mt 27:28-31); and he welcomes the attempt made by the other evangelists to soften the suffering of Jesus by describing how the Romans recruited an innocent bystander, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the cross for him (23:26). It was now, as we saw earlier, that the following crowds included a number of Jerusalem women bewailing the fate of Jesus, but to whom he delivered his advice to be concerned more for what was to happen to them (23:27-31). Again, it is only in Luke’s version of the crucifixion – and not in all the manuscripts – that when Jesus was nailed to the cross, in his concern to forgive his enemies (6:27-28) he prayed: ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’ (23:3), a prayer which Luke would use later as a model in describing the execution of Jesus’s follower, Stephen, by the Jewish leaders (Acts 7:60).
Further evidence of Jesus’s continuing personal concern for others emerges from the encounter with the two criminals who were crucified alongside him: of the derision of the one but the rebuke by the other at his fellow-criminal attacking this man who had done nothing wrong. Then occurs, only in Luke, the famous exchange between the ‘good thief’ and Jesus. In the light of the inscription posted on Jesus’s cross that he was ‘the King of the Jews’ (23:38), the thief asked, possibly in belief but possibly just in sheer good-heartedness: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’; and Jesus, the saviour of humanity at the point of death, responded out of the depth of his love: ‘Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise’ (23:39-43). A final touch we can note in Luke’s description of the death of Jesus is that instead of praying the psalm which appears in Mark and Matthew to express from the cross the feeling of dereliction at being abandoned by God (Ps 22:1) – although it should be noted that the psalm in fact ends on a note of victory (Ps 22:27-31) – Jesus ends his life in peace and fulfilment, commending his spirit trustingly into his Father’s hands (23:46; Ps 31:6; Acts 7:59). Finally it was a Roman centurion, who saw what had taken place, who is invoked as a final witness for Jesus, praising God and saying: ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ (23:47).
‘He loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20)
As the Father would look down from heaven on his crucified son – as depicted in Salvador Dali’s famous, Glasgow-based Christ of Saint John of the Cross– he would see his ‘chosen one’ to whom he had asked everyone to listen (9:35; Is 42:1), a man who lived a life of total integrity and faithfulness in devoting himself to recalling Israel to God and introducing God’s kingship. It could not end there, as Luke was well aware and as he reported Jesus himself prophesying more than once, to the bewilderment of his disciples (9:22; 18:31-34). Everyone connected with Jesus, Luke reports, stunned that all this could have happened, ‘stood at a distance, watching these things’ (23:49).
Believers who follow the account of the death of Jesus are invited by the Church to share his thoughts and feelings on Good Friday, not only the humiliation and the painful conditions to which he was subjected and under which he suffered, but also his strong persisting faith in his Father’s love and support throughout all his sufferings. There are many thoughts that can occur to each of us in the intimacy of our life with God, perhaps as we recall how, in Luke, Jesus is invariably shown as so closely concerned with individuals in need. What may emerge above all, perhaps, may be the simple conviction of St Paul that Jesus ‘loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2.20).
In his Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius of Loyola has exercitants, as they meditate on their sins, kneel before a crucifix and ask themselves three searching questions: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What must I do for Christ? I have heard it suggested that this is a typically masculine, action-orientated approach; but I feel that Mary Magdalene, for one, would have had no problem in understanding the questions or what they implied. Ignatius closes with words we may find appropriate ‘Seeing the state Christ is in, nailed to the Cross, let me dwell on such thoughts as present themselves’.
Jack Mahoney SJ is Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Theology in the University of London and author of The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition, Oxford, 1987.
As we prepare hear Saint Luke’s account of the Passion on Palm Sunday, we are invited to walk with Jesus in the final stages of his journey to the cross. Jack Mahoney SJ looks at the picture that Luke paints for us of Jesus’s arrest, trial and crucifixion. How can this narrative help us to understand that Jesus ‘loved me and gave himself for me’?
Try to imagine yourself as an educated member of the Roman Empire reading Luke’s account of the birth, life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, and at the end asking Luke: ‘If all that you write is true about the character and the behaviour and teaching of this good man who claimed to be a prophet of his god, how do you explain his death as a criminal condemned and crucified by the local Roman authorities?’ We can consider Luke setting himself the task of answering this question as he wrote for Gentiles the concluding section of his gospel, which described the arrest, trial and execution of his divine Master. The Passion According to Saint Luke is the reading for this coming Sunday, the final Sunday of Lent, which is called Palm Sunday and is the beginning of Holy Week in which we are invited to reflect on and pray about the painful death that Our Lord accepted.
Each of the four gospels contains a major concluding section devoted to describing the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus in Jerusalem, in which all follow roughly the same structure and chronology, differing only in minor details. It is thought, in fact, that the gospels all started simply as accounts of the Passion and Death of Jesus written down for the benefit of preachers and adult converts to Christianity, and that these in time were expanded by adding introductory sections to describe the teaching and deeds of Jesus in his public life leading up to his death. All of the gospels begin their Passion section by describing the final triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on what we know as Palm Sunday.
From triumph to tragedy
For Luke, this entry into Jerusalem was the culmination of Jesus’s mission to Israel (Lk 9:51): it was here that he felt, like previous prophets, called to confront the religious leaders of his people, to recall them to a more faithful adherence to the God of their fathers, and to die in the attempt (13:33); and it was from Jerusalem that Luke in his sequel, The Acts of the Apostles, would describe the spread of Christianity throughout the Mediterranean. The Gospel of Mark is followed by the other gospels in describing the triumphant procession of Jesus with his disciples riding in honour from Bethany into Jerusalem, with many people spreading their cloaks and branches of trees on the ground ahead of him. Mark has the crowds acclaim ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor, David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ (Mk 11:1, 7-10). Matthew renders this as ‘Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord [Ps 118:26]. Hosanna in the highest heaven’ (Mt 21:8-9), with no reference to the kingdom of David. Luke, however, has the crowd of disciples and others explicitly refer to Jesus himself as king, changing Ps 118:26 from: ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’ to ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord’ (Lk 19:38); while John, probably written last of all, informs us that a great crowd took branches of palm trees (providing us with the origin of the name Palm Sunday), and acclaimed Jesus, shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord – the King of Israel’ (Jn 12:12-13).
The picture painted is of large crowds of Passover pilgrims giving an impressive welcome to the capital city to the famous prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. According to Luke, he is being recognised as a king because of all his ‘deeds of power’ (19:37) and is being acclaimed by an enthusiastic throng of people who are loud in their praise, but who will soon be manipulated by their religious leaders to change their cries and call for Jesus’s crucifixion. It is in keeping with Luke’s concentration on the hostility coming from the Pharisees that he has them protest at the acclaim, and demand that Jesus order his disciples to stop (Lk 19:39), presumably referring mainly to the political dynamite in a Roman-occupied territory of the people acclaiming Jesus as their king. But he would not stop them, or said he could not (19:40); and on they went in noisy triumph until Jerusalem came into view. At the sight of the city Jesus wept, aware that it was going to reject him (Lk 13:34) and dreading its tragic destruction by the Romans (Lk 19:41-44). Luke alone tells us of this event in his concern to stress Jesus’s humanity, as he also alone later records Jesus’s sympathy for ‘the daughters of Jerusalem’ who wept at his suffering on the way to Calvary (23:27-31).
For Luke, Jesus’s first act on entering Jerusalem was to proceed to the temple, which from his youth he had known as ‘my Father’s house’ (2:49), and to take possession of it, forcefully driving out from it all the people who were selling things there, and condemning them for turning God’s house of prayer into a bazaar (19:45-6). For the next few days before the Passover, Jesus was to teach in the temple (20:1-21:36), enthralling an audience who got up early each morning to listen to him (21:38); and only fear of whom prevented the chief priests, the scribes and the leaders of the people from getting rid of this troublemaker (19:47-48; 22:2).
As the celebration of Passover drew near, however, Luke informs us that the chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to kill Jesus, and that Satan, who we were warned at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry would return to tempt Jesus (4:13), was preparing for his final assault by recruiting Judas Iscariot to betray his master to the chief priests and the temple police (22:2-3). All four gospels describe the Last Supper which Jesus was to share with his close disciples, but we are indebted to Luke for some particular details which only he provides. He recalls, for instance, how Jesus began by informing his apostles how much he had been looking forward to sharing this Passover with them ‘before I suffer’ (22:15).
Establishing the new covenant
Jesus then set about instituting the Eucharist. John does not include this in his account of the Last Supper, but we have four slightly differing versions from Mark, Mathew, Luke and St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 11:23-26). In each case we have only a minimal, even skeletal description of the events, possibly partly for reasons of religious discretion; and scholars generally agree that the minor differences to be found show that each version that we possess derives from one of the liturgical traditions of ‘the breaking of the bread’ which were developing independently in the different churches when the gospels were being written down. A comparison of the four accounts shows similarities between Luke’s and Paul’s versions, indicating Luke’s connection with St Paul: both observe that Jesus took the cup of consecration only when supper was finished, and both stress explicitly the blood of Jesus as belonging to the ‘new’ covenant (1 Cor 11:25; Lk 22:20), as well as recording Jesus’s instruction to the apostles to ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ (1 Cor 11:24 and some manuscripts of Lk 22:19). It appears that for Luke, just as the old covenant between God and Israel is about to be replaced by a new one with the new Israel (Jer 31:31), so the annual symbolic celebration of ancient Israel’s liberation, the Passover meal, is now to be replaced for Jesus’s followers by the Eucharist, in which Jesus shares his body and his blood with his followers and enjoins them to keep celebrating it in his memory. Luke does not add, however (nor do Mark or Paul), that the blood of Jesus is to be poured out ‘for the forgiveness of sins.’ This is found only in Matthew’s account (26:28), where it possibly reflects the preoccupation with sin which is to be found in Matthew’s Gospel, and presumably in his Jewish-Christian community (Mt 1:21, contrasted with Lk 1:31 and 2:21). Covenant rather than sacrifice appears to be at the centre of Luke’s Last Supper.
When supper was concluded, Jesus and his disciples retired for the night as usual to the Mount of Olives (22:39), where Jesus, again as usual, devoted himself to prayer to his Father, as we discussed in our reflection on the transfiguration. On this occasion Luke draws our attention to the human apprehension of Jesus as he begs his Father, if he so willed, not to ask Jesus to drink the cup of suffering which he fears is going to be offered him, but concludes that he would accept whatever was his Father’s will (22:41-44). (Here, some manuscripts of Luke add a passage which is greatly disputed: that in the stress of his agony Jesus’s sweat was like drops of blood, but that an angel appeared to him and strengthened him [22:43-44]). Now resolved to accept his death as his Father’s will, Jesus returned to his sleeping disciples and shortly afterwards a ‘crowd’ arrived, comprising the chief priests, the officers of the temple police and the elders (22:52), led by Judas, and they arrested Jesus. Luke follows Mark (14:14:47) in recording the disciples’ weak attempt to resist and the wounding of a slave of the high priest, but only Luke informs us that Jesus healed the wound, rejecting any attempt to prevent his being arrested (22:47-51) and being led to the house of the high priest (22:54).
The complicated chronology of Jesus’s Jewish trial and the false charges introduced against him by the religious leaders are simplified by Luke, compared with Mark (Mk 14:53-64). Luke prefers first to highlight Peter’s threefold desertion of Jesus, of which the impetuous Peter had been forewarned by Jesus at the Last Supper (22:31-34). Luke tells us that the apostles’ leader was forgiven almost immediately as Jesus turned from his accusers to direct a private look at Peter, and straightaway his betrayal was bitterly repented of (22:55-62). Jesus himself was mocked and beaten up by his captors (22:63-5), and the next day, Luke tells us, he was brought formally before the Jewish council, who demanded to know if he was the Messiah. When Jesus agreed that he was the ‘Son of God’ they were satisfied that he merited death in Jewish law. Being aware, however, that only the Romans had the authority to impose the death penalty in occupied territories (Jn 18:32), they led Jesus off to the Roman authorities in the person of Pontius Pilate, determined to have him found guilty of a capital charge and be put to death (22: 66-23:1).
As mentioned previously, Luke’s Gospel was written to commend faith in Jesus to Gentile and Roman readers and it is understandable that it gives considerable attention to the Roman trial of Jesus by Pilate – in contrast with Mark, Matthew and even John – showing that the Roman procurator tried on no fewer than three occasions to resist the Jewish religious establishment and acquit the accused. Jesus’s innocence is highlighted repeatedly by Luke, and the political charges laid against him by the whole assembly before Pilate are obviously contrived, including the charge that he claimed to be a king (23:1-2). We may recall, however, that in Luke the crowds on Palm Sunday did change the psalm to acclaim Jesus as ‘the king who comes in the name of the Lord’, to the political scandal of the Pharisees (19:38-39). Perhaps this gave some credibility to the charge, for it was this allegation that Pilate picked up in asking Jesus if he was the king of the Jews (23:3). Hearing also that Jesus had started his prophetic activities in Galilee, Pilate sent him off to be dealt with by Herod, the ruler of Galilee (3:1), for whom Jesus had little time, referring to him as ‘that fox’ (13:32). In fact, Herod and his thugs could get nothing out of Jesus, and he was returned to Pilate in ridicule (23:6-13).
The Roman governor next attempted to release Jesus by declaring him innocent against the popular swell of rejection (23:13-16) and by offering to extend to him the traditional pardon that was given at Passover time to a convicted criminal; but ‘the chief priests, the leaders and the people’ demanded that Pilate release another criminal, called Barabbas, instead, and have Jesus crucified (23:13-21). Yet once more Pilate protested he could find no basis for the sentence of death and he now proposed to have the accused flogged and released, a common Roman procedure of acquittal. Yet again, however, he could not prevail and he ultimately surrendered to popular pressure: he gave his verdict ‘that their demand should be granted . . . and he handed Jesus over as they wished’ (23:22-25).
Luke leaves out mention of the scourging of Jesus by the Roman soldiers at Pilate’s orders and of his being ridiculed by them with a purple kingly robe and a derisory crown woven of thorn branches, which other gospels mention here (Mk 15:15-20; Mt 27:28-31); and he welcomes the attempt made by the other evangelists to soften the suffering of Jesus by describing how the Romans recruited an innocent bystander, Simon of Cyrene, to carry the cross for him (23:26). It was now, as we saw earlier, that the following crowds included a number of Jerusalem women bewailing the fate of Jesus, but to whom he delivered his advice to be concerned more for what was to happen to them (23:27-31). Again, it is only in Luke’s version of the crucifixion – and not in all the manuscripts – that when Jesus was nailed to the cross, in his concern to forgive his enemies (6:27-28) he prayed: ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’ (23:3), a prayer which Luke would use later as a model in describing the execution of Jesus’s follower, Stephen, by the Jewish leaders (Acts 7:60).
Further evidence of Jesus’s continuing personal concern for others emerges from the encounter with the two criminals who were crucified alongside him: of the derision of the one but the rebuke by the other at his fellow-criminal attacking this man who had done nothing wrong. Then occurs, only in Luke, the famous exchange between the ‘good thief’ and Jesus. In the light of the inscription posted on Jesus’s cross that he was ‘the King of the Jews’ (23:38), the thief asked, possibly in belief but possibly just in sheer good-heartedness: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’; and Jesus, the saviour of humanity at the point of death, responded out of the depth of his love: ‘Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise’ (23:39-43). A final touch we can note in Luke’s description of the death of Jesus is that instead of praying the psalm which appears in Mark and Matthew to express from the cross the feeling of dereliction at being abandoned by God (Ps 22:1) – although it should be noted that the psalm in fact ends on a note of victory (Ps 22:27-31) – Jesus ends his life in peace and fulfilment, commending his spirit trustingly into his Father’s hands (23:46; Ps 31:6; Acts 7:59). Finally it was a Roman centurion, who saw what had taken place, who is invoked as a final witness for Jesus, praising God and saying: ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’ (23:47).
‘He loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20)
As the Father would look down from heaven on his crucified son – as depicted in Salvador Dali’s famous, Glasgow-based Christ of Saint John of the Cross– he would see his ‘chosen one’ to whom he had asked everyone to listen (9:35; Is 42:1), a man who lived a life of total integrity and faithfulness in devoting himself to recalling Israel to God and introducing God’s kingship. It could not end there, as Luke was well aware and as he reported Jesus himself prophesying more than once, to the bewilderment of his disciples (9:22; 18:31-34). Everyone connected with Jesus, Luke reports, stunned that all this could have happened, ‘stood at a distance, watching these things’ (23:49).
Believers who follow the account of the death of Jesus are invited by the Church to share his thoughts and feelings on Good Friday, not only the humiliation and the painful conditions to which he was subjected and under which he suffered, but also his strong persisting faith in his Father’s love and support throughout all his sufferings. There are many thoughts that can occur to each of us in the intimacy of our life with God, perhaps as we recall how, in Luke, Jesus is invariably shown as so closely concerned with individuals in need. What may emerge above all, perhaps, may be the simple conviction of St Paul that Jesus ‘loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2.20).
In his Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius of Loyola has exercitants, as they meditate on their sins, kneel before a crucifix and ask themselves three searching questions: What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What must I do for Christ? I have heard it suggested that this is a typically masculine, action-orientated approach; but I feel that Mary Magdalene, for one, would have had no problem in understanding the questions or what they implied. Ignatius closes with words we may find appropriate ‘Seeing the state Christ is in, nailed to the Cross, let me dwell on such thoughts as present themselves’.
Jack Mahoney SJ is Emeritus Professor of Moral and Social Theology in the University of London and author of The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition, Oxford, 1987.
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