Holy Thursday/Good Friday, April 17/18, 2003

The first of two posts containing reflections before the Blessed Sacrament during the Holy Thursday night/Good Friday morning adoration vigil:

2:10 am
What a gift you give us, Lord, to allow us to come into your presence, before your throne of grace, reverently worshipping you and interceding for those whom we love!

Thank you, Lord, for your holy suffering for me, for those I love. Thank you for allowing me to pray for my cousins [with whom I’d been recently reunited following their father’s death], each by name, to lift up their concerns, especially for their father, and also for the resulting rededication in prayer for my own dad. May you, O perfect Father, draw both Gary and Carl home to you in wholeness for all eternity.

Thank you, as well, for a blessed Holy Thursday Mass of your Supper. Bless Jodi and Matt this weekend as they lead us in music ministry. Bless Cassie and Heather on their trip. Bless my daughters with a renewed love for you, O Lord. Help our grandchildren to grow in you, as well. Heal () and () of their brokenness. Draw them to you.

2:30 am
Thank you for the Divine Office, and for your gifts of the Spirit!
Ps 22: “But I am a worm, and no man. Scorned by men. Despised by the people.” Lord, if you bore my sin, as you surely did, how could you have not been scorned, despised. I am scorned and despised not as I should be, for love of You, but because of my own sin. Yet in you I am made whole, and find my dignity in the only refuge for which I have any hope. And what a Hope!

“All who see me deride me.” Lord, I know this Psalm refers to you, but I (please forgive my impudence, if it be) find myself in it, too. I thank you for answering my prayer: “O Lord, do not leave me alone . . . Rescue me . . . Save me.”

Ps 38: “My wounds are foul and festering, the result of my own folly . . . I confess that I am guilty, and my sin fills me with dismay.”! And thank you again for answering this prayer: “O Lord, do not forsake me. My God, do not stay far off. Make haste and come to my help O Lord, my God, my Savior!”

Heb 9: “. . . how much more will the blood cleanse our consciences from dead works to worship the living God!” The blood of the sacrifice was the blood of the “testator,” now Christ. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” The symbols of heaven called for these purifications, but reality for a perfect sacrifice. Parallel the delivery of today’s Jews from Egypt in union with their/our ancestors (“For this night we are delivered from our slavery”), being present today in the event of the distant past, with our participation today at Christ’s eternal sacrifice.

We are born to live in Him. For this reason, He was born to die for us.

St. John Chrysostom:
The saving power of the lamb’s blood was only because it prefigured Christ’s! Satan cannot enter into that which is protected by the blood of the Lamb! Our lips => the door of the Lord’s temple. Water and blood from the Lord’s side => Baptism and Eucharist. From his side Christ fashioned the Church, his Bride => Adam and Eve.
“By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished.”