The Triduum: The Three Holy Days and More Sacred Geography (The Upper Room, Calvary, and the Empty Tomb)

Lent has ended with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday Evening. We have now entered the Three Holy Days, also known as the Paschal or Easter Triduum (Latin for "Three Days").

 

I have been reflecting in this blog upon the "sacred geography" contained within the Gospel Readings of Lent. Now the Three Holy Days of Holy Thursday through Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and the Easter Vigil through Easter Sunday, have been described in one Church document as the "holy Mountain of Easter." As we shall see this "mountain" transcends any actual place or time. Still, in the celebration of the Three Holy Days three major geographical and historical places are mentioned and have the greatest spiritual significance: the Upper Room, Calvary, and the Empty Tomb.

 

This past Sunday–Palm Sunday–Jesus entered triumphantly into the City of Jerusalem. By entering into "the city," spiritually speaking, he is entering into the place or order and disorder, of civilization and crime, the place of much distraction and even greater temptation. Jerusalem is especially fraught with danger; as Jesus lamented, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling." (Matthew 23:37)

 

It will only be at the End of Time, in the Second Coming of Christ, that "the city," i.e., human civilization will be perfectly redeemed; the "old Jerusalem" will be replaced by the "New and Heavenly Jerusalem" which will come down from heaven to earth (Revelation 21:1-2) and there will be "new heavens and a new earth where... the justice of God will reside" (2 Peter 3:13).

 

The First Day Part I: Holy Thursday

 

In Jerusalem, reputedly on Mount Zion, Jesus and his disciples gather in the Upper Room where Jesus gives them and his Church forever the Eucharistic banquet. How I would love to live always in just a corner of that Upper Room. How I would love to see Jesus and his Apostles and to hear his voice. I would gladly serve them at Table and so I do at the Altar. But he calls me (and all disciples) to come closer to him, as did my Patron, St. John the Beloved, and rest upon his chest and listen to his Sacred Heart beat with love for us. This is why I chose the picture of St. John resting upon Jesus’s Heart at the Last Supper for my 25^th Anniversary of Priestly Ordination for my holy card remembrance.

 

As part of climbing the holy Mountain of Easter, one must go up to the Upper Room, the place of the Eucharist, and not just on Holy Thursday. "I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go up to the House of the Lord.’" (Psalm 122) In every Eucharist we ascend spiritually with Christ to worship with him in the Heavenly Liturgy (the eternal worship that fills heaven with joy). We are reminded of this in the Eucharistic Preface where the Priest says "Lift up your hearts!" Every Eucharist, but especially the Sunday Eucharist which is more festive, is meant to elevate our hearts and minds heavenward. This is not by way of escape from the lowly duties of life but rather to inspire us by the love outpoured for us in the Mass, a love we bring into our daily lives.

 

In the Upper Room, on that night that Jesus gathered with his Apostles for a Passover meal, he also took the role of a servant and washed their feet. The Pope, Bishops, and Priests reenact this on Holy Thursday at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. In Holy Faith’s Tabernacle oratory there is a pitcher, bowl and towel always on display with other devotional art. The Mass calls us to this love of others that serves, as Jesus served. Is not our new Pope Francis showing this by his example? One Seminary Professor once said that the ideal gift for any newly ordained Priest was a pitcher, bowl, and towel. I keep a small version of these on my office desk to remind me that I must lead by loving service.

The Upper Room now transcends time and place and can be found wherever the Eucharist is celebrated.

 

The First Day Part II: Good Friday

 

On Good Friday we remember the Crucifixion of Jesus and its meaning for our lives. It is also on our climb up the Mountain of Easter. From the standpoint of our sacred geography, the traditional site of the place where Jesus was crucified and then buried close by (See John 19:41-42) is found in Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. In the First Century the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial would have been outside the city of Jerusalem. (See Hebrews 12:13-14; also executions and burials had to be outside the city walls in ancient times) The Emperor Constantine (4^th Century) in his embrace of the formerly outlawed Christianity, built a church over the remembered site of Golgotha (in Hebrew), or Calvary (from Latin), where Jesus was crucified. It has been greatly elaborated over the centuries.

Today, when one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, one can go up a stairway where a chapel has been built over the supposed place of crucifixion. From the 6^th century, this place began to be called Mount Calvary, though it was  more a hill.

 

In our own parish church, as in many Catholic churches, one looks up at a Crucifix overlooking the Altar in the Sanctuary. It would seem that the suffering and death of Christ on the Cross would make us feel "down" rather than lift us up in some way (remember we are supposed to be going up the holy mountain of Easter). But Jesus himself says: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself. (Now this he said, signifying what death he should die.)" (John 12:32-33) Jesus is of course lifted up on the Cross.
 

 

The Cross expresses the depths of God’s love for us in the sacrificial love of God’s Son, Jesus, who in becoming human died for us. It is precisely this love that lifts us up from being "down." ("He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm." –Psalm 40:2)

 

An Anglican Clergyman, Dick Tripp, writes:

 

"Love is self-giving for the benefit of others and in God’s case the ‘others’ were those who had rebelled against him. The proof of genuine love is not merely a feeling; it is an action....We tend to think of love in emotional terms, but the New Testament concept of love is more focused on active self-giving. And the greater the cost of that self-giving, the greater the love. It was on the night before his crucifixion that Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (John 15:13). Because there never has been, nor could be, a greater cost than that endured by Father and Son on Calvary, this is what defines for all time the true nature of love—and the true character of God. Pastor and Bible teacher Paul Rees said: ‘The cross does not so much reveal God’s infinite intellect as it reveals his heart.’ Someone else has said, ‘On the Mount of Beatitudes Christ opened his mouth and taught the people: on the mount of Calvary he opened his heart and showed [it to] the people.’"

 

The crucifixion of Jesus happened "once for all." (Hebrews 10:10) It happened at a certain time and at a certain place, the place perhaps enshrined now in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. But the reality of the Cross also has now transcended time and place. That reality is the love of God "in cruciform" which transcends time and place and so is available everywhere.

 

The Second Day: Holy Saturday

 

Yet how do we know that the love of God shown in Christ on the Cross has not come to an end when Christ died on the Cross and was then buried in a tomb? That Christ died and was buried is remembered on the Second Day of the Three Holy Days we are celebrating. This Second Day is often overlooked because there is no liturgical celebration for this day except some of the prayer of the Liturgy of Hours (for example, in our parish there is celebrated Morning Prayer on Holy Saturday).

 

Spiritual author Christine Valters Paintner writes:

 

"Before we rush to resurrection we must dwell fully in the space of unknowing, of holding death and life in tension with each other, to experience that liminal place so that we become familiar with its landscape and one day might accompany others who find themselves there and similarly disoriented. The wisdom of the Triduum is that we must be fully present to both the starkness of Friday and to the Saturday space between, before we can really experience the resurrection. We must know the terrible experience of loss wrought again and again in our world so that when the promise of new life dawns we can let it enter into us fully in the space carved by loss."

 

For me, Holy Saturday represents the aftermath of suffering and death before grief is finished and something new emerges from the ashes or grave of our experience. It is waiting for comfort, healing, new purpose. For we who believe in Christ, it is waiting for his Resurrection. Many people live in this "in between" place at one time or another. It is, then, waiting outside the Tomb.

 

Holy Saturday is waiting to be lifted up again. Without this hope and trust, we would despair.

 

I have faith that this waiting "in between" death and life will lead to the Passover Mystery of Christ who passed from death to life and that it will become a reality in my life and in the lives of those I serve. I have faith because I have experienced it so often in my own life and have seen it in the lives of others where I thought grief and suffering would crush them.

 

The Third Day: The Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday

 

At the summit of the Triduum and the holy Mountain of Easter is the Resurrection represented by the Empty Tomb. ("But at daybreak on the first day of the week [the women] took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb; but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus." Luke 24:1-3 proclaimed at the Easter Vigil)

 

The Resurrection tells us that the sacrificial love which Christ showed us on the Cross is not defeated by the violence, seeming failure, and death inflicted by the Cross. If Jesus had not risen from the Tomb, it would have appeared that death was stronger than this love. But Christ is Risen and this is what makes all the difference in the world. So we are not exempt from suffering in this world, just as Jesus was not exempt but shared our sufferings and still does. Like him we have our crucifixions and Holy Saturdays–the Resurrection does not take these away but assures us that love will lift us up and renew us in Christ. There is no Cross without the Resurrection and there is no Resurrection without the Cross.

Like a story that comes to the end and yet returns to the beginning, the Cross and Resurrection, this Passover Mystery of Christ’s Dying and Rising, always brings us back to the Upper Room again. That is to say, we remember and we have made present to us the Crucified yet Risen Christ in the Eucharist he gave to us to celebrate in the Upper Room. May we always return and ascend to that Upper Room, lift up the Cross of Christ and receive the Risen Jesus who will lift us up from the Tomb and fill our emptiness with unending, life changing, and victorious love!
 

The Third Day
 

The immovable stone tossed aside,

The collapsed linens,

The blinding angel and the chalky guards:

All today like an old wood-cut.
 

The earthquake on the third day,

The awakened sleeper,

The ubiquitous stranger, gardener, fisherman:

Faded frescoes from a buried world.
 

Retell, renew the event

In these planetary years,

For we were there and he is here:

It is always the third day.
 

Our world-prison is split;

An elder charity

Breaks through these modern fates.

Publish it by Telstar,

Diffuse it by mundo vision.
 

He passes through the shattered concrete slabs,

The vaporized vanadium vaults,

The twisted barbed-wire trestles.
 

A charity coeval with the suns

Dispels the deep obsessions of the age

And opens heart-room in our sterile dream:
 

A new space within space to celebrate

With mobiles and new choreographies,

A new time within time to set to music.
 

— Amos Niven Wilder

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Palm Sunday: The Sacred Geography of Lent Part VI (Gethsemane & the Mount of Olives)

This Sunday is Palm Sunday. In the sacred geography of Lent, we are once again leaving the desert to come to the vicinity of Jerusalem. In the two Gospel readings proclaimed this Sunday, the Mount of Olives will be featured in several key events.

 

Jerusalem in the time of Jesus

The Mount of Olives (also called Olivet) is close by to the city of Jerusalem. It is actually a series of hills and in Jesus’ time filled with olive trees, hence its name. There are many significant features or events associated with the Mount of Olives. An ancient Jewish cemetery is there with the graves of some of the Old Testament prophets. The Mount of Olives is first mentioned in the Bible in connection with King David's flight from Absalom, his rebellious son: "And David went up by the ascent of the Mount of Olives, and wept as he went up." (II Samuel 15:30) From the Mount of Olives, Jesus will also weeps over the rebellious city of Jerusalem (Luke 19:37, 41).

 

In the final battle of good and evil, the Prophet Zechariah prophesies: "On that day the Lord’s feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is opposite Jerusalem to the east." (14:4) This is interpreted that the Messiah will stand on the Mount of Olives on the Last Day. It is on the Mount of Olives that the Risen Jesus ascends to heaven, promising to return. (Acts 1:9-12)

 

It is from the Mount of Olives that Jesus approaches Jerusalem on an ass to triumphantly enter the City which is commemorated this Sunday in the Opening Procession of Mass. Also, Jesus often stayed on the Mount of Olives, and prayed there: the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prayed before his Crucifixion is located at the foot of Olivet.

 

An Olive Tree in Gethsemane

The Mount of olives is, of course, the place of olives. I reflect upon all the associations with  olives, or more specifically, with olive oil in the Scriptures. Olive oil is food; it was used for sacrifice in the Temple; it was used for the oil lamps to light  home and  Temple; it was used for medicine in Jesus time (and so is associated with healing and in the Sacrament of the Sick); it was used in anointing (consecrating) kings and priests; it is a sign of the Holy Spirit (thus used in the Sacrament of Confirmation and of Ordination).

 

All these associations with anointing with olive oil point to the identity of Christ (meaning the Messiah, the "Anointed One"): He is our Food, our Sacrifice, our Light, our Healing, our Anointing and the Giver of the Holy Spirit. We might even compare Christ to the olive tree: fruitful, evergreen, source of nourishment and healing. The Psalmist says:

 

                                                            "But I am like an olive tree

                                                                 flourishing in the house of God;

                                                            I trust in God’s unfailing love

                                                                for ever and ever." (Ps. 52:8)

 

Returning to this Sunday, as mentioned, it is from the Mount of Olives that Jesus enters Jerusalem. The crowds proclaim: "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" (Luke 19:8) A king is supposed to be an Anointed One. The crowd lay palm branches before Jesus, the palm branch being a sign of victory. Ironically, the palm branch will also become a sign of martyrdom in the Church’s symbols.

 

On Palm Sunday, also known as Passion Sunday, the Scripture Readings after the blessing and procession of palms quickly goes from triumph to impending suffering. The Psalm response, uttered by Jesus on the Cross, laments: " My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" (Psalm 22) I enjoy whenever everything is going well in life–who doesn’t? But circumstances can change quickly in life and the challenge of our faith-life is to remain faithful to God, even in our suffering. Jesus becomes our example in this, even experiencing our times in life when we feel abandoned by God.

 

We will hear this Sunday how Jesus returns to the Mount of Olives after the Last Supper, to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane is located at the foot of the Mount of Olives. The name "Gethsemane" means "olive press," i.e. a place where olives are crushed by a large stone in order to extract their oil. The heavy stone exerts pressure upon the olives, which "bleed forth" their precious oil.

 

An Olive press

 

Many have pointed out the great weight upon Jesus praying in Gethsemane as he faced suffering for the whole world. He is shaken and crushed, as the Prophet Isaiah prophesied about him:

 

                                                  "But he was pierced for our transgressions,

                                                      he was crushed for our iniquities;

                                                  the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

                                                     and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)

 

He is indeed the Messiah, the Anointed One, yet his anointing comes at a heavy cost. I think sometimes of the sacrifices we must make to fulfill our vocation or role in life. We are called Christian (which means "little anointed one"), but that doesn’t exempt us from suffering at times.

 

 

We may visit Gethsemane many times, i.e. a place where we must face our own crises with prayer, seeking like Christ to do God’s will. He prayed in Gethsemane that the cup of suffering might pass him over, but he was willing to do God’s will even if he was not spared. I believe we all have these times when we are called to be martyrs: to be faithful to Christ even if it means suffering.

 

Our comfort can be that if we are forced into Gethsemane by crisis, we can hope that Christ will be there with us. Our faith tells us he is, even when we cry as he did, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Like knowing that Christ is in every desert, we can also have trust that he is in every moment of prayer in the midst of suffering. Again, the prophet Isaiah says about the Messiah: He will give the people "the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified" (Isaiah 61:3). I need to remember that Gethsemane is at the foot of the Mount of Olives, but at the summit, on the same Mount, is where Jesus ascends victorious into heaven.

　

Gethsemane

 

Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams

Bridged over by our broken dreams;

Behind the misty caps of years,

Beyond the great salt fount of tears,

The garden lies. Strive as you may,

You cannot miss it in your way.

All paths that have been, or shall be,

Pass somewhere through Gethsemane.

All those who journey, soon or late,

Must pass within the garden’s gate;

Must kneel alone in darkness there,

And battle with some fierce despair.

God pity those who cannot say,

‘Not mine but thine,’ who only pray,

‘Let this cup pass,’ and cannot see

The purpose in Gethsemane.
 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

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Fifth Sunday of Lent: The Sacred geography of Lent Part V (At the Tomb)

In this coming Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus and his disciples are once again outside the city (see "Outside the City"). Jesus is called to Bethany, to the tomb of his friend Lazarus who has died. He comes to bring him back to life. So in our sacred geography of Lent we come this Sunday to the place of the dead, the Tomb.

 

Our spiritual desert journey with Jesus continues. When Jesus receives word that Lazarus is sick, Jesus and his disciples are in the desert where John the Baptist had ministered: "beyond the Jordan [River]." (See John 10:40) Why is Jesus there? Is he revisiting the place of his Baptism?

 

At Easter we will renew our Baptism Promises in a solemn way. There is also a Prayer Station at our parish’s Baptism Font where this may be done.

 

When Jesus does return to Bethany he does not enter the town. He encounters Martha, Lazarus’ sister, and then goes to the tomb. He is in grief; the city and its attractions and distractions hold no comfort for him. Instead, sharing fully in our humanity, he confronts the emptying of emotions in grieving a loved one. He is truly in one of the involuntary deserts almost all of us must travel at some point: the desert of grief.

 

 

In the Funeral Intercessions used at Holy Faith, one petition asks: "For the family and friends of N., that they be comforted in their grief by the Lord, who wept at the death of his friend Lazarus. Let us pray to the Lord. R."

 

The description of John that "Jesus wept" (John 11:35) is perhaps one of the more moving verses of all Scripture. In this act of weeping for his friend, Jesus is in solidarity with each of us when we weep at the death of someone we love; when we weep at the grave of a loved one. I would say that those tears of Jesus are almost as precious as his blood shed for us. He was human like us, with flesh and blood like us, in all things but sin; and he also shares our weeping. His blood pleads for forgiveness of our sins; his tears assure us of his compassion.

 

The place of the tomb as part of the sacred geography of Lent is a concrete reminder of the reality of death. In life we are often separated from the ones we love because of work or distance. When someone we love dies, we could try to pretend that they are just away on a trip or some other denial of death. But we cannot deny the loved one’s death when we stand at their grave.

 

Recently I was at the interment of my Aunt’s cremated remains at the Barrancas National Cemetery in Pensacola (my Uncle was in the Air Force and will also be buried with her one day) At that same Columbarium are the cremated remains of my Father and Mother. As I also visited their place of burial, read their names and the dates of their birth and death, I felt the sadness of their not being here with me in this life. Yes, they are dead and here are their remains, there is no denying it.

 

But death is not the final word of our lives; it’s not the final chapter. Jesus has the final word and that word is "life." The Gospel reading for March 13 was from John 5 and included these words:

 

"Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word
        and believes in the one who sent me
has eternal life and will not come to condemnation,
but has passed from death to life.

Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here
when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God,
and those who hear will live....

Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming
in which all who are in the tombs
will hear his voices and will come out,
those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life,
but those who have done wicked deeds
to the resurrection of condemnation." (vv.24-25, 28-29)

Jesus speaks of passing from death to life. We usually think of our lives as passing from life to death: we are born, we live for a time for however long, and we die. But with Jesus, as is often the case, this is turned upside down: we are dead but he brings us to life! This is called his Paschal (or Passover) Mystery. It is the passing from death to life. We who follow Christ believe we will take this passage (passing) along with him to eternal life and in a resurrection of the body like his.

 

But even now we are passing from death to life and this was begun in our Baptism. The full form of Baptism in the ancient church was at first full body immersion into the waters of a river, lake, or later a Baptism Font–large enough to accomplish this. Adults were at first the majority of those baptized. When they went down into the waters fully immersed, it was like going down into a grave. Coming up from the waters was like coming up out of the grave. Thus St. Paul writes to the Romans:

 

"Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,
we too might live in newness of life.
For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his,
we shall also be united with him in the resurrection." (Romans 5:3-5)



Lazarus rises from the Tomb
(It almost looks like he was baptized)

Our Baptism initiates us into a lifetime of passing from death to newness of life. It immerses us in the Passover Mystery of Christ. He died and was buried and then was raised to new life. The "spiritual dying" we must do is to die to sin and selfishness so that we can pass into his new life of love. Love demands a dying to selfishness so as to love another.

 

This twin theme of death and life in Baptism led to the early Church to call the Baptism Font both tomb and womb! Some of those adult Baptism Fonts were even shaped like a tomb or perhaps a Cross as is the Adult Font at Holy Faith.

 

In this sacred geography of Lent we come to the Tomb of Lazarus and behold it is empty! We will hear that the Tomb of Jesus will be empty on Easter Sunday. Tombs bring us face to face with the reality of death. The empty Tomb reminds us that in Christ death will not hold us, but we will obey the word of Christ and come out of our places of death whatever they may be.

 

                                                                                 +   +   +
　

                           Just Call Me Lazarus

                        by Sarah Fletcher, © 2013

A people born wearing their funeral clothes,
we don't even know there's a stone. We sit in our grave,
dirty feet, dirty cave, and trace patterns into
the ground. The sweat of our brow drips in rivulets;
a salt-imbued lie of release. A taste of the sea,
of a river, a spring, of a well we're too haughty to drink.
We think we're so rich in our tatters. We think
we're so bright in the dark. We think we are kings
in our coffins and schemes like this is the best that
we are. Like there isn't a voice small inside us.
Like there isn't a breath in our lungs. Like there
isn't a world waiting just out that door if we'd
only stand up and explore. Like there isn't a man
calling out to us. Like we don't hear our name in a
prayer. Like we don't see the stone for the lid
it's become on the room we see fit to call home.

I no longer choose to abide this. I no longer want to
subside. I want to be strong and impassioned and
torn by the wind and His name and the horn. I
want to be fashioned for battle. I want to wear
armor and light. I want to sing hours and hours on
end with no ceasing in day or in night. I want to
feel roads underneath me. I want to drip words
from my tongue. I am done with the silence, the darkness,
the violence, that my evil days often had sung.
I no longer revel in drunkenness. In sculpting my
face to a norm. In starving and fighting, in lying
and hiding, in valuing how I perform. We need to
rely on the 'other'. That power found outside our own.
I need to escape, to find spirit, take shape- this
tomb is no longer my home. I will resurrect.


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We Have A Pope

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio
now
Pope Francis I

God our Father,

look with love on Francis our new Pope,

your appointed successor to St. Peter

on whom you built your Church.

 

May he lead your Church

as a gentle and strong Shepherd

and may our Communion with him

assure our unity in faith and love.

 

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

One God, forever and ever. Amen.

 

 

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Fourth Sunday of Lent: The Sacred Geography of Lent Part IV (In the City)

As I continue my meditation about the sacred geography of Lent, I wonder if the particular landscapes and cityscapes mentioned in the Gospels of Lent speak to the spiritual imagination of others as they do to me. I came across an encouraging essay that begins "In the history of Christian faith, landscape and spirituality are frequently intertwined." (Belden C. Lane, "Landscape and Spirituality.")

I know that such things as deserts and mountains are archetypes of the human psyche. They represent a symbolic constellation of experience, desire, emotion, stories and images hard to describe. Last week I found it instructive to think about encounters of Jesus, such as with the Samaritan Woman, that are "outside the city," as that would have been understood in Antiquity as a meeting on the margins with the marginal.

So what will the upcoming Sunday bring? Are we still following Jesus in the desert? This Sunday we find Jesus not outside the city this time, but in the city; and not just any city, but in Jerusalem. There he encounters a Blind Man and heals him after the man washed in the Pool of Siloam.

 

Jerusalem, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

Jerusalem is mentioned in both the Old and New Testaments. It was the new capital of King David’s reign (c. 1002–970 BC); David’s son Solomon built the first Temple there. Jerusalem came to symbolize both the place of right worship of God with the ritual sacrifices in the Temple and as a place of pilgrimage for the People of Israel.

Jesus as a child made pilgrimage with his family to Jerusalem. Later he would teach there and be tried and condemned to death in Jerusalem. It was outside the city walls of Jerusalem that he would be crucified. So this city, holy to the Jews, also became holy to Christians. But for Christians, the significance of Jerusalem transcended the actual city which would be destroyed by the Roman army in 70 AD and then rebuilt later over time. For Christians, what is of greatest meaning is the Heavenly Jerusalem (also called the New Jerusalem) which at the Second Coming of Christ comes down from heaven, "as a bride adorned for her bridegroom." (Revelation 21:2)

Heavenly Jerusalem  1580
 Fresco in Annunciation Cathedral, Russia

In the ancient Church and also very prominently in the Medieval Church, especially among the monks, was this longing for this Heavenly Jerusalem, which the monastery or the Church on earth might be an anticipation of heaven.

I find this in my own spirituality and spiritual imagination as something very attractive. I remember when I was in the seminary and first read a classical work on Early and Medieval monasticism called The Love of Learning and The Desire for God by Dom Jean LeClerq.

LeClerq details one of the themes of the monastic culture which was this longing for heaven, focused on the Heavenly Jerusalem. This was reinforced by the daily prayers of the monks taken from the Psalms with their frequent reference to Jerusalem.

Over the years I, too, have come to long for that Heavenly Jerusalem. Our celebration of Mass is also a participation in what is called the Heavenly Liturgy of Christ with his angels and saints and the blessed of heaven. "In the earthly liturgy we share in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in [heaven:] the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims..." (Catechism #1090)

The interesting outcome of focusing upon and longing for the Heavenly Jerusalem is that it replaces any other place in this world with no place in this world. Or as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews (13:14) says: "For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come." In other words, we are pilgrims or exiles in this world. Thus "biblical imagery of exile, wandering in the desert, and foreignness, as well as the concept of the heavenly Jerusalem adopted by Christianity from its infancy, prevailed in Christian literature..." (Encountering the Sacred: The Debate on Christian Pilgrimage in Late Antiquity. Bruria Bitton-Ashkelony, p. 111)

A perfect heavenly city of course contrasts with imperfect earthly cities. We may be pilgrims and exiles, but Catholics have always been solidly connected with specific places. Early Christianity was essentially an urban phenomenon. The New Testament letters were communiques with the Christians in particular cities, like Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, etc. But cities have an ambivalent reputation in the Scriptures. Andrew Crook writes in an essay on the subject:

"Cities, like human beings, do not get a very good press in the Bible. Their origins were in sin, rebellion and violence, and they continued in this vein. They were concentrations of oppression, corruption and bloodshed, as well as paganism and immorality.

 

"However, as with individual humans, God's reaction to this was not one of anger but of compassion. It appears that he has a redemptive plan for urban life, which will only be completed with the unveiling of the new Jerusalem, but which will be foreshadowed by the work of his people in earthly cities." ("The City in the Bible: A Relational Perspective.")

 

So in the spiritual geography of this upcoming Sunday, I think about the challenge of living in the city. I have mentioned that there was a movement in the early Church where some Christian men and women fled the distractions and temptations of the city. This would develop into monasticism. Most of us, however, have to live in the city, negotiating those distractions and temptations, bringing the lessons of the desert into the city (such as prayer and fasting).

This Sunday’s Gospel reminds us that just as the Blind Man was healed in the city of Jerusalem, so we can meet Jesus in the city, wherever that city may be, as well. He is the Light of the world, and his Light is greater than the city lights.

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From an Anonymous Monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Bèze (early 12th century?): "Elevations on the Glories of Jerusalem" (quoted in Jean Leclercq OSB, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, ch 45).

 

The frequent recollection of the city of Jerusalem and of its King is to us a sweet consolation, a pleasing occasion for meditation and a necessary lightening of our heavy burden.

 

I shall say something briefly – and, I hope, usefully! – on the city of Jerusalem for its edification; and for the glory of the reign of its King I shall speak and I shall listen to what the Lord within me tells me of Himself and of His city...

 

May your soul leave this world, traverse the heavens themselves and pass beyond the stars until you reach God. Seeing Him in spirit and loving Him, may you breathe a gentle sigh and come to rest in Him…

 

The city of Jerusalem is built upon the heights. Its builder is God. There is but one foundation of this city: it is God.

 

There is but one founder: it is He, Himself, the All High, who has established it.

 

One is the life of all those who live in it, one is the light of those who see, one is the peace of those who rest, one is the bread which quenches the hunger of all; one is the spring whence all may drink, happy without end.

 

And all that is God Himself, Who is all in all: honor, glory, strength, abundance, peace and all good things. One alone is sufficient unto all.

 

This firm and stable city remains forever. Through the Father, it shines with a dazzling light;

through the Son, splendor of the Father, it rejoices, loves; through the Holy Spirit, the Love of the Father and the Son, subsisting, it changes; contemplating, it is enlightened; uniting, it rejoices. It is, it sees, it loves.

 

It is, because its strength is the power of the Father; it sees; because it shines with the wisdom of God; it loves, because its joy is in the goodness of God.

 

Blessed is this land which fears no adversity and which knows nothing but the joys of the full knowledge of God.

 

Now, each has his own garment; but in the eighth age, the armies of the blessed will bear a double palm. All will know. All words will be hushed and only hearts will speak.

 

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