Tag Archives: Holy Week

Come, Join the Feast

April 2019, ,

Leah Buck, Senior Anchor Intern – Sacramental Preparation 

A couple of weeks ago, one of my professors opened class with the question, “What is the difference between eating and having a meal?” After a few minutes of discussion, the class came together and shared the fruits of their conversation and contemplation. We concluded that eating is for sustenance, while a meal is for savoring. Eating may mean passively grabbing a handful of pretzels on the way to class, while a meal implies an intentionality of compiling a plate and sitting down to consume it. Eating can be done in isolation, in a car or at a desk or in a dorm room, but meals are partaken in community. There is something more to a meal than just putting food into our bodies, there is a nourishment of soul that happens around the dinner table.

Jesus knew this truth well. Just look to see how often he dines in the gospels. He gathers with his friends and with his enemies, with his apostles to whom he will entrust the Church to and with the Pharisees who will persecute him. We see him eating breakfast by the sea with his disciples, feeding the crowds that he preached to, and reclining at the table with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. Scripture never tells us, “Then Jesus grabbed a snack from the drive-through (or whatever the ancient Israel equivalent was) and went on his way.” No, Jesus intentionally gathers to eat and often ties his teaching to his meals. He quite literally builds the Kingdom of God over suppers.

This Thursday, we will celebrate the most significant meal that Jesus ever ate: the Last Supper. The last thing Christ did before entering into his passion was celebrating the Passover feast with his closest friends. As faithful Jews, he and his apostles prepared and ate the meal much as they would have every year of their lives, but at this meal, Jesus did something drastically different. In the midst of their supper, Jesus takes the bread they are sharing and says, “This is my body, given up for you.” The apostles were honestly pretty caught off guard, confused about what Christ was doing in breaking with the Passover rite. But Jesus was very clear: He is the bread of life, and this meal instituted something that would change the whole world, the Eucharist.

The altar at my home parish features a scene from the Last Supper, reminding us of the transcendent meal that we join at the Mass.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Catholic faith, the lifespring, the nourishment for all that the Church does. It is Christ made present to his Church every day, under the appearances of bread and wine. This is the most glorious earthly meal that we can ever partake in, the most intentional way that we can ever eat. But, though it is the holiest thing in the entire universe, it is only a prefigurement of the heavenly banquet that is to come.

One of my favorite songs, Gone are the Days by the Gray Havens, sums this dynamic up pretty well. The artist sings: “As I reach for the bread and the wine, for the comfort I’ll find, picture the scene. One day, to the table we’ll come, every daughter and son, finally free.” The Eucharist, the bread and the wine, is our greatest consolation, our greatest comfort. And as we receive it, we join with the whole Church in heaven and on earth around the same table. The eternal banquet in heaven is the same, the place where God is calling every son and daughter to gather, finally free from sin and suffering.

This song takes on a whole new dimension for eleven of my friends who are preparing to receive the Eucharist for the first time in the coming days. They have been preparing through the RCIA process at Notre Dame all year for these Liturgies, when they will be baptized and fully initiated into the Catholic Church. They are picturing their first Communion, where they, for the first time, will approach the Eucharistic table and share in this banquet. They will taste the goodness that the Lord offers, the foretaste of heaven, for the first time. Joining the universal human longing for heaven, they hunger and thirst for the bread of life. But so, so soon, they will get to taste it in the Blessed Sacrament.

The supper that we partake in at Mass is not merely eating. It is active, it is communal, it is soul-nourishing. It points us towards the place that we were each made for, the place where there is always room at the table, heaven. Join me in prayer for the men and women who will soon join us at the Eucharistic table for the first time.

Please pray with me for Chris, Brian, Jiale, Jin, Andrew, Ricky, Zoe, Sean, Spicer, Capria, Matthew, and Justin as they prepare for the reception of the Sacraments of Initiation later this month.

Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope

March 2018, ,

Julia Erdlen, Senior Anchor Intern

As we approach the final days of Lent during this Holy Week, I find the cross more and more frequently in my thoughts. Unsurprising, when Notre Dame was founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross, the motto became  Ave Crux Spes Unica – Hail the Cross, Our Only Hope. The cross is never far from my mind. This past Sunday, we heard the full Passion narrative and will be immersed in the saving power of the crucifixion this upcoming Good Friday.

“Take up your cross, the Savior said, if you would my disciple be. Take up your cross with willing heart, and humbly follow after me.”

These lyrics have been heard frequently during the Lenten season, for good reason.

We all have crosses, but Lent provides a distinct time to recognize their existence. We reflect, pray, and truly examine our lives during this season. We take up burdens, lift them up, and try not to begrudge the fact that we must carry them.

Simon of Cyrene carried the burden of Jesus Christ, the burden of the instrument of a death sentence that would save the world from sin and death. For however brief a time, he carried the weight. He was not exactly willing, but he nonetheless carried that unimaginable burden. He did not get to choose if he carried that burden. He was pressed into service in this way, drawn out of the crowd to take the weight off of Christ’s shoulders.

Simon carried the weight because Jesus had fallen, had shown his physical, human weakness. Jesus fell, and others saw him do so. There was no hiding his human weakness, on display for those who watched him carry his cross to Calvary. But we can hide. Most of us lack the sort of crosses that are displayed obviously to the world, and the most complicated struggles are often those we can hide. It is easier to hide what we carry when we are not the center of a spectacle designed to mock and ridicule, with the added humiliation of carrying a gigantic wooden cross that will be the instrument of suffering and salvation.

We are not usually subject to quite such a public fall, and do not collapse under our burdens for all to see. Sometimes words fail. Sometimes it takes a visible fall to reveal the heavy burdens that another person could help you carry. If Christ, God made human, can accept the help, we are no weaker for imitating him.

The crucifixion was in front of a crowd, and Christ did not have to find the words to express his human weakness. We often are required to reveal ourselves, to lay down our sorrows at the foot of the cross, and ask for help.

Matthew’s Gospel states “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

The cross does not exactly seem like the easy yoke and light burden that is spoken of in Matthew’s Gospel. But we are all called to be Simon as much as we are Christ. To accept the help of others and to pick up the crosses that are not ours alone. We exist in community, the catholic, universal church, sharing all in common for the good of us all. We must share in carrying the burdens of our friends, communities, and the whole world. It is why we share our intercessions publicly in the residence hall Masses. It is why we ask for prayers from friends when we have stressful exams. It is why we light candles at the Grotto for all to see, that they may pray for our intentions as well.

If we all were expected to carry our crosses alone, without the help of our communities which is ultimately accepting the help of God, we would not be able to rise after our falls.