Part One: The Spirituality of the Cenacle
Religious themes have traditionally permeated art. This seems only natural since art, by its very nature, speaks directly to the human spirit, and religion, by its very nature, expresses the deepest sentiments of the human heart.
Artists tend to choose subjects which have most affected or impressed peoples over the course of time. The Cenacle has thus secured a prominent place in art for it is in the Cenacle that the Lord's Supper was celebrated; it is in the Cenacle that Pentecost occurred. This book will extensively explore the reality and meaning of the Cenacle's rich, deep experiences.
Great lessons of love emerge from the Cenacle. There Christ expresses His maximal love to His own by becoming food for them, by calling them friends, and by mandating them to repeat His example throughout time. Mary's teaches a lesson of love by gathering the frightened disciples around her, giving them assurance that they are not left orphans. There is a lesson of love from the devout women who, in the Cenacle, take care of the practical needs of the Apostles. Finally there is a lesson of love from the Apostles and disciples who, filled with the Holy Spirit, go out into the world to communicate the message of love as the legacy of Christ, sealed with His death and announced by His resurrection.
These lessons require a new appreciation and application. They need to be re-presented in words more suitable not only to the needs but also to the mentality of our times. This is especially so for priests; therefore, although this book is applicable to everyone, it has been written primarily for them.
May Mary, spiritual vessel, inspire both priests and laity to live the spirituality of the Cenacle so that the Lord Jesus' prayer for unity and charity, uttered before His passion, may not remain in vain.
THE CENACLE OR THE GOOD SHEPHERD?
Following the Second Vatican Council, many priests and lay persons alike experienced a loss of vision regarding the priesthood. Priests, at least for a while, lost their sense of identity and lacked contemporary, reconstructed, role models. Driven by the Council's dual efforts to redefine the roles of both bishops and laity, priests felt that they no longer had a distinct purpose or place in the Church.
Now that the situation has been brought into focus and the major crisis weathered, it may seem superfluous to look for priestly models or for a self-identity. Rather than being irrelevant, however, the need for clarity regarding the priesthood today is critical. Fortunately, a simple re-examination of the documents of Vatican II provides bishops and priests with the obvious and ultimate role model: the christological figure of the Good Shepherd. 1
This has been the focus of contemporary priestly spirituality highlighted at recent conventions and in theological studies; 2 and appropriately so, since the entire tenth chapter of St. John's Gospel presents this Figure as the starting point for the ministry and life of those who, following Christ, are to embrace the role of shepherds. Moreover, such focus is rooted in the great biblical tradition exemplified by Ezekiel. 3
However, is an exclusive emphasis on Christ as Good Shepherd scripturally complete? Of course, Jesus repeatedly refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd in search of His sheep, ready to lay down His life for them. But where is it that Jesus and His Apostles experience the deepest intimacy? Where is it that He shares Himself with them in the most personal way, giving a new covenant and initiating the Eucharist? Where is it that the Apostles are consecrated as priests, receive the promise of the Holy Spirit, and are finally filled with the fire of the Spirit? All this happens in the Cenacle.
Without studying, or better, contemplating the mystery of the Cenacle, we will never come to an authentic understanding of the priesthood. The Fathers of Vatican II recognized this by including the Cenacle in the Council documents. Citations from chapters 13 through 17 of the Gospel of John are numerous and the image of the Cenacle is especially striking in the decrees on priestly formation [Optatam Totius], on the ministry of priests [Presbyterorum Ordinis], and on the ministry of bishops [Christus Dominus].4 Pope John XXIII 5 and Pope Paul VI 6 both considered the Council itself to be an immense Cenacle from which Christ, through the successors of the Apostles and in the light of the Holy Spirit, was again sending to the world His message of service, love, and unity.
The Council's message for bishops and priests is a call to return to the sacrificial love of the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep. Yet this message cannot be fully understood nor authentically lived unless it is integrated with the Last Supper, for the Cenacle is like an X-ray machine that reveals to us the heart of Christ and the legacy of Jesus the Good Shepherd. We must return to the Cenacle to listen to the Master's voice, to experience such intimacy with the Master that the hearts of those whom He configures with His priestly mystery might be formed and animated by His Spirit.
By tasting anew the tenderness Jesus expressed to His disciples during the Last Supper, and by allowing the fire of the Cenacle to fill them again, priests will return to the world as renewed shepherds ready to follow the immolative example of the Divine Shepherd.
Chapter I
1. The decree on bishops, Christus Dominus, deals with their "pastoral office" and says:
In this Church of Christ the Roman Pontiff is the successor of Peter, to whom Christ entrusted the feeding of His sheep and lambs. . . . For their part, the bishops too have been appointed by the Holy Spirit, and are successors of the apostles as pastors of souls. [C.D.#2]
The Decree on Priestly Formation, Optatam Totius, directs seminaries to orient the "whole training" of priests towards the formation of "pastors of souls" [O.T.#4]. Priests are to live as good shepherds who know their sheep, and they are to seek to lead those not of the sheepfold that they, too, may hear the voice of Christ. Thus, says Presbyterorum Ordinis, there might be one fold and one Shepherd [P.O.#3]. It is clear, therefore, that in looking for a Christological model, the priest must turn to Jesus the Good Shepherd.
2. See the National Convention on "The Spirituality of Diocesan Priests Today," held in Rome, November 3-6, 1980.
3. cf. Ezekiel 34
4. The following passage from Christus Dominus, clearly based on one aspect of the Cenacle, is a convincing example.
They should, therefore, constantly exert themselves to have the faithful know and live the paschal mystery more deeply through the Eucharist and thus become a firmly knit body in the unity of Christ's love. "Intent upon prayer and the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:4), they should devote their labor to this end that all those committed to their care may be of one mind in prayer and through the reception of the sacraments may grow in grace and be faithful witnesses to the Lord. [C.D.#15].
5. The following is an excerpt from the speech of Pope John XXIII opening the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962.
In this regard, we confess to you that we feel poignant sorrow over the fact that very many bishops, so dear to us, are noticeable here today by their absence, because they are imprisoned for their faithfulness to Christ or impeded by other restraints. The thought of them impels us to raise fervent prayer to God. Nevertheless we see today, not without great hope and to our immense consolation, that the Church, finally freed from so many obstacles of a profane nature such as trammeled her in the past, can from this Vatican Basilica, as if from a second apostolic Cenacle, and through your intermediary, raise her voice resonant with majesty and greatness.
6. Pope Paul VI, in his speech opening the second session of the Council on September 29, 1963, evokes the image of the Cenacle even more.
Truly it is fitting that this solemn and fraternal assembly, gathered together from the East and the West, from the regions of the South and the North, should be designated by the prophetic name of "Ecclesia," that is, a coming together or a meeting. Here, truly, are realized in a new way those words which now come to our mind: "Their voice has gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." (cf. Rom 10:18; Ps 18:5)
Truly one mystery of unity is joined to another mystery of catholicity; and this spectacle of universality recalls the apostolic origin, here so faithfully reflected and extolled, as well as the sanctifying purpose of our most beloved Church of God. Her characteristic notes shine forth: the countenance of the spouse of Christ is resplendent. Our spirits are elated by a most familiar, yet always secret, experience by which we perceive that we are the Mystical Body of Christ and by which we taste the incomparable joy, still unknown to the profane world, of "how good it is, and how pleasant, where brethren dwell as one!" (Ps 133:1)
It is not futile to realize, right from this first moment, the human and divine phenomenon that we are bringing about. Here we are once more, as if in a new Cenacle, which has become confined not by reasons of its vast dimensions but because of the multitude of those who are gathered together within it. Here certainly the Virgin Mother of Christ is helping us from heaven. Here, around him who is last in time and merit, but identified with the first Apostle in authority and mission, the successor of Peter, you are gathered, Venerable Brothers, you too apostles descended from the apostolic college and its authentic successors.
Here, praying together and united together by the same faith and the same charity; here, we shall rejoice in the unfailing grace of the Holy Spirit, who is present vivifying, teaching, strengthening. Here all tongues will be only one voice and one voice alone will be the message to all the world.
Here with bold step the Church Militant has arrived after 20 centuries of journeying. Here the apostolic ranks, assembled from all over the world, are refreshed at the fountain which quenches every thirst and reawakens every new thirst, and from here they will confidently resume their journey in the world and in time toward the goal which is beyond earth and beyond the ages.
THE MYSTERY OF THE CENACLE
The Cenacle, so rich in content, merits the designation "mystery." Each individual segment* of the mystery of the Cenacle imparts something sacred which should be approached with a sense of respect and awe. Like Moses, we must "remove the sandals from [our] feet, for the place where [we] stand is holy ground." 1
Just as Calvary is not a mere episode in Christ's life but the motivating force and apex of His entire life and mission, so also is the Cenacle more than mere historical events. Beyond the historical moment is the authentic spirituality of the Cenacle in which we are called to participate. Indeed, the Cenacle becomes the pivotal force of Christ's life for it anticipates the bloody, mystical immolation of Christ on the Cross, forming a unique reality with Calvary.
The Cenacle is both a starting point and culmination. Grasping this paramount reality in the Lord's spirituality allows us to comprehend certain expressions otherwise obscure and enigmatic. Let us look at one such statement aided by the light of the Cenacle.
"Desiderio desideravi hoc pascha manducare vobiscum" - - "I have greatly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." 2 The repeated Latin verb "desideravi," with its intensified stress, shows that the Lord's desire has been implanted deeply in His heart for a long time. Still we wonder why He would say this since He had eaten supper with His Apostles many times, and during His public life He had celebrated Passover with them at least twice. Obviously something more, something special and specific, is meant.
In the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus promises the Eucharist. This promise is so explicit and so hard to understand that some disciples walk away in disgust. Yet Jesus will not stop mentioning it! For those who trust, His pledge comes as a revealing light shining upon murky confusion. Nonetheless, His followers undoubtedly prefer to forget, or at least attenuate, Jesus' scandalous disclosure - - "If you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life
* The Cenacle presents two pictures: the first, Jesus with His Apostles at the Last Supper; the second, Mary with the Apostles, disciples, and devout women waiting for the descent of the Holy Spirit.
in you." 3 When Jesus actualizes the mystery of the Eucharist in the Cenacle, perhaps the memory of that promise stirs somewhere in the Apostles' hearts. Light overcomes the darkness.
Jesus' yearning to give Himself as food to eat and blood to drink is revealed by His intense desire to celebrate this particular Passover with His disciples. At last, the time is at hand when His plan of complete love for all humanity is brought about.
The Last Supper begins with the washing of the feet, a fundamental gesture that needs to be highlighted. It is not merely a gesture of humility nor a didactic gesture on the duty of service and charity. This action demonstrates within itself the deep reality that Christ is, by nature and by birth, the "Servus," the Servant. In the Cenacle, Christ teaches that the entire Church must be service, that the Eucharist is service, and that the priesthood is service. How often the Lord Jesus reiterates the duty to serve! "It cannot be like that with you. Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the needs of all." 4 With the washing of the feet, Jesus' teaching is so forceful that it evokes a strong reaction in Peter. 5 This is the first and only time that Jesus kneels before His Apostles and says, "Et vos debetis alter alterius lavare pedes" - - "You must wash each other's feet." 6 Thus a fundamental law is established for the Church: Be in a position of service. As Christ in the Eucharist becomes bread, becomes nourishment (and nourishment in service), so the Apostles, following His example, must become servants.
How important it is to grasp this reality! Yet what bewilderment there has been throughout history regarding the priesthood! How many things still need to be reformed! It is in the light and spirit of the Cenacle that all issues are to be reviewed and restructured, from financial issues (beyond what is necessary for personal sustenance) to issues regarding needs and rights. Only in the light of the Cenacle is it possible to understand and live the Lord's words, "Take nothing for the journey, neither walking staff nor traveling bag; no bread, no money. No one is to have two coats." 7 We must return to this concept of service to understand what the Cenacle means to Jesus for it is there that the great ideal of the Servant-Church is revealed.
The Cenacle, therefore, realizes Jesus' ultimate goal. It is also the starting point for the Church for it is there that Jesus promises the Holy Spirit. The Church will receive the Spirit and will minister in His power.
While promising the Paraclete, Jesus says a singular thing. "It is much better for you that I go. If I fail to go, the Paraclete will never come to you . . . " 8 The Apostles could have said, "We do not know and do not wish to know the Holy Spirit. We are content to be with You." However, by saying this they would have derailed God's plan, for the Church is the Church of Christ, animated by and imbued with the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit Who forms the image of Christ in the Church, in history, and in individual souls.
A second fundamental teaching given by Jesus in the Cenacle is the commandment of love. "In hoc cognoscent omnes quia discipuli mei estis" - - "This is how all will know you for My disciples: your love for one another." 9 Thus the Church is based on charity because it is rooted in the Spirit, Who is love.
Charity was the defining characteristic of the early Church. In the second century Tertullian reports the deep admiration of others for Christians because of "how they love one another." 10 It is from this commandment, born in the Cenacle, that the great heroes of love and charity, that is the saints, have been generated.
A third tenet of the Cenacle is the Eucharist, the Bread that is broken. Here Christ takes us into the heart of the Church. In fact, we must be aware that the Church is born of the Eucharist. Wherever there is an altar on which the bishop, a priest, breaks Bread, there is the particular Church. Together, the various particular Churches form the Universal Church with the Holy Father as head. Conversely, the Universal Church gives special meaning and history to the particular Churches. The focal point, however, always remains the same: the Church born of the Eucharist.
The Eucharist is a source of grace; 11 a sign and source of unity for the people of God; 12 the source and ultimate goal of evangelization; 13 the heart of the Liturgy, as the ultimate end of every action of the Church, and the source of every virtue. 14
Without the Eucharist there can be no Church. The Church is Christ among us, our companion and the center of both our individual and universal history. 15
Another tenet of the Church, also born of the Cenacle, is prayer. Of those that have been made known to us, Jesus' longest and most explicit prayer is His priestly prayer which is found in John's account of the Last Supper. Jesus prayed, and still prays, for the Church, and we must pray with Him.
This overview invites us to enter the reality of the Cenacle. The Cenacle is not just an episode or sequel; in fact, though it is both a starting point and summit, it is much more. It is not so much a place as it is a spirituality, the spirituality of the heart of Christ. As such, it is the model of spirituality for the Church, for the priesthood, and for each one of us.
It must also be said - - especially regarding priests - - that the Cenacle is the expression of maximalism (maximum love) when all reaches its peak: "Desiderio desideravi, cum dilexisset suos qui erant in hoc mundo, in finem dilexit eos." "He had loved His own in this world, and would show His love for them to the end." 16
It is in the Cenacle that the Apostles experience the deep intimacy of Christ's love. "Vos autem dixi amicos" - - "I call you friends." 17 No longer can they consider themselves slaves for they have advanced to a stage of divine friendship with the Master. When Jesus calls these men "little ones," they are imbued with His tender love.
This is the meaning that the Cenacle has for Christ, for the Church. This is the meaning that we, too, are called to grasp.
Chapter II
1. Exodus 3:5
2. Luke 22:15
3. John 6:53
4. Mark 10:43-44
5. cf. John 13:6-9
6. John 13:14
7. Luke 9:3
8. John 16:7
9. John 13:35
10. Apologetics, E.P. #281
11. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy #10
12. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church #11
13. Vatican II, Presbyterorum Ordinis, Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests #5
14. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium #10
15. This doctrine is beautifully summarized by the Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium:
At the Last Supper, on the night He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. This He did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us. [S.C. #47]
16. John 13:1
17. John 15:15
THE MAXIMUM LOVE OF THE CENACLE
When we speak of maximum love, we refer to one of the characteristics of God's way of acting. We could use other expressions such as divine extravagance or God's radicalism, which all mean the same thing: God's divine way of acting is infinitely beyond the limits of human thinking and acting. This acknowledges the crux of the mystery, namely, that the finite is incapable of measuring the infinite. It can only accept the infinite with humility and faith. This is the sole attitude towards a Father Who loves such poor and lowly creatures as we are that He wills to sacrifice for us His only Son. 1
It is also the only attitude toward Christ. Maximalism characterizes the life of Jesus from beginning to end.
- He is born in the absolute poverty of a cave.
- He summarizes His message with the pungent Sermon on the Mount, especially the Beatitudes.
- He dies naked on the hard wood of a cross.
Once again, to enter into the heart of the maximum love of Christ, we must go beyond the events themselves; we must grasp the motives of His actions.
Jesus ardently desires to eat this Passover with His Apostles. 2 They are the ones He has always loved and for whom, in that moment in a very particular way, He feels an even deeper love. 3 This explains His unusual gesture of stooping down like a servant and washing their feet. 4 He does this so that they may learn the attitude they must have toward each other. "But if I washed your feet - - I Who am Teacher and Lord - - then you must wash each other's feet." 5
Yet the meaning of His gesture is much more than service, it is love. Jesus is teaching maximum love through His example of infinite love, 6 expressed in the humble form of service. Humanly speaking, this is not an easy lesson but He entrusts all to the power of the Spirit Whom He promises over and over again. 7
But Christ's love goes even farther. He wishes to lead His Apostles, and all those who will believe through them, not just to some vague amalgamation, but to configuration and identification with Him.
It is in the Cenacle that Jesus gives His body and blood as food, leading to the transformation of His Apostles into Himself. According to the commentary of St. Augustine, it is not we who transform the divine food into ourselves, rather it is the divine food that transforms us into Itself.
The second transformation, more profound because it is permanent, is the consecration to the priesthood. Jesus gives His Apostles His own power to repeat the Eucharistic mystery. 8 He then utters a passionate prayer to the Father asking that He might perform the miracle of a mystical transformation in the Apostles - - a transformation that will root them in unity with each other and with the Trinity.
These expressions of maximum love found in the Cenacle help us understand Jesus' behavior. Christ has an infinite and unifying love. He wishes to communicate it to us so that we may base our relations with one another on it. Our love is to reach the magnitude of self-giving service; our unity is to be modeled on the Trinity.
In our effort to enter into the mystery of God's maximalism, how can we ignore the great lessons of the Cenacle? For the Cenacle is the place and time in which Jesus shows us the wonders of His maximum love and reveals to us the depth and design of God's divine extravagance.
Chapter III
1. John 3:16
2. Luke 22:15
3. John 13:1
4. John 13:5
5. John 13:14
6. John 13:15
7. John 14:16; 15:26; 16:7-13
8. Luke 22:19
THE SERVANT OF YAHWEH
Our first encounter with Christ's maximum love is the washing of the feet. The episode is introduced in a rather peculiar way. "Jesus - - fully aware that He had come from God and was going to God, the Father Who had handed everything over to Him - - rose from the meal and took off His cloak. He picked up a towel and tied it around Himself." 1
What may simply seem to be absurd conduct actually signifies the mystery of Jesus as the Servant of Yahweh. 2 Christ, Word of the Father and Son of Man, bends down, takes the position of a slave before the Apostles, and washes their feet.
Peter resists but Christ insists, forcing him to appreciate the deeper meaning in His action. Though the meaning is not clear to Peter yet, he will understand later. Judas, on the other hand, does not react to Jesus' gesture though Christ stoops before him, too, in the position of a servant. What was Jesus thinking then? Perhaps Blessed Camilla Battista Varani expressed His thought. "I wash your feet with My tears, but you do not see them because My long hair, fallen on My bowed head, covers both My face and My tears." 3
Yes, there certainly is a mystery here, but what is it? What are Peter and all the others to understand?
Jesus is explicit to a certain extent. "You address Me as Teacher and Lord, and fittingly enough, for that is what I am. But if I washed your feet - - I Who am Teacher and Lord - - then you must wash each other's feet." 4 As we have already noted, this is the lesson of servant-love, a love that assumes the servitude of a slave.
For what else was Jesus' life if not a continual service for us? His life of absurdities result in our instruction and our salvation. He is born in a cave, grows up in an laborer's house of poverty, and works for His daily bread. He spends His public life with nowhere to lay His head, though even foxes have lairs, and suffers the tragic death of crucifixion. He is a man who keeps nothing for Himself; out of love, He is spent for others. Such is the lesson stressed by Jesus in the Cenacle.
The Apostles, if they truly wish to represent Christ, 5 must not forget the great lesson of love, humility, and service that Jesus gave them at the moment of His solemn farewell and their priestly consecration.
In that moment the Apostles are the Church for Jesus. He sees them, speaks with them, and prays for them but not only for them because in them He sees the future. "I do not pray for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their word." 6 This is a mystery which the Apostles will not understand until later.
This essential lesson is given to the entire Church. The Church must never forget that she was willed by the Father, established by Christ in the fire of the Spirit's love, to serve all humanity.
The Word became Man, Brother, Servant for all. 7 In the same way the Church, in the footsteps of Jesus, must live her mission of service toward God's children scattered throughout the world. 8
The Church, or rather those dedicated to her, are subjected to the temptations of power since the sacred, too, can become an instrument of domination. History records many such instances of evil. But a return to Christ, a Servant washing feet, remains the ideal that enables us to understand the mission of the Church and her priests. 9
Why this tenacious insistence on servant-love for the ordained? Because when a priest lives the humility and service of Jesus, the faithful see clearly in him Jesus, the Priest, and are thus encouraged to grow in servant-love, too.
Chapter IV
1. John 13:3-4
2. Isaiah 52 ff
3. I. Iorgensen, In Excelsis, p. 298
4. John 13:13-14
5. 2 Corinthians 5:20
6. John 17-20
7. Hebrews 2:10-18
8. John 11:52
9. This is, in fact, reiterated in all the documents of Vatican II. Addressing young men preparing for the priesthood, the documents emphasize that they "must clearly understand that it is not their lot to lord it over others and enjoy honors, but to devote themselves completely to the service of God and the pastoral ministry. With special care they should be trained in priestly obedience, poverty, and a spirit of self-denial, that they may accustom themselves to living in conformity with the crucified Christ [O.T. #9:18-19].
The already-ordained "should . . . occupy their position of leadership as men who do not seek the things that are their own but the things that are Jesus Christ. They should unite their efforts with those of the lay faithful and conduct themselves among them after the example of the Master, who came among us 'not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many' " [P.O. #9:52-53].
The Council reminds bishops of the same lesson. "That office, which the Lord committed to the pastors of his people, is, in the strict sense of the term, a service, which is called very expressively in Sacred Scripture a 'diakonia' or ministry (cf. Acts 1:17, 25; 21:19; Rom 11:13; 1 Tim 1:12)" [L.G. #24]. "Sent as he is by the Father to govern his family, a bishop should keep before his eyes the example of the Good Shepherd, Who came not to be waited upon but to serve and lay down His life for His sheep (cf. Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45; Jn 10:11) [L.G. #27].
CHRIST, PRIEST AND VICTIM
Though profound and rich, the chronicle of the Last Supper is also succinct. Jesus says, "This is My body and My blood; take and eat, take and drink." He adds, "Do this in memory of Me," 1 and then concludes, "I consecrate Myself for their sakes now, that they may be consecrated in truth." 2
Within this framework are two essential realities: first, the Eucharist, Jesus the Victim; and second, priestly consecration, the immolative configuration of the Apostles with Christ. Christ consecrates Himself, immolates Himself, so that the Apostles may participate in His sacrificial consecration.
This then is the dual concept: Jesus, Who is Priest and Victim; the Apostles, who are priests and victims.
It is necessary to ponder this reality which faces substantial resistance from our modern culture: Christ is both Priest and Victim.
Just like the ancient world, the world today seeks to avoid suffering altogether and so cringes, scandalized by this reality. Christianity is not only unable to eliminate suffering, but even increases it through the presence of the Cross, the presence of the Victim-Priest, the Man of suffering.
The world's perspective is incomplete since it is limited to the last phase of Christ's life. If we really wish to know the Incarnate Word we must go beyond this last frame of His earthly life and see how Jesus' eternal action unfolds into time. Then we see that this final frame, the frame of suffering, is the expression of the greatest reality, that of Trinitarian love. It is God - - Father, Son, and Spirit - - Who loves us. This, rather than the Cross and suffering, is the fundamental reality: God loves us.
Why does He love us? There is no reasonable answer; He loves us just because. It is futile to search further. We must accept this reality even though it appears to be absurd. The more we analyze this awe-inspiring mystery of God's love for us, the more we realize how gratuitous it is. There is no reason for God - - the Infinite, the Self-Sufficient, the All-Powerful - - to love us with a love of predilection. We can only bow our heads with humility and joyous acceptance.
However, since this is indeed a reality, we are drawn to enter into it as deeply as possible to see the economy of the Trinitarian love for each one of us.
God has a clear vision of the relationship He intends to have with us. It is nothing less than the rapport of transforming love. He wants to transform us into Himself, mold us into His image, regardless of our opposition. That obstruction in us, impeding and sometimes blocking the flow of God's divine love, is sin, both original sin and actual sin.
God's first decree regarding man's divinization is nullified by the historical reality of original sin. God then chooses to incarnate the eternal Word. He enters history, becoming a man like us with a body, a dimension, a way of thinking. According to Gaudium et Spes [#22], the Word enters fully into our history so that we may enter into the history of God. This is a fundamental Christian concept already articulated in the first century by St. Athanasius. "God becomes Man so that man may become God." 3
God's love is all the more extraordinary when we realize that He - - Who could have used an infinite number of other options - - chooses the most absurd in order to overcome our resistance. He becomes flesh in order to die on a cross, Priest and Victim. Consistent with the "law of paradox" often found in God's divine way of acting, God - - Who could have saved us through the least of means - - chooses instead to use the utmost.
Only the law of love can explain this. For humans, it is the willingness to suffer that substantiates love, makes love credible. God chooses the redemptive decree "per crucem" to manifest His love. He becomes one of us and suffers like us.
God does not become man out of a whim for humiliation or suffering, but simply to conform Himself to our human condition. Moreover, Christ does not come to bring suffering but to participate in ours thereby giving suffering a transcendental quality. In Him, Priest and Victim, our suffering acquires infinite value.
For His participation to be complete and practical, He is not satisfied with just sampling pain but experiences it to the deepest, ultimate degree, from the moment of His incarnation to the moment of His resurrection with scarred hands. Thus the vision of the Cross and of the suffering immolated Christ, which initially seemed to be a horrifying vision, instead gives testimony to His infinite love.
Placing this image of Christ, Priest and Victim, within the economy of love helps us understand His suffering more fully. The suffering of Christ gives meaning to the suffering of the Church, which has a history of martyrdom, as well as to the immolation, sacrifice, asceticism, and strivings of each individual Christian. These cannot be negative realities for they are efforts to reach the Father. Christ reaches the Father through suffering; so too, the Church and her members become configured with Christ and reach the Father through suffering.
Christ's life is the translation of the Father's love into history. Seen within the divine plan of love, His life, with its backdrop of suffering, finds its fulfillment in the Resurrection. His life is sacrificial and priestly not only on Calvary but in its entirety. Christ, the immolated Sacrifice, and Christ, the Priest offering Himself to the Father, freely accepts suffering and freely accepts death. "No one takes it [life] from Me, I lay it down freely. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again." 4
Jesus is the one Who gives forth His spirit, "emissa voce magna expiravit" - - "uttering a loud cry, Jesus breathed His last." 5 He dies when He chooses after giving a sign of divine power from the Cross by uttering a loud cry.
Christ's whole life, not just its epilogue, is a sacrificial and priestly life born from love and completed with the Resurrection. With this knowledge, we can see more clearly the deep meaning of that startling passage from Philippians. "Though He was in the form of God, He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather He emptied Himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men." 6
Christ's immolation actualizes His interior attitude of love and service to the Father Whom the Servant of Yahweh adores. His immolation is realized through the suffering and denial that have accompanied His life until the culmination of the Cross.
The Cross does not diminish Christ's other sufferings, however. In Gethsemane, for instance, Jesus' suffering is piercing. "In His anguish He prayed with all the greater intensity . . . " 7 "My heart is filled with sorrow to the point of death . . ." 8 These descriptions are even more striking when we recall that Christ's human nature is in hypostatic union with the divine Person of the Word and that He could be enjoying the Beatific Vision.
Instead He chooses to experience each individual moment of His martyrdom. His scourging, the crowning with thorns, the Via Dolorosa, the crucifixion, His suspension between heaven and earth for three excruciating hours - - all this He suffers because He freely chooses it. He enters the dimension of time to fulfill a plan of love which entails His personal suffering and participation in ours.
The physical shedding of blood is accompanied by moral, emotional, social, and juridical pain. Christ is abandoned by His followers and left in utter loneliness. He hangs on the cross alone with only His Mother, John, and some pious women at His feet. If at times our souls should be enveloped by anguish, let us not forget that Jesus suffered anguish first. "Deus meus, Deus meus, ut quid dereliquisti me?" "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" 9
Humanly speaking, Christ is the biggest failure in history. For three years "transiit benefaciendo et sanando omnes." "He went about doing good works and healing all who were in the grip of the devil. . . " 10 After three years of work and a multitude of miracles, He is failed even by His Apostles. One hangs himself; another denies Him; the rest, save one, desert Him. Only a small group of women and John remain faithful while He is judged a failure and condemned.
The priestly state of Christ does not end with His death, however. When He appears to the Apostles, He still bears His stigmata. He tells Thomas, "Take your finger and examine My hands. Put your hand into My side." 11 The hands and feet of the risen, glorified Christ are wounded. In His body there is new life, for the Resurrection is not a mere resuscitation but a transformation. Yet His hands, His feet, and His side reveal a still-wounded body.
This plan of love, begun in Christ's configuration with us, brings about our configuration with God. The Father cannot help but love us, for now we are in Christ. The Eternal Word takes on our flesh and brings it into eternity. We are already potentially assumed with Christ into eternity. Jesus Christ, Priest and Victim, intercedes for us.
This is not a transient reality but a one that continues throughout history in the mystery of the Eucharist, focal point of the Cenacle. "Take and eat . . . take and drink . . . do this in memory of Me." 12
Once again we ask ourselves what the relationship is between Christ's sacrificial, priestly journey and the Cenacle.
The Last Supper is both the arrival and departure point of Jesus' itinerary. Jesus has ardently desired that hour because He wishes to show to His own, and to the Church that is born from them, that He is indeed the Servant of Yahweh. Soon He would begin the last phase of His human journey, filled with pain because filled with love. The Man Who bent down before the Apostles is aware of what is awaiting Him. Judas' betrayal, Peter's denial, the fleeing of the others, the atrocities of the passion, and His death on the Cross do not catch Him off guard. He knows, accepts, and moreover, He wills it all out of immense love.
So that this tremendous pain and love will not find its conclusion within the brief parenthesis of a day or so, He wills the Eucharist. The Apostles, as priests, will remember, re-enact, and re-present the mystery of Christ, Priest and Victim, throughout the centuries. Thus the Cenacle is for Christ, for the Church, and for priests the hallmark of His existence: Jesus Christ, Priest and Victim.
Each of us is a participant in all this. Our history is sealed forever with love whose source is the eternal decree of the Incarnate Word. This love is perfected in the Cenacle, from which is born the mystery of the Eucharist. Whenever we break the Bread, we remember and actualize again the death of the Lord.
The Christ of the Cenacle and of the Cross is, therefore, present among us through His immolation, perpetually renewed through His priests. In this way too, the Father's plan of love is actualized in Christ, in the Church, and in each one of us.
If Christ, then, is Priest and Victim, so is the Church for the Church is Christ present through history. It follows, therefore, that the Church will also suffer her own Calvary every century, every year, every day. When the Church is ridiculed and persecuted, she lives her intrinsic state, a state she must not merely endure but accept and love.
The history of martyrs and of all those who suffer persecution for Christ is the history of the Church herself, the history of her configuration with Christ, Priest and Victim.
This reality extends to all the Church's members and in particular to priests. In fact, if Christ is Priest and Victim, all those who have received the specific call to continue His priesthood must live this sacrificial configuration. Many examples could illustrate this point, but each priest knows the implications of the duties and commitments he has assumed within the Church from the moment of his ordination. He knows that such duties and commitments configure him with Christ, Victim and Bread, and that this requires a life of immolation.
There is immolation in celibacy, which rises above the demands of nature. There is immolation in the imitation of the Servant of Yahweh. There is immolation in the participation of a hierarchical Church where coordination is necessary and therefore obedience is necessary. There is immolation in remaining before the Lord in a penitential and intercessory attitude. It is a sacrificial and immolative apostolate, especially today when much is given and fruits are scarce. It is the same for Christ, Who completes His immolation in the loneliness of Calvary.
All this may be disconcerting if we forget the economy of love, of which we spoke earlier, and the fact that Calvary is not the ultimate goal but rather an intermediate step leading to the Resurrection, to Pentecost, and finally, to the Eternal Blessed Vision. In this vision the plan of love will be completed and, as Paul says, "We shall be with the Lord unceasingly . . ." 13
This is the plan of love within which we find the vision of Christ, Victim and Priest, and the vision of priests and the Church who are and victims and priests as well.
Chapter V
1. Luke 22:19
2. John 17:19
3. St. Athanasius, De Inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192 B
4. John 10:18
5. Mark. 15:37
6. Philippians 2:6-11
7. Luke 22:44
8. Mark 14:34
9. Matthew 27:46
10. Acts 10:38
11. John 20:27
12. Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19
13. "Semper cum Domino erimus . . . " (1 Thes. 4:17)
IMMOLATION
At the Last Supper, on the night He was betrayed, our Savior instituted the Eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood. This He did in order to perpetuate the sacrifice of the Cross throughout the ages until He should come again, and so to entrust to His beloved Spouse, the Church, a memorial of His death and resurrection: a sacrament of love, a sign of unity, a bond of charity, a paschal banquet in which Christ is consumed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us" [S.C. #47].
This passage from Vatican II reiterates the Council of Trent's dogmatic text on the unity of the sacrifice of the Cross and the Mass. 1 Let us venerate the mystery. Let us accept what the Church teaches. Let us entrust to theological research the effort to discover the "quomodo sit" - - "in what way it could be."
Beyond any discussion or research, what is certain is what the Gospel and Paul say happened at the Cenacle. 2 From 1 Corinthians and from the texts of Matthew 3 and Mark,4 we see the oneness of the Supper, the Cross, and the Mass for it is in the Cenacle that Jesus refers to the immolation of Calvary 5 and to the future: "Do this in remembrance of Me." 6 The Council of Trent acknowledged the unity of these different historical moments, just as Paul, along with the entire Christian tradition, clearly recognized in the Eucharist the presence of the same Jesus of the Supper and of the Cross.
What we need to consider for a moment is the immolation of Christ.
Jesus was not merely resigned to His death. No, He deliberately offered Himself as a sacrifice according to His Father's plan. 7 "My life, no one takes it from me; I lay it down freely. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. This command I received from My Father." 8
This is the immolative will that we find in the Cenacle which in a mysterious way anticipates the sacrifice of Golgotha. It is the same will that manifests itself on the Cross when "Jesus, uttering a loud cry, breathed His last." 9 On the altar this same immolative will renews the mystery of the Cenacle and the Cross through the ministry of Jesus. 10
Here a spontaneous question arises. Is this ministerial priesthood just a magic power exercised by the Apostles and their successors, or is it something involving a genuine transformation of their very lives?
Priestly consecration is the culmination of a process of configuration with Christ, Priest and Victim.* By virtue of the immolative will, the Apostles are grafted and transformed into another Christ in a process evolving from the Cenacle.11 This is the synthesis of the work Jesus did with His Apostles during the three years of their formation.
Priestly consecration implies and demands a true configuration-transformation in Christ. In the Apostles, as in Jesus, the immolative will must be constantly present, i.e., they must have an awareness of the sacrificial priesthood and they must accept the state of a victim.
It is difficult to know how much of the mystery of the Cenacle the Apostles grasped. Everything is perfectly clear to Christ, of course, and He could repeat to all of them the words He spoke earlier to Peter. "You may not realize now . . . but later you will understand." 12 The Holy Spirit will touch their intelligence and illuminate the mysteries they are experiencing.
The successors of the Apostles today are the historical collaborators of the mystery of the Cenacle and, in particular, of the Eucharistic immolation. However, are all bishops and priests constantly aware of this great mystery of love and of immolative self-giving which they, like Christ, must offer to the Father as an act of adoration, reparation, and intercession for their brothers and sisters? This they offer not only through the Eucharist but with their entire lives as Paul, model for all priests, says of himself, "In my own flesh I fill up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church." 13
Is the Mass and the life of all priests adoration, reparation, and intercession?
*It is the culmination of a process for the Apostles. For candidates it is conferral and ordination into configuration.
Chapter VI
1. Council of Trent, 1562, Session XXII, Chapter 2, Decree De Missa 1743 and 1740:
In this divine sacrifice, which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offers Himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. The Victim is one and the same; the Same now offers through the ministry of priests, Who then offered Himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.
2. The text from 1 Corinthians is closest to Luke's account.
Every time, then, you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes! This means that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily sins against the body and blood of the Lord. A man should examine himself first; only then should he eat of the bread and drink of the cup. He who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks a judgment on himself." (1Cor 11:26-29)
3. Matthew 26:26-29
4. Mark 14:22-25
5. 1 Corinthians 11:23: "Tradebatur."
6. 1 Corinthians 11:24
7. C.T.I. "Relazione dell'ottobre 1979 su alcune questioni rigueardanti la cristologia" cf. Civilta Cattolica, 1-11-1980 p. 272
8. John 10:18
9. Mark 15:37
10. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, Vatican II:
To accomplish so great a work Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass not only in the person of His minister, "the same now offering, through the ministry of priests, Who formerly offered Himself on the Cross," but especially in the Eucharistic species. By His power He is present in the sacraments so that when anybody baptizes it is really Christ Himself Who baptizes. He is present in His Word since it is He Himself Who speaks when the Holy Scriptures are read in the Church. Lastly, He is present when the Church prays and sings, for He has promised "where two or three are gathered in My name there I am in the midst of them"(Mt 18:20).
Christ, indeed, always associates the Church with Himself in this great work in which God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified. the Church is His beloved Bride who calls to her Lord, and through Him offers worship to the eternal Father.
The liturgy, then, is rightly seen as an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ. It involves the presentation of man's sanctification under the guise of signs perceptible by the senses and its accomplishment in ways appropriate to each of these signs. In it full public worship is performed by the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, that is, by the Head and His members.
From this it follows that every liturgical celebration, because it is an action of Christ the Priest and of His Body, which is the Church, is a sacred action surpassing all others. No other action of the Church can equal its efficacy by the same title and to the same degree [S.C. #7].
11. The topic of the institution of the sacrament of Holy Orders is complex. It is impossible to overlook the expressions of the Risen Christ: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive men's sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound." (John 20:22) "Baptize them . . . teach them." (Matthew 28:19) These two texts have a constitutive and transformative value as do His words in the Cenacle: "Do this as a remembrance of me." (Luke 22:19)
12. John 13:7
13. Colossians 1:24
ANAMNESIS
Is the Mass and the life of all priests adoration, reparation, and intercession?
It is difficult to answer that question without being judgmental. If priests become more aware of the profundity of the Mass, perhaps they will be more attentive to and involved in the representation of the dual mystery of the Cenacle and the Cross. Reflecting on the "anamnesis" or memory-commemoration-repetition of that two-fold mystery is the first step towards heightened awareness.
The original Greek term "anamnesis," normally translated as "memory" or "recalling," has a deeper, more radical meaning than that. In fact, anamnesis constitutes the most sublime reality of the priesthood and of the Eucharistic celebration. When he speaks of the Eucharist in his letter to the Corinthians, 1 Paul uses "anamnesis" twice, and the evangelist Luke utilizes the term in his Gospel of the poor. 2
But what meaning does it have for us? Is it just the remembrance of the past, of the excessive love Christ showed to us in the Supper of the Testament, of the unfathomable mystery of the redemptive death of the Word Who was incarnated in the womb of Mary in order to suffer and die for us? Certainly it includes all of this, and we must remind ourselves and others of it according to the injunction of Paul: "Every time, then, you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes." 3
However, anamnesis means immensely more. The self-awareness of the Church, matured through the action of the Spirit and solemnly expressed at the Council of Trent, has impregnated the term with a much richer meaning. Anamnesis is re-presentation, re-actualization, and re-enactment of what has been and, at the same time, of what will be. At Mass we do not have a mere recollection of the Supper and of the Cross; rather we re-present the bloody and unbloody mystery of those very hours. In a mysterious, yet real, manner Christ accomplishes again the sacrifice of the Cross, re-enacted on the altar in an unbloody way through the word and instrumental will of the priest.
The Council of Trent is explicit about this. "One and the same is the Victim; the same One Who today through the ministerial priesthood but then personally, offered Himself on the Cross. The only difference is the way He offers Himself." 4
Without entering into an explanation of the mystery, we bow our heads in an act of faith and pensively ask ourselves, "Who is that Christ Whom the priest clasps in his hands at the moment of consecration?"
We spontaneously recall the historical Jesus of the Supper and the Cross, but this is a limited and inadequate response. The Lord on the altar is not a fossilized Christ from two thousand years ago; He is the Kyrios, the Lord Who has dominion over history from yesterday to today to the end of time. When the priest consecrates, he has before him not a mere ritualization of the "anamnesis" of a Person Who lived within a segment of time, but rather Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of God.
This Jesus present before us tells us of the Last Supper, of His death on the Cross, and Resurrection from the dead. He also tells us of the Spirit, of the first stirring of the dawning Church, and martyrdom's purple cloaks from the early centuries on - - up to the contemporary martyrs of the Eastern prisons and the millions of little ones, also children of His love, who are killed within the womb of their mothers.
This anamnesis of Jesus reminds us of the sacrilegious betrayal of Judas, repeated throughout the centuries, including our own, by many of His children who betray Him through "abusive" Masses, inappropriately offered - - sometimes out of naivetΘ, sometimes for even less tenable reasons.
This anamnesis recalls the act of love offered to John which Jesus offers all His priests in times of want so they need not rely on illusory human consolation. This anamnesis re-actualizes the prayer for unity - - a unity shredded through the centuries and still lacking in our tormented times.
Therefore the priest not only recalls but also makes present the Christ of faith, the Christ laden with our history and His, the Christ of yesterday and of today. He recalls and makes present the Christ Who, with the Father and the Spirit, forms the indissoluble Trinity. His presence in the anamnesis is one of relationship with the Father and the Spirit, with Whom 5 He has accomplished in the past, is accomplishing in the present, and will accomplish in the future the history of the Church and of the world.
This is the anamnesis that evokes both the remote and the recent past, and is inserted into our time giving us hope for the unforeseeable struggles of the future. To Christ, present on the altar through the mystery of anamnesis, we owe an act of faith, an act of self-giving, an act of unconditional love. 6
Stammering with emotion, we should express our happiness at being on Mount Tabor, and say with Peter, "Bonum est nos hic esse" - - "How good it is for us to be here." 7 How can we hurry through the experience, ignoring the mystery of the anamnesis while distracted by the noise and commotion that call us back to the foot of the Mount? Often things will not be as they "should," but at least let us leave the altar transfigured with a glowing face, like Moses after He spoke with the Lord, "radiating the fire of love," in the words of John Chrysostom.
May we lift up our acts of faith and love to Christ, our Lord and Savior, born of mother Mary who, with the Father and the Spirit, comes among us in the Eucharistic anamnesis.
Chapter VII
1. 1 Corinthians 11:23 ff
2. Luke 22:19 ff
3. 1 Corinthians 11:26
4. Council of Trent, Session XXII, Decree De Missa, Chapter 2
5. The Father, present in the Son, has loved us from eternity, has suffered in Christ killed on Golgotha, and throughout history has lived the drama of our daily lives with us.
The Spirit, too, is present in the Son. He, too, has showered His love on humanity from eternity, leading us to the fullness of Christ and directing the course of history toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God - - which is the Church - - a kingdom proclaimed by the Master and actualized through the blood of the Lamb.
6. Now we can better appreciate the ecstatic adoration of our Eastern brothers who, through veils and incense, in calm and with songs, express their awe before the Lord, re-actualizing again, somehow, the incarnation He already lived in the womb of Mary.
7. Mark 9:4
THE CHURCH IS BORN IN THE CENACLE
Two essential and complementary realities subsist in the Cenacle; the first is Christ Himself at the Last Supper and all that entails. The second has the dual aspects of the Apostles waiting with Mary 1 and the descent of the Spirit.
In the Cenacle's first frame, Christ constitutes His Apostles as His collaborators, the backbone of the Church, the hierarchy. The second frame presents us with Mary, the Apostles, some holy women, and the disciples representing the all-encompassing Church. We might say that at this paradoxical culmination and beginning, the second dimension of the Church, the complete Church or "Church of the Spirit," is born. 2
There is a parallel between the first picture of the pivotal Last Supper and the second picture of the descent of the Spirit. The Church we have today, with all its sacramental richness, is born from both realities. Nevertheless, these two pictures differ in basic and specific ways.
At the Last Supper Christ expresses His maximal love by allowing John to rest his head on His chest. Perhaps in that intimate moment when Christ reveals the rhythm of His divine heart, John conceives his great theology of love. Even though the Church is based on all the Apostles, 3 as on twelve pillars with Peter as the anchor of truth, unity, and continuity, it also rests firmly on John, the great mystic.
This is the meaning of Hierarchy.
Christ prays for unity as a practical reality and not a vague dream. Thus He establishes a physical center of unity, the Apostles. Confronted with disputes leading to divisions in the Church, it must be remembered that unity can only be found around the Apostles, around Peter. 4 In that unity truth is found.
Pilate's question, "Truth! What does that mean?" 5 is the question of skeptics now as well as then. All ecclesial divisions result from confusion about this issue. The way to the truth, though, is directly through the center of unity: the hierarchy which is the guardian of Christ's message. It is Christ Who safeguards the Church which does not and cannot change. Truth is found in this unity; certitude and continuity are found in the compact of truth and unity.
This is the first picture of the Cenacle: essential, monolithic, grand and immutable.
The second picture presents the Church of the Spirit with the Apostles, pious women, and disciples gathered around Mary praying until the power of the Spirit bursts forth filling the static atmosphere with movement described as fire, wind, thunder. This sudden dynamism moves the Apostles to fling open the doors that had been bolted for safety. They glorify God and speak in loud voices. Those who hear them can come up with only one explanation. "They are drunk." 6;7
Extraordinary charismatic phenomena characterized the apostolic age, however even after this exceptional phase, the Church remains charismatic. The Church, alive, dynamic, and sacramental, faces the issues of each era directed by the movement of the Spirit.
This is the second picture of the Cenacle: charismatic, innovative, and sacramental.
The Church must be and is immutable in the major decisions of the hierarchy; and dynamic, full of activity, dedication, evangelization, and courage in the Apostles throughout time. From the beginning until the end of time, these two dimensions of the Cenacle, i.e., the static aspect of Christ coupled with the dynamic aspect of the Apostles, have been and always will be the reality of the Church.
It is important to underscore the Church's sacramentality, which means translating the perennial truths of Christ into new terms appropriate for changing times and new situations. The hierarchical Church tackles the multiplicity of events, the diversity of cultures and civilizations that evolve throughout the centuries. The charismatic Church, born of the Holy Spirit in the Cenacle, presses toward the future carrying on the dynamic missionary activity inaugurated by the Apostles on Pentecost.
When analyzing these complementary aspects of the Church, it is easy to forget that the Apostles themselves were the first charismatics, therefore the hierarchical Church cannot be separated from its charismatic character. It is the hierarchy that is endowed with extraordinary charisms. The hierarchy's service of authority is one of paternal and maternal charismatic supervision.8 Unfortunately, there has been tension between the hierarchical and the charismatic aspects of the Church from the beginning. This fact is responsible for the hierarchy's caution in regard to the charismatic and explains why the concept of charism, overlooked for so long, is just now being explored again.
The Church, in her self-awareness, balances the hierarchy with the charismatic. This marvelous reality, which is not a majority-rules democracy, reveals a vision of the people of God moved by the Holy Spirit. In this way the Spirit leads the Church into maturity. The solicitations of the faithful, often prompted by the Spirit, are probed and verified by the hierarchy. The Holy Spirit fosters activity in the charismatic Church which raises needs and concerns, and furnishes light for the hierarchical Church, which examines and evaluates them. Indeed the Church is overshadowed by the Holy Spirit Who is sent by Christ to form the image of Christ Himself in the Church and in each individual heart.
Chapter VIII
1. It is surprising that Mary is missing from the Supper. We would expect her to be present for the institution of the covenant of love, for the last prayer, for that time of intimacy, for the farewell. Since the Gospels make no mention of her, however, we must accept the evangelical fact that Christ formed the essential structure of the Church alone with the Apostles.
2. According to Paul, baptism initiates membership in the Church, and reception of the Holy Spirit brings it to completion. In some cases, the Spirit is so eager to dwell in the faithful that He descends on them before they are even baptized. The Spirit's inexplicable action can only be understood in the broader vision of His presence in the Church and humanity. In fact, the Spirit is always present in His people leading them toward salvation and, in some way, toward holiness. After Pentecost the descent of the Spirit becomes a pattern and habitual fact shaping the Church.
3. Acts 1:2
4. "I for My part declare to you, you are 'Rock,' and on this rock I will build My Church, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it. I will entrust to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven." (Mt. 16:18-19)
5. John 18:38
6. Acts 2:13
7. The miracle gradually unfolds. People are curious about the wind and fire but they are also attracted to those singing, preaching, praising men who are understood in different languages. Peter declares to the crowd that he and the others are not drunk but that they are witnessing the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy (Jl. 3:1-5).
8. In addition to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Church is characterized by the presence of Mary. As Christ is the "Servus," the Servant of Yahweh, Mary is the "ancella," the handmaid. Mary, "Mater Ecclesiae," Mother of the Church, represents maternal goodness and tenderness as well as self-giving. Thus we see that the charismatic Church is a Church of service.
APOSTOLICITY
Before His death, Jesus chooses to be alone with His Apostles to establish the principle of apostolicity in His Church. The Church springs from Christ Himself through the action of the Apostles to whom the sacraments are entrusted. It is in the Cenacle that Jesus promises, "I will not leave you orphaned; I will come back," 1 a pledge He reconfirms after the Resurrection. "Behold, I am with you all days until the end of time." 2
It is on Calvary, however, that the full meaning of this promise is revealed. Christ will always be present through His generative Church. From Christ's pierced side flow water and blood, as the Fathers of the Church have commented: Baptism and Eucharist, the two sacraments that generate the Church. It is from the heart of Christ that the Church is born. 3
After His ascension, Jesus will not be humanly present; thus He chooses the Apostles to be His instruments. They will be His generative presence through the centuries. He tells them, "Go, and baptize;" 4 in the Cenacle He entrusts them with the re-presentation of the Eucharist, "Do this in My memory." 5 Therefore Jesus, though invisible, will be present and generative through the sacramental action of the Apostles. Peter and the others will visibly baptize and give the Bread of Life; in reality it is Jesus Who acts.
This makes the depth and strength of the union between Jesus and His own understandable. It also sheds light on the meaning of much that is said and done at the Last Supper. "He had loved His own in this world, and would show His love for them to the end." 6 Why such infinite love if not because He was about to perform the most profound mystery of love for them?
Recognizing the weakness and poverty of His disciples, Jesus is moved to multiply His gestures of tenderness. He washes their feet, 7 calls them friends, 8 and uses the expression, "My children." 9 Referring to the mystery of the Apostles' priestly consecration as well as to their sacrificial sanctification, He says, "I consecrate Myself for their sakes now, that they may be consecrated in truth." 10
The Apostles, in need of a deep interior transformation, are promised the Spirit's gifts of fortitude and consolation. They need a solid and indissoluble unity, strong enough to counter every temptation of divisive selfishness. Jesus' prayer to the Father for unity among the Apostles is an earnest supplication 11 since unity must be characteristic of all those who will believe through the words of the Apostles. 12 This unity, fortitude, and consolation illustrate the interior dynamism and vitality of the Church.
After the Ascension Christ disappears visibly from history's scene since the Apostles will make Him sacramentally present from now on. Likewise, after the Apostles give witness with their own blood, their successors will continue Christ's generative presence through time.
Apostolicity is clearly an essential mark of the Church. The Church is apostolic not only because every local church, through the succession of the bishops, goes back to the Apostles, 13 pillars of the Church, 14 but also because every Christian is born into the Church by the action of the Apostles, present in the bishop and, consequently, in the priest. 15
References
Chapter IX
1. John 14:18
2. Matthew 28:20
3. Jesus' promise of the Eucharist illuminates this reality. "He who feeds on My flesh and drinks of My blood remains in Me, and I in him. Just as the Father Who has life sent Me and I have life because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will have life because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and died nonetheless, he who feeds on this bread shall live forever." (Jn. 6:55-58) This promise is fulfilled in the Cenacle when Jesus institutes the Eucharist and priestly ordination.
4. Matthew 28:19
5. Luke 22:19
6. John 13:1
7. John 13:33
8. John 15:15
9. John 13:33
10. John 17:19
11. John 17:23
12. John 17:20
13. Tertullian underlines the importance of the apostolicity of the local churches, for they are all connected to the Twelve.
Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself declared what He was, what He had been, how He was carrying out His Father's will, what obligations He demanded of men. This He did during His earthly life, either publicly to the crowds or privately to His disciples. Twelve of these He picked out to be His special companions, appointed to teach the nations.
One of them fell from his place. The remaining eleven were commanded by Christ, as He was leaving the earth to return to the Father after His resurrection, to go and teach the nations and to baptize them into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The apostles cast lots and added Mathias to their number, in place of Judas, as the twelfth apostle. The authority for this action is to be found in a prophetic psalm of David. After receiving the power of the Holy Spirit which had been promised to them, so that they could work miracles and proclaim the truth, they first bore witness to their faith in Jesus Christ and established churches throughout Judea. They then went out into the whole world and proclaimed to the nations the same doctrinal faith.
They set up churches in every city. Other churches received from them a living transplant of faith and the seed of doctrine, and through this daily process of transplanting they became churches. They therefore qualify as apostolic churches by being the offspring of churches that are apostolic.
Every family has to be traced back to its origins. That is why we can say that all these great churches constitute that one original Church of the apostles; for it is from them that they all come. They are all primitive, all apostolic, because they are all one. They bear witness to this unity by the peace in which they all live, the brotherhood which is their name, the fellowship to which they are pledged. The principle on which these associations are based is common tradition by which they share the same sacramental bond.
The only way in which we can prove what the apostles taught - - that is to say, what Christ revealed to them - - is through those same churches. They were founded by the apostles themselves, who first preached to them by what is called the living voice and later by means of letters.
The Lord had said clearly in former times: I have many more things to tell you, but you cannot endure them now. But He went on to say: When the Spirit of truth comes, He will lead you into the whole truth. Thus Christ shows us that the apostles had full knowledge of the truth through the Spirit of Truth. His promise was certainly fulfilled, since the Acts of the Apostles prove that the Holy Spirit came down on them." Tertullian, On the Prescription of Heretics
14. Matthew 28:19
15. Modern theology also underlines the actual generative action of the Church through her apostles.
The divine power sustaining the Church passes through the hierarchy - - such power may thus be called apostolic. Such power provides for the Church an apostolic structure: mysterious in its essence and miraculous in its splendor.
To acknowledge that the true Church is apostolic is to acknowledge the fact that she relies on a spiritual energy that resides in the Holy Trinity. This spiritual energy descends first into the humanity of Christ, then on the dual power of the apostolic body, i.e. sacramental and jurisdictional power, and, finally, on the Christian people. In such mediation and chain, we discover the true Church, composed of the just who will be saved and the sinners who will be lost. Where this mediation is missing, we miss the true Church. That is, we lack the full participation in the true Church, not withstanding an initial initiation, which in itself can somehow be beneficial. No link of the chain can be suppressed or even replaced: Divinity is eternal, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8), and to the end of the world He will assist the apostolic body. An eternal God, an immortal Christ, an indefectible apostolic body and, lastly, a faithful people: This is the evangelical order.
But in what way will the apostolic body be indefectible if not through an uninterrupted line of succession? In the case of an interruption whereby another apparently identical structure takes over though not manifesting any obvious change, all would turn to confusion - - and the confusion would soon manifest itself. The new reality would not inherit any of the mysterious privileges bestowed by Jesus on the apostolic body. Without the uninterrupted succession, the last link, to which the Church would be connected, would break making the Church's apostolicity disappear.
Mediation represents the vertical order; succession the horizontal order. Charles Journet, Teologia della Chiesa, Marietti, pp.170, 172
TRANSFORMATION
The miracle at the wedding feast in Cana confirms the disciples' faith in Christ. 1 Yet when Jesus made the solemn promise of the Eucharist, there were probably few who thought of Cana even though contemporary exegetes see a Eucharistic dimension in the transformation of water into wine. In fact, despite having witnessed this and many other marvels such as the multiplication of the loaves, some disciples left Him. 2
At the Last Supper, did the Apostles remember the transforming power of Jesus and His teaching that His body and blood are nourishment essential for eternal life? It is impossible to answer this question with certainty. Nevertheless, we presume that the Apostles, enlightened by faith, understood the intrinsic meaning hidden in Christ's words: "Take and eat, all of you." 3 "Take and drink, all of you."4 "Do this in memory of Me." 5 These marvelous words effect a two-fold transformation: the elements, i.e., the bread and wine, become the body and blood of Christ; and men, i.e., the Apostles, are configured with the priesthood of Christ.
The Cenacle has two relevant realities. Are they extraneous to the core of the Cenacle, or are they the integral conclusion of a process that permeates the Cenacle from beginning to end?
Christ initiates a process of identification and transformation in the Cenacle which, though valid for everyone, pertains to the Apostles in a unique way. Jesus is the Servant of Yahweh. When He stoops down to wash the feet of the Twelve, He clearly teaches them to imitate the One they call Lord and Master. Jesus loves His own and the world so much that He gives His life for them. The Apostles and all other Christians must do the same. All are called to complete configuration with the Fullness of Love. The Apostles must remain attached to the "Vine" not in a juridical, or even a psychological way, but vitally.
Jesus repeatedly promises the Apostles the Holy Spirit, Who gives them comfort and forms them into instruments capable of evangelizing the world. To strengthen them for this super-human mission, He transforms them into Himself by nourishing them with His body and blood. The life of Christ is indeed nourishment for the disciples who are configured to the Savior through grace. Thus they share in His divine life.
During the Last Supper Jesus intensely petitions the Father for unity, making the Apostles participants in the life and love of the Trinity. They are totally transfigured . They now have the task and power to repeat the miracle of the bread and wine. They are also empowered to help all people become sons and daughters of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus.
Unfortunately, today some priests prefer to emphasize their baptismal identity at the expense of their transfiguration in Christ the Priest. This negates the experience of the Cenacle which gives us the key to understanding the doctrine of Lumen Gentium. 6 Although the faithful are truly a priestly people, sacramental priesthood is on a different plane, essential, unique, and irreplaceable.
References
Chapter X
1. John 2:11
2. John 6:46
3. Matthew 26:26
4. Matthew 26:27
5. Luke 22:19
6. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church:
Though they differ essentially and not only in degree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial and hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless ordered one to another; each in its own proper way shares in the one priesthood of Christ. The ministerial priest, by the sacred power that he has, forms and rules the priestly people; in the person of Christ he effects the Eucharistic sacrifice and offers it to God in the name of all the people. The faithful indeed, by virtue of their royal priesthood, participate in the offering of the Eucharist. They exercise that priesthood, too, by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, abnegation and active charity. [L.G. #10]
BE HOLY
In the Latin common edition of the Bible, 1 we find the expression, "sanctified in the truth," 2 and again, "For them I sanctify Myself that they too may be sanctified in the truth." 3 Modern translations replace "sanctify" with other verbs, for example, "sacrifice" or "consecrate." Although the basic meanings are the same, the term "sanctify" is richer and clearer. Through God, the Holy One, we can understand what sanctify means. 4
The meaning of "sanctify" is clearest in the Cenacle. Jesus is the Holy One of God5 for He participates in the infinite perfection of the Father and He is totally set apart for the task the Father wills for Him. Jesus' offering of Himself is immolative since He freely accepts the redemptive plan of God. In so doing, He becomes our model not only of virtue but also of total self-giving to the Father. When Jesus uses the same term "sanctify" for Himself and for the Apostles, He obviously wants the Apostles, through the power of the Spirit, to follow in His footsteps.
As a consequence the Apostles must strive for the highest degree of perfection. "In a word, you must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." 6 They must dedicate themselves to the work of the Father even if it requires the shedding of their blood. They must be role models for all those who will come into the Church through their ministry.
This three-fold reality implied in the term "sanctify" - - being holy, being dedicated, and being models - - is related first of all to Jesus and, in turn, to the Apostles, bishops, priests, and then all the faithful. It is the doctrine of the universal call to holiness, solemnly proclaimed by the Church in the fifth chapter of Lumen Gentium. If this doctrine pertains to all Christians, then it pertains all the more to bishops and priests whom Jesus had in mind first as He prayed for the Apostles. If bishops and priests live in the light of the Cenacle's "sanctify," then it will be easier for the People of God to become aware of their duty to strive for holiness. This is essentially the teaching of Lumen Gentium 7 and of Peter, primary witness of the Cenacle, who adds the dimension of service. 8
Everyone is called to live the "I sanctify" of the Cenacle, but the responsibility of priests is most pressing. "Clerics have a special obligation to seek holiness in their lives, because they are consecrated to God by a new title through the reception of orders, and are stewards of the mysteries of God in the service of His people." 9 This expression should be understood in its broader sense, too; however, it is certain that the first called to live the fullness of the meaning of "I sanctify" are His priests, those whom Christ willed to configure to His priesthood with a specific, particular sacrament.
References
Chapter XI
1. Vulgate, St. Jerome, 4th Century
2. John 17:17
3. John 17:19
4. What does "God, the Holy One" mean? It means He is the absolute, the unique, the perfect, infinitely distant from human poverty and misery. When we venerate God using an object, such as an altar, it becomes juridically holy; when immolated or destroyed as an act of adoration or reparation, as the Israelites sacrificed lambs, the object is said to be sanctified for God. Passing from this ritualistic concept to a spiritual concept is instinctive. When a person strives to follow God's will and walk in His light, he or she is considered holy.
5. John 6:69
6. Matthew 5:48
7. In the first place, the shepherds of Christ's flock, in the image of the high and eternal priest, shepherd and bishop of our souls, should carry out their ministry with holiness and eagerness, with humility and fortitude; thus fulfilled, this ministry will also be for them an outstanding means of sanctification. Called to the fullness of the priesthood, they are endowed with sacramental grace, so that by prayer, sacrifice, and preaching, and through every form of episcopal care and service, they may fulfill the perfect duty of pastoral love. They should not be afraid to lay down their life for their sheep and, being a model to their flock (cf. 1Pet 5:3), they must foster a growing holiness in the Church, also by their own example.
Priests, who resemble the episcopal rank, forming the spiritual crown of the bishops, partake of their grace of office through Christ the eternal and only Mediator; they should grow in the love of God and of their neighbor by the daily exercise of their duty, should keep the bond of priestly fellowship, should abound in every spiritual good, and bear a living witness of God to all, imitating those priests who, in the course of centuries, left behind them an outstanding example of holiness, often in a humble and hidden service. Their praise lives on in God's Church. They have the duty to pray and offer sacrifice for their people and for the whole People of God, appreciating what they do and imitating what they touch with their hands, Rather than be held back by perils and hardships, in their apostolic labors they should rise to greater holiness, nourishing and fostering their action with an overflowing contemplation, for the delight of the entire Church of God." [L.G., Chapter V, #41]
8. To the elders among you I, a fellow elder, a witness of Christ's sufferings and sharer in the glory that is to be revealed, make this appeal. God's flock is in your midst; give it shepherd's care. Watch over it willingly as God would have you do, not under constraint; and not for shameful profit either, but generously. Be examples to the flock, not lording it over those assigned to you so that when the chief Shepherd appears you will win for yourselves the unfading crown of glory. (1Pet 5:1-4)
9. Code of Canon Law, #276
BE BROTHERS
The Gospels record Jesus' actions and sentiments at the Last Supper, but there is little information about what the Apostles actually understand at that point. Even though special insights and knowledge have been given to them, it seems unlikely that the Apostles all understand equally and completely the meaning of Christ's prayer, "I sanctify." The Holy Spirit will enlighten them fully.
One teaching that is clear to the Apostles is that of fraternal love since the Lord constantly repeats it, implicitly and explicitly, throughout the night of His farewell. Not only does He wash their feet in a gesture of loving service and direct them to do the same for each other, He reiterates three times the command, "Love one another." 1 So that they realize what is "new" about the commandment and why it is "His," He sets the standard: "Love one another as I have loved you." Emphasizing the scope of this criterion, He defines it explicitly. "There is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." 2 This obvious reference to the Cross that awaits Him on Golgotha is the ultimate expression of love.
Jesus expands his exhortation on fraternal love through His analogy of the vine and branches. The branches are bound together in a vital unity because they all receive their life from the same unique Source, Jesus Christ. The Lord's intimate and tender designation of the Apostles as "friends," 3 and even as His "children," 4 emphasizes the fraternity binding the Apostles together in union with the Lord.
The supreme moment of their sacramental transformation finally arrives. Their unique participation in the priesthood of the Master joins them to Him and firmly unites them with each other. Together they share the same mission: to represent Christ, to absolve from sins, 5 to proclaim His Word, 6 and especially to celebrate the mystery of the Eucharistic sacrifice.7
Are the Apostles, or their successors, capable of living the legacy of the Cenacle which is fraternal love? Jesus realizes the difficulties they will face and so after entrusting the fulfillment of His work to the Spirit, He turns to the Father in prayer. He prays for unity. Authentic Trinitarian love demands participation in Trinitarian love and, consequently, fraternal love. 8 Can the Apostles be filled with the love of the Father and of Christ but not love each other? Their actions prove they understand the commandment of fraternal love.
While waiting for the Spirit in the Upper Room, they remain "unanimiter," 9 that is, of "one heart." After Pentecost they communicate the necessity of love and unity to the whole Church which becomes not only "devoted to communal life," 10 but also of "one heart and mind." 11
Fraternal love has always been a hallmark of the Church. Today if priests go back to the Cenacle, they can reclaim their fraternal and priestly love. They will then be able to teach the world about the significance of spiritual fraternity within the Church.
References
Chapter XII
1. John 13:34; 15:12; 15:17
2. John 15:13-14
3. John 15:14
4. John 13:33
5. John 20:23
6. Colossians 1:25
7. Luke 22:19
8. "That Your love for Me may live in them, and I may live in them." (Jn.17:26)
9. Acts 1:14
10. Acts 2:42
11. Acts 4:32
ON CHRIST'S HEART
Twice in his Gospel John mentions the beloved disciple who shares a special intimacy with Christ at the Last Supper: "One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, reclined close to Him;" 1 ". . . the one who had leaned against Jesus' chest during the supper." 2 Since John himself is unquestionably the beloved disciple recounting his own experience, it is highly improbable that this same evangelist's record of the blood and water flowing from the pierced side of Christ is related by chance.
The love that filled the heart of Christ was communicated personally to the Apostle whom Jesus loved. John was thereby commissioned to proclaim to the world the birth of the Church from the heart of the crucified Lord. These revealed truths, which are rich and deep, need to be understood clearly because John, who is writing at the end of the earliest age of the Church, presents a theological vision of revelation illuminating the prerequisites for intimate rapport with Christ.
Every Apostle, indeed every Christian, must rest on the heart of Christ. The Church, aware of her birth from the heart of Christ, needs to return to His heart in order to be truly faithful.
The heart, i.e., the love of Christ, is the objective core of the mystery of the Passion, from Gethsemane to Golgotha. This heart reveals itself primarily in the Cenacle which is intensely charged with love. Jesus, Who has longed to celebrate this supper with His own, Who has always loved them, and Who loves them without limit, prepares us all for that great historical event. "Take and eat; do this in memory of Me." 3
The Church is born from the heart of Christ through the Apostles, at least one of whom leaned his head against that heart, almost counting the beats and sensing the depth and scope of that infinite love. What impact did this experience have on John? Perhaps Jerome is close to the truth when he asserts that John drew the immeasurable richness we find in his writings from that marvelous experience. Whether this is so or not, it is obviously unforgettable since he writes about it twice. His experience is a model for all Christians, especially priests.
The Church and, therefore, every Christian must remember that they were born from the heart of Christ. Consequently, love for the heart of Jesus is not just a supplemental devotion but an essential dimension of our rapport with the Lord. John's example teaches us the necessity of developing a vibrant, personal relationship with the source of our life. 4
It is striking that John is the Apostle, the chaste Apostle, to whom Jesus entrusts His Virgin mother. If John's experience is meant to be the experience of every Christian, then how much more must it be typical of priests who have a special rapport with the heart of Christ. There is no doubt that the apostolic priestly vocation is an expression of exceptional love. 5 The priest must respond to such love with an equally unique love since he has an undivided heart, having given it exclusively to the One Who has loved him to the folly of the Cross. 6
The priest should never forget that the heart of Christ, from which he receives life, is always waiting to repeat with him the gesture shared with John. It is consoling to remember that whenever a priest is bereft of human support, there is always the reality of the divine heart loving infinitely, waiting for him.
References
Chapter XIII
1. John 13:25
2. John 21:20
3. Matthew 26:26; Luke 22:19
4. John broadens this concept in his first letter, suggesting the need for a complete experience of Christ. "This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked upon and our hands have touched - - we speak of the word of life. (This life became visible; we have seen and bear witness to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life that was present to the Father and became visible to us.) What we have seen and heard we proclaim in turn to you so that you may share life with us. This fellowship of ours is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. Indeed, our purpose in writing you this is that our joy may be complete." (1 Jn. 1:1-14) The essence of this experience is the heart of Jesus.
5. "Jesus looked at him with love." (Mk 10:21)
6. 1 Corinthians 7:32-35
THE CHURCH: A FAMILY
As has been noted so many times already, the Cenacle presents two fundamental realities: the Church born of Christ, and then of the Spirit. In both moments the Church is born as a "family."
The first picture of this Church-family born of Christ is described in detail by John in chapters 13 through 17 of his Gospel. The figure of the One Whom Jesus calls "Abbß'" with filial tenderness hovers over everything. It is the Father Who acknowledges and glorifies the Son. It is the Father Who consecrates and binds together the Apostles, and assists all those who will come to the faith through the ministry of the priesthood. "Abbß'" is not only the Father of Jesus but also the Father of the entire Church which is born from His bounteous love.
Yet the Church is also born from Christ Who is both father and brother. Christ is the generative principle of the Church through the dual sacrament of the water and the blood gushing from His pierced heart. The Church is born from that heart which, in the Cenacle, is moved by such love that He calls the Apostles children. 1
Christ, however, is also brother. He is brother to the Apostles Whom He binds to Himself through their extraordinary consecration which renders them partakers of His priesthood. It is not by chance that He tells Mary Magdalen, "Go to My brothers." 2 Although in a different sense, Christ is the brother of all Christians.
In his letter to the Romans, Paul calls Jesus "first-born of many brothers." 3 This theme is amplified in the letter to the Hebrews:
Indeed, it was fitting that when bringing many sons to glory, God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make their leader in the work of salvation perfect through suffering. He who consecrates and those who are consecrated have one and the same Father. Therefore he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying "I will announce your name to my brothers, I will sing your praise in the midst of the assembly;" and, "I will put my trust in him;" and again, "Here am I, and the children God has given Me!"
Now since the children are men of blood and flesh, Jesus likewise had a full share in ours, that by his death he might rob the devil, the prince of death, of his power, and free those who through fear of death had been slaves all their life long. Surely he did not come to help angels, but rather the children of Abraham, therefore He had to become like His brothers in every way, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest before God on their behalf, to expiate the sins of the people. Since He was Himself tested through what He suffered, He is able to help those who are tempted.4
All this holds true for the Apostles who are also, in a sense, real "fathers" of the Church as explained in the previous chapter on Apostolicity.
Surely Paul was convinced of this, for he says forcefully, "I am writing you in this way not to shame you but to admonish you as my beloved children. Granted you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you have only one father. It was I who begot you in Christ Jesus through my preaching of the gospel." 5 Paul suffers the pangs of childbirth until Christ is totally formed in the Galatians. 6
The Apostles - - the bishops - - are fathers of the faithful as well as brothers, for they all are born of the love of the Father and the salvific immolation of Christ.
Clearly the first picture of the Cenacle is that of a family.
The second picture is also one of a family. Together the whole Church is gathered in prayer while waiting for the Spirit. Who is the spiritual link of that assembly? It is Mary, the mother. Mary is the mother of Jesus, Who is the head; therefore she is mother of the entire Mystical Body since the head cannot be severed from the body nor the body separate from the head. Mary is the mother of the total Christ. She is the co-redemptive mother for she suffers with her Son for our salvation through a mystical death which parallels the physical death of Jesus. Finally, she is our mother by succession since, in the person of John, we are entrusted to her by Jesus while He is dying on the Cross. "Behold your son." 7 This truth was stressed by Pope Paul VI when he declared Mary to be "Mother of the Church." 8
Since Mary is our mother and we, her children, are brothers and sisters to one another, the Church is obviously our family. This concept is mentioned in Lumen Gentium 9 and is as meaningful as the more familiar titles such as "Mystical Body" and "People of God."
Using the term "family" for the Church is scriptural because the Bible refers to the Church as a bride 10 and as a mother. 11 So we say with scriptural certainty that the Church is begotten as family in the Cenacle. This beautiful doctrine need not languish at the level of speculation for it reveals the vitality of our relationship with God the Father; with Jesus, our Brother; and with Mary, our mother. This teaching is the basis of our reciprocal rapport with one another as members of the Church.
The inter-related roles of our Church-family are summarized below.
A.) The historical collaborators of the apostolic mission, i.e., bishops and priests, need to be cognizant of and appreciative of their generative role which makes them fathers of the Church. Their paternity is not one of domination but one of service in the example of Christ Who teaches them to wash each other's feet and Who sacrificed Himself to make the Church holy and immaculate. 12
B.) Priests, as fathers of the one same Church who are totally configured with Christ, must live the sacramental fraternity that binds them to each other, as expressed by Vatican II. 13
C.) The faithful must recognize bishops and priests as their sacramental fathers in Christ. Not only must they respect them, the laity must also love them and help them in practical ways with an authentic filial spirit. It is good to recall Paul's observations to the Corinthians. "If we have sown for you in the spirit, is it too much to expect a material harvest from you?" 14
D.) The entire Church, pastors and faithful together, must make every effort to build up the vast family-Church in sacramental unity around the Trinity, Father ("Abbß"), Son, and Holy Spirit; around Christ, first among brothers; and around Mary, Mother of God and of the entire Church.
This concept of Church-family represents a sacramental reality while remaining a great ideal towards which we strive. Unfortunately the ideal is little-understood and seldom practiced. What is needed is a great number of people, priests and laity alike, who understand the lessons of the Cenacle and who are willing to become apostles living the ideal convincingly.
Only a Church totally constituted as a family will be a credible witness of her birth from God Who is love.
References
Chapter XIV
1. John 13:33
2. John 20:17
3. Romans 8:29
4. Hebrews 2:10-18
5. 1 Corinthians 4:14-15
6. Galatians 4:19
7. John 19:26
8. Paul VI, Allocution, November 21, 1964:
To the glory of the Virgin and for our consolation, we proclaim the most holy Mary "Mother of the Church;" that is, Mother of the entire people of God, from the faithful to the Pastors, who invoke her as most loving Mother. We wish that, from now on, the Virgin be even more honored under this title, by all Christian people.
9. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, #6
10. Ephesians 5:25-27; Revelation 21:1-2, 9
11. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, #64; cf. 63
12. Ephesians 5:27
13. Vatican II, Presbyterorum Ordinis, Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, #8
14. 1 Corinthians 9:11
MARY: MOTHER OF THE CHURCH AND OUR MOTHER
In describing the Church as a family born from the power of the Spirit and intimately joined to Mary, we have underlined an essential tenet presented in the Acts of the Apostles. We could now overlook everything else and move on, but we would then miss an essential reality, i.e., Mary's spiritual maternity within the Church. It would be a great loss to ignore this picture of the Cenacle.
We can readily imagine the deep and tender relationship between Jesus and His mother. Can we fail to consider the rapport that every Christian, and especially priests, need to have with their mother Mary? We discover the appropriate and authentic role of Mary, Mother of the Church, in the pages of the New Testament including those describing the second picture of the Cenacle.
The People of God, with their "sensus fidei" and "sensus Ecclesiae," have always maintained devotion to Mary throughout the centuries. Over the last thirty years, however, interest in Mary has declined in certain theological circles, though the crisis is beginning to abate. This attitude of distance from the Blessed Virgin commonly arises from a desire to reach out in love to our separated fellow Christians. Some hoped that by minimizing devotion to Mary, Catholic faith and Protestant doctrine might be brought closer.
Though the aim is laudable, love of ecumenism and the desire for unity are not served by sacrificing the truth. We recall with pain the reactions that greeted Pope Paul VI when he proclaimed Mary "Mater Ecclesiae" during the Council. Some theologians argued for an alteration of Marian doctrine that would bring Mary down to a "normal" level, attempting to mitigate Mary's privileged position which made her a unique member of the Church.
Giving Mary her proper place in Catholic doctrine returns us to the principle of love for her. We should not get lost in multiple dogmatic definitions, but instead we should ponder anthropological concepts of contemporary theology which, in a positive sense, promote an existential rapport between God and His people.
The focus of current theology has shifted from a perspective of God Who is the omnipotent Creator to God Who creates and redeems humanity. We see God as One Who respects freedom, and Who becomes Man and lives as a man in order to take us with Him into eternity. It is within this anthropological vision of theology that Mary's status of being "like us" and being "for us" is brought to light.
Like us, Mary suffered. Certainly Mary had to live with intense faith, just as we do, for there is no theological indication that she had an anticipated beatific vision. It is proper, therefore, for us to look at Mary not only from the standpoint of what exalts her, what sets her apart and makes her unique, but also at what brings her close to us. Mary is our model and our mother, an unassuming woman who lived her daily life by faith, hope, and love.
Traditional theology has stressed Mary's position in the plan of redemption by centering on her total sinlessness. Mary is exempt from original sin and resisted all temptations to actual sin. She is co-redemptive through her cooperation with Christ in the salvation of the world.
Without negating the reality of original sin or denying the seriousness of actual sin, today's theology sees the person as a subject of love. Theology now stresses the rapport of love one must have with God, with Christ, and consequently, with Mary. Humanity, seen within an economy of love, is the primary object of God's plan and, as such, is loved fully. God manifests the fullness of His plan of love in Jesus and, consequently, in Mary, showing what humanity would have been without the Fall and what humanity can be despite sin. Jesus is the perfect Man. By grace, Mary is the perfect woman.
In this theological vision, Mary is neither diminished nor is she alienated from us. She is close to us, is one of us, and experiences the fullness of life. The Immaculate Conception is not a negative factor, exemption from original sin; it is the ultimate gift from God to a creature who, from the beginning, is the "gratia plena." 1 She is the one in whom the Lord, "before the foundation of the world,"2 has placed His delight. Thus Mary is our exemplar. According to Paul, we have been chosen by God "before the world began, to be holy and blameless* in His sight" 3 that we might be fully configured with His Son. If we have been "cradled" in God's heart with this vision of blamelessness and holiness, how much more must Mary have been.
Mary is the Father's favorite daughter who, as such, is granted all the riches a willing, receptive creature can possibly have. She is the unique model of faith, without original sin and, therefore, the one who can respond totally to the grace of God. This is the reason the angel greets her with, "Ave, gratia plena," "Hail, Full of Grace."
*Note the combined expression; not simply "blameless," without stain, but "holy."
To describe that moment when the Holy Spirit descends on Mary in a mysterious, mystical, and non-repeatable infusion, Luke uses the singular biblical expression "obumbratio," "the cloud coming to rest on the tent." 4 At that moment the Spirit endows Mary with a new Presence and she becomes His bride. She becomes the small dwelling in which the Spirit of Love brings about the reality of the Incarnation to be born from her by the power of God. This Presence is on-going. The "obumbratio," in fact, continues until Mary gives birth to her Son. The action of the Spirit is not limited to the conception of Christ but continues throughout the nine months' gestation. This period is completely under the forceful and pervasive action of the Holy Spirit.
Tenderness, human and supernatural love, and Mary's faith in and contemplation of her Son are maximized by the power of God. The tenderness and love that Jesus has for His mother, though, is even greater. Throughout His life, Jesus always loved His mother with a child-like love, even if we occasionally sense an attitude of detachment in the Gospels. When Jesus is hanging on the cross, He looks tenderly at Mary who is standing beneath Him.
Mary is not only the mother of Christ but also the mother of the Church and, therefore, our mother. She is always beside us. In our needs, we always have recourse to her. She is there for us. She helps us on our journey toward the great goal that is perfection and holiness. She is the "Regina sanctorum" and "Mater sanctitatis" - - the "Queen of saints" and the "Mother of Holiness." She is the one who someday, God willing, will greet us in the eternal land of the saints.
Seen in this light, Mary cannot be remote. Instead she is the exemplar of our Trinitarian, Christological, and ecclesial existence, the model of all that we must be and do. For it is Mary who embodies the great vocations: the call to salvation-holiness; configuration with Christ; dedication to Christ; service to all brothers and sisters. This is why a return to Marian theology is so critical.
Let us take another look at Mary, at her faith, her fortitude, and her vigil at the foot of the Cross. Let us look anew at her docility to the Spirit, "Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum," - - "I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you say;" 5 and at her spirit of service, "Respexit humilitatem ancillae suae," - - "He has looked with favor on His lowly servant;" 6 and at her full collaboration with the action of the Spirit and the action of Christ, especially at the foot of the cross and in the Cenacle while waiting for the Paraclete. Particularly for priests, Mary is the exemplar of their mission as ministers of love.
Mary was regularly at Jesus' side, always there at times of suffering and of difficulty during His public life when the battle was most harsh. Speaking of Mary and the pious women, the Gospel says "sequebantur a longe" - - "they followed at a distance;" 7 it is also certain that at night, Jesus gathered with the Apostles and pious women. In this setting, Mary must have been present to her Son as she was at the tragedy of Calvary.
Hence priests must not be afraid to be loved by Mary and, along with all the great saints and mystics, be moved to tenderness toward her. How wonderful it would be if we were able to lean our head on the heart of Mary just as a child would! One day, in eternity, we hope to be able to approach her and, with filial love and respect, kiss our mother and be kissed by her.
References
Chapter XV
1. Luke 1:28
2. Ephesians 1:4
3. Ephesians 1:4
4. "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow (obumbrabit) you." (Lk 1:35)
5. Luke 1:38
6. Luke 1:48
7. Luke 23:27
JESUS' GREAT PRAYER IN THE CENACLE
The synoptic Gospels can give the impression that prayer during the Last Supper was limited to the Jewish custom of singing the great "Allele," i.e., the alleluia Psalms. John, however, portrays Jesus going beyond the ritual prayers, pouring forth His soul to the Father in His beautiful priestly invocation. 1 Christ's deep and moving expressions suggest that this is His usual way of prayer, a way of prayer we need to learn from Him.
It is impossible to project our concept of prayer onto Jesus, for the mysterious world of His hypostatic union - - which indicates difference of nature but unity of person - - changes everything. Theologians speculate on the relationship between Christ's human and divine natures and on His self-awareness, but we are interested only in the reality of Christ's soul in contact with God. Jesus' prayer goes beyond faith 2 and is based on vision and contemplation.
What does Christ's created soul experience before this radiant and all-illuminating mystery of Trinitarian love? He has the experience of adoration and a humble interior attitude which give Him His understanding of His mission as the Servant of Yahweh. In fact, Christ's human nature, even though in hypostatic union with the Word, is created by God and therefore immeasurably apart from Him. This is why Jesus prostrates Himself in adoration of the Immensely Great, aware of His own nothingness, while at the same time offering Himself in reparation for all humanity of which He chooses to be a part. This concept of vicarious reparation is found in Jesus' prayer and in His love. Within that mysterious rapport between the person and each of the two natures - - the nature of the Word and the nature of the Son of man - - is the constant prayer of Jesus to the Father and to the Trinity. Christ was so affected by His contact with the Divine that, despite His continuous union with the Trinity and His uninterrupted prayer to the Father, He needed time to pray alone. We do not know more than this.
Christ's prayer teaches us what our prayer should be: adoration, petition, reparation, offering, and love. Even though constantly united with the Father, Jesus needs to pray, sometimes through the night. 3 His prayer in the Garden4 is an example of nocturnal dialogue with the Father. In this case the discourse is marked by Jesus' tortured feelings as He takes upon Himself the suffering of all humanity. Surely there were many nights when Jesus withdrew from His own to immerse His soul completely in prayer just as He did on that Holy Thursday in Gethsemane.
Jesus' prayer is not restricted to night time, though, because He is a good Israelite who prays the "shema" three times each day. This prayer of holiness and maximalism - - "Remember Israel: 'You will love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength'" 5 - - was repeated over and over by the child Jesus to His Father.
Beginning in childhood, Jesus recited the Psalms. Perhaps they sustained Him those three hours on the Cross when psalmodic invocations filled His priestly prayer.
The central prayer, of course, is that of the Cenacle which is a long, personal, spontaneous prayer, rich with a unique priestly theology. Christ created an atmosphere of prayer in the Cenacle, therefore the Apostles, disciples, and pious women together with Mary gathered to pray there and to continue Jesus' action. Surely they recited and sang the Psalms, the great prayer of Israel, and finally the prayer the Master taught them, the "Our Father . . ." 6
In the Cenacle Jesus teaches us the importance of prayer as well as how to pray. The Apostles and Mary followed His example. Is not every priest now obligated to humbly ask the Master to endow him with the deep sense of prayer found in the Cenacle?
References
Chapter XVI
1. cf. John 17
2. According to Aquinas, Jesus does not need faith.
3. "Erat pernoctans in oratione Dei," - - "He was spending the night in communion with God," (Lk. 6:12) in the ecstasy of love and adoration.
4. "My heart is filled with sorrow to the point of death;" (Mk 14:34) "Then He began to be filled with fear and distress;" (Mk 14:33) "In anguish He prayed with the greater intensity." (Lk 22:43) Through three hours of interior agony, He prays the same words, "Father, if it is Your will, take this cup from me; yet not my will but Yours be done." (Lk 22:42)
5. Deuteronomy 6:4-5
6. Matthew 6:9
PRAYER FOR UNITY
Unity and love are two pivotal experiences of the Cenacle. Christ prayed ceaselessly for both, making unity and love the fundamental tenets of His prayer and last discourses. If the Cenacle is to renew the spiritual life of the Church, the double aspects of unity and love must be included in a concrete and practical way.
To understand some of the theological perspectives offered by the Cenacle, we must begin with Jesus' prayer for unity. In this earnest prayer, He repeatedly makes a comparison: "May they be one, as We are one . . . that their unity may be complete." 1 Unity is fundamentally important. Its theological meaning becomes clearer when Trinitarian unity, Christological unity, and Ecclesial unity are each examined.
There is total union between Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. 2 This Trinitarian unity is absolute and maximal, for even in the distinction of Persons, there is unity in the one nature. Our goal is to reach maximal unity and fusion, within our human limitations, in imitation of Trinitarian unity.
The Christological reality refers to the hypostatic union: Christ is the second Person of the Blessed Trinity in both of His natures, the human and the divine. This mystery is perhaps more obscure than the first. Christ, even though fully human, does not have a human person; He is a divine Person with two natures.
The third aspect is Ecclesial. The Church is born from the heart of Christ and is the sacrament of His love. With Christ as Head, all members constitute the Mystical Body through a mysterious, generative, communicative, and operative union.
The three great threads of unity - - Trinitarian, Christological, and Ecclesial - - are present in the mind of Christ when He prays to the Father for unity in the Church. He prays for unity among those present and among those who will believe in Him not only through the first Apostles, but also through the apostles across the ages. 3
Was Jesus' prayer answered? The Gospels report that soon afterwards, the Apostles scatter. 4 This is not the final episode, however; the Apostles promptly regroup, united around a "central pole," Mary.
At dawn on Sunday, the pious women leave the place where they were gathered and go to the tomb. As soon as they become aware of the mysteriously empty sepulcher, they run to the disciples who were also gathered together. Despite the immediate dispersion, Jesus' prayer for unity has quickly brought them together again around Mary. This unity becomes even more characteristic after the Ascension when all return to the Cenacle where, once again, they gather around Mary in prayer.
This is the fruit of the Lord's intense desire that all of His followers work for unity with heroic dedication. Paul, apostle and martyr for unity, joins the effort with his missionary activity and preaching. Lack of unity is truly a cross for him; in fact, after laboring passionately to spread the Gospel, he begins to have doubts about decisions he has made, and so elects to travel to Jerusalem to be validated by Peter; that is, to submit to the authority of the Church. 5 He did this to ensure unity, the unity he saw damaged constantly by pseudo-brothers who followed after him sowing division among the new converts. 6
Paul's suffering was caused by the lack of unity within the Church and, towards the end, by loneliness. 7 It must have been tragic for that man, who spent himself for everyone else and labored for unity in the Church, to find himself in such a situation. Paul earnestly invites all Christians to respond generously to their duty to establish unity despite the cost. In his letter to the Corinthians, he shows how foolish division is. 8 The unique reality is Christ. This concept is renewed in the letter to the Ephesians. 9 We need to discover both the reasons for and the sources of unity which are themselves united.
The first great "source and call" of unity is the call to the Father's love. His plan of salvation-holiness has an anthropological universality. All people everywhere, for all time, are called to salvation, to holiness, and to love for the Father.
The second call is to union with Christ through baptism. It is sometimes said, and in a way it is true, that there is salvation even outside the Church. 10 It is this call to baptism which unites everyone within Christ's Church.
The third call, even more specific, is the call to Peter and, therefore, to the Church. The theological axiom of the Fathers, "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" - - "there is no salvation outside the Church" 11- - has not been discarded. On the contrary, this truth remains valid and is reiterated in the Constitution Ad Gentes, 12 which also acknowledges the missionary presence of the Holy Spirit, Who makes salvation possible for all people. We are all called to receive not just a drop but the fullness of the truth through the Church.
The fourth call is to the unity of the beatific vision. One day when the reality of time is consummated, we who have been a part of the mystery of the Mystical Body will enter eternity, thus reaching the fullness of unity with God and one another.
All Christians, and especially priests, need to understand the meaning of unity on a practical level and find applications for it. Unity is not just a feeling, but leads to solidarity and co-responsibility. A priest is very often alone in his responsibilities and in his difficulties. This invariably happens when he needs help the most, making the situation even more tragic. At times when he needs support, when he needs someone to be in "solidium" with him, someone by his side, a priest finds that everyone has disappeared. 13 It is the moment of Christ's loneliness; the moment in which Christ suffers and everyone falls asleep. 14 At such times it is difficult to find someone to be Simon of Cyrene, someone who will give a hand. Hence the need for solidarity and the courage of co-responsibility!
When a priest has some difficulty, even a financial one, he should know that there is a good brother to whom he can turn, a brother who, with discretion, with a smile, and without humiliating, will try to help. First and foremost, priests must be brothers for each other. This unity is not a shallow psychologism or emotionalism, but a co-responsibility and fraternity around Christ our Brother and Mary our Mother.
The formation some priests received fostered an individualistic mentality which some of us still carry within us. Therefore priests need to cultivate a sense of fraternity around Christ the universal Brother Who is especially close to priests, 15 and around Mary, mother of all but especially mother to her priests.
Jesus, too, had deep and holy friendships with the Apostles and with Lazarus and his sisters. Many priests have friendships only with lay people or they have no close friends at all. The first friendship should be with fellow priests. Why are some so closed up, never stretching out a hand or hesitant when a hand is extended? Friendship among priests is one of the very practical supports priests have when Satan foments psychological and affective difficulties. In other cases, priests are surrounded by friends, usually female friends. Without a priestly network of security and psychological support, a priest can lose his balance in times of weakness. When we blame confreres for leaving their vocation, we need also to reflect deeply on the responsibility that fellow priests or superiors who lived with or near them, had in offering them support through their friendship.
All priests, consecrated lay persons, and male and female religious have a special duty to strive for unity because they have been chosen by Love to be a leaven of unity within the Church.
Within each diocese all must strive for pastoral unity, renouncing anything that divides fraternal collaboration. Priests need to let go of any absurd privatism that fragments their shared ministry, otherwise they neglect the two great centers of unity: namely, the unity of the universal Church around the Pope, and the unity of the particular church around the Bishop.
The effort to expand one's heart and strive for unity in the diocese and in the entire Church must emanate from one's self and the field of one's apostolate. This is the practical oblation required of those who wish to respond with love to the Lord's prayer for unity.
References
Chapter XVII
1. John 17:23
2. "That all may be one as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You." (Jn 17:21) "Philip, whoever has seen Me has seen the Father." (Jn 14:9) "The Father and I are one." (Jn 10:30)
3. "I do not pray for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their word." (Jn 17:20)
4. "All the disciples deserted Him and fled." (Mt 26:56)
5. "To make sure the course I was pursuing . . . was not in vain." (Gal 2:2)
6. Galatians 2:4
7. Paul wrote, "In fact, everyone abandoned me." (2 Tim 4:16) It is moving to think of him getting older, though he was not yet sixty, and possibly beginning to lose his eyesight. "See, I write to you in my own large handwriting." (Gal 6:11) Paul was apprehensive since everyone was leaving him; Barnabas goes his way and those who were to have supported him during his last battle in Rome had deserted him. (2 Tim 4:16)
8. "One of you will say, 'I belong to Paul,' another, "I belong to Apollos,' still another, 'Cephas has my allegiance,' and the fourth, 'I belong to Christ.' Has Christ, then, been divided into parts? Was it Paul who was crucified for you? Was it in Paul's name that you were baptized?" (1Cor 1:12-13)
9. "There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism . . ., just as there is but one hope given all of you by your call." (Eph 4:4-5) This authentic call is the reality that binds us together.
10. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, #16; cf. DS 3866 - 3872
11. cf. St. Cyprian, Ep. 73, 21: PL 3, 1169; De unit.: PL 4, 509-536
12. Vatican II, Ad Gentes, Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity:
This universal plan of God for salvation of mankind is not carried out solely in a secret manner, as it were, in the minds of men, nor by the efforts, even religious, through which they in many ways seek God in an attempt to touch Him and find Him although God is not far from any of us (Acts 17:27); their efforts need to be enlightened and corrected, although in the loving providence of God they may lead one to the true God and be a preparation for the Gospel. [Ad Gentes #3]
To do this, Christ sent the Holy Spirit from the Father to exercise inwardly His saving influence, and to promote the spread of the Church. Without doubt, the Holy Spirit was at work in the world before Christ was glorified. On the day of Pentecost, however, He came down on the disciples that He might remain with them forever (Jn 14:16); on that day the Church was openly displayed to the crowds and the spread of the Gospel among the nations, through preaching, was begun. Finally, on that day was foreshadowed the union of all peoples in the catholicity of the faith by means of the Church of the New Alliance, a church which speaks every language, understands and embraces all tongues in charity, and thus overcomes the dispersion of Babel" [Ad Gentes #4].
13. "Then all the disciples deserted Him and fled." (Mt 26:56)
14. "He rose from prayer and came to his disciples, only to find them asleep." (Lk. 22:45)
15. Christ says, "I have called you friends," (Jn 15:15) and established a sacramental fraternity [P.O. #8] and friendship.
LOVE IN THE CHURCH
The Lord of the Cenacle spoke of love as the essence of His covenant. He calls it His "new commandment" even though it was introduced in the Old Testament. The novelty undoubtedly lies in the measure: "love one another as I have loved you." 1 That is, love to the point of heroism, to the point of giving your life. 2 Christ's commandment is so new and so "His" that it distinguishes His disciples as His followers. 3
The Apostles sensed from the beginning that the Church was defined as the community of love. The apostolic Fathers, too, sometimes called the Church the "agape," or "gathering of love." St. Ignatius of Antioch said it explicitly in his letter to the Romans when he called the community "your charity, that is, your Church." 4
How and when is love lived in the Church, though, and what are its results? History demonstrates that this commandment has had an immense impact on the world. In many ways it has transformed the world, changing it from animalistic to humane and from humane to Christian.
Today, however, the world of love seems to be diminishing while hatred and violence increase. The compulsive production of arsenals and armaments is masked behind the excuse of self-defense but indicates a disposition to violence. There is an interior attitude of potential offense, presented as deterrence, that in reality means the possibility of attack. Thus the world is in a crisis of hatred and violence seldom seen before. At the same time, there is a compelling need for love and - - this is the prerogative of the Church - - there is an explosion of love.
The basic principle of spiritual movements is to love one another, to gather together and share experiences, and to form a unity. The vast proliferation of movements could be a form of compensation for unmet needs which, for at least a moment or two, provide an "island" where longings may be satisfied. Likewise, some moral deviations, e.g., drug use among the young and consumption of alcohol and tobacco among adults, can become a form of escape from stressful situations. But compensation and escape, even in such cases, are indicative of a basic need for love, the need for something other than hatred or violence. We were not made to hate and be hated but to love and be loved.
The prevalent tendency in theology today is a response to this deep need. In the past, theology was sometimes legalistic, based on duties and, most of all, on justice. God has the right to our adoration and respect, and since we are sinners, He comes to earth to work out our ransom. Christ pays the price with His blood. Thus man was prey to Satan but becomes prey to God with the duty to serve Him. Man becomes enslaved to God in order to escape hell. The backdrop to this theology is Pauline, though it is not a systematic approach and, although basically correct, is incomplete.
Contemporary theology, the "sensus fidei" and "sensus Ecclesiae," focuses on another aspect, the aspect of love. 5 Is this approach a deviation, or does it spring from original sources? Clearly this vision is biblical and patristic, integrated with the redemption by blood which was chosen by Christ as an expression of His infinite love.
A relationship with God, therefore, is based on love. This love becomes visible and leads to redemption through the medium of redemptive blood, proving not that God needs to be appeased but that He has an infinite love for humanity. The biblical foundations of the theology of love are found in both the Old and New Testaments. Love is the soul of redemption and of the rapport between God and humanity. In this light, even the Old Testament images of a severe God are changed. Some biblical images could make one wonder if a God so terrible and unapproachable could be capable of love. Can one use human terms of love regarding this God?
This challenge leads to the understanding that punishment is a part of the pedagogy of love. The connection between sin and punishment - - "those who dare will be stricken" - - is faulty. In punishment, one must see the value of a pedagogy of love appropriate to a primitive time and culture. God shows His greatness and His love at the same time. Along with the images of a wrathful God, there are many passages in which God is portrayed as a father, mother, bridegroom, lover, and friend. These show the reality of love already present in the Old Testament which finds its glorification and completion in the New. John, the disciple of love and the one who drew his richness from the heart of Christ, gives a new definition of God: "Deus caritas est" - - "God is love." 6 He repeats this many times, but it does not mean that God is no longer the "One Who is," but that He is love above all else.
In the light of this new Revelation, our rapport with God is forever altered and our understanding of His economy of love deepened. This is our introduction to the reality already present in the Trinitarian life. The rapport of the Word with the Father and of the Father with the Word can only be a rapport of love. Theological language explains this reciprocal love as abiding One in the Other, in the unity of nature. It is the Holy Spirit, the love, that unites the two divine Persons and proceeds from Them "tanquam ab unico principio" - - "as from the same source." These are difficult expressions. In essence they mean that all we know of God, the Unknowable One of Whom our ancestors spoke, is that He is Love.
If the Trinitarian life is a reality of love then so is the extra-Trinitarian life, i.e., creation. God Who is love can only create out of love. If we wish to remain within the divine logic we must submit our intelligence to the principle of love and not apply our personal creative ability in the negation of love. If this principle were fully accepted and lived it would bring about a revolution. As God in His extra-Trinitarian reality, that is, in His creation, becomes visible in a projection of love, humanity also becomes a projection of love.
The most earthy, human, and credible actualization of this is an incarnate love that can be seen and touched. Christ comes to earth, becomes incarnated, speaks of love and makes us understand that the Trinity, creation, the Incarnation, and even His message are all love.
Jesus repeats the shema, 7 however, He modifies the concept saying, "Love one another as I have loved you; there is no greater love that this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." 8 Paul reiterates the theme: "It is rare that anyone should lay down his life for a just man, though it is barely possible that for a good man someone may have the courage to die. It is precisely in this that God proves His love for us: that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." 9
But what have we, especially priests, done with Jesus' new commandment? Our parishes should be families of love, vibrant expressions of love around one's own bishop. In many cases the reality is rather different; that is why it is so difficult to see that what characterizes the Church, in its entirety, is the love which Jesus taught us in the Cenacle.
Will the fact that we are not there yet deter us from moving toward the goal? Don't we have a duty to return to the Cenacle and examine our lives in light of the love we owe to our priestly fraternity and, more generally, to our ecclesial community? What is the meaning of love and how can we live it?
References
Chapter XVIII
1. John 13:34
2. "Mandatum novum do vobis." "I give you a new commandment." (Jn 13:34)
3. "In hoc cognoscent omnes quia discipuli mei estis, si dilectionem habueritis ad invicem." (Jn 13:35) "This is how all will know you for my disciples: your love for one another."
4. St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, Chapter 9:1
5. cf. John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, Rich in Mercy, November 30, 1980
6. 1 John 4:8
7. "You shall love the Lord your God, with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind . . . . [and] your neighbor . . ." (Mt 22:37,39)
8. John 15:12-13
9. Romans 5:7-8
THE HOLY SPIRIT
During the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit three times. He defines the Spirit in mysterious ways: first as the Consoler, 1 then as the Announcer, 2 and finally as the Advocate Who will come later. 3 In the Trinitarian economy, which is the mutual activity of the three divine Persons, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, 4 and He is the "Missus." 5 Christ said, "The Father and I are one." 6 He completes the Trinitarian picture in the Cenacle when He speaks of the Holy Spirit.
The specific mission of the Spirit is to bring about sanctification, to form Christ in the hearts of all people. Hence Jesus disappears, in a sense, from the scene of the world so the Holy Spirit can continue, in time, the work begun by Jesus' Passion and Resurrection. Christ's historical time has ended; now the Spirit will actualize the reality of Jesus in hearts and in history.
The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, originates at the moment of the Incarnation when the Word takes a human nature. The Church is born in a more complete and sacramental way from the side of Christ in the dual mystery of the water and the blood (Baptism and Eucharist), and finds its consummation in the fire of Pentecost. The miracle of Pentecost is transforming. The Apostles are already praying and waiting for the descent of the Spirit which will constitute them as Church. As soon as the divine flame rests upon them, they are totally changed; they manifest courage, determination to evangelize, and missionary concern. The descent of the Spirit in the Cenacle is a tempest of love, a creative and generative moment, a foundational moment for the Church.
The Holy Spirit gives courage to the people who, though trusting in the words of the risen Christ, remain secluded in the Cenacle. After receiving the Spirit, Who comes with the violence of love, they open wide the doors, speak publicly, and, in the power of the fortitude they received, even go to the Temple. 7 They are not afraid of the judges. 8 They have the fortitude and happiness of men who are able to suffer out of love for Christ. 9 After an angel frees them from prison, the Spirit enables them to return to the Temple to preach. They are warned and chastised by the judges, but they are not intimidated. 10 By the power of the Spirit, they are new men.
The Apostles were already commissioned by Jesus to evangelize. 11 It is only after Pentecost, though, that they have the courage to bring His message to all, announcing the new commandment and exhorting those who had rejected it to convert. It is only after Pentecost, with the infusion of the Spirit, that the Church becomes an evangelizing reality.
The missionary nature of the Church, born at Pentecost, is emphasized by the miracle of tongues. Peoples from Greece, Rome, the Euphrates, and many other places hear the Apostles speaking their own language. Those who were listening were all Jews and spoke a common dialect, Aramaic; thus the Apostles could have preached in Aramaic and all of these people could have understood without a miracle. But God chose otherwise, using this miracle to clearly indicate that from her birth the Church is missionary.
These are the realities born from Pentecost: an invincible fortitude* and the ability to evangelize and carry out a missionary task, all based on love.
Until then, this love had been sincere yet weak. Fear and the painful memories of abandonment and denial were still potent. But at Pentecost love becomes stronger than death. Indeed, now Peter can honestly say, "Teacher, wherever You go, I will go after You." 12 This is the strength of the Spirit.
Another aspect is personal and individual. How did this intimate contact with the Spirit affect each person? Scripture is silent about this mystery, however, we can ponder it in light of the Spirit's initial contact with Mary. Even though the proportions and effects are unmistakably different, the phenomenon is identical in the Cenacle. When the Spirit rests on the people there, the incarnation of the Word is repeated in each heart. Just as the Spirit forms the reality of Christ in Mary, He likewise descends upon each individual, forming in them the image of Christ. This is the Spirit's essential function.
In this we find the two realities of faith: centrality in Christ and centrality in the Spirit. In Paul's epistles, it sometimes seems that the centrality is on Christ; 13 however, Paul warns, "Do nothing to sadden the Holy Spirit, with Whom you were sealed against the day of redemption." 14 We reconcile this dual reality of Christ and the Spirit by going back to the Marian mystery.
The Holy Spirit descends on Mary in order to form in her the reality of Christ. The Holy Spirit comes to us to bring about our Christological configuration, fashioning
* We can almost hear the words of Jeremiah: "For it is I this day Who have made you a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of brass, do not be afraid" (Jer 1:18).
Christ within us. It is by virtue of the Spirit that we become "Christified," so that when we say, "Abbß," it is, in a way, Christ speaking. By the power of the Spirit, both Christ and the Spirit dwell in our hearts, even though in different ways.
The Trinitarian world is beyond our understanding. We can only mumble a few words as we probe these sublime truths which our faith teaches and we try to live. Our inquiry is grounded in the actual presence of the Spirit within the Church, the priest, and each of the faithful. Thus we go from that initial moment when the Spirit descended on the nascent Church to the Church of today, one Church born from the heart of the Apostles. The Spirit of love, of infallibility (that is, certainty of truth), of holiness, and of charismatic gift is found in our Church of today.
The Spirit is the essence of love; where the Spirit is, there is love. Similarly, where there is no love, the Spirit is not present. Moreover, the Spirit is truth and infallibility. Infallibility belongs to the Church, primarily to the Pope as head and, consequently, to the Church as a whole when united with her visible head. It is precisely union with the Spirit that preserves the Church in the truth, making her infallible and indefectible.
Knowing that the Church will not die is of great importance; nevertheless, what is most important on a personal level is knowing that the message we live today, the message to which we have given everything, paying the price moment by moment, is truly the unaltered message of Christ. Infallibility is important to us because it guarantees that what Christ really meant and what came out of His heart has been handed down to us through the centuries untarnished. It is the Spirit of Truth Who preserves the Church and the hierarchy in certitude and infallibility.
It is the Spirit Who sanctifies us as we yearn and strive for holiness. This journey is halting and marred by sin; nevertheless, it is sustained by the determination to recover and start again. Peter, who denied Christ but then began anew to follow the Lord and eventually died for Him, is our model. In this way, although the Church is undoubtedly "semper reformanda," always reforming, She is also always clinging to Christ, the "Sanctus Dei," "Holy of God," on Her journey towards sanctity.
The Church is charismatic. She is responsive to the needs of the times; She is filled with dynamism, presence, and gifts. The Church is creative because the Spirit is essentially creative. This is the Spirit's role in the Church and in the priest.
Within the Church, the priest is one who continues the work of Christ. Configured and grafted to Christ in a sacramental way, he insures the real presence of Christ in every time and culture. The priest proclaims the creativity and renewal his era demands. The world keeps asking new questions which require a pastoral creativity faithful to the magisterium and an on-going effort to be informed. It is the creative and dynamic Spirit ever present in the priest that enables him to be truly charismatic and able to answer the needs of his times.
The Spirit is present in each individual person in order to conform them to Christ and fashion His image in them through the theological and cardinal virtues.* They are the first channels through which He works in us, powers and instruments given to all the baptized. Tertullian and the Fathers of the Church stated that the Holy Spirit descends into the baptismal water, impregnating it with His presence so that the soul immersed in it is filled with the Spirit.
When we are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ, 15 the Spirit bestows on us the richness of the theological and cardinal virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit which, sustained by the gift of wisdom, can lead us to the heights of infused contemplation. The fruits of the Spirit, stemming from the Beatitudes, lead us to the fullness of mysticism imbuing us with peace and joy beyond understanding.
Much more could be said about the Holy Spirit, but the only thing really necessary is to kneel and say, "Divine Spirit, we believe in You, we believe in Your love. Come into our souls and inflame our hearts with Your presence. Amen."
* The theological virtues are faith, hope, and love. The cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.
References
Chapter XIX
1. "I will not leave you orphaned." (Jn 14:18)
2. "He will have received from Me what He will announce to you." (Jn16:14)
3. "It is much better for you that I go. If I fail to go, the Paraclete will never come to you." (Jn. 16:7)
4. "Tanquam ab unico principio," from the same principle.
5. He is the "Sent" of the Father and the Son.
6. John 10:30
7. Acts 2:14-41
8. "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight for us to obey you rather than God." (Acts 4:19)
9. Acts 5:4
10. Acts 5:41
11. "Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to all creation." (Mk 16:15)
12. Matthew 8:19
13. "For me to live is Christ," (Phil 1:21) and "I know Him in Whom I have believed." (2 Tim 1:12)
14. Ephesians 4:30
15. Romans 6:3-4
THE CENACLE THROUGH THE CENTURIES
In the Cenacle Jesus performed the greatest miracles of His love, promised to send the Holy Spirit, and asked His Apostles and the entire Church for an essential commitment. How have things developed since then?
Christ, of course, has been completely faithful to His promises. Some definitive signs of His fidelity are the Eucharist, the priesthood, and the initial and ongoing descent of the Spirit upon the Church. What about our commitments?
Jesus asked all Christians to dedicate themselves to mutual service, to fraternal love, and to an abiding unity. Moreover, the Church must exemplify this pledge: "That they may see the goodness in your acts and give praise to your Heavenly Father." 1
Down through the centuries, how faithful has the Church been to this commitment? Since there have been many saints who have bloomed within the Church, a positive assessment of our history seems reasonable. On the other hand, have all Christians been saints? Are all of us striving for holiness?
It is not an empty clichΘ to say that the Church is in a continuing state of conversion. Our need for a communal confiteor at every Eucharistic celebration is evidence of a regrettable reality identifiable throughout the Church's history. We know, for example, that the authority Christ entrusted to the hierarchy has not always been used for service alone. This does not scandalize us since we know that the Apostles yesterday and the bishops today are human. Thus, it is no surprise that the washing of the feet performed by Christ has largely become a mere Holy Week ritual.
Has the duty of fraternal love, which is meant to be the constant law of the entire Church, fared any better? The first Christians took Christ's words seriously and held everything in common. But that was a brief exception. Such authentic fraternal love has not always been exhibited by professed Christians. We have instead witnessed a selfish, estranged, and egotistic kind of "love." All along, Christians have worshipped together at Mass, have eaten the same consecrated Bread but then have neglected to care for one another.
Something similar, but worse, happened between priests and the faithful. For too long priests were considered functionaries rather than spiritual fathers, isolated and estranged within rectory walls waiting for people to search for them. Jesus' admonition that the Apostles be in this world while not being of it, has generally been forgotten. 2
Perhaps in the past this situation was cultivated by societal circumstances. Today, when the loneliness of priests and the unmet needs of the faithful have become painfully obvious and seemingly irreversible, it is critical to understand and correct the errors made in past centuries.
And finally, what can even be said about unity? If all Christians had grasped and lived the prayer of Jesus - - "May they be one" - - there would be no need for an ecumenical movement today.
The conclusion, although mortifying, is simple: as much as Christ has been faithful to the Cenacle, Christians have been unfaithful to their commitment throughout the history of the Church.
References
Chapter I
1. Matthew 5:16
2. This concept is reiterated by Vatican II: "Their ministry itself, by a special title, forbids that they be conformed to this world; yet at the same time it requires that they live in this world among people." [P.O. #3]
THE CENACLE TODAY
Our overview of past centuries is not meant to make the present look better. We do not live the message Jesus left us in the Cenacle more consistently than those who have preceded us. Heirs of a checkered past, we live in a complex and difficult era.
We have repeatedly referred to the Cenacle's two pictures. The first focuses on Christ and the fact that He loves His own so much that He shares with them the confidentialities of His love. 1 It is a moment of authentic fraternal love. Transferring this picture to the present, we imagine our diocesan presbyters united closely around their bishop in a similar fraternity of love.
The Cenacle's second picture presents us with the disciples and devout women closely united around Mary and the Apostles. If the Church today resembled that scene, each parish would be closely united around its pastor in a community of love.
Fraternity and community of love - - are these a reality? It would be unfair to state that there are no priests living their sacramental fraternity in unity with their own bishop; that there is no parish living as a community of love in unity with its pastor. However, the ideal is an exception. Unfortunately, the internal rapport among fellow priests, between priests and bishop, clergy and faithful, has deteriorated today. An in-depth examination of the causes is impossible here but we can list a few of the obvious ones: secularism, worldliness, urban decay, atheistic ideologies, rebellion, pornography, and so on. These factors have affected the religious realm and undermine the rapport of the Cenacle.
Another factor is that the formation of many priests is from a time and culture now past. Formation predicated on pastoral individualism and personalism was perhaps not so damaging when the parish was pastorally autonomous and people were accustomed to depending primarily on their own priest. Since times have changed, some priests have remained alienated and hampered by the individualism acquired during formation. In addition, and as a result, other phenomena have emerged: estrangement from fellow priests; alienation and separation - - at best - - from one's bishop; pastoral autonomy versus diocesan complementarity; financial disproportion. The sense of loneliness grows.
Consequently, the priest has lost his impact and relevance among the people; he has become alienated from them and is sought only in times of crisis. Loneliness, especially as he ages, can become a real difficulty. This phenomenon becomes even more serious when the priest's natural family is no longer available to sustain him in times of need.
These common problems evoke an important question: does the priestly model offered by our clergy appeal to young men or does it contribute to the vocational crisis? It is obvious that these elements are foreign to the Cenacle and that a return to its spirit is imperative.
References
Chapter II
1. "I have made known to you all that I heard from My Father." (Jn. 15:15)
LET US RETURN TO THE CENACLE
The exhortation to return to the Cenacle is not a superficial invitation; it requires practical applications. Perhaps the entire world will not be influenced by the spirituality of the Cenacle, but if priests would return to and live the message/invitation proposed there by Christ, much would change.
Then the Apostles, that is, the bishops, would reflect on the meaning of a God Who bends down to wash the feet not only of Peter but also of Judas. They would understand with greater depth the meaning of the new commandment and of love measured according to the infinite love of Christ. Priests, too, would understand more deeply the meaning of their love and fidelity to Christ, seen in the person of their bishop, and the meaning of sacramental fraternity with fellow priests. 1
Likewise, the faithful would become aware that their relationships with priests must go beyond rights and duties. They would come to realize that the priest is a father who must be loved, respected, and helped even after retirement. If this were a reality, then priests would become credible models enabling young people to respond generously to the voice of the Spirit calling them to the priesthood and to consecrated life.
It is not enough for bishops to become aware that the decree Christus Dominus is a compendium of the doctrine of the Cenacle, or for priests to turn to Presbyterorum Ordinis to rediscover the teaching of the Last Supper. Many practical changes need to occur and a pastoral plan, based on the experience of the Cenacle, could provide a means for authentic renewal in the Church. Our sketch of this plan will present ideas on how the negative issues delineated above can be ameliorated through the light of the Cenacle. It will provide essential guidelines appropriate for both the clergy and the faithful.
We will not concentrate on the duties of bishops who are the successors of the Apostles and the incarnational image of Christ. Jesus loved to the point of service and self-immolation. This is precisely the role of the bishops in their dioceses along with their responsibilities of authority. Love, service, and self-sacrifice are to characterize their episcopate.
We will discuss more fully the role of the priest in his three-fold relationship with bishop, fellow priests, and faithful. In the spirit of the Cenacle, the priest's bishop is a father and a brother who must be loved, respected, helped, and obeyed as the one who speaks in the name of Christ. Reactive conflicts often exist in this relationship today just as in the Cenacle. There, eleven apostles remained steadfast while Judas rebelled.
In the name of the love and unity Jesus taught in the Cenacle, we must redouble our efforts so that every presbyter contributes to the creation of a community of love and peace where conflict is resolved in obedience and, most of all, mutual understanding. As a practical, concrete gesture, Holy Thursday would be an appropriate occasion for each priest to renew his pledge of obedience and availability for whatever his bishop might ask of him.
No less serious is the situation of estrangement and loneliness among priests who share in the one priesthood of Christ and are therefore sacramentally brothers. 2 This relationship is often unrecognized. Many have left the priesthood because they were not befriended by a fellow priest who could help them in times of difficulty. Can we ignore the fact that priests, tired after their Sunday responsibilities, return to the rectory to work alone on personal and parish needs? A fraternal, communal dimension in friendship is needed today.
No priest in any diocese should lack opportunities to meet in groups for priestly friendship. Jesus called His Apostles friends. Every priest should consider fellow priests as friends and treat them as such. Praying and relaxing peacefully and joyfully around a common meal would meet the needs of many. Whatever the title for these groups - - "Cenacles" or something else - - is not the point. What is essential is that they bring the participants into a fraternal unity, help them in their pastoral collaboration, and ultimately free them from individualism and the alienation existing among priests today.
Another important issue is financial compensation for priests which is a problem in many dioceses. In the presence of the Servant-Christ, totally spent on the Cross, can a priest resort to Canon Law to defend his financial rights and ignore the financial stress of fellow priests? Charity and friendship suggest suitable means to repair financial disproportions existing within the priestly family. Each and every priest should be concerned with the idea of financial equality and complementarity.
The final consideration concerns the priest's rapport with the faithful. We shall not dwell so much on the priest's part in this relationship since we have already analyzed the person of Jesus as servant and how the pastoral ministry of the priest is essentially one of service. What is paramount here is that a family is born from the Cenacle. This is true both for the priest who is to love, care for, and serve his children in Christ, and for the faithful who must consider themselves members of a real spiritual family and thus treat their priests as fathers in Christ. This implies prayer, docility, collaboration, and, most of all, love. Can love ignore the existential situation in which the priest, father in Christ, may find himself? The issue of assistance to the priest, especially if he is alone or aged, must touch the hearts of all Christians who comprehend the lesson of the Cenacle. On the other hand, can one expect Christians to understand that lesson if the priest does not live as a father who strives to form the faithful into a church-family?
We have offered some essential lines for a renewed pastoral ministry. They are summarized below in guidelines that could be used for personal and communal efforts in the pursuit of the spirituality of the Cenacle.
GUIDELINES:
- to become free from self-centeredness
- to develop fraternity (love-unity) with all priests, especially those who are sick or in need
- to go beyond the level of fraternity and strive for an authentic friendship with fellow priests
- to take the first step and meet the other without fear of rejection
- to be supportive of any form of fraternal encounter, dialogue, communal prayer, even recreation, that will strengthen and cultivate sacramental fraternity
- to provide regular opportunities for priests to experience the prayer and fraternity of the Cenacle together
- to encourage various forms of community that will be true experiences of brotherhood
- to recognize special celebrations as moments of fraternity and joy for all priests
- to create a new style of priestly collaboration under the title of "pastoral fraternity," planning and gathering for fraternal pastoral activities
- to understand financial communion as a sharing in solidarity and proportionali- ty, using a fraternal rather than a juridical approach
- to personally live, and help others live, a relationship of love-unity with the bishop-father and, in a broader sense, with the hierarchy and Pope, through prayer, respect, love and full availability.
References
Chapter III
1. Vatican II, Presbyterorum Ordinis [P.O.] #8
2. ibid
THE SAMARITAN WOMAN
John's account of the Samaritan woman 1 is well-known and will be presented here only briefly.
After recognizing Jesus as the Messiah, the woman does not linger but hurries to her townspeople. She intuits two truths: first, example is stronger than words; and second, evoking interest is more effective than propounding facts. She approached her own people and humbly reported her experience. In other words, she gave witness, concluding her account with an evocative question. "Could this not be the Messiah?" 2
Returning to the Upper Room, we, too, have questions such as, "Does the spirituality of the Cenacle have any practical benefit? Has anyone experienced its validity?" Like the answer to the Samaritan woman, the answer to these questions is positive. A group of priests has made the experience of the Cenacle and can attest to its efficacy. With simplicity and humility, they ask their confreres, "Would you like to join us?" Who are these priests?
The priests of the Cenacle are diocesan priests totally involved in their dioceses and fully available to their local bishop. To make the experience of the Cenacle practical and to share its spirit with other priests, they have formed the "Priestly Organization Based on the Spirituality of the Cenacle." To ensure a labor force for the apostolate of the Cenacle, they have also given life to a Secular Institute for priests called the "Apostolici Sodales." These priests pledge themselves to the Institute in a three-fold availability:
- affective availability, with the commitment to love the Institute and the diocese as their first spiritual family;
- possessive availability, which encourages the members to use their financial assets for the apostolate whether actualized individually or through the Institute;
- operative availability, through which the members dedicate themselves to the development and practical work of Cenacle spirituality, within the limits of their broader diocesan ministry.
The primary reason these priests pledge themselves to this Secular Institute is not for personal gain but to help brother priests live the experience of the Cenacle.
Varied responses to the Apostolici Sodales are possible. Many priests, both diocesan and religious, feel attracted to the spirituality but will not be interested in a formal association. These priests are encouraged to live according to the principles of the Cenacle and, if they desire, to remain in contact with the "Priestly Organization" through literature or other means.
Some want to participate in the organized work as "priest-friends" of the group. Through their involvement, they receive help in their specific apostolates.
Lastly there are priests who wish to invest their lives in the apostolate of the Cenacle. These will become better acquainted with the "Apostolici Sodales" and then discern whether they are called to a total commitment.
The distinction between message and invitation should be clear. The message of the Cenacle comes from Christ and is addressed to everyone; the Institute is a humble invitation to an active love. While everyone is called to live Christ's message, it is only out of personal choice that one accepts the proposal offered by the Sodales and the "Priestly Organization Based on the Spirituality of the Cenacle."
References
Chapter IV
1. cf. John 4
2. John 4:29
After analyzing the great events and teachings of the Cenacle, especially the Last Supper, it will be helpful for us to take a look at what John has written in chapters 13 to 17 of his Gospel.
It would probably be enough to dwell on the reading of the sacred text. However, we offer brief commentaries on the verses which, without depriving the text of our attention, will help us in our meditation. These are not commentaries in the strict sense but reflections that could help us in our personal and practical applications.
In addition, to make the lesson of the Cenacle practical, we have included points for self-examination related to the chapters presented in Part One of the book. Of course, these are only suggestions prompted by a desire to make the teachings of Jesus applicable to personal life.
POINTS OF REFLECTION
Verse 1
Before the feast of Passover, Jesus realized that the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father. He had loved his own in this world, and would show his love for them to the end.
This is one of the fundamental aspects of Christ's maximal love. Although Jesus had always loved His own, at this moment He loves them to the utmost. It is good to see how Jesus calls the Apostles "His own," for that is indeed what they are.
Every Christian, especially the successors of the ministerial priesthood, must feel included in this infinite love and consider themselves Christ's possession.
Verse 2
The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to hand him over. . .
Paul 1 says that at the very moment of His manifestation of utmost love, Satan approached Christ through Judas. The clash between Christ and Satan, love and hatred, and grace and sin are unavoidable ongoing realities. It should not be so but, as a matter of fact, they are part of our history; we cannot ignore them. Even today within the various cenacles which constitute the existential aspect of the Church, Satan actively opposes Christ, the Apostles, and the faithful. Satan becomes present in any apostle who gives in to his seductions.
Verses 3-5
Jesus - - fully aware that He had come from God and was going to God, the Father who had handed everything over to him - - rose from the meal and took off his cloak. He picked up a towel and tied it around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet and dry them with the towel he had around him.
How could the Son of God, through Whom all things exist, bend so low? This gesture transcends any human logic; it can be understood only in the light of God's divine exaggerations - - exaggerations that go from the Incarnation to the crucifixion, from becoming bread to the divinization of the human person. The physical miracles performed by Christ were great but these realities are greater.
Verses 6-9
Thus he came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, you are going to wash my feet?" Jesus answered, "You may not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand!" Peter replied, "You shall never wash my feet!" "If I do not wash you," Jesus answered, "you will have no share in my heritage." "Lord," Simon Peter said to him, "then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well."
This is a brief dialogue in which Peter's basic common sense and Christ's divine exaggeration of love clash!
Jesus almost forces the washing of the feet on His Apostles and they certainly do not understand its deepest meaning. Nevertheless, they accept it. From this we learn that the Lord's plans must always be accepted, even when we do not understand, for they always come from a loving and caring heart whose interest is our good.
Verses 10-11
Jesus told him, "The man who has bathed has no need to wash (except for his feet); he is entirely cleansed, just as you are; though not all." (The reason he said "not all are washed clean," was that he knew his betrayer.)
Jesus knew that Judas was not clean, for he was harboring betrayal in his heart; but Jesus stooped down in a servant's gesture before Judas as well. Jesus does not discriminate but offers hope to everyone.
Although Jesus knows Judas has given in to Satan and that the betrayal is a fact, He does not give up but continues to love maximally.
This is a lesson for every person, especially for priests, not only to be free from discrimination but, like Jesus, to bring hope and always do the maximum.
Verses 12-15
After he had washed their feet, he put his cloak back on and reclined at table once more. He said to them: "Do you understand what I just did for you? But if I washed your feet - - I who am Teacher and Lord - - then you must wash each other's feet. What I just did was to give you an example. As I have done, so you must do."
The Apostles must learn a three-fold lesson: to follow the Master, to imitate Him in His service as a slave, and to have an interior attitude of humility and deep love.
This lesson, however, cannot be learned like other lessons taught by the Master. Rather, it must become a life-style, constantly practiced day by day. It should become as natural as breathing.
Verses 16-17
"I solemnly assure you, no slave is greater than his master; no messenger outranks the one who sent him. Once you know all these things, blest will you be if you put them into practice."
How can we justify those historical moments ruled by weakness, when the service of authority was confused with self-gratification, self-interest, self-absorption and power?
The entire Church, especially the Hierarchy, must never dream of placing itself above its Master nor fail to act according to His teaching.
Verse 18
"What I say is not said of all, for I know the kind of men I chose, my purpose here is the fulfillment of Scripture: 'He who partook of bread with me has raised his heel against me.'"
Here Jesus again mentions Judas' betrayal. But if Jesus knew those whom He called to be His Apostles, why did He choose Judas? It is the mystery of Christ's love that reaches out to all without discrimination. It is also a mystery about human freedom that can resist grace.
What dark abyss possessed Judas' mind that he could respect, and probably love, the Master and yet harbor distrust so profound that he could abandon and sell Him? In his greed for money and ambition, was Judas chasing his own dream, a dream he could never attain?
Judas is still a man of the Old Testament who hopes for a political savior and is unable to enter the realm of revelation and grace, which is interior salvation. This is probably the core of Judas' tragedy which ultimately induces him to suicide.
Verse 19
"I tell you this now, before it takes place, so that when it takes place you may believe that I AM."
Christ's life was certainly disturbing for the poor Apostles who had to totally change their mentality. His passion was going to be even more disturbing. Jesus' warning strengthens them and helps them not lose their courage or faith.
Verse 20
"I solemnly assure you, he who accepts anyone I send accepts me, and in accepting me accepts him who sent me."
These words may sound out of context but they denote the place the Apostles have in relation to Christ and, consequently, to the Father. The Father has sent Christ, Christ sends the Apostles. Thus, to receive the Apostles is to receive Christ and the Father.
The mission Christ has entrusted to His own could not be any clearer. The Apostles represent - - and in a certain sense they are - - Christ and the Father. This concept is not related to a particular historical period but encompasses the entire history of the Church.
Therefore, to receive and listen to the Apostles today, - - i.e., to their successors - - is to journey toward Christ and the Father. Conversely, to become separated from the Apostles means to become separated from Christ and from the Father.
Verses 21-24
After saying this, Jesus grew deeply troubled. He went on to give this testimony: "I tell you solemnly, one of you will betray me." The disciples looked at one another, puzzled as to whom he could mean. One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, reclined close to him as they ate. Simon Peter signaled him to ask Jesus whom He meant."
This is an emotional moment of truth which reminds us of the dramatic moment in the garden of Gethsemane, as reported by Matthew.2 Jesus is tired and profoundly disturbed by the events. He is "deeply moved," as the text says; He openly reveals what is about to happen. Why is He doing this? Is He doing this in His need for solidarity with His own, as we read in the account of Matthew regarding Gethsemane? Or, is it rather to shake up Judas in an attempt to let him know that He is aware of what is going on; that it is useless to hide his betrayal? Perhaps it is both.
If this should be the case, we can perceive in Jesus His human psychology and the pressing impulse of His love, which uses every means to reach the heart of Judas.
And the results? Judas, as we will see, remains anchored in his stubbornness; John remains at Christ's side dumbfounded, unable to comprehend; Peter, perhaps feeling responsible as first among the Apostles, tries to inquire about the situation through John.
Verses 25-26
He leaned back against Jesus' chest and said to him, "Lord, who is he?" Jesus answered, "The one to whom I give the bit of food I dip in the dish." He dipped the morsel, then took it and gave it to Judas, son of Simon Iscariot.
In intimate familiarity John rests his head against Jesus' chest, while Jesus, moved by this delicate gesture and by John's love, indicates to John who will betray Him. Is this the first time that John uses such a gesture? What meaning will it have in the life of the one who will become the Eagle of the New Testament? Was this intimate moment with Jesus soon forgotten by John or was it treasured and savored throughout time?
There are no recorded answers to these questions. However, we know for sure that this was a fundamental event in John's life of faith, for he records it at the conclusion of his Gospel.3
Verse 27
Immediately after, Satan entered his heart. Jesus addressed himself to him: "Be quick about what you are to do."
Satan's mysterious and painful presence in the heart of Judas tends to become ever more possessive. In verse two, we read of his diabolic influence: "The devil had already induced Judas . . ." Satan entered his heart.
Has this anything to do with the morsel? Although the bread is not eucharistic, it provides the strength of the love of Christ and is able to convert a heart without taking away its freedom. Judas is obstinate, though, and lets Satan possess him. At this point the separation is final. The presence of Judas has no more meaning in that environment so filled with warm, intimate familiarity. Thus, Jesus invites Judas to leave. We can imagine the suffering the Master must have felt in sending him away, yet He sent him.
This is an exhortation to the Church - - to be honest and present the truth for the good of people.
Verses 28-29
(Naturally, none of those reclining at table understood why Jesus said this to him. A few had the idea that, since Judas held the common purse, Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the feast, or to give something to the poor.)
Everything must have taken place in a split second; nobody, perhaps not even John or Peter, was aware of the seriousness of the situation. What would the eleven have done if they had understood the drama of that moment?
With extreme sensitivity, the Lord covered up for Judas, thus avoiding painful reactions.
Verse 30
No sooner had Judas eaten the morsel than he went out. It was night.
Judas - - now Satan - - enters into the deep night where there is neither light of truth nor love. This may appear to be an artistic way of describing the event, but in reality it has a deep spiritual significance. In John's theology, Christ is light and brings light to the world 4 and we must avoid darkness, which is the denial of Christ.
Judas' heart was in utter darkness. Upon leaving the Cenacle, he becomes immersed and lost in the darkness of night. How many Judases throughout history have left the Cenacle believing they were entering the light of their own truth but instead disappeared into the darkness of Satan!
Verses 31-32
Once Judas had left, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. (If God has been glorified in him,) God will, in turn, glorify him in himself, and will glorify him soon."
Here the Master begins to hint at His glorification - - a topic He will bring up many times later. The glory of Christ is the mystery of His divine union with God and His life lived within the Trinity. He glorifies the Father when He reveals the mysteries of divine life. Likewise, the Father glorifies the Son when He reveals to the Apostles the mysteries of Christ's divinity.
This glorification will begin through the passion and death of Christ and will conclude with His entry into eternal life, that is, life transcending human life.
At this point the Lord experiences the emotion of the "already." Judas is gone; the betrayal has been consummated; the passion has started and will soon reach its completion. Christ somehow begins to "already" feel His post-paschal glorification.
Verse 33
"My children, I am not to be with you much longer. You will look for me, but I say to you now what I once said to the Jews: 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'"
Jesus sees the disoriented looks on the faces of the Apostles who are unable to understand His words. He wants to console them, and at the same time strengthen them, that they may live the hours ahead with fortitude and hope.
"Children" - - a reassuring word filled with tenderness, especially at this time of trial. When the Lord is out of sight and they find themselves alone, they shall never forget that they are His children, assisted by His love.
Verses 34-35
"I give you a new commandment: love one another. Such as my love has been for you, so must your love be for each other. This is how all will know you for my disciples: your love for one another."
When they are left alone, they will never forget the example and teachings of the Master. They will live in mutual love to the end, in imitation of the One Who loved them all to the utmost,5 to the maximal love of the cross.
They do this not only out of a desire to imitate the Master but also in the awareness that a new covenant has been established - - a covenant based on the new law of unconditional love. This supersedes the old law of retaliation and brings a new perspective on human love: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 6 This is what constitutes the novelty of the new covenant, as Jesus will explain later. 7 Christ's new covenant is as far from the former one as the distance that separates light from darkness. What makes this new covenant superior to the former is the rapport of love. The Apostles must become the first promoters of this new covenant finding motivation in their experience of Christ's love.
Verses 36-37
"Lord," Simon Peter said to him, "where do you mean to go?" Jesus answered: "I am going where you cannot follow me now; later you shall come after me." "Lord," Peter said to him, "why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you!"
Peter is a practical man and he goes back to the beginning: "Where are you going? Why can I not follow you?" It seems so very simple to love, and to Peter it seems impossible that anything should come between him and the Master. He is ready for anything, even to give his life for Jesus.
Verse 38
"You will lay down your life for me, will you?" Jesus answered. "I tell you truly, the cock will not crow before you have three times disowned me."
Peter is sincere and the Master certainly must have appreciated his sentiments, but people are frail. Peter, full of self-confidence and ready for anything, will disown the Lord. It is not that Peter is incapable of love or that he is insincere. Love and sincerity are not enough. True strength is from the Lord and it is in Him that we must place our confidence. Peter has not learned this yet, though he is to learn it soon.
Do we Christians and especially those who are Apostles live in this confidence and rely on the strength of the Master?
References
John, Chapter XIII
1. 1 Corinthians 11:23
2. Matthew 26:36 ff.
3. John 21:20
4. John 1:46; 1 John 1:5-7
5. John 13:1
6. Luke 19:18
7. John 15:12 ff.
Verse 1
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God and faith in me."
For Peter and all the others, the revelation of the denial must have felt like a cold shower. If the head of the Apostles is wavering, then who can be sure? But the answer is clear cut: have trust in Christ, for Christ is the true source of our serenity and security. In Him, and not in ourselves, lies our confidence.
Verses 2-3
"In my Father's house there are many dwelling places; otherwise, how could have I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you? I am indeed going to prepare a place for you, and then I shall come back to take you with me, that where I am you also may be."
Jesus has a reason for leaving them. He is going to prepare a place for them. By His passion, death, and resurrection He is going to impart the strength, the grace, and the glory that will accompany the Apostles on their existential journey until the day they reach their Master in final glory. Death for each of them means the Master's return when He comes to take them to paradise. As Paul says: "Et sic semper cum Domino erimus" - - "Thenceforth we shall be with the Lord unceasingly."1
Verses 4-6
"You know the way that leads where I go." "Lord," said Thomas, "we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus told him: "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me."
Time is a journey toward eternity. We walk this difficult journey with a three-fold certainty: Jesus, with His example, is our way; with His revelation, our certain truth; with His grace, supernatural life.
The destination is the all-loving Father - - the Abbß waiting for us. It is through Jesus, and only through Him, that we can go to the Father.
Verse 7
"If you really knew me, you would know my Father also. From this point on you know him; you have seen Him."
God, the all-holy, the invisible and inaccessible, has come so close to us as to become the object of our experience through Jesus. The greater our experience of Jesus, the greater our experience of the Father.
Verses 8-9
"Lord," Philip said to Him, "show us the Father and that will be enough for us." "Philip," Jesus replied, "after I have been with you all this time, you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say 'Show us the Father?'"
Our intense desire to know the Father is expressed by Philip's question. How strange and complex our psychology is. We have Christ and therefore have the possibility of an intense experience of the Father since They are one same reality. Yet many of us search for an experience of the Father apart from Christ.
Verses 10-11
"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not spoken of myself; it is the Father who lives in me accomplishing His works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works I do."
"I am in the Father and the Father is in me." This is Christ's great revelation. The rest follows as a consequence: the words and works of Christ belong to the Father. To believe in Him is the essential thing Jesus asks of the Apostles and of us all. Jesus' works have only one aim: to help us believe in Him and thus have eternal life.
Verses 12-14
"I solemnly assure you, the man who has faith in me will do the works I do, and greater far than these. Why? Because I go to the Father, and whatever you ask in my name I will do, so as to glorify the Father in the Son. Anything you ask me in my name I will do."
Jesus wants each of us to continue and repeat all that He accomplished while on earth. We have to be His image and representatives. He prays for this; how can we lack the confidence and trust that we will succeed? We are not alone; we have the power of Jesus.
Verse 15
"If you love me and obey the command I give you . . ."
Are we to keep the commandments or a commandment? Ultimately all that Jesus taught is condensed into one commandment: the new commandment of love. In this one commandment we find the synthesis of the Decalogue and of the old covenant as well.
Verses 16-17
"I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete - - to be with you always: the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, since it neither sees him nor recognizes him; but you can recognize him because he remains with you and will be within you."
The first result of Jesus' prayer to the Father is the sending of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of love and sanctity is always in us, with us, and among us. We know Him and therefore can experience Him. On the other hand, the world does not know the Spirit and therefore can neither experience Him nor receive the strength necessary to walk the ways of love and of holiness.
Verse 18
"I will not leave you orphaned; I will come back to you."
This is one of the most consoling and fascinating realities. We are not alone - - not orphaned - - because the Lord is with us on our journey, in our life and in our history. Even in times of darkness and of difficulty, we the Church must never forget that Christ is really present among us. His Word, which we now possess; the apostles, as His representatives; the Holy Spirit, and all the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist, give us the presence of Christ in different forms and ways.
We are not orphans because Christ has called us "His children," too. He is always with us as a good and providential Father.
Verses 19-20
"A little while now and the world will see me no more; but you see me as one who has life, and you will have life. On that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you."
After the death and resurrection of Christ, we move from the realm of physical experience to the realm of faith which offers its own experience of seeing and of knowing. Jesus, Who through grace is the source of our spiritual life, allows us to experience such an intimate union with Him that our lives are to witness the Trinitarian union. We are partakers in the mystery of the Trinity.
Verse 21
"He who obeys the commandments he has from me is the one who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father. I too will love him and reveal myself to him."
This Trinitarian union is itself the love God has for us. This union will bring a gradual and mysterious revelation of Christ to our human hearts. It is the mystical journey along which Jesus leads all those who love Him.
This is a privilege granted to those who keep His commandment, for true love is operative and faithful and not just expressed by words.
Verses 22-24
Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, why is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?" Jesus answered: "Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to him and make our dwelling place with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words. Yet the word you hear is not mine; it comes from the Father who sent me."
The world does not love Christ since it does not heed His words but instead rejects them. Under the circumstances, there can be no union. Those who do heed His words and love Him, however, are given the greatest gift ever granted to a human creature: participation in the life of the Blessed Trinity, today in grace, tomorrow in glory.
Paul teaches us that we are temples of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in us.2 The writings and prayers of Sr. Elizabeth of the Trinity provide a good commentary on these verses.
Verses 25-26
"This much have I told you while I was still with you; the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will instruct you in everything, and remind you of all that I told you."
There are two levels of knowledge regarding truth and faith: one superficial and one deep. Jesus has spoken and we have listened. Nevertheless it will be the Spirit who will help us understand and live to the end that which we have merely tasted.
The saints have grasped the meaning of the Master's teachings and have made them the principles of their lives. We, too, are granted the same opportunity, provided we surrender with docility to the promptings of the Spirit.
Verse 27
"Peace is my farewell to you, my peace is my gift to you; I do not give it to you as the world gives peace. Do not be distressed or fearful."
We must not be fearful but keep the peace the Lord has left us. According to human criteria, we are more inclined to lose peace and become disturbed when we are misunderstood, rejected, not appreciated or loved - - in other words, when we find opposition and hostility. We automatically feel like a failure and consequently lose our peace.
On the eve of His passion, Jesus tells us: "I give you my peace" - - a peace so different from that of the world that nothing should ever disturb us.
Verses 28-29
"You have heard me say, 'I go away for a while, and I come back to you.' If you truly loved me you would rejoice to have me go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I tell you this now, before it takes place, so that when it takes place you may believe."
The transition from the Christ of experience to the Christ of faith is often difficult and painful. We all prefer to dwell on the words of Peter on Mt. Tabor: "Lord, how good that we are here!" 3 But it is only through Christ's glorification that we have the fullness of redemption. For the Apostles this means losing the tangible experience of the Master; it is a reality that they need to accept with joy.
We, too, must become accustomed to living in joy with the Christ of faith. We need to know that although we experience temptations and inner darkness, the sun is shining beyond the clouds. After the time of faith comes eternal vision.
Verses 30-31
"I shall not go on speaking to you longer; the Prince of this world is at hand. He has no hold on me but the world must know that I love the Father and do as the Father has commanded me. Come, then! Let us be on our way."
The focal points of these verses are the triumph of the world, that is, of evil; the free acceptance of this fact by Jesus which will bring Him to the Cross; and the explicit affirmation that Jesus accepts this out of love for the Father.
In the life of the Church, as well as in our own lives, we often witness the victory of evil which causes us suffering and even crucifixion. Like Christ, we must learn to accept this for love of the Father.
References
John Chapter XIV
1. 1 Thessalonians 4:17
2. 1 Corinthians 3:16
3. Matthew 17:4
Verses 1-2
"I am the true vine and my Father is the vine grower. He prunes away every barren branch, but the fruitful ones he trims clean to increase their yield."
We, branches of the vine which is Christ, inevitably need to be pruned to either bear any fruit or to bear more fruit. In this context, therefore, suffering has great positive value. This is even more conclusive when we remember that the Vine grower is the Father, our Father. He is Abbß - - the good Father who loves us so much that He wants only what is good for us.
Verses 3-5
"You are clean already, thanks to the words I have spoken to you. Live on in me, as I do in you. No more than a branch can bear fruit of itself apart from the vine, can you bear fruit apart from me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who lives in me and I in him, will produce abundantly, for apart from me you can do nothing."
Accepting the Lord's message is the beginning of life. Nonetheless, there is more that we need to do: we must remain in Him which means to achieve intimacy with Him. Intimacy in prayer and Eucharistic intimacy are forms of union that help us journey toward perfection, and a "greater abundance of fruit." They are essential to our journey, for He is the true builder of our interior edifice. We may think we are doing much on our own, but in reality we go nowhere alone.
Authentic humility grows from this awareness.
Verse 6
"He who does not live in me is like a withered, rejected branch, picked up to be thrown in the fire and burnt."
The alternative to unity with Christ is spiritual death. The bearing of fruit ceases and we find ourselves in the fire of passions - - first in this world and then eternally in the next.
It is a sobering lesson and very real. Many Christians live with the illusion of being apostolic, of bearing fruit, even though separated from Christ through sin!
Verse 7
"If you live in me, and my words stay part of you, you may ask what you will - - It will be done for you."
If we accept and live Christ's message, if we heed the Lord's word with docility, He will listen and respond with benevolence to our requests. To what extent will He do this? "Ask what you will . . ." It is almost as if God would bend to our will! Through the infinite love of God who awaits our loving response, our prayers of petition can become all-powerful.
Verse 8
"My Father has been glorified in your bearing much fruit and becoming my disciples."
The glory of the Father and the reason He sent His only Son into the world are one: our full adherence to Christ and fullness of life in Him. This is what it means to be disciples and to bear much fruit.
God's plan is not mere salvation from sin and Hell; He wants the fullness of supernatural life for us. He said, "I came that they might have life and have it to the full." 1
Verse 9
"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Live on in my love."
In this verse Jesus reveals an essential element of spiritual life: the Father has loved the Son infinitely; the Son has loved us infinitely; we must remain in this love. To the utmost of our ability, we must live in this love and respond to the infinite love of the Father and the Son.
This is the doctrine of the universal call to holiness - - the call to the fullness of life.
Verse 10
"You will live in my love if you keep my commandments, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and live in his love."
What does this entail? We must accept and live Christ's commandments and do all that He has taught us. We must do the will of the Master just as He did the will of the Father: with fullness of love. For this we at least strive.
Verse 11
"All this I tell you that my joy may be yours and your joy may be complete."
We thirst for joy but often look for it in passing things. This satisfies us for a short time but also leaves us guilty and we become parched again.
The only way we find authentic joy is by doing God's will.
Verses 12-13
"This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."
Jesus returns to the theme of reciprocal love in imitation of His love. 2 This time, however, His teaching is more explicit as He indicates clearly the extent of His love: He loves His own so deeply that He gives up His life for them.
Truly there cannot be greater love than to sacrifice every personal gain, even life itself, for another. This is the difference between the love of the Old Testament and that of the New. The former speaks of a love equal to the love for self; the latter surpasses every other level of love.
Jesus is the first to eclipse Old Testament love. As a consequence, He becomes for us the model of the new commandment of love.
Verse 14
"You are my friends if you do what I command you."
Cicero wrote that friendship is unity of will with another. The condition for friendship with Christ is to do what He has commanded us. This is only a condition, however, and not the essence of friendship.
True friendship means confluence of thought, affection, taste, sentiments, and interest; it means harmoniously complementing one another; it means interior "union with," at both the natural and supernatural levels.
True friendship with the Lord leads toward a total union of wills and adherence to His commandments. Such a friendship is the summit of Christian fraternity.
Verse 15
"I no longer speak of you as slaves, for a slave does not know what his master is about. Instead, I call you friends, since I have made known to you all that I heard from my Father."
Jesus further develops the concept of friendship with Him so that He excludes the idea of a slave-master relationship.
He commands us but He is talking about the commandment of love which is the marvelous revelation of the Trinitarian life based wholly on love.
Jesus manifests the life of the Father to us, urging us to love one another. He commands us to live a full relationship of love with God and with our brothers and sisters.
Verse 16
"It was not you who chose me, it was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit. Your fruit must endure, so that all you ask the Father in my name he will give you."
The disciples are called and chosen by the Lord. Paul and Jeremiah come especially to mind.
In a sense every Christian is called to be an apostle. There is, however, a special, particular call which sets one apart for Christ for the sake of the apostolate. Christ chooses His specific and direct collaborators - - His priests - - and gives them these tasks (among others): to go forth and build up the kingdom of God; to provide continuity and stability to this kingdom; and to intercede before the Lord for all that is needed for this mission. What was true for the Apostles then is also true for priests today.
Are we sure that any actual lack of pastoral fruitfulness is due to a test from God? Or is it due to our lack of union with Christ and lack of docility to His commandments, especially the commandment of love?
Verse 17
"The commandment I give you is this, that you love one another."
For the third time the commandment of love is presented. Thus we understand how essential fraternal love is in our lives and in the life of the Church.
Verses 18-19
"If you find that the world hates you know that it has hated me before you. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own; the reason it hates you is that you do not belong to the world. But I chose you out of the world."
"The world" here is synonymous with the power of evil, which implies Satan and all his evil enterprises against God that he promotes among people. Evil tries to defeat good.
Christ chose and sent the apostles to build the kingdom of God. The power of evil hates Christ; it hates His kingdom and anyone who has been chosen, anyone who has been preserved from the power of evil for the sake of the kingdom.
Verse 20
"Remember what I told you: no slave is greater than his master. They will harry you as they harried me. They will respect your words as much as they respected mine."
There is a logical approach to life in this - - a principle we must not forget. If we accept Christ's word, we must likewise accept the word of those who represent Him. This important principle must be remembered.
Christ is not loved, followed, or accepted by those who do not love, follow, or accept the Church, His sacrament in the world. As there is no Church without Christ, likewise, there can be no Christ in those who deny the Church.
Verse 21
"All this they will do to you because of my name, for they know nothing of him who sent me."
Are those who have been persecuting Christ yesterday and today in His disciples all innocent?
From the cross Jesus utters: "Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing." 3 Is this an act of extreme generosity - - a moment of general forgiveness and victory over evil on the part of Christ?
Too many people pretend to know God. Perhaps they think they adore the true God when in reality they adore their own ideals and egos. In the name of current fads or personal passions, they persecute those who follow the true God.
Verses 22-25
"If I had not come to them, they would not be guilty of sin; now, however, their sin cannot be excused. To hate me is to hate my Father. Had I not performed such works among them as no one has ever done before, they would not be guilty of sin; but as it is, they have seen, and they go on hating me and my Father. However, this only fulfills the text in their law: 'They hated me without cause.'"
Since the first Cross on Golgotha, people have continued to erect crosses on which to kill Christ and His Church. Even though the Lord and His disciples are full of goodness and love, the tragedy is repeated in every age. Why? It is the mystery of the human heart, seeking only what is gratifying and avoiding challenge and inconvenience.
What excuses will these people have at the Last Judgment? How painful the verdict will be for the heart of Christ, who came to be immolated that He may save all people and bring them all to the fullness of the Father's love!
Verses 26-27
"When the Paraclete comes, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father- - and whom myself will send from the Father - - he will bear witness on my behalf. You must bear witness as well, for you have been with me from the beginning."
Regardless of the situation, our witness must remain strong and consistent. This is possible only by the power of the Spirit Who will create new men ready to live the truth.
In the battle between good and evil, even if all seems lost, Love, i.e. the Spirit, will always triumph.
References
John Chapter XV
1. John 10:10
2. John 13:34
3. Luke 23:34
Verse 1
"I have told you all this to keep your faith from being shaken."
Awareness of potential problems can provide the necessary time and strength to prepare for it.
With Jesus the situation is completely different. Since He knows the future, Jesus is actually the master of things. This should not only keep our faith from being shaken but should give us certainty that the Lord is close to us and loves us. The entire spirit of the Cenacle is a demonstration of Jesus' love for everyone, in particular "His own."
Verses 2-4
"Not only will they expel you from synagogues; a time will come when anyone who puts you to death will claim to be serving God! All this they will do (to you) because they knew neither the Father nor me. But I have told you these things that when the hour comes you may remember my telling you of them. I did not speak of this with you from the beginning because I was with you."
These words anticipate the prayer of the Master: "Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing."1 It is a stunning possibility that those who persecute us might, in the end, be closer to God than we who have been persecuted.
Love for enemies has a surprising theological motivation here: these enemies believe they are serving God! "All this they do to you" simply because they have known neither the Father nor Christ.
As for us, are we efficacious and credible witnesses of Christ's revelation?
Verses 5-6
"Now that I go back to him who sent me, not one of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have had all this to say to you, you are overcome with grief."
This verse reveals the psychological state of Jesus' listeners. His words are quite clear and, according to His intention, consoling. However, the crude reality is different: He will be gone. The Apostles were accustomed to living with the young Rabbi, had risked their lives for His ideals, had abandoned everything for Him. Isn't it logical that they should grieve now?
Verses 7-11
"Yet, I tell you the sober truth: it is much better for you that I go. If I fail to go, the Paraclete will never come to you, whereas if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin, about justice, about condemnation. About sin - - in that they refuse to believe in me; about justice - - from the fact that I go to the Father and you can see me no more; about condemnation - - for the prince of this world has been condemned."
Jesus' words become more puzzling; the Apostles must understand that it is good for them to be left alone since Jesus' absence is essential for the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus does give a detailed explanation, however. It is the Spirit Who will complete His work. The Spirit will make the world aware of its three-fold sin: rejection of the Master's word; lack of belief in His divinity; rejection of the divine in favor of Satan.
Verse 12
"I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now."
What Jesus is saying sounds sufficiently clear - - at least to us today. But how clear was it to the Apostles?
We have an understanding of some fundamental truths such as: the Spirit completing the work of Christ; the Spirit proceeding from the Father and Christ; the Spirit forming us into the image of Christ. What understanding did that group of men have of all these truths? Yet Jesus does not lose heart because of their limitations; He looks to the future with trust.
Verses 13-15
"When He comes, however, being the Spirit of truth He will guide you to all truth. He will not speak of his own, but will speak only what he hears, and will announce to you the things to come. In doing this he will give glory to me, because he will have received from me what he will announce to you. All that the Father has belongs to me. That is why I said that what he will announce to you he will have from me."
Jesus looks with trust to the future because He knows that the Spirit will transform the intellects, the hearts, and the wills of the disciples through the extraordinary event of Pentecost. The Spirit will complete the revelation started by Christ, will reveal the mysteries of the Trinitarian dialogue, and will enlighten the disciples.
Despite the persecution to come, Jesus' words are indeed consoling because His assistance will continue through the action of the Spirit.
Verses 16-19
"Within a short time you will lose sight of me, but soon after that you shall see me again." At this, some of the disciples asked one another: "What can he mean, `Within a short time you will lose sight of me?' And did he not say that he is going back to the Father?'" They kept asking: "What does he mean by this 'short time?' We do not know what he is talking about." Since Jesus was aware that they wanted to question him, he said: "Within a short time you will lose sight of me, but soon after that you will see me."
What Jesus says is clear to Him but He expresses it in thoughts that at times appear vague to us. For instance, Jesus does not speak of death or of resurrection but of return to the Father. He says: "Within a short time you will lose sight of Me but then you will see Me again."
We can imagine the Apostles' expressions as they look at each other, trying to whisper questions to help them understand. They did not have the courage to interrupt Jesus, especially because He was so absorbed in His divine inspiration.
Verses 20-23 (first half of 23)
"I tell you truly: you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices; you will grieve for a time, but your grief will be turned into joy. When a woman is in labor she is sad that her time has come. When she has borne her child, she no longer remembers her pain for joy that a man has been born into the world. In the same way, you are sad for a time, but I shall see you again; then your hearts will rejoice with a joy no one can take from you. On that day you will have no questions to ask me."
Suffering engenders both sorrow and joy. The Apostles will grieve over Christ's crucifixion but will rejoice over His resurrection. Unfortunately, the world will grieve over Christ's death but will be disoriented over His resurrection.
Obviously there is a difference between the lives of Christians and the lives of those who persecute them. They respond to the same events with antithetical views, both in joy and in sadness. In regard to evil, the world rejoices while the just suffer; in regard to goodness, the world suffers while the just rejoice. Hence Christians have to make a fundamental choice - - a choice in view of eternity, where goodness will reign and evil will receive its definitive recompense of condemnation.
The image of the mother in pain is rich and significant. Suffering is never sterile for a Christian; in fact, it gives birth to a new world - - the world of love.
Verse 24 (second half of 23)
"I give you my assurance, whatever you ask the Father, he will give you in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full."
The Apostles were accustomed to turning to Jesus, for they had experienced His power and love. Jesus expands their horizons and reiterates what He had said before. "The Father is greater than I." He assures them that when they turn to the Father in the name of His Son, their joy will be full for the Father will hear them.
Ask and you shall receive: what a font of security for the Christian! Even as they experience their inadequacy, Christians can rely on the infinite power and goodness of the Father.
Verse 25
"I have spoken these things to you in veiled language. A time will come when I shall no longer do so, but shall tell you about the Father in plain speech."
Many times Jesus had spoken clearly of the Father. 2 Yet there is much more the Apostles need to understand - - they will understand it only later, through the post-paschal dialogue and through the personal revelation they will receive at Pentecost.
What Jesus is saying reminds us of the post-Easter rapport He had with His Apostles and the obscure, hidden rapport about the revelation of His glory.
It is clear that Christ neither abandoned His Apostles then, nor has He forgotten His Church today.
Verses 26-27
"On that day you will ask in my name and I do not say that I will petition my Father for you. The Father already loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God."
The new relationship of which Jesus speaks is the rapport born from the life of grace. To believe in and to love Christ is to enter into intimate communion with the Father. Somehow every thought, feeling, desire, and action of the Christian becomes a divine reality.
In this context the attentiveness of the Father is an act of love which is a consequence of this deep unity with His own. In unity of love, every legitimate desire finds an immediate positive answer from the Father.
Verse 28
"(I did indeed come from the Father): I came into the world. Now I am leaving the world to go to the Father."
This is the great principle of "exitus/reditus," the coming/returning. The Eternal Word came to accomplish the work of the Father and to raise all people to the level of the divine. At the end of the mission the Word returns to the Father, but not alone. He brings with Him many brothers and sisters, the fruit of His redemption.3
St. Athanasius, and after him many other Fathers of the Church, expressed this truth by saying: God became man so that man can become God.
Verses 29-31
"At last you are speaking plainly," his disciples exclaimed, "without talking in veiled language! We are convinced that you know everything. There is no need for anyone to ask you questions. We do indeed believe you came from God." Jesus answered them: "Do you really believe?"
What a lively dialogue between Christ and the Apostles. Finally, the Apostles begin to be aware of what Jesus is trying to teach them and they repeat their act of faith.
The Master is surprised; how is it possible that after all they had heard, seen, and participated in 4 they are just beginning to understand that Jesus is from God? Or perhaps their way of talking is an ingenuous way of repeating what they had already professed many times: they believe that He is the true Son of God.
Verse 32
"An hour is coming - - has indeed already come - - when you will be scattered and each will go his way, leaving me quite alone. (Yet I can never be alone; the Father is with me.)"
At this moment Jesus' focus changes. The near future will be different. Despite their profession of faith, they will leave Him; each will go his own way. Christ will not be alone, though, because the Father will be with Him.
Haven't we experienced this many times in our lives? We were secure in our friendships, counting on help, but instead . . .! We should not become discouraged; we have a Father who will never abandon us.
Verse 33
"I tell you all this that in me you may find peace. You will suffer in the world. But take courage! I have overcome the world!"
These are the concluding words of Jesus before He enters into the contemplative ecstasy of His great prayer to the Father.
Peace, trust, and victory. They seem absurd words for Jesus to utter a few hours before His Passion. But today, for us who have the joy of contemplating the risen and glorious Christ, they are words of certainty not only for the present but for the future.
There will always be suffering and persecutions but Christ will ultimately be victorious. We, too, will be victorious with Him, if we are able to accept the mystery of His love which only through the cross entered into the light of the resurrection.
References
John Chapter XVI
1. Luke 23:34
2. Cf. Luke 12:22
3. Hebrews 2:10
4. Cf Luke 10:17
Verse 1
After he had spoken these words, Jesus looked up to heaven and said: "Father, the hour has come! Give glory to your Son that your Son may give glory to you,"
In this mysterious invocation to the Father, Jesus asks to be glorified so that He may likewise glorify the Father. What is this glory mentioned by Jesus? Is it perhaps the Holy Spirit, or is it the Trinitarian rapport?
One thing is certain: this glorification is not human self-exaltation, but the revelation of a marvelous divine reality. Jesus asks the Father to make the Passion a revelation of the Son's divinity so that the paternity and love of the Father may be recognized by the world.
Verse 2
"inasmuch as you have given him authority over all mankind, that he may bestow eternal life on those you gave him."
This is not an intellectual exercise; it is sharing in eternal life. On the plane of redemption, eternal life does not issue from mere knowledge but from union with Jesus. It is this union that makes us "His own." While based on the saving power of Jesus, all this requires our acceptance and our consent to be saved.
Verse 3
"(Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.)"
The knowledge mentioned here must be understood in the biblical experiential sense. It is not mere knowledge that is the source of eternal life but truth that emanates from the heart to our whole being, becoming the very life of our life.
Verses 4-5
"I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Do you now, Father, give me glory at your side, a glory I had with you before the world began."
Jesus is the living example of this experiential knowledge. He came with full knowledge of the Trinitarian mystery and He revealed it to the world, thus giving glory to the Father. At the moment of trial, darkness, and social failure - - when humanly speaking, He has lost credibility - - He turns to the Father that the Father may reveal to the world the reality of Jesus' divinity which He has had from eternity.
We might get the impression that Jesus is concerned with Himself and His own glory. In reality He prays that the faith of "His own" may not waver, but may be confirmed by the strength of the Master as He accepts and lives the mystery of the Cross.
On the eve of His tragic suffering, He prays to the Father, not for Himself but for "His own," that they may remain solid in their faith. Such is the divine generosity of the Lord.
Verses 6-8
"I have made your name known to those you gave me out of the world. These men you gave me were yours; they have kept your word. Now they realize that all that you gave me comes from you. I entrusted to them the message you entrusted to me, and they received it. They have known that in truth I came from you, they have believed it was you who sent me."
The power and mission of Jesus the Redeemer, and the generous response of those who have been called are the thrust of these verses. Jesus receives the sons the Father has entrusted to Him, the sons He has taken from the world and from the power of evil. To them He communicates God's mysterious name ("Love") and reveals all that He heard from the Father through the Trinitarian dialogue. The children of the Father believe in Christ, they welcome His word and keep it.
These verses also present us with the redemptive mystery. God chooses those whom He has predestined from eternity to be His own: this is a universal call. He entrusts them to Christ that He may lead them into the fullness of truth and life. Thus the duty of those chosen by the Father and enlightened by Christ is to accept and live the word that was revealed.
Who is the object of Jesus' prayer? Who are the "yours" spoken of in these verses? Although everyone is included here, it is clear in the rest of the prayer that, concretely, "yours" are the Apostles. However, the Apostles are both the object of this prayer and also the symbol of all those who will be chosen later on.
Verse 9
"For these I pray - not for the world but for these you have given me, for they are really yours."
Christ's prayer is focused on the Apostles. They are the ones who belong to the Father in a very special way and have been entrusted to Christ.
As the hour of His Passion quickly approaches, Jesus prays for the Apostles. In them He foresaw all the Bishops and Priests who would share in this special call and respond with love.
All Priests were present to the heart of Christ and were in His prayer at the Last Supper.
Verse 10
"(Just as all that belongs to me is yours, so all that belongs to you is mine.) It is in them that I have been glorified."
Isn't this a logical prayer of the Lord for those who have become the messengers of the divine revelation?
Between the Father and Christ there is a unique partnership. Father and Son share the same possession - - which is the divine Trinitarian life between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Somehow, through faith, all this has been transmitted to the Apostles who glorify Christ by believing in His divinity.
Verse 11
"I am in the world no more, but these are in the world as I come to you. O Father most holy, protect them with your name which you have given me (that they may be one as we are one.)"
At this moment, three feelings strike the heart of the Master:
- He is about to go to the Father; through His death, Jesus is almost with the Father;
- the Apostles, instead, remain in the world;
- the Apostles need to be protected so that they can withstand the power of evil.
Hence Jesus' intense prayer to the Father is that He protect the Apostles with His power and share with them the Trinitarian unity. Jesus' moving prayer for unity will be repeated twice more, for only in fraternal unity will the Apostles be able to work out their salvation.
Verse 12
"As long as I was with them, I guarded them with your name which you gave me. I kept careful watch, and not one of them was lost, none but him who was destined to be lost - - in fulfillment of Scripture."
These words reveal Jesus' tenderness toward His Apostles. He has kept watch over them and has preserved them from the power of worldly evil. He has strengthened their faith and they have all responded. All except Judas, the one who resisted the flow of grace and became the son of perdition. The Lord must have experienced much sadness while praying these words and thinking of Judas!
Verse 13
"Now, however, I come to you; I say all this while I am still in the world that they may share my joy completely."
Who knows what the Apostles were feeling as they listened to the words of the Master? Probably sadness 1 though this is not the Lord's intention. Instead He wants to endow them with joy, the fullness of joy.
It may seem strange that the struggle against evil should be the cause for joy. But it is a joy that comes from the certainty that the Lord was and still is with us and that His prayer for us to the Father is even now an ongoing reality.
Verse 14
"I gave them your word, and the world hated them for it; they do not belong to the world (any more than I belong to the world.)"
The antithesis of Christ appears ever more clear. Jesus is not of the world; through His word He has freed the Apostles from the world and, as a consequence, the world hates them.
The world opposes Christ because of His message. To accept the salvific and liberating message of Christ means to become separated from the world and therefore become an object of hatred.
Now we see why one cannot serve two masters. 2 The world is a regime that does not forgive. The Christian - - and much more so the apostle - - is one who must be able to accept the world's persecution.
Verses 15-16
"I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to guard them from the evil one. They are not of the world, any more than I belong to the world."
The Apostles are not of the world yet they must remain in the world. They must continue the work of Jesus Who came into the world to bring salvation.
The Apostles must not be conformed to the world but must convert it. In the world but not of it - - just what priests must be today.
Verses 17-19
"Consecrate them by means of truth - your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world."
Without analyzing the meaning of the terms "consecrate" and "sanctify," 3 we direct our attention to the meaning of "truth"- - a term repeated here three times.
Christ is the Incarnated Truth, as He Himself testifies: "I am the truth." 4 Consequently He alone gives absolute truth. Everyone else - - educators, scientists, artists, and philosophers - - give bits of truth; only Christ gives the entire truth, 5 the liberating truth. 6
The Apostles are consecrated to the truth because they have the task of repeating, throughout the centuries, the message of the Master. Indeed they have received from Jesus the same mandate He received from the Father. Jesus is the Apostle of the Father; 7 the Apostles, for their part, are emissaries of Jesus.
This shows the historical continuity between Jesus, the Apostles, and their successors. They all have the task of announcing and of bringing about the plan of love willed by the Father from all eternity.
Verse 20
"I do not pray for them alone. I pray also for those who believe in me through their word."
Jesus' view broadens. He knows that the Church must develop and spread through the work and the blood of His Apostles; hence His prayer is extended to those who, in time, will become His disciples.
Jesus' ecclesial prayer encompasses everyone but especially those who are consecrated and directly continue His apostolic mission.
Verse 21
"That all may be one as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; I pray that they may be (one) in us, that the world may believe that you sent me."
Jesus reiterates His intense prayer for unity among His followers whose salvation is measured by their imitation of the Trinitarian unity.
While it is easy to think of the "universal Church as a people assembled by the unity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit," 8 it is not as easy to imagine a Church actually living the unity of the divine Trinitarian relation. Unfortunately history demonstrates that if any sin is found in the Church, it is the sin of disunity.
Jesus prayed intensely for unity. He emphasized that divisions give counter-witness and are a practical negation of Jesus Himself, for He is the most perfect example of unity in communion with the Trinitarian nature.
Jesus came to teach Trinitarian unity, and He has sent us as apostles of unity. If we do not know how to keep or restore unity, how can non-Christians believe in our mission?
Verses 22-23
"I have given them the glory you have given me that they may be one, as we are one - - I living in them, you living in me - - that their unity may be complete. So shall the world know that you sent me, and that you loved them as you loved me."
The Master continues to pray for unity. How can we maintain Trinitarian unity among ourselves? We are bound together by the message Jesus revealed to us and by our Father's love for us. This is the summit of our insertion into the Trinitarian mystery. "I living in them and you in me." Through Jesus we are totally assumed by the Father, just as the Son is, in love, totally assumed by the Father. We are assumed into that same love which the Father has for His Word: "You loved them as You have loved Me."
To know the Trinitarian mystery, to be loved by the Father and to remain within the realm of this lofty mystery, is what the Master asks for the Apostles and for us in His insistent prayer.
We often think of the call to holiness but we are seldom aware that holiness is this participation in the Trinitarian life. To this we have been called and Jesus prays that it may become actualized in and for us.
Verse 24
"Father, all those you gave me I would have in my company where I am, to see this glory of mine which is your gift to me, because of the love you bore me before the world began.
Will all this remain obscured in faith forever? Jesus looks beyond time and shows us a glimmer of eternity. From eternity the Father has loved and nurtured His Word in the warmth of the Spirit. The glory of the Son is the Trinitarian life.
The Apostles, along with all those who will believe through them, will be with Christ not only in faith but also in the beatific contemplation and, somehow, in the participation of the glory that is the Son's divine life .
The holiness of today's grace will become blessedness of glory in eternity.
Verses 25-26
"Just Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you; and these men have known that you have sent me. To them I have revealed your name, and I will continue to reveal it so that your love for me may live in them, and I may live in them."
Jesus emerges from His invocation-contemplation and returns to the reality of earthly life: "The world has not known you!" However, this is no reason for discouragement.
The less the Father is loved, the more Jesus labors to extend love for the Father to the outer limits.
Jesus knows the Father and the Apostles know the name, the love, and the holiness of the Father. Throughout time Jesus continues to reveal the Father. Together Jesus and the Apostles strive to make the world believe and to bring about the plan of love which is the conclusion of the prayer of the Cenacle, "that Your love for Me may live in them, and I may live in them."
All people must experience deeply the love of the Father and the presence of Christ. Are Christians, in particular priests, ever aware that this is the goal of their apostolic endeavors?
References
John, Chapter XVII
1. John 16:22
2. Matthew 6:24
3. Cf. The Cenacle, Chapter X
4. John 14:6
5. John 16:13
6. John 8:32
7. Hebrews 3:1
8. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, #4, citing St. Cyprian
GUIDELINES FOR A REVIEW OF LIFE
1. Hierarchical Life
* What is the Cenacle for me?
* Is it only an historical event or is it a source of spirituality?
* Will I work to let the Cenacle be for me what it was for Jesus and the Church?
* Do I meditate on the chapters of John's Gospel related to the Cenacle?
* Do I re-examine the threads of the meditation: service-love-Eucharist-consecration- prayer-unity?
* Do I strive for maximal love or am I satisfied with doing the least in the fields of service-love-Eucharist etc.?
* In the above fields, are my efforts discrete individual acts, or do I strive for a lifestyle of service- love- prayer etc.?
* Am I willing to examine my priestly life in the light of the Cenacle?
* What would it mean for me concretely?
2. Charismatic Life
* Do I have a sense of respect towards the hierarchical Church with her functions of:
- truth
- unity
- continuity in truth and unity?
* Do I understand the centrality of a charismatic life in the Church?
* Do I have devotion for the Holy Spirit?
* Do I strive to be alert and dynamic and always in harmony with the Hierarchy?
* Do I have a spirit of initiative? Do I create it around me?
* Do I attempt to discover what my charism is in the Church?
* Do I let myself be guided by my spiritual director in the internal forum, and by the Hierarchy in the external forum ?
* What is my attitude towards authentic mysticism?
* Is my "charismatic-pastoral" activity a service for the Church, brother priests, the faithful and the world?
* Do I try to form the faithful according to the spirit of the Cenacle which is love and unity? Do I help them to form Cenacle groups that nurture brotherhood and common prayer?
* Am I forming myself according to the spirit of the Cenacle first?
3. The Maximalism of the Cenacle
* What are my feelings as I reflect on the "divine extravagance" of:
- Christ, the poor one
- Christ totally given to others
- Christ who washes the feet of the Apostles?
* Do I try to enter into the real motives of the "divine extravagance" to the point of letting myself be drawn by them and modelling my life according to these divine exaggerations?
* Do I feel myself throbbing with great love, with a maximal love, for the Lord of whom I am a minister, and for the people of God whom I shepherd?
* Do I cultivate in myself a desire for an ongoing full transformation in Christ, the infinite lover of humankind?
4. The Servant of Yahweh
* What is my attitude towards the Church?
- Do I need a change of heart in any aspect of my life?
- Do I, perhaps, demand too much from myself?
- What aspects of my life are in need of improvement?
* What is my sense of belonging to the Church? Am I aware that reform begins by reforming myself?
* Examine specific areas of your ministry in order to see where you stand in:
- apostolic availability towards the people of God
- the spirit of obedience towards your superiors
- the brotherhood of service towards your brother priests
- attachment to your blood family
- the use of the goods of the Church for:
yourself in view of the future
your family members
the parish and the welfare of the parish life
- am I too attached to the goods of the Church? Do I lack generosity in contributing to the works of charity?
* Am I too worried about my future?
* Are my plans for service only, or do I have dreams of ambition?
5. Christ: Priest and Victim
* Have I read attentively chapter 2 of Philippians on the emptiness of Jesus and reflected on the letter to the Hebrews?
* Do I meditate often on Jesus as a victim and especially on His passion?
* Do I contemplate the fact that Jesus' suffering is the result of a free and gratuitous love? Jesus could have redeemed using any means; He preferred the Cross.
* Do I assent to the Church's share in the passion of Christ through wars and persecutions?
* Do I try to sidestep the victim-state of the Church?
* Is my personal life an imitation of the immolated Jesus?
* Can I say, like Paul, that I spiritually carry in my body the wounds of Christ?
* How do I accept physical and moral suffering?
* Do I become depressed when I am faced with a lack of apostolic success?
* Do I understand the value of the affirmation of Paul: "I carry in my body what is lacking to the passion of Christ?"
* Do I have a lively awareness that the Mass is the re-presentation of the passion of Christ?
* What meaning does the Mass have in my life?
* What do I usually bring to the Mass? How do I prepare myself for it? How do I celebrate it? Do I pause in thanksgiving after celebrating Mass?
* Do I respect liturgical laws, sacrificing personal preferences in favor of the dispositions of the Church?
* Do I have a spirit of mortification?
* Do I teach the people of God the meaning of striving for perfection, of ascetical life, and imitation of Christ the victim; or do I prefer to present an easy Christianity to them?
6. Sacrifice
* How do I confront myself with sacrifice and immolation?
* Do I tolerate them; do I accept them as inevitable elements of the journey; or do I welcome them in order to be more like Christ?
* Do I embrace only the gratifying aspects of my priestly consecration, or also the sacrificial aspect specific to the person who is another Christ for humanity?
* Do I ask the Spirit daily to open my mind to the ineffable mystery of the priesthood and to make of me another Christ, an umblemished lamb?
7. Anamnesis
* During the celebration of Mass, do I always pay attention to the Mystery that I celebrate or do I let myself be dulled by the routine of the ritual?
* When I celebrate Mass do I recall my ordination in order to become like Christ, priest and victim?
* Do I impart the wealth of the Eucharistic sacrifice to the faithful, or am I inclined to stress only some aspects, for example that of banquet or memorial?
* Am I docile to the directives of the Church or do I take illicit liturgical freedoms?
8. The Church
* When solitude weighs me down, do I reflect that at the Last Supper Jesus was without His Mother and the pious women?
* Do I live the responsibility of being the continuation of Christ and the main structure of the Church, especially in her sacrificial dimension?
* Do I respect every baptized person whom the Spirit possesses and who thus has special charism?
* What are my thoughts when I reflect on the experience of John's intimacy with Jesus? Am I convinced that the divine Master also wants me to rest on His Heart to share with me His ability to love?
9. Apostolicity
* Am I able to follow the example of Christ, that is, to have love and tenderness towards those whom I expect will desert me and betray me when I am in need?
* Do I remind myself often that I am a sacrament of Christ?
* How do I respond to situations of ambition and competition among my brother priests? Am I able to sacrifice all for the sake of charity and unity?
* Do I evangelize when I administer the sacraments? Am I aware that I minister in the name of Christ, and therefore minister with humility, propriety, attentiveness and a sense of the sacred?
10. Transformation
* Do I long to conform myself to Christ?
* Do I view transformation in Christ, Victim and Priest, as an obligation and aspiration for all priests?
* Do I respect my own priesthood and that of my confreres?
* Do I ask the Lord to send many holy vocations?
* Do I have the Bible, Sacred Tradition, the teaching of the Church, and the Documents of Vatican II as the paradigm for exact understanding of Christ's thought on the mission of the Apostles and their successors in the priestly ministry?
11. Holiness
* Do I firmly believe in the universal call to holiness?
* Is my life a witness of constant effort toward holiness?
* Am I aware that the specific way for priestly holiness is more demanding than the way of holiness for the laity?
* Do I convey the necessity of their own vocation to holiness to the faithful?
* Do I understand what it means for me to strive towards holiness in my daily life?
* Have I been able to define the main obstacles that impede my ongoing journey towards holiness?
12. Brotherhood
* Do I have an ardent desire to reach fraternal unity with all my brother priests?
* Do I let difficulties discourage me?
* Is my way of dealing with other priests an authentic witnessing of brotherhood to the people of God?
* Is my priestly brotherhood manifested in concrete gestures?
* Do I meditate often on John's texts on love and unity?
* Do I use all opportunities to invite the faithful to love one another?
13. The Heart of Christ
* Do I make John's vocation of revealing the Father's love to the world my own?
* Do I live the experience of God's love or do I limit myself to speaking about it?
* Do I spread devotion to the Sacred Heart among the faithful? Does the fear of being labeled "traditional" stop me?
* Do I go to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus in times of loneliness?
* Do I try to have Cenacle meetings among priests and with the laity?
14. The Church-Family
* Am I a "Father" of the ecclesial community, and therefore a support and guide?
* Am I myself uncertain, always in search of support, and thus unable to give it to others?
* Do I encourage the people of God to look upon their priest as the father of their souls?
* Christ revealed the Fatherhood of God and established the Church's relationship with the Father. Do I, through a distorted sense of brotherhood, attempt to alter that relationship?
* Am I building up a Church-family around me?
* Do I truly regard Mary as the Mother of our Church-family?
15. Mary
* Do I reflect on Mary's role in the Cenacle, that is, in the Church?
* Am I aware of the meaning Mary had to Jesus and the Apostles?
* Is Mary's role in the life of today's Church clear in my mind?
* Is there room for Mary in my prayer life?
* Do I pray the rosary? Do I encourage the faithful to pray the rosary?
* Do I often speak of Mary when I evangelize?
* Am I convinced that only Mary, today as yesterday, is able to bring Jesus to the world?
* Do I invoke Mary and teach others to invoke her as Help of Christians especially in times of difficulty?
* Do I reflect on aspects of Mary, highlighted by today's Mariology, that make her close to us?
* Do I reflect on Mary's faith so as to have her as my model? Do I think of her:
- abandonment to divine action
- total docility to the Spirit
- external poverty
- inner attitude of poverty?
16. Prayer
* Do I attentively study Jesus' priestly prayer to the Father in John chapter17?
* What does my life of union with God mean?
* How much time do I devote to prayer?
* Do I dedicate the necessary time to each individual prayer, or am I inclined to condense them to save time?
* Do I dedicate time to prayer or do I divert it to activity under the principle that work is prayer?
* Do I take time for a monthly day of prayer and for a yearly retreat?
* Are Mass, Meditation, Liturgy of the Hours, and the Rosary in my daily prayer schedule?
* Do I help the faithful develop a life of prayer?
* Do I help form an interior life in other individuals?
* Do I attend to the Liturgy - - the prayer of the Church and the main channel for the apostolate - - with love and attention?
* Do I try to be creative in areas of the Liturgy allowed by the Church?
* Do I honor the liturgical prescriptions and proscriptions of the Church?
17. Unity
* Do I contemplate the fervent prayer of Jesus for unity?
* Do I take time to consider the great evil provoked in the Church by divisions?
* Do I strive to be a source of unity or do I cause divisions?
* Am I able to sacrifice my personal opinions for the sake of unity?
* In what ways do I work to create unity around me?
* Do I pray constantly for the Holy Father and the unity of the Church?
* Am I devoted to my Bishop, the center of unity ?
* Do I promote unity among my brother priests:
- in the psychological realm through meetings, and celebrating birthdays,
feast days, anniversaries
- through priestly friendship
- helping with pastoral activities
* Am I a source of union among the priests? Do I discriminate?
* Do I attend with care to the unity of the consecrated members of the Church?
* In promoting unity, am I careful to protect the principles of faith and morals?
* Do I recognize that the Eucharist is the source of love for unity?
18. Love
* Do I meditate attentively on Jesus' commandment on fraternal love?
* A characteristic of the early Church was "cor unum et anima una" - - "The community of believers were of one heart and one mind." (Acts 4:32) What impact does this have on me?
* Am I aware that a Church not characterized by charity is not credible?
* Is the Church that is entrusted to my care credible because there is love in her?
* Do I care for the needy, the poor, the outcast and, above all, for the spiritually poor?
* Do I remember that my spiritual charity has to include in a special way my Bishop, brother priests, and the consecrated?
* Am I selfish, withdrawn, and focused on my personal interests and problems?
* Do I know how to be sociable and a bearer of joy?
* Am I inclined to shower my love only on my relatives, or am I open to all persons because they are my brothers and sisters as members of the people of God?
* Do I cherish the wealth of celibacy recognizing it as an open dimension of love for the world, for the people entrusted to my priestly care, and especially for youth and children?
* Do I know how to be healthy and prudent regarding the dangers of the heart?
* Am I vigilant to avoid disguising undue attachments of the heart as spiritual friendship?
19. The Holy Spirit
* Do I thoughtfully go over the passages of Scripture in which Jesus promises the Holy Spirit?
* Do I read and savor the liturgical hymns to the Holy Spirit?
* Do I minister with joy when I bestow the Holy Spirit in the sacrament of Baptism?
* Do I pay special attention when preparing candidates for Confirmation?
* Do I help people grow in the awareness that they are temples of the Spirit; that the Spirit prays in them; and that the Spirit acts in them through His virtues and gifts?
* Do I dare to lead people to the heights of contemplation, or do I fear it?
* Do I myself live first what I teach others?
* Do I meditate on the special bonds that the Holy Spirit has with me as a priest? The Holy Spirit:
- pervades me upon ordination, configuring me to Christ the Priest;
- assists me in the ministry of the Word and Sacraments;
- sustains with His power in times of difficulty;
- propels me on the journey toward holiness.
* Consequently do I have a special respect and love toward all other priests?
* Do I believe the Holy Spirit abides in a special way in the Bishop, and assists him with special graces?
* Do I have a sense of veneration for the Holy Father who is assisted by the Holy Spirit more than anybody else?
* Am I convinced that the Church was, is, and always will be moved by the Holy Spirit?
* Do I have a sense of veneration towards Sacred Tradition?
* Do I easily and harshly criticize the Church, present or the past (people, things, ways etc.)?
* Do I believe that the best way to change the world and the Church is to pray fervently to the Holy Spirit?
* Do I ask the Lord to give our world many saints, saints who are authentic mystics?
The question facing us at the beginning of this book was which view, John 10 or John 13, do we embrace - - the Good Shepherd or Christ of the Cenacle?
We now have a definite answer that shifts the emphasis, and therefore the preference, to the Good Shepherd. The sheep are deserted and the rapacious wolves are well trained. The situation of the people of God today is difficult and continues to deteriorate.
This is our pressing need: to have good shepherds able to deal with the serious dangers found within the Church and outside her.
This is our pressing question: who can be a good shepherd?
The answer is clear. Only the person who has remained with the Master in the Cenacle and who has the courage to repeat the same experience from time to time will be a good shepherd.
An isolated person, whether a mountaineer or a scientist, can do wonders. He could do much more, though, if he were roped together with a team, or if he were a member of a scientific consortium.
How true also for the priest of today!
A priest has to realize that he is not and must not be alone in attending to the people of God and in dealing with all the difficulties that surround him.
The Cenacle reminds him that Christ, present today in the successors of the Apostles, is by him. In the Cenacle he experiences the Christ who loves him to the point of washing his feet; the Christ who has called him son and friend.
He has received the Holy Spirit who is his light and consolation, and above all, his source of strength and apostolic generosity.
Mary, Mother of the Church and "Help of the Priests," supports him.
The priest, who is sustained by this certainty and nourished by the Bread of Life, will carry out the great task of saving and multiplying the flock.
He does this best when not alone! There are other shepherds by him, led by the Apostles - - who are living in the Holy Father and the Bishops - - with whom the priest is called to form a "sacramental brotherhood."
Unity, love, fraternity, support, and solidarity are some of the virtues a priest learns in the Cenacle enabling him to fight the battle begun by Christ for the salvation of people.
It is not enough to know about and to meditate on these virtues. The Cenacle is not an historical event of the past. It is above all an encounter that has to be relived constantly. The Father, Christ, the Spirit, and Mary are awaiting the return of the priest along with his confreres to the "Upper Room" to have them re-experience the Last Supper.
Without him being aware of it, there are too many distractions today that divert the attention of the priest from his main task, distractions that waste energy needed to minister as a good shepherd.
Returning to the experience of the Cenacle is the remedy the Lord offers to the priests of our tormented time. For the Apostles it was the solution to their problems. So also is it for today's priests.