Palm Sunday: What Did You Go to Church to See?

On Palm Sunday, we enter upon the most solemn and holy week of the year. Holding our palms and singing the hymn of the children, I suggest we ponder the question John’s disciples had once asked Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Lk. 7:19). Then I would offer a word of caution. Just because we have doubts, does not mean we do not believe. Because of our frail human condition, faith is often mixed with doubt. We have only to recall the heartfelt plea of the father of the possessed boy: “I do believe! Strengthen my weak faith” (Mk. 9:24). Holding the palms, we need grace to continue our walk with the Lord through all life’s disappointments. As we gaze upon the Face of God’s steadfast love, are we willing to admit our duplicity of heart? Remember, as we look at Him with doubt, guilt and shame, He looks at us with love (CF. Mk. 10:21). 

Palm Sunday

Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God is full of compassion and love. He can and does deal with our uncertainty and ambivalence. As He did with John’s disciples, He does with us. He looks at us and asks: “What did you come to the church to see?” (CF. Lk. 7:24) Perhaps, you came hoping to recapture lost memories and feelings from your youth. I can remember braiding and weaving palm fronds into elaborate designs and then decorating the crucifix that hung in our kitchen. What happened in the church had an impact on what we did at home. Faith and life were integrated. With aging, however, life became bifurcated and compartmentalized. 

So, “what did you come to the church to see?” (CF. Lk. 7:24) Perhaps you came to participate in a pilgrimage of faith. Sometimes pageantry can bolster our faith. God has never ceased to call to Himself a people so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a sacrifice of praise can be offered to the glory of His name. Like those pilgrims on that first Palm Sunday, we are surprised to discover the Holy One of Israel in our midst. In commemorating the Lord’s solemn entry into Jerusalem, we become partakers of the cross and glorious resurrection.  May we who today follow Christ into Jerusalem by means of sacramental signs follow Him into the eternal Jerusalem. 

Knowing that the palms we hold can serve as reminders and as challenges, I will ask the question a third time: What did you come to the church to see? Perhaps you came to peer into the eyes of mercy. There is something shocking and disconcerting about the quick shift from “Hosanna!” to “Crucify Him!” How quickly warm devotion can turn to total rejection. The pageantry of today brings us face-to-face with our own duplicity and God’s steadfast love. Even when we are unfaithful, God remains faithful. The passion story is not a tragedy. It is the story of redemptive love. Jesus accepted His Father’s will for the salvation of the world. He humbled himself, obediently accepting His life and death for love of us. How blessed are we that Jesus prays for us, as He did for Peter, that no matter how fickle and cowardly we might be when faced by trials, our faith will sustain us. 

It is important to maintain a healthy balance between pondering what we have done to Christ and remembering what He has done for us. The Beloved Son of God was humble and obedient. He fulfilled the Father’s will for the salvation of the world by becoming human and freely embracing His passion. Because He remained faithful, the cross of Christ has become the path by which we can flee from sin and receive a steadfast spirit. It was because of our sins that Jesus was crucified, and “through His wounds we are healed” (Is. 53:5). At the heart of the Palm Sunday liturgy are words taken from the Letter to the Philippians, “He humbled himself” (Phil. 2:8). These words demonstrate God’s way of dealing with sinful humanity. God humbles Himself to walk with us. Jesus humbles Himself to take to himself our infidelity. The Beloved Son stripped Himself of the grandeur that was His as God's Beloved Son and clothed Himself in the flesh of sinful humanity so that sinful humanity might be clothed in His divinity. 

The Scriptures tell us how, throughout history, God has desired to be with His beloved people. Today He enters the city where His name is enshrined and glorified. Through the mystery of the Incarnation, He united human nature to Himself in an unbreakable bond of love. He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities so that by His wounds we might be healed and made whole. For our sake Jesus willingly endured His passion and death. He remained obedient to the Father even to the point of death. In His meekness, Jesus reveals the pride and iniquity of the human heart. In the face of rejection, Jesus reveals the mercy of the heart of God. In love’s embrace, His heart speaks to ours. In that moment of communion, each of us can be brought to newness of life in Christ, Who makes the love of God tangible. God’s ways are merciful, loving, and welcoming. God’s words propose, they do not impose. Unlike us, when He talks to us, He also listens for a response.  

Recall these words taken from the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer, “That we might live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us, he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father, as the first fruits for those who believe.” Let us walk humbly with our God and when He returns in glory may we follow Him into everlasting life.

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

How Much Does God Love Us?

While giving a retreat one day to a Confirmation Class, in Antrim, Ireland, a priest put a leading question to them ‘How much does God love us? This much, maybe…’ and  he opened my hands until they were about shoulder-width apart. ‘No! – more!’ they chorused. The hands went wider, and again the same answer. At last the hands were outstretched as if on the Cross, and they answered ‘Yes, that much!’ As he stood there with the hands still outstretched, one girl over on his left spoke up: ‘But you can’t even begin to describe how much God loves us!’   They were all stunned into a silence, with the wisdom and truth of what she had just said- ‘you can’t even begin to describe how much God loves us!’

If I had just one verse of the Scriptures to take with me to a desert island, it very probably would be John 15:9, ‘As my Father has loved me, so I have loved you!’, but more like this: ‘The way my Father has loved me, that is how much I have loved you!’  ‘As much as my Father loves me and has always loved me, that is just how much I have loved you, and have loved all of you!’,- that is, with a love that has no limits at all. When we ponder and contemplate the first part, and wonder at just how much the Father loves His Son Jesus from all eternity,- as the awesomeness of this fills us, then we hear what Jesus is saying to us in the second half, about his relationship with us,- one of love without limits, like the Father’s.  And then he says: ‘Live in my love’,- or ‘Abide in my love’, or ‘Make your home in my love’,-  or maybe, like a fish in the sea, we swim in the ocean of God’s love that knows no shores nor horizons. 

And then, as we awaken to ‘as I have loved you’, in all its depth and width and height and length, he tells us to ‘love one another’ with the same depth and width and height and length.  And to help us to do this, he says (in the same chapter) ‘make your home in me as I make mine in you’. What a relationship, what an intimacy! He invites us to live in each other.

Love is a word which is often over used and misused in modern western culture. God’s love is unconditional love, Divine Love is only possible in a person who has been baptized with water and the Holy Spirit. A soul that is maintaining its ability to love with agape love is a soul that remains in the state of grace. Jesus tells us, “If you love me, keep my Commandments”. We cannot say we love God and continue to walk in the darkness of sin. And should we confess our sin, we must wish with all our hearts never to commit such sins again--this is true repentance and contrition. 

Jesus truly demonstrated his love for us in the cruel agony he suffering in the garden, in the betrayal of Judas, in the Scourging at the Pillar, in his carrying of his Cross, in his crucifixion and death. For God, who is the greatest lover, so loved the world so that the greatest number (that whosoever believes in him which is the greatest invitation) shall have ever lasting life, the greatest gift. What are we willing to do do manifest our love to Him?

 ‘I am alive, or rather it is not I who am alive, but it is Christ who is alive in me! I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.’ (St. Paul, to the Galatian disciples, in Galatians 2:20)

--Rev. Deacon Mr. Joseph Pasquella

Holy Week: Week of Decision

Through the liturgical rites of this week we will walk with Jesus in His sorrow, His fear, His death and His Paschal Victory. On Palm Sunday, we reenact His entry into Jerusalem where He encountered the growing hostility of the religious authorities.  While preparing for Passover, He attempted to open the minds of His disciples to the message of the Law and Prophets so they would understand that His death was the healing balm for a broken world and that He was about to offer His Father the ultimate sacrifice of praise.  This sacrifice is offered for us, for you and for me. He became a curse so that we might receive a blessing. He was condemned so we might be forgiven. He died so that we might have eternal life. If we humbly gaze upon the blood-stained cross and the abandoned burial clothes, we will be enabled to lay claim to the glory that is ours as the Children of God and heirs to the Heavenly Kingdom. 

Throughout Holy Week the Church re-proposes to the world the mysteries of salvation with the hope that we might renew our relationship with Christ. With the eyes of faith, we shall look upon Him Who was pierced for our sakes and come to know the depth of Divine Love that alone can fill the longing of our soul. Christ holds up to our gaze the cross with this understanding: If we embrace it with love, as He did, we will find the fullness of life. Jesus embraced the cross, and in His great love he transformed it into an instrument of grace and power with which He would recreate the world. By the blood of the cross he won for us our salvation. Now He invites us to surrender our own sufferings, our own limitations, disabilities and distress to Him and thereby share in His own redemptive love. 

Moved with pity by the miserable condition of His people, the Beloved Son of God came down from His majestic throne to seek out and find all who were lost. We have heard the phrase, “He died for us,” so many times that we tend to nod our heads and mumble, "Yah! I know." For some reason, the gospel message no longer shocks us. Because of our sophistication and technical advancements we are not overawed by the news that we are delivered from the power of death. It is important that we turn our gaze beyond the superficial and mundane. There we will enter into the broader realm of wonder and awe. Allowing ourselves to stand at the foot of Christ's cross, as if for the first time, we shall enter into the mystery of redeeming love and transforming grace.  

The Apostle Paul reminds us, God never ceases to show the richness of His mercy throughout the ages. The transformation of the heart that leads to the confession of sins is “God's gift”, it is “His work” (cf. Eph 2:8-10). To be touched with tenderness by His hand and shaped by His grace allows us to acknowledge our sins and to receive Divine Mercy. The Cross of Christ shows God's judgment on sin and His compassion towards sinners. Divine mercy, expressed at the terrible cost of the violent death of God’s Only Begotten Son, is worthily received when we choose to repent of our sins. The proof that God’s mercy was not wasted upon us is shown when we live our gratitude for mercy by striving after holiness with zeal and joy.  

On the cross Jesus took our guilt upon Himself. He bore the full consequences of our sin and set us free. With a tenderness that never disappoints, but is always capable of restoring our joy, he makes it possible for us to lift up our heads and start afresh. Jesus not only accompanies us but actually carries us on His shoulders, making it possible for us to imitate Him in carrying our cross. Rejected by the people, condemned by the religious leaders, executed by the civil authorities, naked and degraded, Jesus entered once and for all through the veil to become the sacrifice of atonement. The people who were defiled by the blood poured out in violence and unlawful sacrifice were purified by the blood of the Lamb that was slain. No one is excluded from the mercy of God. Everyone is offered access to it. The Church is the Household of God that welcomes all and refuses no one. The doors of the Church are wide open, so that all who desire it can find acceptance and forgiveness.  

Through the mystery of the Incarnation, the human race is united and, as it were, enfolded within the cloak of divine blessing, a blessing that permeates, sustains, redeems and sanctifies all things. In the face of saving grace, we cannot stand idly by. But we have respond to the call of divine love with our whole being. Only then can we enter into a profound communion of love with Christ Who suffered, died and rose for us and be transformed into Sons and Daughters of God in the Son. 

Holy Week was Jesus week of decision. It is also a week of decision for us. As disciples of the Lamb that was slain we must decide to love our enemies, count as our neighbors those who we think little of. Because Jesus is our Lord and Savior we must decide to give up the material things that offer us nothing but only drain us of real life. Because Jesus is our Lord and Redeemer we must decide to go where God calls us, follow where God leads us, no matter how inconvenient it is, how difficult it is, how painful it might be. We must decide to live life to the full and not as mere spectators. Lord Jesus you died and rose for love of us, help us to live and die for love of You. Amen. 

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

Holy Week Helps

During Holy Week we are reminded of what we are commemorating, the very love that Christ has for us, the great love of God who was so good to us that he experienced a cruel death out of love for each and every one of us. The Gospel of the Passion tells us what it is that the Lord suffered for us during these great events and how they affected us as Christians to this day. So we see the Last Supper. We see Good Friday and the death of the Lord on the cross. And ultimately, once the stone is rolled across the tomb, we await the Resurrection.

And so we see two Passovers. Remember the Passover that the Jews were to celebrate at the time of these Passion events. Why was everyone going to Jerusalem? It was to prepare for this great feast where the Jewish people commemorated the Passover by slaughtering the Passover Lamb. Remember the first Passover? The angel of death passed over the homes where the blood of that lamb marked the lintel of the home and the first born was saved. From that event, the people of Israel exited Egypt, exited their slavery through the Red Sea to go to the Promised Land. That was the first Passover.

The Gospel of the Passion discusses a second Passover. At this Passover so many years later we see a new lamb, the Lamb of God, that unblemished lamb whose sacrifice we partake of, who has washed us in his blood. Once the blood of that Lamb enters our souls, we also will be saved. Not only will the firstborn be saved, the firstborn of God, the people of Israel, but now all people can be saved, all people who partake of the lamb have that ability. We the Gentiles can be saved because we been marked with the blood of that Lamb, the blood of Christ who died for us.

During Holy Week, we enter into these great mysteries just as the Jews did. They did not merely remember these past events but they also entered into them as something that is still happening in their lives and we do the same. The sacred rites that we celebrate this week are outward signs of a reality that we continually partake in. We continually partake in Holy Thursday when we participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We continually partake of Good Friday when we receive the Eucharist. We are  washed in the Blood of Christ in the confessional. We continually partake of the passion, death, and resurrection of the Lord every time we come to Mass. This is not just a past event. It is an event that should have an effect on us every day. So this week is set aside as holy, to be holy, and we should make this week holy for ourselves.

 Make this week a remembrance of Christ’s Passion. Do things differently. Allow Christ to enter your normal schedule, to interrupt your normal life so that you might pray more, have more time for quiet. Turn off the TV. Silence the phone. Just think. What if you did not listen to a single ounce of news this week? No newspaper. No CNN. You wouldn’t need any more Prozac! But, too, you will be recognizing that there are many events that happen throughout the world, but none of them are more important than the event of Christ’s Passion, death and resurrection. Let us make that truth a priority this week. Make it a priority to enter into this Holy Week with more silence, more prayer, more introspection, more church. Why? Because we need this. We need this intense week of holiness to remind us for the rest of the year that the sacrifice of Christ is more important than anything else in the world. If Christ did not die for you, your life would be nothing. Death would still have power over you. If Christ did not die for you, you would not have grace. If Christ did not die for you, you would not have heaven. If Christ did not die for you, you would be worthless. But because Christ died for you, you have grace in this world, and you have heaven in the next world. Your nature has been exalted above even that of the Angels. Why? Because Christ died for you. Let us show him how much we love him by our actions this Holy Week.

--Father Jacob Meyer,Visitor, Confraternity of Penitents

Responding to Correction: How Do You Treat the Gift of Love?

My joy is gone, grief is upon me,
   my heart is sick.
Hark, the cry of my poor people
   from far and wide in the land:
‘Is the Lord not in Zion?
   Is her King not in her?’
(‘Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
   with their foreign idols?’)
‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
   and we are not saved.’ (Jeremiah 8: 18-20)

After listening to the reading from the prophet Jeremiah, we can easily say, our reaction to correction has not changed. We do not like what we are doing with our lives, but just let someone try to suggest ways we might change – WATCH OUT! We refuse to listen. When Jeremiah called the people to repentance, they contrived a plot against him. He was intent upon their redemption but they were intent on his death. As their ancestors did to Jeremiah, so also did the contemporaries of Jesus. In every age, the People of God have repeatedly rejected the bearer of the message of salvation. The physician of souls offers His people a diagnosis of their ills and its proper remedy, but instead of taking the cure, they plot to murder the caregiver.

God created us in His image and likeness. He made us to share in the glory of His heavenly kingdom. He hand-crafted the earthen vessel into which He breathed the treasure of life. The devil had seduced Adam, Eve and, subsequently, all their offspring, blinding them to their unique destiny and hoping to bring about their ultimate ruin. If he could not possess eternal glory, neither would any creature of clay. By continuing to allure human beings with that which they could see and touch, the devil kept them blind to the grandeur that lay unseen at the core of their beings, in their very hearts. Snared in habitual sin and addictive behavior, human beings became more and more isolated from one another and insulated against the greatness that was theirs as the handiwork of God.

In this context, it might be good to consider the words of Deuteronomy: “The Lord, your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (Deut. 4:24). God loves the works of His hands and jealously claims all He has made as His own. He would never freely allow a lesser being to subvert His rights as Master of the Universe, even if He needed to engage in mortal combat to reclaim that which He created and loves. To untie the thongs of those in slaved to sin, the Lord of Life was put in chains. To clothe His people in robes of glory, the Lord of Glory was stripped naked and brutally scourged. Having proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom, He knew that by accepting rejection He would overcome the sin and darkness of His beloved People.

Saint Paul had an insight into the redeeming power of Love when he wrote the Corinthians. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2Cor. 12:9). In order to break the yoke that had burdened His people, He chose to carry His cross to Calvary. In order to recreate the work of His hands, He breathed out His Spirit upon all who would gather beneath His cross. By emptying Himself, Jesus filled us with newness of life. By becoming weak, the Beloved Son strengthened all the children of God to live in the Kingdom of Light and Life. By becoming poor, God-With-Us enriched our poverty making us bearers of a heavenly treasure in earthen vessels. May we have the humility to accept Love's gift.

Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

Meditation on the Cross of Christ

We adore you O Christ and we praise You because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world. The readings of Good Friday's liturgy tell us of the life-consuming love of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Through them we are given an opportunity to ponder the scandal of the Cross. Through them, we recall the day when the human race renounced its Savior and condemned the immortal Son of God to an ignominious death. The Master of the Universe allowed himself to be stripped of all dignity and respect. He who was shown no compassion was moved by compassion and love for the human race. He who was lifted up on the cross chose to lay down His life to redeem us from our bondage to sin and death. By His death on the cross Christ has conquered death and granted eternal life to all who were consigned to the land of great darkness and gloom. The people who dwelt in darkness were bathed in the light of life that radiated from the wood of Christ's blood-stained cross. By means of the cross and His glorious wounds our divine Master brought newness of life to all the children of Adam and Eve.

We venerate your cross, O Lord, and we glorify Your resurrection. Through the cross you have brought joy to the whole world.   On Good Friday, the cross of Christ is presented to us to refresh our souls and to renew our hope. The cross teaches us that through humiliation, rejection and suffering we shall see the fulfillment of our hopes. Having toiled and endured the heat of the day, we are invited to sit in the shade of the life-giving Cross and there find comfort, refreshment and rejuvenation. Christ, who suffered for us and died on the cross, invites us to lay our burdens down and to drink deeply from springs of salvation. He stretches out His nail-pierced hands and gathers us close to His heart so He can carry us into the presence of the Eternal Father. By His sufferings and fidelity unto death Christ has purchased us and made of us a priestly people for the worship of His Father.

Behold the wood of the cross on which has hung the salvation of the world. Come let us adore! The cross is the sign that marks all of creation as restored by God’s redeeming love. Our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of all mankind. He endured His passion and death to cleanse us from our sins and to clothe us in the garment of righteousness. Through the mystery of the Incarnation Jesus took to Himself all our grief and all our iniquities. He willingly entered into the depths of our affliction and trouble. Our Lord Jesus Christ yielded up His last breath on the cross and made his soul a free-will offering for our sins. He offered satisfaction for our sins by His sufferings and death, casting them into the abyss never to be seen again. In His humiliation we have been exalted. Through His ultimate act of surrender Jesus offered to the Father the first fruits of the new creation. The Immortal One died so that mortal men live in the light of life. The Holy One of Israel was condemned as a sinner so that the sinful offspring of Adam and Eve might be redeemed. He entered into the Holy of Holies on our behalf, Jesus has become the source of eternal salvation for all who believe in Him. Because He was rejected, we have become “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of His own, so that we might announce the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light” (1 Pet. 2:9).

Lofty tree, bend down your branches, to embrace your sacred load; oh relax the native tension of that all too rigid wood; gently bear the members of your dying king and God. The cross of Christ is a powerful sign of the infinite love and passionate desire God has for us. The apostle Paul wrote these words to the Church at Rome. "God has shown us how much He loves us. It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). At about three o’clock the One who has once offered to satisfy the thirst of all who labored asked for a drink. Scarcely able to lift up His head and with parched lips, He whispered: "I thirst." As the soldier raised the moistened sponge to His lips, Jesus looked into the eyes of His heavenly Father and said, “It is finished!” With those words, He bowed his head and died. The Beloved Son had fulfilled the task for which He was sent. Like a faithful servant returning to his master, Jesus reported his progress: “I have overcome all the difficulties. I have done the job to the best of my ability. It is finished.” According to Jewish tradition, when the priest accepted a sacrificial offering would say to the congregant, “Your offering is accepted; the sacrifice is complete.” Jesus has accomplished all that He had come to do. Sinful humanity had returned to its Maker in total obedience, and the gap that sin caused between God and man was closed. As Jesus’ lifeless body hung on the cross, we can imagine the Father saying to Jesus, “Well done, my good and faithful Son … Come and share your Father’s joy” (Cf. Mat. 25:21). And to the people who looked upon the scene, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mat. 3:17). The cross tells us that the task for which the Son came into the world is finished.

O faithful cross! O worthy tree! You alone are loftier than all cedars, on you hung the life of the world, on you Christ triumphed, and death conquered death forever.

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

Prayer for Easter by Saint Anthony of Padua

O eyes of our loved one,

closed in the sleep of death!

O face,

on whom the angels longed to gaze,

now become pale.

O lips,

which like a honeycomb exuded words of eternal life,

now become livid.

O head,

before which the angels trembled,

now hanging limp.

Of those hands and whose touch

leprosy was cured,

life was restored,

eyesight was recovered,

devils were put to flight,

bread was multiplied –

are now pierced with nails and

stained with the precious blood!

O, the compassion of divine clemency!

O, the patience of the Father’s goodness!

O, the profound and inscrutable mystery of the divine will!

Father, you have seen your only son, equal to you,

bound like a criminal to a pillar

and scourged like a murderer.

How could you have borne this?

We thank you, Holy Father,

because the sufferings and scourges of

your beloved Son

have freed us from the shackles of sin

and from the power of evil. To you be glory for all ages. Amen.

   Saint Anthony of Padua (taken from two of his sermons)

The Suffering Hell of Godlessness: Christ’s Redemptive Death Atoned for All Sin including Atheism

Words about deep suicidal depression, or the Night of the Spirit, and how to overcome, escape, or

 understand it, seem only words. No one has been equal to describe such horror, like handing an empty glass to someone dying of thirst. But we may try, and not judge negatively those who try.

God makes the initial move. Only He can give that Love, He IS that Love: love which has no beginning, no

 limit, and no cause. Incomprehensible by a created mind. I like the image of Jesus coming through the 

locked door; I could not represent it in a painting or sculpture, only modern photography could make some

semblance of this look real by using diapositives. 

No doubt we can shut Him out. We do it. He doesn't knock the door down violently He simply comes

 gently through it, as and when He wills. God is shut out, too, by others: from our "private" mind: by parents, school, the media.

What first brought about the separation of man from God, and locked Him out? Disobedience. Since the 

time of Adam, only one human being has at every moment obeyed God: the Blessed Virgin Mary. All others have disobeyed. When He as her Son said goodbye to her from the Cross (John 19:26), Mary began to feel a certain separation from Him, as though He had left and closed the door, which perhaps lasted until her 

Dormition and Assumption: horrendous suffering. But we are not told that. Most prefer to think He 

reappeared to her after His resurrection...We don’t know. But that may be part of the way that she is the 

co-remptrix. She experienced the losd of God, until she had "fallen asleep" into His eternal embrace.

When on the Cross Jesus cried out, "My God! My God! Why have You abandoned me?" He took upon 

Himself, along with all our other sins, the sin of Atheism. That is hell.

The first of the Luminous mysteries of the Rosary recalls His baptism by John in the River Jordan, when He was symbolically plunged into the fallen human condition.

Could He, with his free will, choose to disobey God, His Father, who is Infinite Good, Infinite Love? It is a mystery, but we have to reply in the negative. His humanity's "hypostatic union" with God the Son means that even his humanity belonged to God, was possessed by the Infinite Love and Wisdom which always and 

eternally chooses to love the Good.

We do not, always. “We is all sinners.”

But could He EXPERIENCE the feeling, the state and condition of being Godless, rebelling, let us say its

"side effects"? I answer affirmatively. 

How can He who is Light experience darkness? He who is Life, die? Dying is horrible, I came close the 

other day. Yes, He can plunge into all that filth, like into the Jordan, making it His own. He died, didn't He?  Satan thought so, and he was right for once.

He brought the disobedient nature into obedience, even to the death sentence. He overcame death: brought 

the mortal nature into union with the immortality of Him who is the Immortal, the Strong, the Holy One.

Figuratively He washed off all our private and public sins, washed them all clean not only in the Jordan but in His own Blood. No one else has shed every drop of his blood and come back to life. What we drink in the

chalice is alive in His risen body.

He paid the ultimate price for sin: death. He re-deemed it. In Latin the word means re-bought, bought it back===from Satan, who was really mad. It left him (Satan) with nothing, He would have to fight for it all over 

again, try to get it back. He cheats. I doubt he gets much. Jesus is all-mighty. He didn't go through that for 

nothing.

Not BACK to hell. Jesus' abandonment was experience of separation from God. I used to think it was the 

experience of only a moment. He breathed out His spirit, committed His soul to His Father (who He felt had left Him), and the body died, which is assured by the centurion's lance in His side --whereupon the centurion expresses his act of Faith, but we are not told in the Gospel much. It is not revealed if anything went on in 

Jesus' SOUL after the expiration of His body. The statement in the Apostles' Creed that He "descended into hell" lends itself to the belief that the feeling of "abandonment" was not momentary in the Divine Soul, who 

took it with Him into the realm of the dead beyond our vision, but not our imagination or our faith.

I think that the experience of abandonment by God mysteriously took the sin of atheism, of the atheists, into his redemptive action, so that He could save the atheists at well as all other sinners.

Anyway, how deliberately is atheism committed? IT LEAVES ONE LONELY, BUT CULPABLY SO? Some may adhere to it as if it were a sad truth. They share in Christ's abandonment, and He is present in theirs, mysteriously of course.

It moves me away from judging atheists negatively. Had I had their experience, been in their shoes and 

classrooms as a child, would I be a believer?

Catholicism is true Love of the true God, from which it gets its joy. Can atheists see that? Do they find that in their history books, or their Catholic neighbors? Or do they reject what is actually a lie or a distortion?

I think that in Holy Week we might spend Holy Saturday contemplating the suffering and hell of Godlessness.

--Dom Julian Stead, OSB, Spiritual Advisor to the Confraternity of Penitents and Retired Visitor of the CFP