Good Friday - The Third Hour

Good Friday

“And it was the third hour, when they crucified him.” (Mark 15:25)

“And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Elo-I, Elo-I, lama sabach-thani?”” (Mark 15:33-34)

 “And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” (Mark 15:37-38)

The Navarre Bible commentary regarding Mark 15:25-38: “At the third hour, that is, between nine o’clock and noon, Jesus was raised on the cross; at the sixth hour, between noon and three, the whole land was covered in darkness; and at the ninth hour, between three and six in the afternoon, Jesus died.”

Jewish Passover and the Catholic Eucharist Part 4

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Art
Crucifixion - Rogier vander Weyden

Holy Thursday - Jesus Washes the Feet of the Disciples

Holy Thursday
Last Supper
Jesus Washes the Feet of the Disciples

Jesus performs for his disciples the service of a slave when he “rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and tied a towel around himself.  Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him” (John 13:4-5).

“Unlike Adam who had tried to grasp divinity for himself, Christ moves in the opposite direction, coming down from his divinity into humanity, taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient even to death on a cross (Philippians 2:7-8) – all this is rendered visible in a single gesture. Jesus represents the whole of his saving ministry in one symbolic act. He divests himself of his divine splendor; he, as it were, kneels down before us; he washes and dries our soiled feet, in order to make us fit to sit at table for God’s wedding feast. When we read in the Book of Revelation the paradoxical statement that the redeemed have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14), the meaning is that Jesus’ love “to the end” is what cleanses us, washes us. The gesture of washing feet expresses precisely this: it is the servant-love of Jesus that draws us out of our pride and makes us fit for God, makes us “clean”.… If man is to enter God’s presence, to have fellowship with God, he must be “clean”. Yet the more he moves into the light the more he senses how defiled he is, how much he stands in need of cleansing.” (Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, pg. 56- 57)

The Jewish Passover and the Catholic Eucharist

Part 3

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Art
Jesus Washes the Feet of the Disciples - Vincenzo Civerchio

Holy Thursday - The Last Supper - Passover

Holy Thursday

Pope Benedict XVI
Examines the Last Supper and the Jewish Passover  

Each Lent I re-read the gospels pertaining to Holy Week. And each year, the Lord peels back another layer giving me just a little more “insight” into these events. We cannot fully understand the Pascal mystery but by the grace of God bits and pieces are revealed which strengthen and deepen our faith.

In his book, Jesus of Nazareth - Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrectionm,  Pope Benedict XVI discusses the “difference” in the dating of the Last Supper between the Synoptic Gospels and John. Making reference to the continued dispute between some scholars as to if Jesus was truly celebrating the Jewish Passover at the Last Supper.

The Synoptic’ note that preparations for Last Supper took place on or around the first day of the Unleavened Bread (Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7) The Navarre Bible commentary on Matthew 26:17 states that “In Jesus’ time the Passover supper was held on the first day of the weeklong feast of Unleavened Bread,” making the Last Supper in the Gospel of Matthew the Passover meal.

The Gospel of John opens chapter 13 with “Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (John 13:1) In the next verse we are at supper when Jesus washes the feet of his disciples, with verse 1 leading us to draw the conclusion that the Last Supper when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples was not a Passover meal.

Furthermore the following day at the trial in front of Pilate, John refers to this day as “the day of Preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour,” (John 19:14) when Jesus was condemned to die. The sixth hour was about midday, the hour the Passover lambs began to be slaughtered at the Temple for the meal that night. John is making the connection that the old perpetual sacrifice of the lambs in the Temple was being replaced with the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) With Jesus being sentenced to die in John gospel on the Day of Preparation, this would suggest that the Last Supper took place the previous evening, the day before the Passover meal.

Many attempts have been made to reconcile the chronologies of the Synoptic Gospel’s and John. One solution states that the Jews at the time of Jesus celebrated two Passover meals. Another speaks of two difference calendars observed by different sects within the Jewish community at the time. Or possibly the term “Passover” was a figure of speech that referred to every day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread.

The Navarre Bible’s commentary on the 19th chapter of John states, “The fact that Jesus was sentenced on the Preparation day suggests that in holding the Last Supper the previous evening, Jesus and his disciples may have been using a calendar, adhered to by some Jews, which put the Passover day one day earlier than the day specified by the calendar in general use.”

What is to be concluded? Pope Benedict XVI covers all of these attempts to reconcile the date of the Last Supper in detail in his book Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection. He does so to “offer insight into the complexity of the Jewish world at the time of Jesus, a world that we can reconstruct only to a limited degree, despite all the knowledge of sources now available to us.” (Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, pg 111-112)

So was the Last Supper the Passover? “One thing emerges clearly from the entire tradition: essentially, this farewell meal was not the old Passover, but the new one….It was Jesus’ Passover. And in this sense he both did and did not celebrate the Passover: The old rituals could not be carried out…he had given himself, and thus he had truly celebrated the Passover with them. The old was not abolished; it was simply brought to its full meaning.” (p. 114)

The death and Resurrection of Christ is the celebration of the new Passover, the Passover that endures, that Passover that covers all sin, past, present and future. “Jesus’ Last Supper – which includes not only a prophecy, but a real anticipation of the Cross and Resurrection in the Eucharistic gifts – was regarded as a Passover: as His Passover. And so it was.” (p. 115)
 

For items related to the Catholic Church
please visit Lynn's Timeless Treasures

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Art
The Last Supper - Franceso Fontebasso
The Last Supper - Simon Ushakov 
The Last Supper - Franceso Fontebasso

Holy Week - The Pesach

Christian Holy Week
Sunday April 17 - Saturday April 23, 2011
Sunday April 1 - Saturday April 7, 2012
Sunday March 24 - Saturday March 30, 2013
Sunday April 13 - Saturday April 19, 2014
Sunday March 29 - Saturday April 4, 2015
Sunday March 20 - Saturday March 26, 2016

Jewish Passover

 April 19, 2011 = 15th of Nissan 5771
April 7, 2012 = 15th of Nissan 5772
March 26, 2013 = 15th of Nissan 5773
April 15, 2014 = 15th of Nissan 5774
April 4, 2015 = 15th of Nissan 5775
April 23, 2016 = 15th of Nissan 5776 

The 15th of Nissan on the Jewish calendar, usually falls during Christian Holy Week.  On the 15th of Nissan every year, Jewish families participate in the Passover Seder, a memorial feast commanded by God to be celebrated [yearly] as a perpetual institution.  (Exodus 12:14) 

The Seder spiritually brings the Jewish people back to participate in the First Passover:  "In every generation a man must so regard himself as if he came forth himself out of Egypt, for it is written (Exodus 13:8). Therefore we are bound to give thanks..."  (Mishnah Pesahim 10.5)

Here is a simple Gentiles attempt to learn more about the Jewish roots of my Catholic faith.  A study on the Jewish Passover and the Catholic Eucharist  Part 1

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Mishnah Pesahim 10.5
Portion Ghent Altar Piece - Lamb of God

Sixth Sunday of Lent - Palm Sunday (Matthew 26:14-27:66 Liturgical Year A)

Palm Sunday

Liturgical Year A 2011, 2014, 2017, 2020, 2023 (Matthew 26:14-27:66)

Liturgical Year B 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021 ( Mark 14:1-15:47)

Liturgical Year C 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2022 (Luke 22:14-23:56)

It was nearing the Feast of Passover when large crowds of pilgrims swelled the population of Jerusalem from a city of 60,000 to 300,000. The leaders of the Jews and the Romans were on edge, the time was ripe for rebellion. It was the 10th of Nisan, the day that every Jewish family “must procure for itself a lamb”… “without blemish” (Exodus 12:3,5) in accordance with God’s command to keep a memorial feast, “which all your generations shall celebrate”… “as a perpetual institution.” (Exodus 12:14)

It was on this day that Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives riding on a donkey, as prophesied by Zachariah 9:9 in 520 B.C. Jesus, the perfect lamb without blemish, presents himself to the crowd for inspection. On the 10th of Nisan the crowd will spread their cloaks and palm branches on the ground and hail Christ as prophet (Matthew 21:11) Five days later they will be calling for him to be crucified. (Matthew 27:23)

In his Palm Sunday homily in 2011, Pope Benedict XVI said, “It is a moving experience each year on Palm Sunday as we go up the mountain with Jesus, towards the Temple, accompanying him on his ascent. … But what are we really doing when we join this procession as part of the throng which went up with Jesus to Jerusalem and hailed him as King of Israel? Is this anything more than a ritual, a quaint custom? Does it have anything to do with the reality of our life and our world? To answer this, we must first be clear about what Jesus himself wished to do and actually did…

He was making his way towards the common feast of Passover, the memorial of Israel’s liberation from Egypt and the sign of its hope of definitive liberation. He knew that what awaited him was a new Passover and that he himself would take the place of the sacrificial lambs by offering himself on the cross.

He knew that in the mysterious gifts of bread and wine he would give himself forever to his own, and that he would open to them the door to a new path of liberation, to fellowship with the living God. He was making his way to the heights of the Cross, to the moment of self-giving love. The ultimate goal of his pilgrimage was the heights of God himself; to those heights he wanted to lift every human being…

Our procession today is meant, then, to be an image of something deeper, to reflect the fact that, together with Jesus, we are setting out on pilgrimage along the high road that leads to the living God. This is the ascent that matters. This is the journey which Jesus invites us to make.”

Our Lenten journey continues as we begin Holy Week, celebrating the Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion. Our week, like that of the Hebrews of Jesus’ time, will begin with a joyous procession on Palm Sunday, and end as did the Hebrews of Jesus’ time with the Crucifixion, death and burial of Our Lord.

This Paschal mystery of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, which we begin today, is the center of our faith. It is truly a mystery to us how in the providence and infinite wisdom of God, without interfering with the freedom of men, he directed the course of human events, allowing the passion, death and resurrection which would result in the continual presentation of Jesus as the perfect lamb without blemish, perpetually in heaven to the Father. (Revelation 5:6)

Christ who loved us to the end, (John 13:1) is our redeemer. Let us continue our journey “on pilgrimage along the high road that leads to the living God.” Jesus invites us on this journey and he will be there to guide and lead us, thanks be to God.

Art
Entry into Jerusalem - Duccio di Buoninsegna
Entry of Christ into Jerusalem - Pietro Lorenzetti
Adoration of the Lamb - Part of the Ghent Altarpiece