Daily Postings

This was a sad day in Jesus’ life.  There is nothing specifically mentioned in the gospels, other than Jesus’ instructions to the apostles to meet with the landlord of the place where they were to celebrate the Passover, and make arrangements for the Master and His family.  They then had to purchase the lamb and have it sacrificed, while others of their group purchased provisions for the Passover meal.  Jesus apparently spent a good part of the day alone, emotionally and psychologically, as well as spiritually preparing for the horrendous events of the next few days.  Most probably he was at the home of his friends in Bethany, where he could have some privacy, and also some companionship.  It was a time he could benefit from the loving care of dear friends, which, even if he was God, could anoint and comfort his troubled spirit.  What must have troubled Jesus most on this day was his vivid awareness of Judas’ every movement.  He knew when he left earlier in the day that he was on his way to Jerusalem to meet with the chief priests and was at that very moment making detailed arrangements for his betrayal of Jesus to his enemies, and for thirty pieces of silver.  This weighed heavily on Jesus’ heart, yet he could tell no one, and he could not shake his vivid awareness of what was happening and what would transpire the following evening.  Later in the afternoon, when the apostles had readied the place where they were to dine the next evening, they returned to Bethany in time for their evening meal, a  happy time for most of them, though the heavy cloud hung over Jesus, especially since Judas had also returned and w.  as acting as if nothing unusual had happened.  With Jesus’ masterful control, he showed none of the sadness and grief that he felt, but joined in the joy and playful banter of his companions

On this day of Jesus’ life, he courageously left Bethany and went to the Temple where he knew the chief priests and the scribes and Pharisees were going to ambush him and try to trick him into saying something that could be used in court against him.   The traps they set all involved a capital offence. One mistake on his part and they could indict him, convict him and sentence him to death.  Jesus still knowingly entered the ambush.  When they found him they surrounded him, and this time not only was it the Pharisees, but they were with their bitter enemies, the Sadducees, and with them the chief priests.  The first volley they shot at him was a demand that he tell them the source of his authority, especially his authority to drive the crowd and the animals of sacrifice out of the sacred Temple.  Jesus told them, “I will ask you a question, and if you answer that question, then I will answer yours.  By what authority did John teach, human or divine?”  They discussed among themselves, “If we say, ‘divine,’ then he will say, ‘Why did you not accept him?’  If we say, ‘human,’ the people will stone us because they believe John was a prophet.”  So, they said, “We do not know.”  Then, Jesus said, “Then, neither will I tell you by what authority I do what I do.”

Then they brought up other issues, in machine gun fashion.  Jesus not only replied shrewdly to each one, but in such a way that he turned them back on themselves and accused them of being insincere and then told parables, the point of which ended with the clear indictment that the chief priests, the scribes and Pharisees knew full well in their hearts that he was sent by God, and that he was the Messiah, and that in order to keep their lucrative business they had built for themselves around the worship of God, they were willing to kill their own Messiah.  By the end of the day he ended by indicting them and warning them in blistering language that they would one day stand before God and be indicted and condemned for having been responsible for the blood of all the prophets and holy ones whom God sent from the beginning of time to guide God’s people, and for being Satan’s willing tools in destroying God’s plan of salvation for his people.

Then, in disgust, he walked out of the Temple with his apostles and withdrew into the Mount of Olives towards Bethany.

The day after the banquet in Bethany, Jesus left with his apostles and headed back to Jerusalem.  On the way Jesus saw a fig tree in the distance and being hungry, hoped there might be figs, but was he approached, and saw there was nothing but leaves.  Surprisingly, he was disappointed, and in frustration, cursed the tree.  How strange!  He knew it was not the season for figs, and what did cursing the tree accomplish?  The apostles were shocked.  Was he trying to teach a lesson to the apostles?  Just like the vineyards symbolized Jerusalem, so Jesus was looking upon the fig tree as a symbol of Jerusalem.  He had once said, “You know neither the time nor the season when the Son of Man comes, so be ready always.”   

After moving on they entered Jerusalem and Jesus saw all the buying and selling and the herds of animals all over the Court of the Gentiles.  The smell of all the urine and excrement was sickening.  It turned the Temple into the Jerusalem stock yard, and Jesus was furious.  Taking a piece of robe from off the ground, he made a whip and drove away the cattle and the sheep and goats, and pushed over the tables of the currency traders, who were sorting currencies from countries all over the known world to accommodate the needs of Jews from other nations, who had to pay their Temple taxes in Jewish currency.

As he drove the animals away, he cried out, “Is it not written, ‘My house is a house of prayer for all peoples, but you have made it a den of thieves.’”  Then passing the cages of pigeons being sold by the poor, he merely said, “Get these things out of here.”   Then he left the Temple and went back to Bethany and spent the night there.

This is one of the few times when Jesus was roused to fury over the contemptuous attitude of the chief priests towards God.  They raked in vast profits from allowing the wealthy animal breeders choice spots near the altar of sacrifice, giving them the corner on the market during the festivals.  It cried to heaven for vengeance, and Jesus reflected God’s fury over such cynical contempt on the part of the priests and Sanhedrin.  Jesus seemed to have done nothing more that day, and after surveying the Temple area the previous afternoon, it is easy to see something was on his mind and the very next morning early, he makes straight for the Temple knowing what he would find there and did what he had obviously made up his mind to do the night before; namely, clean up his Father’s house.  It seems that every now and then even today, Jesus has to clean up his Father’s house as he routinely feels a need to do every few centuries.  We see today how he is again cleaning up his Church, purging it and cleansing it, to refashion it again to be his spotless bride, as scripture says.

After cleansing the Temple, did nothing more in Jerusalem, but went immediately back to Bethany.

After Jesus left the Temple area on late afternoon of Palm Sunday, he went to Bethany where Mary, Martha and Lazarus through a splendid banquet in Jesus’ honor.  Important people from Jerusalem were there.  At one point, Mary walks over to where Jesus is reclining, and taking an alabaster flask of precious ointment, anointed his feet.  Judas commented, “What a waste!  Why wasn’t this sold and the money given to the poor?”   Saint John tells this in his gospel, with the comment, “Judas wasn’t interested in the poor.  He was in charge of Jesus’ and the apostles’ little treasury, and used to embezzle money from it.”

But, we often hear that same remark to today, “Why doesn’t the Church, sell its Vatican treasures and help the poor?”  There is probably no organization on earth that has done as much for the poor, all around the world, as the Church, and for almost two thousand years.  Its members started hospitals, schools, colleges, the university, took care of orphans and the destitute ever since the Church began.  So, what are these critics’ real concerns?  Do they resent beautiful churches built in Jesus’ honor for the worship of God?

For some reason or other I think many people don’t want to know Jesus, even among Christians.  I think Jesus makes people feel uncomfortable.  They will say they admire him, but they have a resistance to draw close to him and to learn to understand him.   There are things about him they like, but they thing nothing of casually sidestepping things that he taught that they don’t feel comfortable with.  And that is not honest.  That is why some preachers don’t preach everything that Jesus taught for fear that they will lose members.

The same is true with people who are not Christians.  They may express a liking for Jesus, but then they come up with their reasons for not accepting him into their hearts.  It is sad because they are denying themselves the chance to have the most beautiful love affair of their life, and a relationship that will carry with them into long after death in God’s vast paradise.

Fr. Bede Jarrett, a Dominican priest, who died in 1934, wrote, “The foundation of the Christian name is belief in the divinity of Christ – that is, a belief that he is God equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Without this clear expression of faith, there can be no acceptance of the plain meaning of the Gospel.  For if he were not God, then he could not even have been a good man… Our Lord proclaimed himself unique, sinless.  Now to do this, and not to be true, is either hypocrisy or madness, for the claim of a man to be God is such an act of assurance as can come only from knowledge or from an unbalanced mind.  The whole force of existence is continually teaching us our own littleness by means of the little aches, pains, and disappointments of life, so that for one habited in human flesh to claim immortality, infinity, almightiness, and responsibility for all existing beings requires full deliberations and absolute conviction.

 “‘I know men,’ said Napoleon, ‘and Jesus Christ was not a man.  My eyes may see only the human form.  I see the print of the nails and spear, the marks of scourging and crowning, the linen cloth lying, the very signs of death.  Yet, all the while I know him to be God as well as man.  I profess my belief in his divinity precisely in the same sense in which I profess the divinity of his Father.’”

The night before Palm Sunday was a stressful time for Jesus.  He was fully aware that on the following day, the first day of their week, he would set off the chain of events that would ultimately end in his crucifixion.  The early morning of that day had arrived. In the inner chambers of his divine person, he was calm.  However, forcing this whole drama on his human heart and mind and emotions caused catastrophic stress. Yet, his inner strength was such that not even the apostles had the slightest hint of impending doom.  He calmly told them to go to a friend’s house and pick up a donkey which he would need.  All the apostles could sense was that  he was planning something exciting.  When they came back with the donkey, Jesus met them at the top of the Mount of Olives, and after some of his disciples put a covering over the donkey, Jesus mounted and led a procession down the path, which is still there today, to the bottom of the valley and across to the other side where he ascended with a crowd gathering in greater numbers all along the way.  These people knew their scriptures and what they were witnessing was the fulfillment of the prophecy about the Messiah entering his kingdom on a donkey.  The whole crowd spontaneously began to sing messianic verses, and pulling branches off the olive trees, and spreading their cloaks on the path to enhance  the way for their Messiah, the whole excited crowd continued their ascent to the gate of the city, singing triumphantly they entered the massive wall.

The chief priests and their entourage were alerted by the loud singing and excited cheers of the crowd, and as Jesus approached they demanded the he order the crowd to stop acclaiming him as Messiah.  Jesus’ response was simple, “It is so obvious, even if they stopped, the stones themselves would cry out their acclamation.  Only the blind can’t see it,” obviously referring to them. Then after entering the city and, by his dramatic action making his statement, he dismounts from the donkey and as Saint Mark writes, he went up into the temple area and walked around observing everything.  As it was getting late, he walked back towards the gate, and ascended the Mount of Olives on his way to Bethany with the apostles.  It is interesting that although Mark tells the story, he does not seem to have gone to Bethany with Jesus.  But, then he was not one of the apostles. He seems like a strange fellow, always tagging along, but never an intimate part of anything.  It was that day that Mary, Martha and Lazarus had the great banquet, apparently in Jesus’ honor.

On the days before Palm Sunday, Jesus wandered the area outside Jerusalem, speaking in the villages where the seventy-two disciples had made preparations for his visits.  The people in these villages and in the countryside were different from the crowds in Galilee.  The Judeans seemed to be more sophisticated and independent.  The were not at all afraid of the religious leaders, and when these people attached themselves to Jesus, they were loyal, unlike the crowds in Galilee who seemed to be interested in Jesus for what they could get out of him and thought nothing of abandoning him when he disappointed them by talking about such things as eating his flesh and drinking his blood as food for their souls.  The Judeans, or Jews as the gospel writers call these people, were entirely different. They were willing to protect Jesus from the officials, who were afraid of the people for fear of being stoned if they tried to touch Jesus.  So, Jesus wandered freely among these people, teaching them about the kingdom of heaven and the love and mercy of his Father, and his own identity with the Father.  As he taught, he healed as well, not the huge crowds like in Galilee, but more casually when he came across anyone who needed healing.  So impressed were the Judeans with Jesus’ teachings and miracles, they were willing to accept him as their messiah, and I think that was why the officials felt they had to do something before he could make an open declaration to that effect.

Jesus was careful not to hang around Jerusalem after dark, or stay within reach of the temple police, or the government spies.  His favorite haunt when evening came was outside Jerusalem, across the Kedron Valley, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where he would camp for the night in a thick grove of olive trees.  There, sitting around a camp fire, munching on whatever food and drink people may have given them, they would review the day’s events as Jesus told them stories with lessons they needed to learn. 

Jesus knew every detail of the events that were about to unfold and he also knew his role in those events as precisely as an actor in a drama, familiar with every scene before the play begins.  On the following day, a Saturday, we will see him walking closer to the city, but staying still on the periphery, in the villages near Bethphage, as he readied himself for the first act of the fateful drama that was to unfold, a drama that the whole tense population of Judea seemed to sense was about to take place.

The heroism of the saints is still alive. A beautiful young high school student, named Gloria, had been grazed by a car speeding around a corner as she had just begun to cross the street.  The bumper had slightly grazed her knee.  She thought nothing of it, until four days later, her knee began to hurt and as the days went on the pain became excruciating.  She had to give up playing on the school basketball team, and her family decided to bring her to the doctor.  After a battery of tests, the doctor told the family that Gloria had cancer.  The news was devastating.  From that day, Gloria came to class with crutches and put them under my desk, as she sat right in front of me.

After everyone left class, I picked up her crutches and asked her how she was feeling, and she began to tear up.  “Just great, how do you think I feel?  My life is over.”

“What do you mean, your life is over?”

“I have cancer.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not stupid.  No one told me, but when no one was looking, I sneaked a look at my chart and it spelled out the type of bone cancer I had.  It was in technical terms, but I knew what it meant because I have been ready medical books to prepare for college next year where I intended to take a pre-med course.”

“But, Gloria, your life is not over. You still have a life to live.”

“A hell of a life that’ll be.  I gotta go to lunch.  See ya.”

Gloria and I were close.  We both knew we cared for each other, but we never talked about it.  I had to be careful, because I was only six years older than she was, and I was a priest, but I knew my friendship meant even more to her now, even though she could show it only by being nasty towards me, which I understood.

In time she could no longer come to school and spent time in the hospital.  When I visited her, I was impressed at how brave she was.  She liked it when I talked about Jesus in class and that became the topic during my visits to her in the hospital.  One day, I saw her pills on the tray.  I asked her why she hadn’t taken them.  Her answer was, “Because I want to help Jesus save difficult souls.  You once mentioned what Saint Paul said, ‘We must fill up in our own lives the sufferings that are lacking in Christ.’  So, don’t give me a hard time, because I’m just doing what you taught me.”

“But, Gloria, the pain must be excruciating, how can you stand it.”

“That’s my business.  I don’t want to talk about it.”

For a time before that, she had been mad at Jesus for ruining her life, but then she felt closer than ever since she was now nailed to the cross with him, helping him save souls.  When I talked to the doctor about her not taking her medicine, he told me he could not understand how she could endure the pain, and that even though he was Jewish, he could not get over that young girl’s profound attachment to Jesus, and all the courage and strength it gave her.

Knowing that Gloria could not sleep nights because of the unrelenting pain, I used to call and talk to her for over an hour each night, and it helped to take her mind off the pain.   A few months later she died.  That was a very difficult time for all of us.  But, I knew that Gloria died a genuine modern teenage saint, and her heroism has been an inspiration ever since.

What has happened today is what had been worrying me for months.  Ever since I saw the rise of the Tea Party group, I knew immediately that few of those people knew what it was all about.  I am sure most of them knew nothing about the healthcare bills being proposed.  Most of the opponents in Washington said that even they did not have a chance to read it, yet they used their spring breaks to talk about something they really did not understand, or if they did they  chose to demonize it as the beginning of the destruction of our American way of life.  It was the first step towards Communism or National Socialism, they claimed, which is what Hitler’s movement was originally called.  Those kind of words by political leaders who were calling themselves patriots who were trying to save our way of life were inflammatory, and the skin heads and armed militias in various places around the country began to organize and join the cause with other self-styled patriots to fight this new and dangerous movement.

I could sense that many people in the Tea Party movement were just concerned people, yet I could not help but see that there were people among the group who were fired up to fight a cause to ‘save the country,’ inspired, not by radicals, but by congressmen themselves, and other top political leaders.  If the congressmen were telling the people that we were in a struggle to save our country, and that the enemy was trying to destroy our way of life, what would you expect but that there would be many otherwise good people who would be only too willing, out of patriotism, to join the struggle.

One leader of an armed militia, told his followers to ready their arsenals, and start a campaign of breaking windows of Democratic party offices and the offices of Democratic congressional leaders and those who voted for the healthcare reform law.  The lives of congressmen and women and their children were threatened.  That was the way Hitler’s gangs started out.

It is hard to believe that this is happening in America.  I hope it is just a temporary impulse, but I don’t think so.  When congressmen start calling their colleagues traitors, and baby killers, and accusing them of destroying our American way of life, that gives the signal to hotheads and radicals, who are potential terrorists, American brand, to join in and do their thing, all in the name of patriotism.

Political leaders have to be careful of the language they use when they disagree with others’ ideas of what is good for our country.  It is the canonizing of a political party’s policies, which they mistakenly call ‘principles’ which automatically demonizes other people’s ideas as evil.  When people are so obsessed with their own opinions, they then see anyone who differs as the enemy, and that is so sick.  It has to stop before it destroys the country. 

The bottom line is: Do not listen to people who preach hate!  It only opens more wounds, and heals no one.   

I know I have been concerned about what it taking place in our country, and I have always been deeply concerned because it affects the life not just of a country, but the life of the people, which has always been a burning concern all my life.  When I was stationed at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Schenectady, I was very concerned about the labor situation in the city because the electrical union was operating in a way that I knew was going to bring a serious calamity on the area.  I had tried to help out a priest who had left the priesthood, by getting him a job at GE.  After only one day at work, he told me that he couldn’t in conscience continue to work there, because the union was dishonest in their demands.   I brought up the issue at Mass when some union officials were present, and mentioned not only that situation but other issues that I knew the company would not tolerate much longer.  The union officials were furious and told me in no uncertain terms that priests should mind their own damn business and keep out of politics.  But life is the community is not free from morality and what takes place in politics and in work ethics affects the life of the people, and priests have a responsibility to be concerned.  I still tried to speak up, but it wasn’t long after these happenings that GE closed most of their operations in Schenectady which had been there since the time of Thomas Edison, and moved their headquarters to Connecticut.  The area lost millions of dollars a year in taxes and over twenty thousand people lost their jobs.  People’s property taxes skyrocketed and people began losing their houses.  Even today, forty years later, the city is still struggling to survive.

So, as a priest I have always been very concerned, and continuing to watch situations closely I have learned to see clearly what is happening and where dangerous situations are leading.  To remain silent would be a cowardly shirking of my responsibility to the people and in the present situations in Washington, a responsibility to our country.  Real patriotism demands no less.

The most dangerous attitude today is the country’s looking upon caring for the poor and the tens of millions of destitute and the handicapped as a burden and feel that it is not society’s responsibility to care for them because that would be, as so many feel, socialism.  When we mistake Christian social justice for socialism we are denying our most basic Christian roots.  Greed and unreasonable thirst for power and wealth can one day, if left unchecked, destroy our work force, as cheap labor is available elsewhere, and the masses of the unemployed will grow, until we have a country run by huge corporations controlled by a small powerful group of super wealthy people and most of the population poor, like in Central and South American countries.

The greatest asset of a country is not its economy; it is its people.  When people are nurtured and when the country is willing to invest in the talent and genius of its people, there will be no poor and that investment will unleash the untapped talent and genius of the poor and the country will rise to heights never dreamed possible.  The poor are a country’s richest and most valuable treasure, not a burden to be despised and resented.

I spent a good part of the past year, on a daily basis, trying to understand the health care reform package, and have a fairly good grasp of it, though I am not at all pleased with the outcome.  I can accept it, however, as a start,  because it is unconscionable that in our advanced country, there should be close to 40,000,000 people unable to get adequate health care.  Something had to be done.  I am sure there are enough built in problems with the final product that will have to be ironed out, just like in any complex law.  But, one thing that does a disservice to all of us is to intentionally falsify contents of the bill and spread such paranoia all around the country, and frighten people into thinking that a horrible catastrophe is about to destroy them. And what is even more cynical is for these same malicious people to use the panic they generated, as an argument that the whole country is against healthcare reform.   What shocks me is how come the whole population has become such overnight geniuses that they have such a profound understanding of so complex an issue, especially the street gangs, as if they had been studying it day and night.  The massive fraud perpetrated against the American people is disgusting, and what bothers me the most is that they are blind to it.

When we entered into the war, where literally millions of innocent people’s lives have been destroyed or driven into refugee camps in other countries, and our own soldiers killed or damaged for life by the hundreds of thousands, according to the Pentagon’s Rand Corporation report, I can see a real catastrophe.  Yet, these same people who are now crying ‘catastrophe’ were eerily silent in the face of a real catastrophe that they found quite understandable and acceptable, and had no concern for the huge increase in national debt.  Hopefully, that country we sacrificed so much for does not become the strong partner of the evil regime enslaving Iran.

And when they condemn caring for the poor and the desperate as socialism, and foreign to our way of life, they show how far they have departed from our Christian roots.  Jesus warned, “Depart from me, you cursed ones, for when I was hungry you gave me no food, when I was thirsty you gave me no drink, when was ill, you abandoned me… .”