20190417
MAKING
PREPARATIONS FOR THE PASSOVER
17 APRIL, 2019,
Wednesday of Holy Week
Readings at Mass
Liturgical Colour:
Violet.
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First reading
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Isaiah 50:4-9 ©
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Who thinks he has a case against me? Let
him approach me
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The Lord has given me
a disciple’s tongue.
So that I may know how to reply to the
wearied
he provides me with speech.
Each morning he wakes me to hear,
to listen like a disciple.
The Lord has opened my ear.
For my part, I made no resistance,
neither did I turn away.
I offered my back to those who struck me,
my cheeks to those who tore at my beard;
I did not cover my face
against insult and spittle.
The Lord comes to my help,
so that I am untouched by the insults.
So, too, I set my face like flint;
I know I shall not be shamed.
My vindicator is here at hand. Does anyone
start proceedings against me?
Then let us go to court together.
Who thinks he has a case against me?
Let him approach me.
The Lord is coming to my help,
who will dare to condemn me?
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm
68(69):8-10,21-22,31,33-34 ©
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In your great love, O
Lord, answer my prayers for your favour.
It is for you that I suffer taunts,
that shame covers my face,
that I have become a stranger to my
brothers,
an alien to my own mother’s
sons.
I burn with zeal for your house
and taunts against you fall on
me.
In your great love, O
Lord, answer my prayers for your favour.
Taunts have broken my heart;
I have reached the end of my
strength.
I looked in vain for compassion,
for consolers; not one could I
find.
For food they gave me poison;
in my thirst they gave me
vinegar to drink.
In your great love, O
Lord, answer my prayers for your favour.
I will praise God’s name with a song;
I will glorify him with
thanksgiving.
The poor when they see it will be glad
and God-seeking hearts will
revive;
for the Lord listens to the needy
and does not spurn his
servants in their chains.
In your great love, O
Lord, answer my prayers for your favour.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word
of God!
Hail to you, our King!
Obedient to the Father, you were led to
your crucifixion
as a meek lamb is led to the slaughter.
Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word
of God!
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Or:
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Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word
of God!
Hail to you, our King!
You alone have had compassion on our sins.
Glory to you, O Christ, you are the Word
of God!
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Gospel
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Matthew 26:14-25 ©
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'The Son of Man is going to his fate, as
the scriptures say he will'
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One of the Twelve, the man called Judas
Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What are you prepared to give me
if I hand him over to you?’ They paid him thirty silver pieces, and from that
moment he looked for an opportunity to betray him.
Now
on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus to say, ‘Where
do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the passover?’ ‘Go to
so-and-so in the city’ he replied ‘and say to him, “The Master says: My time is
near. It is at your house that I am keeping Passover with my disciples.”’ The
disciples did what Jesus told them and prepared the Passover.
When
evening came he was at table with the twelve disciples. And while they were
eating he said ‘I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me.’ They
were greatly distressed and started asking him in turn, ‘Not I, Lord, surely?’
He answered, ‘Someone who has dipped his hand into the dish with me, will
betray me. The Son of Man is going to his fate, as the scriptures say he will, but
alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! Better for that man if he
had never been born!’ Judas, who was to betray him; asked in his turn, ‘Not I,
Rabbi, surely?’ ‘They are your own words’ answered Jesus.
MAKING
PREPARATIONS FOR THE PASSOVER
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ISAIAH 50:4-9; PS 69:8-10,21-22,31,33-34; MATTHEW 26:14-25]
We are approaching the
Feast of the Passover, the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord. Traditionally, the celebration of
the Paschal Mystery is during the Easter Triduum. What is this Passover
we are celebrating as Christians? For the Jews, the Passover is a
celebration to give thanks to God for their deliverance from the slavery of the
Egyptians to the Promised Land. More specifically, it refers to the Angel
of death which passed over the houses of the Israelites without killing their
first-born, unlike the households of the Egyptians.
For Jesus, His Passover
was the time when He passed from this world back to His Father after completing
His mission on earth. “Now
before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to
depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in
the world, he loved them to the end.” (Jn 13:1) But before He could be
restored to His divine glory, Jesus had to pass through the passion and death
on the cross. Hence, Jesus associated the Lamb that was sacrificed at the
Passover with Himself. Indeed, in John’s gospel, Jesus was crucified on
the day before the Passover when the lambs were sacrificed at the Temple.
“Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about
noon. Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.” (Jn 19:14,16)
With this in mind, He
asked His disciples to prepare for the feast of Passover. However, for His disciples, ignorant as
they were, they were thinking only of the material preparations for the Jewish
Passover without understanding fully what they were undertaking. We too could
be like them as well when we celebrate the Christian Passover. Many of us
do not enter into the full significance of the Passover we are
celebrating. We are more concerned with the external aspects of the
Easter Triduum than the spirit of the celebration. Those of us who are
involved in the liturgical celebrations could be more concerned about whether
we are familiar with the liturgical actions we are called to do, or the hymns
we are to sing. So much so, we fail to enter into the spirit of the
Easter Triduum.
How, then, did Jesus
prepare Himself for the Passover? To prepare for His passion, the Lord
throughout His life was always in intimacy with His Father. Like Jeremiah, these words would have
applied to Jesus as well. “The Lord has given me a disciple’s tongue, so
that I may know how to reply to the wearied. He provides me with
speech. Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple. The
Lord has opened my ear.” Jesus was always attentive to the voice of His
Heavenly Father. We read that He would wake up early to spend time
listening to Him. “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he
got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.” (Mk 1:35) It was for this reason that
Jesus was ever ready to answer His opponents. To the question of paying
taxes, the reply of Jesus utterly amazed them. (cf Mk 12:12) To the question on the
resurrection of the dead, Jesus defeated their argument when He said, “Is not
this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the
power of God?” (Mk 12:24) In
response to Jesus’ answer on the greatest commandment, we read that “After that
no one dared to ask him any questions.” (Mk 12:34)
Secondly, Jesus’ way of
overcoming the resistance of His opponents was not to retaliate but to submit. Jesus was receptive of God’s
will and refused to fight with His enemies. He lived out His teaching of
non-retaliation. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, ‘Do not resist an evildoer. But if
anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone
wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if
anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.'” (Mt 5:38-41) Again, this was how the
prophet spoke about his own reaction to his enemies which foreshadowed that of
our Lord. “For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away. I
offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my
beard; I did not cover my face against insult and spittle.” The
psalmist prophesied Jesus’ passion when he said, “Taunts have broken my heart;
I have reached the end of my strength. I looked in vain for compassion,
for consolers; not one could I find. For food they gave me poison; in my
thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Indeed, at the cross, “when Jesus
knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), ‘I
am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put
a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his
mouth.” (Jn 19:28f)
Thirdly, in dealing with
His enemies and His fate, Jesus, like the prophets and the psalmist surrendered
His life into the hands of God.
Jesus trusted in God’s vindication of His ministry instead of taking matters
into His own hands. This was what was prophesied by Jeremiah when
he said, “The Lord comes to my help, so that I am untouched by the
insults. So, too, I set my face like flint; I know I shall not be shamed.
My vindicator is here at hand. Does anyone start proceedings against me? Then
let us go to court together. Who thinks he has a case against me? Let him
approach me. The Lord is coming to my help, who will dare to condemn me?
They shall all go to pieces like a garment devoured by moths.” Indeed, on
the cross, “Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I
commend my spirit.'” (Lk 22:46) Truly,
the words of the psalmist testify to God’s fidelity when he prayed, “I will
praise God’s name with a song; I will glorify him with thanksgiving. The
poor when they see it will be glad and God-seeking hearts will revive; for the
Lord listens to the needy and does not spurn his servants in their chains.”
Finally, Jesus went
through the passion out of love for His Father and for His people. St John prefaced the beginning of
His passion narrative with these words, “Having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end” (Jn 13:1) Again, this motive of Jesus is
reflected in the psalm when the psalmist says, “It is for you that I suffer
taunts, that shame covers my face, that I have become a stranger to my
brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons. I burn with zeal for your
house and taunts against you fall on me.” Indeed, Jesus was ready to go
through His Passover because He knew that that was the way to destroy the power
of death over man by dying to death. “And I lay down my life for the
sheep. For this reason, the Father loves me, because I lay down my life
in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down
of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up
again. I have received this command from my Father.” (Jn 10:15, 17f) In His final prayer, Jesus said, “The
glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we
are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so
that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you
have loved me.” (Jn 17:22f)
But the celebration of
the Passover was also to prepare His disciples to remember Him after His death
so that they could reenact it in memorial of Him. Through the celebration of the
Passover, Jesus gave a new significance to the Passover of the Old
Testament. He became our Passover and the Lamb of sacrifice. The
apostles were challenged to join Jesus in His Passover to the Father.
But they lacked the courage before the resurrection. Not all were sincere
in following Jesus their master to the Passover. Taking turns,
including Judas, they said to Jesus, ‘Not I, Lord, surely?” when the Lord told
them, “I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me.” What
about us? Are we ready to go through the Passover with our Lord?
Have we made the necessary preparations as our Lord did for the strength and
the disposition to go through the Passover? Let us learn from the
disciples’ mistakes and not betray our Lord again.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All
Rights Reserved
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