Passiontide
Epistle: Hebrews 9: 11-15 Gospel: StJohn 8: 46-59
The
importance of the ceremonies of Passiontide and Holy Week is hard to
overestimate. It would be no hyperbole on anyone’s part to say that in this
season, we, Christians, are given the occasion to meditate and truly commune
with the central mysteries of our faith: hoc
opus nostrae salutis (literally “this
work of our salvation”)[1].
The conditional statement (one of a series) of the Apostle is well known: “If Christ be not risen, your faith is in
vain; ye are yet in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). But, for there to be any resurrection
at all, there needs to be death, and suffering and passion to precede it. And
Christ’s death was not natural – he did not fall asleep, nor was he taken up
without suffering or dying, as those in error would have it. Rather, he was
bound, judged, mocked, tortured and led to a most violent death upon a cross: “he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter”
(Isaiah 53:7).
(Pange Lingua with the refrain Crux Fidelis as it is sung during the Adoration of the Cross during the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday : the line "Hoc opus nostrae salutis" starts at around the 3rd minute; link to the text below)
And it
is all about sacrifice. In our societies, we have lost the sense of sacrifice
(both as an external ritual act and as a personal act of mortification), of its
importance and centrality in the foundation of society. This loss is ever
worsening, as Christianity recedes, or is made to recede, from the public
sphere. We witness in its place the banalisation of violence that permeates our
own selves, our families, our societies. Many have forgotten the one sacrifice
of peace that reconciles Heaven with earth, and offers true reconciliation to
men among themselves. Everything that preceded Christ’s going up to Jerusalem
for that last passover, everything in the Old Covenant, was but a preparation
for the sacrifice to come- the sacrifice that would recapitulate, transform and
elevate all previous sacrifices and overcome all sacrifices to come, that are
done either in ignorance of the truth or knowingly against it. A sacrifice before
which all sacrifices based upon mere human transactions and superstitious expectations
are made null and void. A sacrifice, or rather, the sacrifice, the only
acceptable sacrifice is what is being prepared here in the readings of this
season and evoked with a sublime mixture of pain, gratitude and awe.
But this
one acceptable sacrifice of the New Covenant could not take place in the temple
of the Old Covenant according to the precepts of the Old Law. The rites and
ceremonies of the Old Covenant were but types and shadows of the New. This new
sacrifice required “a greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;
neither by the blood of goats and calves” (Heb 9:11-12). In this new
sacrifice, Christ is himself the High Priest and the Victim: “by his own blood he entered in once into the
holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb 9: 12). The
priesthood of the Old Law has lapsed and a new priesthood must be instituted to
offer the new sacrifice. For the reconciliation with God to be effected and
perfected, the types must be fulfilled and transcended. Everything is to be
renewed in the sacrificial mediation of Christ, offering himself up to the
Father as the only pure victim of love for our sakes. The victims of the Old
Covenant were tainted; Christ, the Victim of the New Covenant, is sinless,
spotless and pure. His sacrifice only can be the satisfaction for the sins of
the world, the price of our redemption. Christ, himself, the New Temple (cf. Matt
12:6), the New High Priest, and the New Victim, is the utter consummation of
the Old Covenant: he is truly the desire of the Patriarchs. Before Abraham was,
He is.
[1] From the hymn of
Venantius Fortunatus, Pange Lingua
Gloriosi Proelium Certaminis. 6th-7th century A.D.
Many, if not all of the Office hymns of Passiontide, to the exception of Vexilla Regis, (also written by
Venantius) are segments excerpted from Pange
Lingua.
Text and rather free translation of Pange Lingua Gloriosi:
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