3/21 - 5th week of Lent

During these final days of Lent a number of Gospel references will speak about the ‘hour’. Jesus concluded the Last Supper discourse with these words, “the hour has come, glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you.” Obviously, when Jesus uses the phrase, hour, he is not merely referring to the time of day it might be.  No, he is speaking about a central moment of human history.  The hour is the moment that the world will be transformed.  The hour is the point of human history when spiritual life will be restored.  The hour is the moment when death and evil will be defeated by Love.  The hour is the moment when the mortal will receive immortality.  And Jesus said in today’s Gospel, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.” This is the central moment of human history. The hour.

We Christians live in this moment, this hour.  Whether we stood at the foot of the cross like Mary and John or whether we were born two thousand years later, the hour is real to us.  We are there.  We are always before the Lord on the cross.  We kneel during the Eucharistic Prayer of the Mass and pray to the Father with the Lord as he offers his Body and Blood for us.  Every Mass renews the hour. 

 We experience great joy when a baby, a child or an adult is baptized because we have witnessed that person being directed into the hour, the hour where spiritual joins physical.  We weep when a loved one dies, but our faith is full of hope for now the hour becomes the physical joining the spiritual.

The hour of the Lord is real for us when we come into the Church and meditate before the Cross. Gazing at the cross, if our thoughts dwell on our precious life for which the Savior died, then we relive that hour. The hour of the Lord is real for us when we feel ourselves united to him on his cross, drawn to him as the Gospel prophesied, and lifted up from the burdens of this life into the realm of the spiritual.

 When we celebrate a funeral, the priest will often incense the body at the final commendation as a sign of our prayers rising to God for the deceased and as a sign that the body is holy, because God dwelt there. Our grief at the funeral can prevent us from grasping the tremendous significance of the Pascal candle and the casket being incensed together to signify that this person moves into arms of the Divine because of the hour of Jesus’ redemptive act. 

There is a definitive effort being made by secular forces to make people disconnect themselves from this reality of being connected to the spiritual essence of human beings. But it is still baffling that the vision of a man slaughtered like a slave hanging from wood has become the sign and symbol of hope for nearly all peoples of the world. This vision also invites us to die to our selfishness, to die to our envies, to die to our wars and humble ourselves to the service of God and God in others.
Each of us is like a grain of wheat planted by God. And just as a grain of wheat must die to produce a harvest, so we too must die to self in order to bear the fruits of love. This dying to self is a gradual process and happens in little ways.
Every act of humility involves dying to pride.
Every act of courage involves dying to cowardice.
Every act of kindness involves dying to cruelty.
Every act of love involves dying to selfishness.
Thus the false self-dies and true self, made in God’s image, is born and nurtured.
It is by giving that we receive.
It is by forgiving that we ourselves are forgiven.
And it is by dying that we are born to eternal life.