The Last Supper
Rubens [Web Gallery of Art]
John 13:1-17:26
Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)
Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England &
Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa)
Gospel John 14:15-21 (New
Revised Standard Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition, Canada)
Jesus said to his disciples:
‘If you love me, you
will keep my commandments. And I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with
you, and he will be in you.
‘I will not
leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the
world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will
live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you
in me, and I in you. They who have my
commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be
loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’
Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window (detail)
Vermeer [Web Gallery of Art]
I have shared this story, or parts of it, a number of times here, maybe even recently. But it is an event in which I see the call of Jesus to intimacy with him and with the Father in the Last Supper Discourse from which today's Gospel is taken.
In the summer of 1982 when I worked for a month or
so in an American parish after a year's study in Toronto I went to visit a
friend who had turned 29 earlier that year. I first met 'Gina', as I'll call my
Italian-American friend, when she was a mixed-up 16-year-old with a generous
and honest heart. Over the years I was a mentor in the faith to her, mostly by letter, as we met only every few years. Gina was a wonderful
letter-writer, hence the painting by Vermeer above, though I used to gently
tease her on occasion about misspellings - she was a teacher.
I had seen Gina grow strong in the faith over the
years and when she graduated she chose to teach in a Catholic school, with a
lower salary, than in the public school system, because of her commitment. She
also took time out at one stage to spend a year working with a charismatic
group.
When we met in 1982, shortly after she had spent
some time in the ICU, Gina told me that she felt she didn't have long to live.
It was the first time anyone had ever said that to me and I had the grace to
take her at her word. I knew that she didn't enjoy robust health and I was also
aware of two attempts to take her own life.
The first was when she was around 17. She slit her
wrist. Fortunately, her parents found her and took her straight to hospital.
During her recovery, which was a kind of 'resurrection' experience for her, she
saw clearly that her parents loved her, despite the infidelity of her father
that she had been aware of since she was about six, knowledge she had tried to
protect her younger brother from.
But in the summer of 1981, before I went to
Toronto, I spent a month in the parish where I found myself again the following
year. Not long after going there I did something that I rarely did - make a
phone call late at night. I normally don't phone someone unless there's some
business to discuss and I don't call people when they might already be in bed.
I was shocked when Gina answered. She sounded drunk. I discovered that she had
taken an overdose of a high-risk medicine that the doctor had prescribed for
her multiple sclerosis (MS). I told her I would come over immediately. She said
that she would't let me in. She lived in an apartment on her own, not far from
her parents' house. I asked another priest to come with me. And when we arrived
she didn't carry out her threat not to let me in.
After a couple of hours we were satisfied that Gina
hadn't taken enough to kill herself and that she wouldn't do anything drastic
during the night. I promised to return in the morning and I was to spend most
of the next two days with her.
I knew that at that particular time I was the only
person whom Gina could trust and open her heart to. The breakthrough came on
the second morning. What had triggered off her attempted suicide was something
her mother had said indicating that Gina wasn't living up to her expectations.
Gina, who felt deep shame at the state she was in in my presence, asked
me, What are your expectations of me? I answered, I
don't have any, only hopes.
That was when Gina made a clear decision to live.
St Peter tells us in today's Second Reading: Always be ready to make
your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is
in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 3:15-16).
When I went back to the parish later I had no
worries. A few days later Gina came to Mass there, as serene and happy as could
be. For the second time in her life she had truly experienced a 'resurrection'
but this time understanding it clearly from the vantage of her deep
faith.
And a day or two later I received a letter from
Gina that I still treasure that was an expression of her Catholic Christian
faith and of her reverence for the grace that the priesthood is for God's
people and specifically for her. And she got her 'revenge' on me for my teasing
about her occasional misspellings by deliberately misspelling almost every word
in the opening paragraph and promising to say a Hail Mary for each
misspelled word I might find in the rest of the letter - and binding me to say
a certain number of Hail Marys for her if I didn't find any.
(I found one - years later on one of the many occasions I have re-read Gina's
letter!)
Supper at Emmaus
Hendrick Terbrugghen [Web Gallery of Art]
One
thing I learned from the experience in 1982 was that a person may have a deep
and strong faith and yet be very fragile. I also learned, as I've learned from
many other situation down the years, that you don't have to have experienced
the specific pain of the person you are listening to in order to understand or
for that person to know that he or she is truly heard and understood.
When
Gina then told me the following summer that she thought she didn't have long to
live I took her seriously and knew that she was probably right. When I had
heard after arriving in her area that she was in the ICU I didn't want to
face the possible consequences of that.
We
spoke to each other for maybe two or three hours about what her death would mean to her
and to me. There was nothing morbid about this. We were sharing at the deepest level of our Catholic Christian faith. Gina truly believed in the
reality of the Resurrection. And she had discovered that God is a loving and
merciful God, particularly the previous summer.
During
these Sundays and weekdays the Gospel is from the Last Supper Discourse in St
John's Gospel (John 14-17). Jesus knows he is to suffer an ignominious and
utterly painful death. Yet there is nothing morbid about his words. He is
calling his closest companions into the intimacy of the Holy Trinity. On
that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
And telling them of the Holy Spirit whom he will send Jesus says, You
know him, because he will abide with you, and he will be in you. Gina and I
at that moment shared in the intimacy of the Holy Trinity through the presence
of Jesus the Risen Lord, the kind of intimacy captured by Terbrugghen in his
painting above, Supper at Emmaus.
After
talking through all of this Gina and I went to a restaurant for lunch where we
were joking and laughing. Deep in our hearts we experienced something of what Jesus promised
the Twelve - and all of us - at the Last Supper: So you have pain now; but I
will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy
from you (John 16:22).
I
never saw Gina again. She died a few months later, very peacefully. And I know
that her parish priest celebrated Mass in her apartment, with her family and
some friends present, a day or two before her death.
Because
I live, you also will live.
If ye love me
Composed by Thomas Tallis, sung by Cantate Boys' Choir.
St John Paul II was born on 18 May 1920.
Easter Music
St John Paul II was born on 18 May 1920.
Antiphona
ad Communionem Communion
Antiphon John 14:15-16
Si diligitis me, mandata mea servate, dicit
Dominus.
If you love me, keep my commandments, says the
Lord,
Et ego rogabo Patrem et alium Paraclitmum dabit
vobis,
and I will ask the Father and he will send you
another Paraclete,
ut maneat vobiscum in aeternum, alleluia.
to abide with you for ever, alleluia.
Translation used by Tallis
If ye love me, keep my commandments,
and I will pray the Father,and he shall give you another comforter,
that he may 'bide with you forever, e'en the spirit of truth.
Easter Music
Venite,
exsultemus Domino. Psalm 94[95]:1.
Come,
ring out our joy to the Lord.
Téanam
agus canaimís don Tiarna.
Hosanna
Hosanna
A friend in the Philippines sent me the link to Hosanna and told me that it is often sung at international meetings of Faith and Light. The music was written by Carl Tuttle, an American, who leads the song in this video. Here are the lyrics.
Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest;
Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.
Lord, we lift up your name with hearts full of praise;
be exalted, O Lord, My God; Hosanna in the highest.
Glory, Glory, Glory to the King of Kings;
Glory, Glory, Glory to the King of Kings.
Lord, we lift up your name with hearts full of praise;
be exalted, O Lord, my God; Glory to the King of Kings.
Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest;
Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest.
Lord, we lift up your name with hearts full of praise;
be exalted, O Lord, My God; Hosanna in the highest.
It is interesting that a hymn of praise coming out of an American Protestant tradition has become a multi-lingual one during the Covid-19 pandemic with a 'virtual' international choir led from Međugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the Blessed Mother is especially venerated. And it has become an anthem for Faith and Light which has its origins in Lourdes in 1971 and, while Catholic-inspired, is also ecumenical and inter-faith in its celebration of the lives of persons with learning disabilities.
Interesting too that while the soloists of the 'virtual' choir sing in their own languages, they sing Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in excelsis together in Latin, the language that is the heritage of all Catholics of the Latin or Roman Rite, who are the vast majority of Catholics.
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