Homily for Tuesday of Holy Week
April 15, 2025
Collect
Christian Brothers, St.
Joseph’s Residence, N.R.
by Carl Bloch
We prayed this
morning that our celebration of the mysteries of the Lord’s passion might bring
us God’s pardon.
We admit, 1st, that
we need pardon. We sin. By God’s grace, we resist temptation often,
but not always.
The Lord’s passion is
a mystery. In one sense, it’s mysterious
that evil—the evil that human beings are all too capable of—should succeed
against goodness incarnate, that pure goodness should meet such hatred from
people. It baffles us, just as the evil
we see so much in the world confounds us.
Men and women were created in God’s image. What’s happened to that?
In another sense, the
Lord’s passion is mysterious because life prevails. God’s goodness is victorious over death. It’s almost unbelievable. We’re assured of divine pardon because life overcomes
sin and its dire penalty.
In yet another sense,
the Lord’s passion is mysterious in that God allows us to participate in
Christ’s death and new life, and he allows it thru the liturgy. Our celebration of his passion somehow joins
us to Christ. We suffer his passion by
immersion in it. It’s a variation on
what St. Paul writes to the Philippians, to “have this mind in you that was in
Christ Jesus” (2:5). Our participation becomes
redemptive, winning pardon for our own sins as well as those of others because
we join Christ’s work. Thru us, Isaiah
prophesies, God will show his glory (49:3).
That, too, is a
mystery—that God reveals his glory thru us, that thru us he shows his
light to the nations (Is 49:6). We’re
made light by being pardoned and being united with Christ, who makes us, as
Vatican II reminds us, lumen gentium.[1]
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