“Lord, I pray you to help me leave behind the past, to make space to birth a new way of life. Amen.”
— Raul Mendoza
Recently I was called in the morning to anoint a 93-year-old man at Sewickley Valley Hospital. He was a member of my first parish of Our Lady of Fatima in Hopewell Township and was an usher and daily communicant. His family always came to the early 7:30 AM Sunday Mass and sat in the first pew. He had two daughters and one son and his wife was buried four years ago. He lived with one of his daughters who took him daily to Elderberry Court in Ambridge for adult day care. After anointing him in the hospital room, various medical people came in. One was a female Indian physician who gave a full, compassionate, report of his condition and noted that if it were her dad or grandfather, she would take no more extraordinary measures to keep him alive. A family friend, a surgeon at the hospital, came in to offer support and comfort to the family. As the family listened intently, they held on to every word for hope and clarity in the midst of a painful situation.
After the anointing of the sick and consultation with the doctors, the family felt freer in letting go. It was as if a light streaked through the room when the surgeon said, “We must all die at some time and 93 isn’t a bad age to die at.” After the man’s funeral, we traveled to St. Joseph Cemetery for his interment and I noted that every time I thought of him, I was reminded of the “laughing Jesus” who laughed away all the demons of sadness, gloom and sorrow.
On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, as the springtime festival of Passover nears, Jesus reminds us in John 12: 24-26, “...unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life looses it, and whoever hates his life in this world, will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also my servant will be.”
Jesus points to the Paschal Mystery — dying and rising is the paradigm for Christian discipleship. The way of the Cross is the way that leads to the Resurrection. And death is part of life. We are born to die, like the surgeon reminded us in that hospital room. We must die a little each day. Dying to self is a gradual process and it can happen in very 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 trust involves dying to uncertainty
- every act of love involves dying to selfishness
- every act of forgiveness involves dying to retaliation
- every act of friendship involves dying to self-concern
- every act of spiritual maturity involves dying to worldly ways
- every act of personal freedom involves dying to unhealthy attachments
- every act of prayer involves dying to your own self-will.
The hour of Jesus’ glory is the hour of His passing over to the Father, and His whole life leads up to that hour, “so that the Son of man may be glorified.” Jesus, the humble, suffering servant, lies down his life freely and willingly, to produce abundant fruit: the salvation of all. It is through His death that we bear much fruit. By destroying the power of sin and death once and for all, and by reconciling humankind once and for all, He restores the possibility of life with God forever. Jesus speaks of the time of His death and resurrection as the hour when He will be glorified for perfectly fulfilling His Father’s will. So too, we must accept or reject Jesus and His saving grace in our own lives, each and every hour.
Often times we live in a rushing, running-out-of-time world. It almost seems like we live in the emergency room. However, for a Christian’s life, time is to gracefully fulfill God’s will in every situation. The Greeks had two words for time: chronos and kairos. Chronos, from which we get the word “chronology,” is the temporal succession of days, months and years that we struggle to harness for our own chosen self-endeavors. However, kairos, or "God’s time or retreat time," is very different. Kairos is when human time and God’s time intersect, as in such moments as a sacrament, prayer, forgiveness, or a wedding. It is where the abundance of God’s presence graces our life’s journey, and thus transcends time.
St. Leo the Great advises us about Lent: “Let us prepare ourselves most profitably by the fast of forty days ... let us use the revered institutions of this health-giving time and cleanse the mirror of our heart with greater care.” God’s unfailing grace offers us time to whole heartedly commit ourselves to serving Him and others. The measure of the glory of discipleship and its fruitfulness is to serve people faithfully, joyfully and humbly.
Looking back on the life of this 93-year-old man, a life of dedication to Church, sacrifice for family and service to neighbor, reinforced for me the glory of the Cross and its victory in Resurrection as I tended to him in this Holy Lenten Pilgrimage of 2012. Death is swallowed in victory. The passing over of this moral earthly life is the hour of triumph.
Lenten Prayer: The Cross Is
The Cross is the hope of Christians,
The Cross is the Resurrection of the dead.
The Cross is the way of the lost.
The Cross is the savior of the Lost.
The Cross is the staff of the lame.
The Cross is the guide of the blind.
The Cross is the strength of the weak.
The Cross is the doctor of the sick.
The Cross is the aim of the priest.
The Cross is the hope of the hopeless.
The Cross is the freedom of the slaves.
The Cross is the power of the kings.
The Cross is the water of the seeds.
The Cross is consolation of the bondsmen.
The Cross is the source of those who seek water.
The Cross is the cloth of the naked.
We thank You, Father, for the Cross. Amen.
— Anonymous
