A Homily for Quinquagesima Sunday

+ Jerusalem. For the Jews, Jerusalem was (is) no ordinary city. It was the place where the Temple – Almighty God’s dwelling place on earth – was located and where true sacrifice is (was) made unto Him. A Jew could not be a tourist in Jerusalem, for its very stones form part of the foundations of his or her faith. We might feel the same way about Rome, but whilst pilgrimage to Rome is certainly a good thing, true sacrifice can be offered on every Catholic altar throughout the world; for the Jews, this was only possible in Jerusalem.
 
Hence, for our Lord to announce “we are going up to Jerusalem” is no innocent travel plan. It signals a pilgrimage to the place of true sacrifice. But, that He informs “the twelve” of this privately, suggests that perhaps it is more important than usual. And indeed this is made plain by His frank statement that that “everything that is written of the Son of man by the prophets will be accomplished,” with the almost blithe addition of the explicit details that the Son of man “will be delivered to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and [spat] upon;” that “they will scourge Him and kill Him, and on the third day He will rise.”
 
The twelve, we are told, “did not grasp what He said.” One cannot necessarily blame them: a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover was a good and normal thing, and for one’s Master to announce this was nothing extraordinary. So too, for He Himself to be killed on such a pilgrimage was unthinkable. To speak of rising again afterwards was, surely, incomprehensible.
 
And yet, this was the plan of Almighty God, foretold by the prophets. This was to be the pilgrimage in which the unique, perfect and true sacrifice would be offered to Almighty God. It was the pilgrimage which transformed Jerusalem once and for all from the place of sacrifice to the location of the manifestation of its fruits in the resurrection of He who gave Himself for us.
 
By contemplating these realities on Quinquagesima Sunday our Holy Mother the Church gives us much to consider just days before the sacred season of Lent begins.
 
It is perhaps easy enough to comprehend being mocked and shamefully treated and spat upon, and even killed. Our brothers and sisters in the faith in the Ukraine have woken this very morning to face such realities in a way that are utterly unacceptable in a civilised world. So too, recent months have seen those attached to the Church’s ancient liturgical rites mocked and shamefully treated and spat upon, and many of their initiatives killed, by means of different but none the less unacceptable acts of aggression. Certainly, had these events been predicted – indeed, when some did predict them – many simply did not understand.
 
Suffering and the cross arrive often because evil men have grasped power and abuse it. Sometimes evil men prosper because good men remain silent and inert, afraid at their approach, compounding the suffering further.
 
Our Lord was not afraid to go up to Jerusalem. He did not shrink from the excruciating suffering that lay ahead. He persevered, offering Himself, emptying Himself, completely to the Father in loving obedience to His Divine plan. This is the perfect sacrifice by means of which the unthinkable, by means of which God’s definitive answer to all suffering, the resurrection, is made possible.
 
Loving perseverance in carrying the cross, and the acceptance of the untold suffering and humiliation that this will almost surely involve, is the sacrifice demanded of us. It is the only path that leads to true life in Christ. It is the way to come to share in the decisive victory of His resurrection.

St Benedict teaches one who comes to be a monk that “if there be some strictness of discipline, do not be at once dismayed and run away from the way of salvation, of which the entrance must needs be narrow.” Rather, St Benedict calls us to persevere “until death,” and to “share by patience in the sufferings of Christ,” so that “we may deserve to be partakers also of His Kingdom.” (Rule, Prologue)
 
The gate to the Kingdom of God is indeed narrow (cf. Mt 7:13), but our fidelity and perseverance under the weight of the cross is our real participation in the one true sacrifice of Christ that opens it unto us. It is the gate through which we must pass so as to enter into that peace which no armed aggressor and no ideologue or potentate can extinguish. It is the gate to the path that leads to the glory of the resurrection.
 
This morning we assist at Christ’s Sacrifice renewed before us, and for us, on this altar, let us ask for an increase of these fundamental graces in ourselves, in particular for fidelity to Christ and of perseverance in the Truth in the face of any kind of evil, be it armed with weapons or lies. And let us beg Almighty God to give our Ukrainian brethren every grace and the supernatural strength that they need to carry the burdens of these unspeakable days. +