Responding to Eucharist:Peter, Judas and John

The events of Holy Week, the betrayals of Judas and Peter, the failure of all the apostles except John to stand by Jesus, bring to mind many things. I think these lessons of Holy Week tie in very closely with the Eucharist, instituted on that first Maundy Thursday. One of the greatest of the Greek Fathers, Bishop John of Constantinople (c.347-407), helps us think about this. Known as “Chrysostom” (golden-mouthed) for his eloquence in the pulpit, John traveled a path from monk, to deacon at Antioch, and finally to the prestigious post of bishop of the eastern Roman capital of Constantinople. Eventually he fell afoul of influential members of the imperial court, and despite the love in which he was held by his own people and the support of the pope, John died as a lonely prisoner in a brutal exile. His prolific writings stand as some of the most profound and accessible monuments of the whole patristic period. John is sometimes referred to as the “Doctor of the Eucharist,” and the most commonly celebrated liturgy among the churches in the Greek tradition gradually became known as the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in his honor. John’s reputation as a preacher was only matched by his skill as an exegete. The esteem in which his writings were held in the West is reflected in an anecdote related in the life of the thirteenth century friar Thomas Aquinas. When Thomas and some of his brethren were approaching the city of Paris, one of them marveled at the spires of the town and remarked to Thomas how wonderful a sight it was. Thomas responded that it was indeed, but he would trade it all for Chrysostom’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.

John’s views on the Eucharist are summarized in his Homily 82 on the Gospel of Matthew. In commenting upon the description of the Last Supper in Matthew 26:26-28, John beautifully develops themes found throughout his writings. The reality of the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is linked to the concept of Christ as the fulfillment of Israel, who has undergone a new Passover for our spiritual benefit. This sacrament instituted by Christ on the eve of his passion suggests hope to us, and is meant to strengthen us to bear our own suffering. The serious and awesome nature of what occurs during the Eucharist is repeatedly emphasized:

“Consider with what sort of honor you were honored, of what sort of table you are partaking, that which when angels behold, they tremble, and dare not so much as look up at it without awe on account of the brightness that comes thence; with this we are fed, with this we are commingled, and we are made one body, and one flesh with Christ.”

Perhaps the most poignant passages in the sermon concern the apostles Peter and Judas. With regard to Judas, John laments the degree of his blindness. Judas came to the Lord’s Supper with a disposition to betray Jesus, and he left the room unchanged in his sinful intention. Jesus did not prevent Judas from receiving that first Eucharist, but receiving the Eucharist, by itself, did not keep Satan from entering the heart of Judas. As John puts it:

“Even partaking of the mysteries, he remained the same; and admitted to the most holy table, he changed not.”

John goes on to stress that even Peter, the leader of the apostles, failed to respond to that first Eucharist. Feeling confident that he himself was not the traitor, Peter in his pride assured Christ that he could never betray him. In his pride Peter set himself above all others, even to the point of contradicting the prophecy of Christ. And the same night Peter received the first Eucharist, he also betrayed Christ. The subsequent denial of Christ by Peter, John argues, should teach us several lessons. Peter was wrong both because he thought he was incapable of betrayal, and also because he thought he was better than Judas. John feels that Christ allowed Peter to fall in order to teach Peter to trust in God, and not in his own imagined strength. When Christ encounters Peter after the Resurrection, Peter has come to rely on grace, and is now willing to follow. Having been humbled by his own unfaithfulness, Peter can love more.

John Chrysostom warns that before we pass judgment on Judas and Peter, we must take a long hard look at ourselves, and determine with what disposition we approach our own opportunity to receive the Eucharist. Do we come with our own agenda, trusting in our own imagined righteousness, or, Chrysostom asks, like the Apostle John, who reclined on and rested in Christ’s presence at the Supper, do we approach the chalice of salvation with the innocent trust and absolute need which an infant brings to its mother’s breasts?

The Last Supper, by Andrea del Castagno. Peter and John flank Christ, with Judas in the foreground.

 

All quotations taken from Homilies of St. John Chrysostom. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I. Volume X. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

 

Wind (Patrick Triptych 3)

This is the third of three poems I have written about St. Patrick. It is inspired by his poignant and indignant Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus, in which Patrick condemns the British chieftain and his men for slaughtering and selling into slavery Irish neophytes, that is  men, women and children he had baptized only days before on Easter.

WIND

 

Carry the Wind my voice to heaven,

cries for poor dear children,

newly christened,

holy oils mixing now with blood.

 

And those not dead

wonder what is worse.

ravening wolves seized them,

dripping red stained fangs,

associates of demons,

cruel Coroticus and his criminals,

consume God’s people like eating bread,

betray the baptized innocents,

sent as slaves to northern brothels.

 

This land is too wet already

to be further soaked with blood.

 

Patrick on the seashore,

worn out by long lament,

lying on the cold clay,

a stone under head

and wet quilt about me.

Eyes now dry reveal

sky full of clouds,

passing vapors;

so the Wind disperses sinners.

 

Angel hosts shaped as white gulls,

their noble music comforts me.

Bereft of words,

I strike a bell,

the wind will see it heard

by dead, by living,

by those still waiting to be born.

Fire (Patrick Triptych 2)

Here is my second of three poems I have written on St. Patrick. According to tradition, Patrick and his companions lit the Easter fire on the Hill of Slane in defiance of the high king and his druids. This was a key moment in his ministry.

FIRE

 

Surrounded by the silent prayers

of these good men you’ve given me,

eyes closed, a moment to embrace

this reverent darkness.

A spring breeze carries the scent

of carefully piled Wood,

ancient Trees past their prime,

waiting now

for Fire to make them something new.

 

Sinai, Golgotha, Tabor,

Law, Death, Transfiguration,

So many ways you have,

my God, to use a Mountain.

And what of Slane,

this Easter night?

a little bit of each, I think.

 

Tara will see our fire,

illumination in the night.

Trembling and intolerable dread will seize them,

and not so certain as they think themselves,

bearing swords and spells

they’ll come to execute their judgment.

Like deer eluding wolves,

alert weakness will find its shield in you.

 

Flame,

glowing precious stone and shining lamp,

this is your hour,

dancing in a copper cauldron,

ready now to light the far west of the world.

Rain (Patrick Triptych 1)

The following is the first of 3 poems I have written about St. Patrick. In his autobiographical work known as Confessions, Patrick described his conversion to God that occurred while a young slave in Ireland, as he spent many hours alone in the hills as a shepherd.

RAIN

Littleness among Strangers,

abject remembrance of sins

in the Land of my captivity.

 

Humiliation, a

Stone lying in the mire,

nothing more to lose,

but Mighty One placed me on a wall.

 

Astonishment as faith begins,

prodding long neglected senses,

newness and raw vision now,

in unanticipated places.

 

Tending sheep, musky warm and wet,

a hundred prayers in the day,

a hundred in the night,

pater noster, miserere,

heartfelt half-remembered psalms,

on this wooded Mountain.

 

Prayer before Dawn,

through snow, through frost, through rain,

teeming, pounding, pelting Rain,

no harm to me,

no sloth in me,

fervent Spirit soaking to the bone.

 

Wolves don’t know what to make of me.

 

I will serve.

 

 

She Loved More

There is no doubt that rules are very important in life, whether we like it or not. And as much as we chafe against them, in our more rational moments we know that all of our institutions actually do need rules and guidelines to function correctly and accomplish what they are intended to do. This is true in the Church as well, and the monastic life in particular is well known for its rules. The key is for the rules not to become so important in themselves that they actually get in the way of the bigger picture, which is to live a life transformed by grace, grounded in love of God and neighbour. This is tough to keep straight sometimes, but if it is any consolation, even the greatest monastic lawgiver of all time, St. Benedict in the sixth century, had trouble with this one. Fortunately he had his sister St. Scholastica to keep him on the straight and narrow!

As Benedict’s biographer Pope Gregory the Great tells the story, every year Scholastica, who was herself a very devout nun, would visit Benedict, and stay in a little house near his monastery. The two would spend the day in holy fellowship, and at the end of the day Benedict would return to his monastery. His own Rule forbade the monks to spend the night away from the monastery, and good man that he was he wanted to be faithful to his own Rule. But his sister had other ideas; Gregory makes it clear that she knew her own death was very near, and this was the last time she would see her brother. As Gregory tells us, full of love for her brother, Scholastica took matters into her own hands and began to pray:

At that time, the sky was so clear that no cloud was to be seen. The Nun, hearing this denial of her brother, joined her hands together, laid them on the table, bowed her head on her hands, and prayed to almighty God.  Lifting her head from the table, there fell suddenly such a tempest of lightning and thundering, and such abundance of rain, that neither venerable Benedict, nor his monks that were with him, could put their heads out of doors. The holy Nun, having rested her head on her hands, poured forth such a flood of tears on the table, that she transformed the clear air to a watery sky. After the end of her devotions, that storm of rain followed; her prayer and the rain so met together, that as she lifted up her head from the table, the thunder began.  So it was that in one and the very same instant that she lifted up her head, she brought down the rain.

 

Well, Benedict knew when he was beaten! He sat down and spent the rest of the night in joyful, deep and holy conversation with his sister, and in the morning, after a night where as Gregory says they watched all night and with spiritual and heavenly talk mutually comforted one another,  when the storm abated, went back to his monastery. Not long after his sister Scholastica passed away. Pope Gregory ends the story by making the point that as impressive and holy a man that Benedict was, it was his sister’s prayers that proved more powerful, because she was motivated not by contempt for the Rule, but a love and charity that is greater than even the best of rules:

Therefore, by this we see, as I said before, that Benedict would have had one thing, but he could not effect it.  For if we know the venerable man’s mind, there is no question but that he would have had the same fair weather to have continued as it was when he left his monastery.  He found, however, that a miracle prevented his desire. A miracle that, by the power of almighty God, a woman’s prayers had wrought. Is it not a thing to be marveled at, that a woman, who for a long time had not seen her brother, might do more in that instance than he could? She realized, according to the saying of St. John, “God is charity” [1 John 4:8]. Therefore, as is right, she who loved more, did more.

 

Treasure

One of my most treasured possessions is my father’s old well-worn and lovingly-thumbed St. Andrew Daily Missal, which he himself had possessed for many decades.  He gave it to me years after the introduction of the Novus Ordo had seemed to make it something no longer needed, forlorn and perhaps dormant on a shelf on his nightstand. But for me because of my interest in history and liturgy, it served as a very useful aid in my study of ecclesiastical Latin.  I would pour over its pages, enjoying its illustrations with their sense of mystery and timelessness, windows as it were into something ever ancient and ever knew, the Church’s great treasure.

And I would read over and over its explanations of the rituals of the Mass and the pageant of the liturgical year, and they stirred something inside me which has never gone away. When years later I finally had the opportunity to attend the Traditional Mass, now known as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, I found an antique bookbinder several hours drive away and had it rebound so once again it could serve its old function. Not surprisingly, it was quite moving for me to use it at Mass, and seemed to make certain things come full circle, and also, somehow, make my father and ancestors more tangibly present.

Besides its personal meaning for me, this venerable book serves as a reminder of the crucial work done my many scholars, in this case various European and American Benedictines, in making the Mass and its meaning accessible to the laity.  The liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council represented, not a complete break from the past, but rather the culmination of an intense process of scholarly investigation into the meaning of the liturgy which had been going on for over a century. I think whichever form of the Mass one participates in, eastern or western, ancient or new, this appreciation of the liturgy and its forms can never cease to invoke wonder and gratitude for the Church’s greatest treasure.