April 6, 2003

In the film The African Queen, the Calvinist missionary played by Katharine Hepburn — for many years a resident near here, says, “Nature is what we are put on earth to overcome.” Humphrey Bogart does not agree, nor does the Catholic Church. “Grace does not destroy nature but perfects it.” Catholicism rejects the pessimist’s view of creation, while recognizing that it is fallen and needs redemption. Lenten penance confesses the corruption of creation, in eager expectation of the Easter victory over sin and death.

Holy Week is also called in the Byzantine tradition, the Great Week. As every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection, so Holy Week is the culmination of the whole year and the summation of the whole history of the human race. The liturgies of Holy Week preserve the most ancient elements of the Church’s worship: the Palm Sunday acclamations, the solemn readings of the Passion narratives, the blessing of the Holy Oils in the cathedral, the Holy Thursday chants, and the washing of the feet of viri selecti (men chosen to represent the apostles) and the procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose, the Veneration of the Cross on Good Friday and the singing of the Reproaches (which, like the Kyrie Eleison at the daily Masses, retain some of the Greek from before the texts were modernized to Latin.) All of this reaches a climax in the Solemn Vigil of the Resurrection whose readings (the “Prophecies”) retell the drama of salvation from the Creation of the world. The Exsultet hymn sung to the Paschal candle is the most complete summary of the Faith.

This is the right time to read over the texts for these Liturgies in preparation. Liturgies are not theatrical productions like some Passion Play. The Liturgies are actual participation in the mysterious events of our salvation, and by praying through these Rites, we “break through the time barrier” in a common fellowship with all the Christians through the ages in one fellowship with the first Christians, the angels, our Lady, and Christ our Saviour Himself. As our courteous Lord presents Himself to us at the Altar, we have the overwhelming privilege of presenting ourselves to Him, just as at the ordination of priests, each candidate tells the ordaining bishop, “Adsum” — “I am here.”

After the 11A.M. Mass on Palm Sunday a coffee hour will enable visitors and new parishioners to get to know the rest of the parish. This is not an interlude in the spirit of the Great Week. As Christ fed those to whom He preached, so may we think of a simple thing like a coffee hour, by its very domesticity, as a tribute to the ordinary acts and occasions through which God in His mercy “does not destroy nature but perfects it.”

Fr. George W. Rutler