April 15 

  [media presentation below]

GospelThink

April 15, Tuesday of Holy Week

JOHN 13:21-33,36-38

His apostles did not understand what would happen to him.

Prayerthoughts
a. Jesus was deeply troubled, a very human quality. He was deeply troubled because of Judas. As I study my life, is there anything that I am doing that might deeply trouble our Lord?

b. The evangelist John does not say who “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is. In what ways can I claim to be in a spiritual sense a disciple whom Jesus loves?

c. I will not formally deny Jesus, of course, but there may be little things in my life right now in which there is some type of betrayal of Jesus. What would they be?

d. Judas took the morsel. Judas received from Jesus as I have. For what should I be most thankful?

e. It was night, a symbol of the darkness that John the evangelist felt at this time. There are many examples of “darkness” in our world. What causes me the most concern at the present time?

f. Not only did Judas betray the Lord, but so did Peter in his denial as Jesus predicted.  What are some small faults that I should correct at this time?

g. My prayerthoughts… 

Today I will write a prayer about the darkness of the world that most concerns me, asking for the Lord’s help.

Some Thoughts on the Liturgy

OUR OWN BETRAYALS AND DENIALS

+ The second servant song of Yahweh from Isaiah which is the first reading today, speaks of the Messiah as the light of the nations and whose salvation reaches to the ends of the earth, and therefore that all should be gathered to him

- but that Messiah had to undergo humiliation and betrayal by people closest to him

- both today’s Gospel and tomorrow’s Gospel recalls the betrayal of Judas


+ Today’s Gospel brings to mind not only the betrayal of Judas but the denial of Peter

- it is important for us, I believe, to identify with those actions

- not so much because we will actually do any formal denying of Jesus

- but we can identify with the very humanness of the situation


+ We have two people here who knew Jesus very well

- they had watched him perform miracles

- they had heard him teach the people

- they had watched him touch people’s lives in a unique way

- they had even been given power to do the same

- and they still deny him


+ You and I are believing Catholic Christians

- likewise we have seen the Lord’s actions in our lives and in the lives of others

- but there is still the possibility of denial or betrayal

- maybe, again not with any formal denying of Jesus

- but there can easily be some forgetting about Jesus and what he taught

- as seen in the way that we go about our lives

- and in particular, the type of attitude we present to the world

- our attitude should be a Christian attitude and our betrayal or denial is going to come in the small things of forgetting what Jesus should mean to us

- we forget about his message of forgiveness

- we forget about his message of not holding grudges

- we forget about his message of true love of all


+ Our spiritual lives will grow if we manage to keep the Christian attitude at all times.











 

 

MEDIA PRESENTATION

Movie: "The Passion of the Christ" -- second session

JESUS'S PASSION II



 

The Gospel

MARK 15:1-20

MARK 15:1-20

As soon as morning came, the chief priests with the elders and the scribes, that is, the whole Sanhedrin, held a council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate. Pilate questioned him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" He said to him in reply, "You say so." The chief priests accused him of many things. Again Pilate questioned him, "Have you no answer? See how many things they accuse you of." Jesus gave him no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed.
    Now on the occasion of the feast he used to release to them one prisoner whom they requested. A man called Barabbas was then in prison along with the rebels who had committed murder in a rebellion. The crowd came forward and began to ask him to do for them as he was accustomed. Pilate answered, "Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" For he knew that it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead. Pilate again said to them in reply, "Then what do you want me to do with the man you call the king of the Jews?" They shouted again, "Crucify him." Pilate said to them, "Why?  What evil has he done?" They only shouted the louder, "Crucify him." So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them and, after he had Jesus scourged, handed him over to be crucified.
     The soldiers led him away inside the palace, that is, the praetorium, and assembled the whole cohort. They clothed him in purple and weaving a crown of thorns, placed it on him. They began to salute him with, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and kept striking him on the head with the reed and spitting upon him. They knelt before him in homage. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak, dressed him in his own clothes, and led him out to crucify him.

Gospelthink: The crowds cried to crucify the Lord. Do I do the same by neglecting to think of my spiritual life?

During this session of "The Passion of the Christ," director Mel Gibson presents a suffering Christ who from the first moment of his capture is whipped, flayed, and beaten. His bones are crushed, his screams are agonizing, his body is covered with blood. In no other movie about Jesus do we find the Roman soldiers so sadistic. The Middle East in biblical times was a Jewish community occupied against its will by the Roman Empire, and the message of Jesus was equally threatening to both sides: to the Romans, because he was a revolutionary, and to the establishment of Jewish hierarchy, because he preached a new covenant and threatened the status quo. This session continues the agony of Jesus' mother Mary as she watches the spectacle, and introduces the doubts of Pontius Pilate and the resolve of Caiaphas the Jewish high priest. Mary's suffering, Pilate's continual wonder at what the Hebrew people wanted, and Caiaphas' incessant desire to have Jesus killed will continue through to the end of the movie.

In one of the most moving scenes of the movie "The Passion of the Christ," Pontius Pilate's wife offers to Mary the mother of Jesus towels to collect Jesus' blood. Then in sharp contrast to Jesus’s brutal beating, Mary reverently wipes up his blood. Just as in the sacrifices of the Hebrew Scriptures throughout the centuries before Jesus, the blood of the victim is sacred. Here, it is the sacred blood of the Messiah that is removing the sins of the world.   

THOUGHT
What is your understanding of the redemption of Jesus Christ?

PRAYER

Good and gracious God, your Son Jesus suffered and died for us, giving us the chance to have eternal life with you. Help us understand the message Jesus gave so that we can follow him more completely. Be with us, we pray. 

 

©2007 Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America