Ampleforth Abbey

Once again, at the beginning of Holy Week, we have listened to the Word of God.  The passages we have read are very familiar to us.  What do they teach us this year?

Let us take from these passages a single theme upon which we may mediate in the coming days as we prepare for the celebration of the Sacred Triduum.  The theme would like to offer you is the humility of Jesus. 

Our knowledge of the adult life of Jesus is limited.  We know that he was a man of prayer, that he was a teacher who could break open the Word of God so that it could be understood, that he cured the sick and freed men and women from the presence of the Evil One.  He was, as Peter told us, the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  But Jesus entered the Holy City as a humble man, on the back of a beast of burden. 

Whilst he was in Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover, one of his own disciples betrayed him.  He was seized whilst he was at prayer with his disciples, subjected to a mock trial by the rulers among his own people, taken before the Roman Governor and condemned to die – because it was expedient that one man should die for the people.  The Son of the Living God placed himself into the hands of sinful men and died a criminal’s death nailed to a cross.  And as he died a pagan soldier was heard to say, ‘In truth this was a Son of God’.

The Son of God did not cling to his divinity but humbled himself and became one of us; and being one of us, he shared our life completely and died as each one of us will die.  But, as the blessed Apostle reminds us, having shared our human life and death he was raised high, exalted above all creation, so that now all things should bend the knee at the name of Jesus.

This is important for you and for me because we are invited to follow in Christ’s footsteps.  We are invited to listen as disciples should listen.  We are invited to speak as disciples should speak.  We are invited to become Servants of the Lord, entrusting ourselves into the hands of the Living God.  We are aware that we will be misunderstood, that we will suffer on account of the Lord – but we are confident that if we are true disciples, humble men and women, hearing and obedient to God’s Word; after our death, we, too, will share in the resurrection of Christ.

In these coming days, dear friends, as Lent draws to its close for another year, let us set ourselves to listen with great attention to the account of the last days of Jesus Christ our Saviour.  Let us reflect on the way we are living the life which we have been given by almighty God.  Let us prepare once again to renew our promise to live in fidelity to commandments of God which have been given to us by his Son in order that having lived as Christ invites us to live, and having passed through the gateway of death, we may share in the Resurrection and live in the presence of the Father for all eternity.

Abbot Cuthbert Madden OSB