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While They Were At Supper....
BY SR.
PATRICIA O’SULLIVAN G.N.S.H.
SR. MARY ELLEN HOEN G.N.S.H.
The Passover is a Jewish feast
celebrating God’s saving action in the
life of His Chosen. The Seder Meal is
the focal point of the family’s
remembering and reliving of the First
Passover. Seder is a feast of freedom.
For it was at this moment in history
that God fulfilled His promise to
deliver His people from the bonds of
lavery.
The ritual centers on the retelling
of the plight of the Jews and their
release as described in Exodus. God
used drastic means to demonstrate
His love. He asked only that they
believe and follow His directions.
They were instructed to slay a lamb
and place the blood on the door
posts. This was the mark that would
save their first born from the Angel
of Death. Their last meal in the land
of slavery consisted of unleaven
bread (Matzoh), since there was little
time for the bread to rise, and
lamb. Once freed, Yahweh injoined
them to keep this day as a holy
remembrance from generation to
generation forever.
The Seder has the symbolic
elements of unleaven bread, a shank
bone to represent the lamb, bitter
herbs for the time of slavery, salt
water for the tears shed, parsley as a
sign of new life, charoset (a mixture
of apples and nuts) for their labors in
Egypt and wine for past joys and
future hopes. The meal celebration
includes songs and prayers of
thanksgiving and praise. This event
immerses them in the heritage of
their forefathers and in the mystery
of God’s never-ending love and
mercy.
His mandate to remember the
Passover was faithful and joyfully
kept by the Israelites. In doing the
will of His Father, Jesus sat with
friends to share the Seder meal
before His death. It was at this
supper that Jesus brought the Old
Testament to it’s richest moment and
establishment a new rite.
This is MY body . . . This is MY
blood.
The Mass is a Jesus feast in which
we remember, retell and relive God’s
saving action in the life of His
chosen. The Eucharistic meal is the
focal point of the mystery in which
we partake of the Lamb, Christ’s gift
of Himself. Once again, God used
drastic means to demonstrate His
love in order to redeem us.
“Yes, God so loved the world that
He gave His only Son, so that
everyone who believes in Him may
not be lost but may have eternal
life.” John 3:16.
It is through the sacrifice of this
Lamb that we are able to Passover
from death to new life.
Our ritual includes readings that
reveal the healing touch, powerful
words and teachings of Our Savior
which help us to recall more vividly
God’s involvement with us. Songs of
praise and prayers of thanksgiving
prepare us for the reception of the
Lord in the form of unleaven bread.
The core of our celebration as
Catholics is the Eucharist. It is vital
to our growth to become more aware
of what Eucharist is and unveil the
awesome meaning this gift is in our
lives. We have the privilege of
partaking in the mystery of Eucharist
everyday, which calls forth a
worshipful response for what the
Father has done for us.
The new rite is a family
celebration which unifies and
strengthens us until He comes again.
Through the cup Jesus raised and the
bread He broke, He joined for all
time the testaments of promise and
fulfillment. Thus are we bound to
the heritage He cherished, practiced
and passed on.
Do this in memory of me.
“IT WAS AT THIS SUPPER that Jesus
Brought the Old Testament to it’s richest moment
and established a New Rite
of me.”
. Do this in memory
"Wt&yi. Tl&tl
The Silence
Group Captain Leonard Cheshire
of the Royal Air Force was not
I accustomed to the rumbling
I* American B-29. For the duration of
the war, the British ace had flown
the Lancaster Bomber over Germany.
f In a hundred successful missions the
famed flier had been heroically
decorated from head to toe.
*' Now he would take his first ride
in the bread and butter bomber of
the Pacific. He didn’t mind, it would
be his first but also his last. It was
' August 6, 1945.
’ Cheshire was
the British
observer on this
hush-hush
mission, taking
the giant bird of
death over the
Japanese city of
Hiroshima. The
small group of
B-29’s took off.
The almost
' defenseless but stubborn Japanese
mainland disregarded lone
t formations, fearing only the daily
saturation - bombing raining down
constant death and destruction.
Cheshire remembers they arrived at
* their destination strangely
unopposed.
He knew about The Bomb, in the
* belly of the plane. It would end the
. war. Smugly, he felt, that’s all that
mattered. He had experienced
enough adventure in the sky. There
1 had been enough death, enough
nerve shattering violence. It was time
for peace. Hiroshima would bring the
^ war to a firely end.
The American commander
declared weather conditions perfect
*■ over the preferred target. The count
* down began; the bombadier readied.
Thirty thousand feet up they reached
that historic rendezvous and the final
’ words rang out. “Bombs away.”
Then the silence. It was that
* silence, Cheshire remembers best.
70,000 human beings were wiped
away and the most unfortunate of all
were the contaminated survivors. But
* it was the silence of that single
f tumbling terror that Captain
Cheshire feverishly remembers.
|<i “It was only seconds, I had heard
bombs dispatched, a thousand times.
But never had the silence of the drop
battered my brain before. That
\ nightmare-silence was my companion
of a thousand sleepless nights.”
When the lifeless body blurted out
^ the final drops of blood, the mob
was silent. They faded from the small
-hill and drifted back to their
celebration in silence. The grief of
* the few, rolling the stone against the
' tomb, was deep, devastating and
silent. The whole city of Jerusalem
^ stalled in a haze of silence. It was as
if the roar of the thunder announcing
his death, hushed the noises of the
world leaving it with only the sounds
4, of silence for three interminable
days. But then the silence ceased.
As the explosion of Hiroshima
l brought plague and an impossible
* unhealing wound to the world, the
Angelic announcement of the
Resurrection brought life and
uproarious celebration.
f
The silence of the tomb is no
more for any living believing soul.
Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta
Vol. 18 No. 14
Thursday, April 3,1980
$6.00 Per Year
AFTER MASS - The parishioners are greeted
by the priests of the parish at Sacred Heart in
Atlanta as they leave Palm Sunday Mass. Our
LATIN AMERICA
back page Parish Profile this month features the
venerable Atlanta parish celebrating it’s 100th
anniversary in April.
A Week Of Violence
Terrorist violence in Latin
America took its toll on the church
in the days leading up to Holy Week.
The archbishop of San Salvador, El
Salvador, was assassinated, a papal
nuncio entered his fifth week of
captivity as a hostage of Colombian
leftists, and a Jesuit priest-editor in
Bolivia was found tortured and shot
to death.
And as Holy Week began, at least
forty people were killed and
scores more injured on Palm Sunday
when renewed violence broke out at
the funeral of the Salvadorean
archbishop, Oscar Romero.
Archbishop Romero was
murdered by an unknown assassin
March 24 as he was delivering his
homily at a memorial Mass in a
hospital chapel.
The archbishop, who tried to act
as a voice of moderation in the midst
of an undeclared civil war between
his country’s left and right wings,
was the subject of several death
threats before his assassination.
Earlier in March, he told how 72
sticks of dynamite had been
discovered in the sacristy of the San
Salvador cathedral.
At the outdoor funeral, an
explosion and then gunfire erupted
Hodges Appointed
Cheatham E. Hodges Jr.,
Executive Director of the Georgia
Catholic Conference has been
appointed to the White House
Conference on Families by Governor
Busby. The prestigeous committee
will represent the State of Georgia as
the nation considers the strengths
and weaknesses of the American
Family in this year of the Family.
Mr. Hodges whose home is in
Augusta was also elected Chairman
of the Fair Employment Practices
Advisory Board which hears the
complaints of State Employees.
in the square in front of the
cathedral, causing the throng to
stampede. While some of the deaths
were due to the gunfire, many who
died were crushed or suffocated in
the rush for safety.
The government blamed the latest
violence on armed leftists, but a
group of Catholic and Protestant
churchmen and women who
attended the funeral contested the
government’s version, saying the
leftists were respectful and
cooperative during the services.
Much of the reaction to
Archbishop Romero’s death called
on the United States to honor the
prelate’s request and not send
military aid to El Salvador.
“There could be no more fitting
tribute to the heroic life of this holy
man than the fact that as a nation we
would follow his advice,” said
Archbishop John R. Quinn of San
Francisco, president of the U.S.
National Conference of Catholic
Bishops.
Archbishop Romero had written
President Carter Feb. 17 asking that
the military aid not be transmitted.
Pope John Paul II, in an unusual
message to the El Salvador Bishops’
Conference, called the assassination
“sacrilegious” and asked the people
of El Salvador to “put away forever
all displays of mean violence and
vengeance.”
Normally, such cables of
condolence are signed by the papal
secretary of state, Cardinal Agostino
Casaroli. But this one was signed by
the pope himself.
In the same week, the pope also
sent a personal letter to Archbishop
Angelo Acerbi, papal nuncio to
Columbia, held hostage in the
embassy of the Dominican Republic
in Bogota since Feb. 27.
“Even more now, as we come
closer to these holy days of the
Lord’s passion, my presence and
spiritual participation in your
suffering is particularly intense,”
wrote the pope.
He said he admired the “example
of strength, calm and prudence” that
Archbishop Acerbi was setting as the
“representative of the pope” in
Colombia.
A priest who visited the embassy
March 28 with the pope’s message
was told that all hostages without
diplomatic rank would be released
during Holy Week.
Two of the 29 hostages were
released Palm Sunday. The freeing of
six or eight more hostages was
expected by Easter.
The 27 remaining hostages
included U.S. Ambassador Diego
Asencio and 12 other ambassadors
and acting ambassadors, six consuls,
four other foreigners, two Colombian
civilians and two Colombian protocol
officers.
The leftist guerrillas are
demanding that the government
release 28 jailed compatriots in
exchange for their embassy hostages.
In Bolivia, the body of Jesuit
Father Luis Espinal, a critic of
rightists in his country, was found in
a slum where he had once worked.
He had been tortured and shot.
The Jesuits in Bolivia said in a
joint statement that “we will
continue preaching the Gospel for
the poor as Father Espinal did.”
They demanded “a prompt
investigation and verdict” in the
murder.
Archbishop Jorge Manrique of La
Paz condemned the murder and said
those responsible were
excommunicated.
Father Espinal was editor of Aqui,
a weekly opinion magazine which
backed efforts to move the country
from 15 years of military
governments to civilian rule, which
finally came last November.
Church Of Silence
Praised By Pope
Pope John Paul II opened Holy
Week by praising modern-day
martyrs in the “church of silence”
living under states having obligatory
atheism.
The pope’s comments on
martyrdom at the noon Sunday
Angelus (March 30) before a crowd
of 100,000 people in St. Peter’s
Square alluded also to Archbishop
Oscar Romero of San Salvador, El
Salvador, who was murdered while
celebrating Mass March 24.
“We cannot forget those who in
our day have undergone death for
the faith and for love of Christ, and
who in various ways have been
imprisoned, tortured, tormented and
condemned to death,” the pope said.
The pontiff mentioned “those
who belong to what is usually called
‘the church of silence,’ the church
constrained to silence in the
conditions of obligatory atheism.”
It was also a critical allusion to
communist governments which
officially proclaim atheism.
In his Angelus talk the pope
pleaded for several Italian kidnap
victims and called for peaceful
resolution of the civil strife in Chad.
He opened his public Holy Week
schedule at 9; 30 a.m. with a blessing
of palms and olive branches and an
open-air Mass in St. Peter’s Square.
About 20,000 people were in the
square as the pontiff entered under
leaden skies and went in procession
to the square’s central obelisk to
bless the palms commemorating
Christ’s triumphal entry into
Jerusalem a few days before His
death.
Outside the square, clusters of
street hawkers sold palm crosses and
elaborately plaited and decorated
palm fronds at prices ranging from
60 cents to $6. Within the square,
youth groups handed out olive
branches free.
After the blessing of the palms,
the pope returned in procession to
the top of the steps in front of St.
Peter’s Basilica, where he began Mass
at 10 a.m., flanked by diplomats,
church dignitaries and wheelchair
victims in reserved places along the
sides of the altar.
By the time the Mass began, the
crowd had grown to nearly 30,000.
Despite the gray skies and an
occasional drizzle, the crowd
continued swelling until there were
about 50,000 when Mass ended at
11:30 a.m.
In his homily, the pope contrasted
the glory of Christ’s tumultuous
entry into Jerusalem with His
approaching crucifixion.
As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the
pope said, “only He, Christ, knew at
the very depth the truth of His
mission . . . Already in this triumphal
procession, in His ‘entrance into
Jerusalem,’ He was ‘obedient even to
death, to death on a cross.’”
Among the offertory petitions,
given in six languages, was one iii
Spanish for Archbishop Romero *
“savagely slaughtered like a victim at
the altar of the divine sacrifice.”
The petition asked God to pardon
the killer and let love and justice
triumph in El Salvador and “the
other countries tormented by every
form of violence.”
The pope, following his usual
custom, personally distributed
Communion, assisted by more than
100 priests who fanned out through
the crowd.
At the end of Mass, the pope
waved to the crowds and blessed
them and briefly visited with some of
the wheelchair victims on the left
side of the altar.
The crowd doubled in size during
the next half hour as the first wave
of spring tourists and tens of
thousands of Romans packed the
square for the noon Angelus.
As the pope spoke of present-day
martyrs in the church and declared
that they were proclaiming the truth
of the cross, he was interrupted by
prolonged applause.
He pleaded for prayers for peace
in Chad, a central African country
experiencing nearly two weeks of
civil war between opposing Moslem
factions. (NC)
The Resurrection... Reflect...
The Great Feast of the Resurrection of Christ should inspire us to
reflect on what it means to be a Christian — a follower of Jesus Christ.
Saint Paul said it very clearly to his flock at Phillipi, “All I Want is to
know Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and to share His
sufferings by reproducing the pattern of His death. That is the way I
can hope to take my place in the Resurrection of the Dead.”
Easter is a feast of hope, of peace, of joy. But we come to Easter
after a season of fidelity to the standards of the suffering Christ. We
share in the victory because we have been faithful in the struggle. In
an age of shifting standards, it is our place to hold fast to the values of
Jesus Christ. In a world of compromise, we are asked to affirm our
fidelity to principle.
In the Easter season we do well to reflect on the fact that we are
called to be Holy so that, in the words of scripture “your light may
shine before men and they may see goodness in your acts and give
praise to God.” - Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan
f