(21 Mar 08 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI led the Good Friday Passion liturgy in St. Peter's
Basilica. The homily focused on Christian Unity. Charles Collins has this report...
Father Raniero
Cantalamessa, O.F.M. Cap. Good Friday Sermon 2008 In Saint Peter’s Basilica
The
Tunic was Without Seam
“When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his
clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier. They also took
his tunic, but the tunic was without seam, woven in one piece from the top down. So
they said to one another, ‘Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it
will be,’ in order that the passage of Scripture might be fulfilled that says: ‘They
divided my garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots’” (John 19:23-24).
It
has always been asked what the evangelist John wanted to say with the importance that
he gives to this particular detail of the Passion. One relatively recent explanation
is that the tunic alludes to the vestment of the high priest and that with this John
wanted to affirm that Jesus died not only as king but also as priest.
It is
not said in the Bible, however, that the tunic of the high priest had to be seamless
(cf. Exodus 28: 4; Leviticus 16:4). For this reason the most authoritative of the
exegetes prefer to stick to the traditional explanation, according to which the seamless
tunic symbolized the unity of the disciples.[1] It is the interpretation that Saint
Cyrpian already gave: “The unity of the Church,” he writes, “is expressed in the Gospel
when it is said that the tunic of Christ was not divided or cut.”[2]
Whatever
be the explanation that one gives to the text, one thing is certain: the unity of
the disciples is, for John, the purpose for which Christ dies. “Jesus had to die for
the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed
children of God” (John 11:51-52). At the Last Supper he himself said: “I pray not
only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that
they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be
in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:20-21).
The glad
tidings to proclaim on Good Friday are that unity, before it is a goal to be sought,
is a gift to be received. That the tunic is woven “from the top down,” Saint Cyprian
continues, means that “the unity brought by Christ comes from above, from the heavenly
Father, and because of this it cannot be broken apart by those who receive it, but
must be received in its integrity.”
The soldiers divided “the clothes,” or
the “the cloak,” (“ta imatia”) into 4 pieces, that is, Jesus’ outer garments, not
the tunic, the “chiton,” which was the inner garment, which was in direct contact
with his body. This is also a symbol. We men can divide the human and visible element
of the Church, but not its deeper unity, which is identified with the Holy Spirit.
Christ’s tunic was not and can never be divided. It too is of a single piece. “Can
Christ be divided?” Paul cried out (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:13). It is the faith the we
profess in the Creed: “I believe in the Church, one, holy, Catholic and apostolic.”
*
* *
But if unity must serve as a sign “so that the world believe,” it must
also be a visible, communitarian unity. This is the unity that has been lost and must
be rediscovered. It is much more than maintaining neighborly relations; it is the
mystical interior unity itself – “one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God Father of all” (Ephesians 4:4-6) – insofar as this objective
unity is in fact received, lived and manifested by believers.
After Easter
the apostles asked Jesus: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom
to Israel?” Today we often address the same question to God: Is this the time in which
you will restore the visible unity of the Church? God’s answer is also the same as
the one Jesus gave to the disciples: “It is not for you to know the times or seasons
that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when
the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:6-8).
The
Holy Father recalled this in a homily he gave on January 25 in the Basilica of Saint
Paul Outside the Walls at the end of Christian Unity Week: “Unity with God and our
brothers and sisters,” he wrote, “is a gift that comes from on high, which flows from
the communion of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit in which it is increased
and perfected. It is not in our power to decide when or how this unity will be fully
achieved. Only God can do it! Like St Paul, let us also place our hope and trust ‘in
the grace of God which is with us’.”
Today as well, the Holy Spirit will be
the one to lead us into unity, if we let him guide us. How was it that the Holy Spirit
brought about the first fundamental unity of the Church, that between Jews and pagans?
The Holy Spirit descends upon Cornelius and his whole household in the same way in
which he descended upon the apostles at Pentecost. So, Peter only needed to draw the
conclusion: “If then God gave them the same gift he gave to us when we came to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to be able to hinder God?” (Acts 11:17).
For
a century now, we have seen the same thing repeat itself before our eyes on a global
scale. God has poured out the Holy Spirit in a new and unusual way upon millions of
believers from every Christian denomination and, so that there would be no doubts
about his intentions, he poured out the Spirit with the same manifestations. Is this
not a sign that the Spirit moves us to recognize each other as disciples of Christ
and work toward unity?
It is true that this spiritual and charismatic unity
is not enough by itself. We see this already at the beginning of the Church. The newly
formed unity between Jews and Gentiles was immediately threatened by schism. In the
so-called Council of Jerusalem there was a “long discussion” and at the end an agreement
was reached and announced to the Church with the formula: “It is the decision of the
Holy Spirit and of us...” (Acts 15:28). The Holy Spirit works, therefore, also through
another way, which is that of patient exchange, dialogue and even compromise between
the different sides, when the essentials of the faith are not in play. He works through
human “structures” and the “offices” put in action by Jesus, above all the apostolic
and petrine office. It is that which today we call doctrinal and institutional ecumenism.
*
* *
However, experience is convincing us that even this doctrinal ecumenism
is not sufficient and does not advance matters if it is not also accompanied by a
foundational spiritual ecumenism. This is repeated with ever greater insistence by
the major promoters of institutional ecumenism. In this centenary of the institution
of the week of prayer for Christian unity (1908 – 2008), at the foot of the cross
we would like to meditate on this spiritual ecumenism, on what this spiritual ecumenism
is and how we can make progress in it.
Spiritual ecumenism is born through
repentance and forgiveness and is nourished by prayer. In 1977 I participated in a
charismatic ecumenical congress in the U.S., in Kansas City, Missouri. There were
40.000 participants, half of them Catholic – Cardinal Suenens among them – and half
from other Christian denominations. One evening, one of the leaders of the meeting
began speaking at the microphone in way that, to me, at that time, was strange: “You
priests and pastors, weep and mourn, because the body of my Son is broken... You lay
people, men and women, weep and mourn, because the body of my Son is broken.”
I
began to see people around me fall to their knees, one after another, and to weep
with repentance for the divisions in the body of Christ. And all of this went on while
a sign reading “Jesus is Lord” went up from one part of the stadium to the other.
I was there as an observer who was still rather critical and detached, but I remember
thinking to myself: If one day all believers shall be reunited in one single body,
it will happen like this, when we all are on our knees with a contrite and humiliated
heart, under the great lordship of Christ.
If the unity of the disciples must
be a reflection of the unity between Father and Son, it must above all be a unity
of love, because such is the unity that reigns in the Trinity. Scripture exhorts us
to “do the truth in love” – “veritatem facientes in caritate” (Ephesians 4:15). And
Augustine affirms that “one does not enter into the truth if not through charity”
– “non intratur in veritatem nisi per caritatem.” [3]
The extraordinary thing
about this way to unity based on love is that it is already now wide open before us.
We cannot be hasty in regard to doctrine because differences exist and must be resolved
with patience in the appropriate contexts. We can instead “be hasty” in charity and
already be united in that sense now. The true, certain sign of the coming of the Spirit,
Saint Augustine writes, is not speaking in tongues, but it is the love of unity: “Know
that you have the Holy Spirit when you allow your heart to adhere to unity through
sincere charity.”[4]
Let us reflect on Saint Paul’s hymn to charity. Each verse
acquires a contemporary and new meaning if it is applied to the love of members of
different Christian denominations in ecumenical relations:
“Love is patient… Love
is not jealous… It does not seek its own interests… It does not brood over
injury… (if necessary, of the injury done to others!) It does not rejoice over
wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth (it doesn’t rejoice over the difficulties of
other Churches, but delights in their successes) It bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1Corinthians 13:4 ff.).
This
week we have accompanied a woman to her eternal rest – Chiara Lubich, the founder
of the Focolare Movement – who was a pioneer and model of the spiritual ecumenism
of love. She showed that the pursuit of unity among Christians does not lead to a
closing to the rest of the world; it is rather the first step and the condition for
a broader dialogue with believers of other religions and with all men and women who
are concerned about the fate of humanity and about peace.
* * *
“Loving,”
it has been said, “does not mean looking at each other but looking together in the
same direction.” Even among Christians loving means looking in the same direction,
which is Christ. “He is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14). It is like the spokes of a wheel.
Consider what happens to the spokes of a wheel when they move from the center outward:
as they distance themselves from the center they also become more distant from each
other. On the contrary when they move from the periphery toward the center, the closer
they come to the center they also come nearer to each other, until they form a single
point. To the extent that we move together toward Christ, we draw nearer to each other,
until we are truly, as Jesus desired, “one with him and with the Father.”
That
which will reunite divided Christianity will only be the a new wave of love for Christ
that spreads among Christians. This is what is happening through the work of the Holy
Spirit and it fills us with wonder and hope. “The love of Christ moves us, because
we are convinced that one has died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:14). The brother who
belongs to another Church – indeed every human being – is “a person for whom Christ
died” (Romans 14:16), as he has died for me.
* * *
One thing must
move us forward on this journey. What is in play at the beginning of the third millennium,
is not the same as what was in play at the beginning of the second millennium, when
there was the separation of East and West; nor is it the same as what was in play
in the middle of the same millennium when there was the separation of Catholics and
Protestants. Can we say that the way the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father or how
justification of the sinner comes about are the problems that impassion the men of
today and with which the Christian faith stands or falls? The world has moved beyond
us and we remain fixed by problems and formulas that the world does not even know
the meaning of.
In battles in the Middle Ages there was a moment in which,
after the infantry, the archers and the cavalry had been overwhelmed, the melee began
to circle around the king. There the final outcome of the fight was decided. Today
the battle for us also takes place around the king. There are buildings and structures
made of metal in such a way that if a certain neuralgic point is touched or a certain
stone is removed, everything falls apart. In the edifice of the Christian faith this
cornerstone is the divinity of Christ. If this is removed, everything falls apart
and faith in the Trinity is the first to go.
From this we see that today there
are 2 possible ecumenisms: an ecumenism of faith and an ecumenism of incredulity;
one that unites all those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that God is Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, and that Christ died to save all humankind, and an ecumenism
that unites all those who, in deference to the Nicene Creed, continue to proclaim
these formulas but empty them of their content. It is an ecumenism in which, in its
extreme form, everyone believes the same things because no one any longer believes
anything, in the sense that “believing” has in the New Testament.
“Who is it
that overcomes the world,” John writes in his first letter, “if not those who believe
that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1John 5:5). Sticking with this criterion, the fundamental
distinction among Christians is not between Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, but
between those who believe that Christ is the Son of God and those who do not believe
this.
* * *
“On the first day of the sixth month in the second year
of King Darius, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai to the governor
of Judah, Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, and to the high priest Joshua, son of Jehozadak…:
‘Is it time for you to dwell in your own panelled houses, while this house lies in
ruins?’” (Haggai 1:1-4).
This word of the prophet Haggai is addressed to us
today. Is this the time to concern ourselves with that which only regards our religious
order, our movement, or our Church? Is this not precisely the reason why we too “sow
much but harvest little” (Haggai 1:6)? We preach and we are active in many ways, but
we convert few people and the world moves away from Christ instead of drawing near
to him.
The people of Israel heard the prophet’s reproof; everyone stopped
embellishing his own house and began to work together on God’s temple. God then sent
his prophet again with a message of consolation and encouragement which is also addressed
to us: “But now take courage, Zerubbabel, says the Lord, and take courage, Joshua,
high priest, son of Jehozadak, And take courage, all you people of the land, says
the Lord, and work! For I am with you, says the Lord of hosts” (Haggai 2:4). Take
courage, all of you who have at heart the cause of the unity of Christians, and go
to work, because I am with you, says the Lord!
[1] Cf. R. E. Brown, The
Death of the Messiah, vol. 2, Doubleday, New York 1994, pp. 955-958. [2] Saint
Cyprian, De unitate Ecclesiae, 7 (CSEL 3, p. 215). [3] Saint Augustine, Contra
Faustum, 32,18 (CCL 321, p. 779). [4] Saint Augustine, Sermons, 269,3-4 (PL38,
1236 s.).