Lent 2023: Seven Last Words from the Cross

A recent article published on the BBC News website asked if the Coronation this weekend is  necessary? The short answer is no. Legally Charles became King at his mother’s death, ‘The  Queen/ King is dead, long live the King!’, so goes the ancient acclamation. Indeed, King George  VIII reigned for a few months before abdicating despite never having been crowned. But the  Coronation is more than just about legality, it is about sign and symbol, in particular it is about  sacramental meaning.  Let me be clear, the Coronation is not one of the Seven Sacraments of the Church, but it has  spiritual significance. Taking a step back for a moment, you may have seen the 1981 film  ‘Excalibur’. The film tells the story of King Arthur from his mysterious conception between Uther  Pendragon and the wife of the Duke of Cornwall, to his death. As part of the film, it becomes  apparent that the fortunes of the King and the Land are intimately linked, and towards the end  as the king’s health fails so

 'Supposing him [Jesus] to be the gardener she said 'sir if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him?' [John 20.15] Me? I’m a gardener. Have been since I was young. Followed in my father’s footsteps.   I’ve cared for this garden and its tombs for years now. Followed in my father’s footsteps.   Good soil, grave soil, gives good growing, and the plants come up nice. Or they would if they weren’t being trampled by hordes of Galilean feet rushing to and fro.   You wouldn’t credit it! I came here at first light to water the borders, and there’s a woman talking with someone hidden by the shadows. She’s clearly surprised as I heard her cry out ‘Teacher!’ Then she rushed off.   No sooner had she gone than a couple of rough looking Galilean fellows came rushing into the garden, knocking over my daffodils and rushing to the spot where the woman had been talking to that teacher fellow. They too then rushed off like their tails were on fire. I couldn’t

‘While [the women were departing from the tomb], some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers, telling them, ‘You must say, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.” If this comes to the governor’s ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.’ So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story is still told among the Jews to this day.’ [Matthew 28.11-15]   At this moment in time, we need to get our story straight. We’re trained soldiers, not a rabble of rowdy rebels – we need to explain how we let the biggest heist in history occur under our very noses. You can’t just steal a dead body from under our noses, and then have the same body appear hale and hearty to his friends!   Yes, we may have been asleep on duty (an offense worthy of a flogging if ever there wa

‘When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, ‘Listen, he is calling for Elijah.’ And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.’ Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion , who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was God’s Son!’’ [Mark 15.33-39]   - Ancient tradition names the Centurion on duty at the time of Jesus’s death as Longinus. He is the first gentile to acknowledge Christ’s divinity proclaiming in best first century John Wayne English 'truly this man was the son of God!'. Tradi

  ‘ On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, “The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. [Mark 14.12-15]   Let’s be clear, men don’t carry water jars, that woman’s work! So why was I walking around Jerusalem in the middle of the afternoon carrying a water jar?   I had been a follower of Jesus for a while, not that my parents knew of course, my father was involved in the politics of the Temp

- An additional reflection as we sit on the eve if the sacred Triduum. In the period that marks Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and, Holy Saturday we move into a period filled with great action, but more frequently silence. Periods of silence filled withthoughtfulness (Maundy Thursday), agony and fear (Good Friday), and ultimately loss (Holy Saturday), but also perhaps hope. First there is the thoughtfulness of Maudy Thursday, but also of the morning of Good Friday. Here we find the silence of Maundy Thursday, a silence marked first by the sleepiness of the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemene, but then the agonising silence of Christ in time he spends in the oubliette cell underneath the High Priest's House.  - An Oubliette is a type of cell which is shaped like a bottle. Here is found a profound a terrifying darkness filled with horror and despair. The prisoner lowered into the oubliette knows not what lies beneath him as he is lowered. Sharp, jagged stones, other prisoners, rat, a

  Wednesday: Judas’s mother ‘When Judas, [Jesus’s] betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. He said, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.’ But [the Pharisees and Temple authorities] said, ‘What is that to us? See to it yourself.’ Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, ‘It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since they are blood money.’ After conferring together, they used them to buy the potter’s field as a place to bury foreigners. For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, ‘And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one on whom a price had been set, on whom some of the people of Israel had set a price, and they gave them for the potter’s field, a

  ‘[Following his trial a] great number of the people followed [Jesus], and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. But Jesus turned to them and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.  29 For the days are surely coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.”’  [Luke 23.27-29]   I’m just another woman in a city filled with people. People don’t even know my name, they call me Veronica from the Latin ‘Vera Icon’ (true image), but I am not bothered, at least they remember me. They also call me Berenike, but I prefer Veronica, it has a nice ring to it.   I was like the other women you’d find on the street corners in Jerusalem, women of negotiable affection we’ve been called. (We’ve been called much more beside!) Though before I became one of those I’d been suffering from haemorrhaging since I was a girl*. No sane man w

  Monday: Rufus and Alexander, the sons of Simon of Cyrene ‘After mocking [Jesus, the soldiers] stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus. Then they brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull).  [Mark 15.20-22]   We were there of course; the whole family was, it was the trip of a lifetime for us, a chance to see the Holy City. (We were of Jewish heritage, though we’d long moved to the Greek provinces, and then the Imperia Capital Rome, as my father’s family’s business had grown.) But in that moment everything changed as he was dragged out of the crowd to carry the Messiahs cross.   Of course, we followed dad, or Simon was you’ll know him. He knew where we were staying, had the money in his belt, we’d have been lost without him, (Peter is ver

From a sermon by St Gregory Nazianzen: 'We are soon going to share in the Passover, and although we still do so only in a symbolic way, the symbolism already has more clarity than it possessed in former times because, under the law, the Passover was, if I may dare to say so, only a symbol of a symbol. Before long, however, when the Word drinks the new wine with us in the kingdom of his Father, we shall be keeping the Passover in a yet more perfect way, and with deeper understanding. He will then reveal to us and make clear what he has so far only partially disclosed. For this wine, so familiar to us now, is eternally new.      'It is for us to learn what this drinking is, and for him to teach us. He has to communicate this knowledge to his disciples, because teaching is food, even for the teacher.      'So let us take our part in the Passover prescribed by the law, not in a literal way, but according to the teaching of the Gospel; not in an imperfect way, but perfectly; not