Triduum | National Catholic Reporter

Triduum | National Catholic Reporter by MSW.  MGB: In a few weeks we will hear the last discourse in the Gospel of John, which explains how we shall be perfect - not in ethics but in Love (a task which is only possible in and with God).  As for Good Friday, I have an essay linking Holy Thursday and the promise not to drink of the fruit of the vine until doing so in the Father's kingdom and how this relates to John's Gospel, during which Jesus does drink what is offered him before he dies.  One must look at the Gospels to see why this is not code for a statement that the religion is a farce.  One must understand that before he drank of the vinegar, he yelled out My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me? and then said I thirst.  Before he called out in abandonment, he gave up on both his divinity and his mission by giving his mother to John, essentially telling her that he is dead to her now and that his mission will not happen.  In doing this, he surrenders to the despair of the human condition in a way that he could not reach before.  For me, that is the essence of the Triduum, with his death continuing that solidarity with us so that we can have solidarity with Him in the Resurrection, so that we can be an Easter people.