The Sacred Triduum Beckons | National Catholic Reporter

The Sacred Triduum Beckons | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: The Triduum is one act, but explaining it in conservative and liberal terms is inadequate to the study of that act.  The terms Traditionalist and Modernist are more apt.  The Tradition gives us all of what happened, or all of what we believed happed.  2000 years later, there is not much difference.  Modernists look at what happened and interpret it in light of days events and new understanding of theology.  The old model of a punishing God who needs a sacrifice in order to open the Heavens to His children is losing its credibility as an interpretation of what happened.  Our loving God is not an Ogre.  This does not mean the sacrifice did not happen, but the meaning behind the acts can lead us to a different spiritualiy - and in time to a different ethics.

The new interetation does not include the sin of Adam, because Adam and Eve were mythical, not historical, characters.  Indeed, we don't trace to Eve but to Lucy or some other walking hominid like her.  Did Lucy and her mate walk with God and eat from a tree that does not even exist in Southern Africa?  No, but the Traditionalists can't cope with that loss because then they cannot find the need for salvation.  Look around, everyone on the planet (save maybe the Bushman before they left their desert Eden after getting the royalties for The Gods Must be Crazy) has either a direct cross to bear, like poverty or addiction, or that terrible angst that has no cause they can find - which they seek relief from in religion and tradition, hoping their pain will be lifted - even though their pain is not the Hell the first group feels (who need some kind of dependence on God or a higher power to survive.  Once they find it, they need no fasting - their penance is already served.

Triduum is one act that starts with the Eucharist - both its initiation and the promise, that Jesus will not drink of the fruit of the vine until he does so in the Father's kingdom.  For most of the time before he dies, he is offered such a fruit - we know this was just after the crucifixion, but likely the entire night and morning his temptation was before him.  Like anyone in the grip of a desperate sitation, the pain and the fear ratchets up in intensity and that was true for Jesus, as we learned both on Palm Sunday and on Friday.  We know from science (studies on the Shroud actually) that Jesus' chest expanded - which is a sign of drowning - in his case dry drowning (its why they break the legs, so you can't prop up to breath).  At some point he must speak with his mother and his nephew John , who he loves (son of his sister Mary Salome (also at the foot of the cross) and Zebedee), and gives Mary unto her grandson for care - essentially telling the source of the original divintiy narative in his life that he is not divine, he dying - and telling John to take care of his Nana Mary  - not baptize all nations, the mission is gone, the missionary is dead.  It is at this point that Jesus cries out, as we all cry out (especially those going through Hell already) God, where are you?  What did I do to deserve this pain?!!!  And that is it.  Rest is gravy.  He says he thirsts and while the other Gospel writers equivicate, the one who was there said he drank of the fruit of the vine (vinegar counts), and then dies.

When I first heard the Good Friday Gospel, it vexed me because of the inconsistencies of the drinking of the wine, but if you place the dismissing of the witnesses with the abandonment and discover why it happened, then you know the task of Jesus was never just to be slain, but to experience that pain of humanity which he could not do as God.  He could empathise, but he could do that from afar - although being a poor working peasant is getting the most intense dose of unfairness, which betrayal by his own brother Rebi almost equaled.  Suddenly there is no conflict in the text, and we all truly know that on that day he and the good thief were celebrating in the Kingdom of God.  That joy is ours at Eastertide, both that we have a God who became one of us, and also felt the depth of our sorrow, but because, however it occurred, Jesus conquered death and moved among his friends and family.  And he moves with us today, both in the Sacraments and in the lives of the the hungry, thirsty, naked, illiterate, lonely, imprisoned and dying.  Those who are feeling that pain he felt on the Cross every day.  The message to them is the same, your pain has been bought, find the Lord - or a God of your Understanding, and live.  Here is where the liberal part comes in - if we claim to be a Christian nationa, than we need not only encounter people in the streets or prisons or AA meetings, we need to have society help meet their needs to - and to do it resepectfully - like we are doing it for Jesus.  Because we really are.  As for morality, I have written extensively on the moral implications of a suffering God.  We can talk of that again some other time.