SOLEMN PASCHAL TRIDUUM 2025

• Holy Thursday
• Good Friday
• Easter Vigil

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Holy Thursday

From the Cenacle…Treasures of Love

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

Having completed our Lenten observance, we have begun the Solemn Paschal Triduum. The Gospel takes us into the Upper Room, the Cenacle of the Last Supper…the same room where Jesus appeared after his resurrection, and where the apostles gathered in prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It has been called the “most important room in Christendom” because the effects of all that occurred there would be felt until the end of time.
 
While the Lord’s Passover meal was surely an intimate gathering, the atmosphere had to be tense and dramatic with its undercurrent of impending betrayal, denial, abandonment, suffering, and death.
 
But Our Lord’s response is one of tremendous love. “He loved his own in the world, and he loved them to the end,” says St. John. The acts of love the Lord would carry out in the Cenacle, he would command to be continued throughout history: “Do this in memory of me,” he said.
 
The Lord’s first act of love was to take ordinary bread and wine and to change them into his very self. It would be his way of remaining with his Church until the end of time…not as a mere symbol, but a veiled but Real Presence—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity under the appearance of bread and wine. This was a gift that was fore-shadowed when he fed the five thousand; but that was ordinary food. Now the Lord bequeaths us food that endures to eternal life. An act of God who desires to nourish, strengthen, heal, and comfort us on the journey of life. Should we not rouse ourselves from any casual or perfunctory attitude toward this awesome treasure?
 
The Lord’s second act of love carried out in the Cenacle is intimately tied to the Eucharist. With the words, “Do this in memory of me,” the Lord instituted the Holy Priesthood. Holy Thursday was the Ordination Day of the apostles—and what a group they were—not unlike the priests who follow them throughout history—earthen vessels, fragile, weak, fearful, and doubting, always in need of God’s mercy, and yet, entrusted to act “in persona Christi” to be stewards and dispensers of the mysteries of God. St. Jean Vianney says, “the priest holds the keys to the treasure of heaven!”
 
On this feast day of the priesthood, let us pray that the Lord will sustain in every priest a grateful awareness of the dignity of his vocation. Let us also pray that we may all renew our appreciation of this great vocation so that may will be inspired to follow it.
 
The third act of love the Lord would have us do in his memory is revealed in this evening’s Gospel. Curiously, St. John, unlike the other evangelists, does not recount the institution of the Eucharist or Priesthood. St. John is keen to show us the effect that receiving the Eucharist should have. He wants to impress upon us that Eucharist, the Sacrament of Love is always linked to the commandment of love. Discipleship involves humble service, “stooping low” realizing that this is true greatness in the sight of God.
 
Dear brothers and sisters, what happened in the Cenacle we are privileged to experience today. The treasures of the Cenacle are bequeathed to us! How extraordinary, how profound the love of the Lord for us!
 
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Good Friday

Such a Little Thing that Expresses Everything

Msgr Thomas Gervasio

How can we remain unmoved to what happened on this day? Today, above all others, we look upon the cross and contemplate the extraordinary love of the Lord for us and profound cost of that love which would have him endure an unimaginable cruelty, the destruction of his body and dignity. This is why this holy liturgy began in a reverential silence, with the ministers prostrate on the floor and the faithful on their knees. We cannot remain unmoved by one who has loved us to his death.
 
The historical novel, “Silence” by Shusako Endo, now a film, describes the persecution of Christians in 17^th century Japan. The Jesuit missionaries of Nagasaki and their converts were told that they could avoid crucifixion by stepping on an image of Jesus Crucified. Their tormentors said enticingly, “It is such a little thing to require.” Some agreed and became apostates. But those who refused became martyrs because they knew that the “little thing” was everything.
 
It is the antithesis of what we do today, in the veneration of the cross. The act of kissing the cross may appear “such a little thing”—but it tells us “everything”—It is a silent but powerful profession of faith. A faith that tells us that in his immeasurable love for us, Jesus suffered, died, and rose for me that I might have life—eternal life. And that is truly “everything.” This “everything” is the “good” that gives today its name.
 
Perhaps these words express what we hold in our hearts as we prepare to venerate the cross and then receive the Lord sacramentally.
 

O Jesus, I pause thoughtfully at the foot of the cross.
 Your crucifixion is an overwhelming mystery      
that moves me deeply.
Here I understand the depth of your love for me.
 
Lord, you came into the world for me,
to seek me, to offer me the embrace of the Father,
 the embrace that I need so much.
Because you are the face of goodness and mercy,
 you desire to save me.
Within me there is darkness, come with your clear light.
Within me there is so much selfishness,
come with your boundless charity.
 Within me, there is so much pride,
come with your remarkable humility.
Lord, I am the sinner to be saved.
 I am the prodigal son who must return.
Lord, grant me the gift of tears
so that I might find in you true freedom,
life, peace, and joy.
 Amen.
     [Prayer of Angelo Cardinal Comastri] 
 

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Easter Sunday 

A Garden Ruined…A Garden Restored

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

 
In the last line of his Passion Narrative, Saint John mentions that the tomb of Jesus was in a garden. At first, this seems just a quaint addition, a detail easily unnoticed; but upon some reflection, we could say that salvation history unfolded in four gardens. How appropriate then that at Easter, we adorn our sanctuaries as if they were in a garden.
 
In a garden we find order, beauty, and life. A garden is not wild. It is cultivated, it has boundaries and a specific design. A garden is also beautiful; everything about it is pleasing to the eye. A garden is also, of course, a place of life where plants grow and bear fruit.
 
Order, beauty, and life are what God desired for us in the first garden, the Garden of Eden. There was order and harmony in God’s creation and in humanity’s relationship with God. Beauty was found in the souls of Adam and Eve. There, the Lord also bestowed life—unending life with God. But these good and great things were lost through sin. The most tragic consequence is that sin brought death into the world.
 
Yet, despite our sin, in love for us, God began a restoration, the work of redemption in a second garden—the Garden of Gethsemane where he would undo the rebellion of the Garden of Eden. There Jesus accepted the cup willed by his Father, taking upon himself all the disorder, ugliness, and the death that sin brought into the world that would be carried to Calvary.
 
God’s work of redemption, his loving restoration, continued in a third garden—the garden of his tomb—or better still, the Garden of his Resurrection. There he rose triumphantly from the dead.
 
It is interesting that when Mary Magdalen first saw the Risen Lord, she mistook him for the gardener. In a certain sense, he is. He is the Divine Gardener, who restores order, beauty, and life to us.
 
But this is not the end because the Lord desires to complete his work in a fourth garden—the garden of our soul. When we open the gate of that garden, he enters our souls with his grace and works there to bring order—to heal the conflicts we experience; to bring beauty by ridding us of the ugliness of sin and brings life so that we might live in newness of life.
 
Despair turns to hope. Death is conquered and life is restored. He brings mourners the joy of knowing that death is not the last word.
 
On this solemn night we rejoice that our four Elect, Amanda, Brianna, Jonathan, and Michel, welcome the Lord into the Garden of their Soul, through the Sacraments of Initiation—Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Eucharist. May the Divine Gardener continue to work through their lives so that they might become radiant by his grace so that all who meet them will sense in them the sweet fragrance of Christ.
 
May this prayer also be ours who renew our baptismal promises.

May the garden of our souls, cultivated by God’s grace, illumined by the brilliant light of the Risen Lord, produce in our lives, and in our world, the spiritual fruits of harmonious order, radiant beauty, and abundant life.
 
O glorious Christ, Risen triumphant from the grave, Divine Gardener of our Souls, to you be glory and power forever. Alleluia! Alleluia!