Holy Week 2015

Holy Week 2015

I was walking up Iredell Street to Morning Prayer at St. Joseph’s the other day after Mass, and my beloved wife said that she was going to stop off at our apartment, which is between the Maurin House and the Church, and do a few things. Without any thought, I said, “OK, that sounds good. I’m going to go Fight the demons.” I was quoting a line from a documentary I had seen a few years ago about Mount Athos, the great Eastern Orthodox monastic oasis. The mountain, on which are founded several monasteries of ancient provenance, is famous for its austerity, including the total ban of women from the Island. In this documentary -‐ and don’t ask me how they got the monks to agree to a photo shoot -‐ I remember one apparently exasperated reporter trying to understand. “What is it that you do here?” the reporter asked. The old monk responded matter-‐of-‐factly -‐ as if it should have been obvious -‐ “We Fight the demons.”

I had never thought of our little Catholic Worker as engaged in the business of Fighting the demons. But for some reason the thought stuck with me all throughout Morning Prayer, the rest of the day, and I am still thinking about it. I’m still not sure exactly why that struck me or inspired me as it did. But I wonder if it

has something to do with the fact that, like Mt. Athos, the tiny life we live up and down Iredell Street seems pretty insigniFicant. And, almost accidentally, I pointed myself to the fact that it is not. Saying the prayers of the Church has cosmic ramiFications.

Let’s not make things more complicated than they are. It is important to try to be attentive in saying the OfFice. It is important to do it for training in virtue. It is important to do it as a mission to the poor, who are at the Church every day way before any of us. You might even try to have the right motives for saying the prayers -‐ not to look good or to check your Christian obligation box, or to make yourself feel better than others. You might try not to be late, and you might try to listen and not daydream during the readings. You could try to bring a church friend or not to snub the guys out back begging for change. Yes, it’s probably hypocritical to say the prayers and then go about the rest of your day as if that didn’t really make any difference. We should try to be more welcoming, inviting, and kind to those who come. These are all good things to do, and they have their proper places in the exercise of daily prayer that is the Christian life. No doubt.

Holy Monday

Page 3

Good Friday

Page 8

Peter Maurin Catholic WorkerVol. V, No. 2 1116 Iredell Street, Durham, NC 27705 Holy Week 2015

The Little Way

We Fight the Demons Fr. Colin Miller

(continued on p. 2)

Maundy Thursday

Page 6

T H E L I T T L E W A Y

2 Holy Week 2015

(Demons cont.)

But it is important to remember that we are in a battle, and that just showing up and saying the Daily OfFice makes the demons shriek. Just that engages us in the cosmic life and death struggle. Psalms are said twice a day in that place. The Holy SacriFice is offered in St. Clare Chapel. The poor are welcomed (or, let’s be honest -‐ tolerated). Most of it is unnoticed, hidden, silent. That is necessarily so and an asset, not a hindrance. St. Ignatius of Antioch says that the whole mystery of our redemption -‐ incarnation, passion and

resurrection -‐ all happened silently, without the world knowing. Let’s not assume that we are doing battle the same way as the monks at Athos are, but there is no reason not to think that our paltry efforts do not at least sharpen their swords. We are sometimes so at pains to convince ourselves that what we are doing is not a compartmentalized “spiritual” or “religious” thing – and we are right to think that in every respect our way of life is a political rebellion. But let’s not forget that it is precisely in the recognition of the breadth of the political that makes politics also a struggle with the invisible world. The principalities and powers are contravened each time we bow down and bend the knee, or, for that matter, bend the knee to walk instead of pushing the gas pedal. Walking and praying makes the demons and the oil executives mad. Fr. Justin is right that walking is a political act, it is also spiritual warfare.

The recognition that our everyday lives of prayer -‐ even when poorly done -‐ participate in the war in heaven is also important for a proper understanding of the nature of the devastated world we live in. The inventory of the modern secular world includes free ranging human choice on the one hand and blind causal relations on the other. When that is the sum of the population of the cosmos, it is no wonder that people go crazy trying to Figure out whom to blame. So we blame the Republicans or the Democrats or the Mexicans or the Muslims or the Christians, or whomever, because we think wrongly about the way that the world works. It is no wonder given this version of things that tormented folks sometimes walk into post ofFices or high schools with guns and take the lives of others. This is a Fit of blaming that Finds no other outlet.

Such horror is all the more understandable when we realize that the evil that is so apparent in our world has some order to it that in many cases becomes quite easy to name and catalogue. Call it liberalism; call it industrialism; call it the techno-‐scientiFic complex; call it bourgeois capitalism; call it the market-‐state; call it the consumer society; call it any combination of these things. They are all viable descriptions of the history and state of our world. They all have a deFinite shape to them, that looks like it has some sort of mind behind it. Indeed it must. But when the only minds you think populate the cosmos are human ones, it is no wonder so much blaming goes on. It is no wonder that conspiracy theories abound, looking for scapegoats. This world drives people absolutely crazy.

There is no doubt that human beings, in a variety of ways, participate extensively in the making of the devastated world we live in. Yet human sinfulness is not the only part of the equation. “Our battle is not against Flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.” We Fight the demons.

So keep praying. Don’t ever worry that it is insigniFicant. The masses look on, even if they are discarnate masses. That, after all, is what these Lenten days are all about. The Lord Jesus fought an unnoticed battle with discarnate Satan in the wilderness for forty days. +


Holy Week 2015 " 3

Holy Monday Leigh Edwards Miller, Catholic Worker, DurhamOn Palm Sunday, the Church set us off on a journey. It is, really, the only journey that exists. It is the pilgrimage that every person takes, will it or nil it. Palm Sunday sets us off onto the Week that is called Holy, and Holy Monday begins us on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, which is a journey to the cross and, at its heart, the journey to death – and this particular journey is one often called “the Way.”

As mentioned, everyone takes this path, which is a path to death, whether they like it or not. But a Christian’s intentional observance of this week, starting the journey to death today with our Lord, indicates that their understanding of, and thus manner of taking, this journey is different from the way the rest of the world may journey to death. So, why are you here? Does this week matter? What about this Monday changes things?

Even if you do not know the answer to that question, or if you are squirming because you know, like me, that your reason for observing Holy Monday is unclear at best, even your mere recognition of the day says something. It says, at the least, that something -‐ family, wandering, anger, desperation, questions about life and death – has been important enough to bring you to turn your attention to the Week called Holy with the suspicion that you may Find answers to those unanswered or unsatisFied parts of your life. We all turn our attention to Holy Week in part because we are not satisFied with – or, perhaps, even angry about -‐ the story that all our lives lead ultimately to nothing but death. One does not show up to Holy Week in some form unless she knows, if even in the smallest of ways, that something is wrong with the world that may be Fixed, and perhaps may be Fixed here. On our facing of suffering and death, we think that in this man’s journey to Jerusalem there at least may be some sort of answer to all of the world’s wrong.

So, though all of mankind is on this journey towards death, your turning of face towards Jerusalem, towards Holy Week, at least says that something about this journey seems off to you. You sense that, regardless of how you stand in relationship with the Lord, there must be something else other than the reign of nihlism. You have not yet accepted the narrative that life just ends in nothingness, and so

you have entered on this Holy Monday onto the Way. Welcome.

As we all may have different reasons for turning our face to Holy Week, perhaps instead of asking “Why are you here?” a better question that we all who celebrate this week may hold in common is “Where are you?” For, with this question we return to the beginning of all beginnings, including the beginning of this journey, to the Garden of Eden. “Where are you?”: the question the LORD asks of Adam, and which he subsequently asks to all of mankind. “Where are you?” For, no matter what the “why” is to your presence here, you being here already makes obvious that you know the answer to the question that the LORD asks to Adam. “Where are you?” God asks. “I am hiding” together we all reply.

We are hiding, we are all hiding – or wanting to hide – our sin, our newfound nakedness, from the Lord. “I am hiding,” he says, “I saw that I was naked and I was afraid.” We, as Adam, have tried to be God. We have tried to control our lives, our selves, those closest to us, and, ashamedly, we have tried to control the Lord. Yet, we know, like Adam, that in the midst of these attempts we are naked. We know our self-‐wrought schemes of control will not work, and so we are afraid of what would happen if we showed ourselves to the one whom we tried to usurp. There is no reason to be here today unless we all know that things have gone wrong and we are afraid of facing up to it. “I was afraid, so I hid myself.”

The LORD responds: “Who told you…? Did you eat of the fruit?” We could spend much time on original nakedness and what has changed from Adam’s creation to this conversation, but, for now, let us look at the second part of the question and its response: “Have you eaten of the fruit?” To this Adam gives his pathetic reply, “The woman whom you gave me to be with, she gave me…” Here, how quickly, we have already arrived at the end of our journey. We have arrived at the death in Jerusalem. Fr. Richard Neuhaus, in his book Death on a Friday Afternoon, spends an extended period on this response. He notes that, like Adam, we are afraid, we know things are wrong, and – because we know our lives must matter – we must have someone to blame.

(continued on pg. 5)


" Holy Week 20154

Easy Essays By Peter Maurin

Usurers Are Not Gentlemen

1. The Prophets of Israel and the Fathers of the Church forbade lending money at interest.

2. Lending at interest was called usury by the Prophets of Israel and the Fathers of the Church.

3. Usurers were not considered to be gentlemen when people used to listen to the Prophets of Israel and the Fathers of the Church.

4. When people used to listen to the Prophets of Israel and the Fathers of the Church they could not see anything gentle in trying to live on the sweat of somebody else's brow by lending money at interest.

By Kelly Steele

Regard For The Soil

1. Andrew Nelson Lytle says: The escape from industrialism is not in socialism or in sovietism.

2. The answer lies in a return to a society where agriculture is practised by most of the people.

3. It is in fact impossible for any culture to be sound and healthy without a proper regard for the soil, no matter how many urban dwellers think that their food comes from groceries and delicatessens or their milk from tin cans.

4. This ignorance does not release them from a Final dependence upon the farm.

Fritz Eichenberg


Holy Week 2015 " 5

(Holy Monday cont.)

All of the evil, all of the hurt of the world, cries out for justice. Just look at the One Campaigns, the G8 Summits, the non-‐proFits, the social movements with grandiose promises to Fix the problems of the world. The suffering cries out for vindication. For all of the sin, the pride, the suffering and the death, someone must be to blame, for there must be some way to Fix it.

Fr. Neuhaus points out that, from the beginning the wise, the good, the philosophers and the despots have wrestled with this question: “Who is at fault? Who is guilty?” Us evildoers “all have excuses[: t]he guards at the death camps, the husband cheating on his wife, the executive padding his expense account, the physician g i v i n g a l e t h a l d o s e o f morphine…‘I was obeying superior orders,’ ‘I have needs that must be met,’ ‘Everybody does it,’” ‘We do a favor relieving people of their useless lives.” “Name the crime,” Neuhaus writes, “and it is Fitted with an excuse…And we are back to, “Adam, where are you?” and his pathetic response, “The woman whom you gave me to be with…” All the Adams and the Eves join with the brightest and the best of philosophers to declare that this is just the way the world is, and this is how we must survive it.

And, yet, when the suffering does come – for reasons originating outside of ourselves, we insist -‐ who is responsible for this way of the world? Who put us in that job? Who gave us those needs? Who made the world work like that? Who made lives useless? Who gave us the woman? At the end of the day, all of our attempts to blame externalities are attempts to blame the God who gave us this world, this life, this body. With Adam, our attempts to dodge the blame must be to say to God: you gave that woman to be with me, and you did not Fix it. It is the blaming of God that, though beginning “with the foundation of the world,” ends with: “Crucify Him!”

Here, Neuhaus again notes, we face a “mystery far beyond our ability to understand.” God willingly

accepts this verdict. The Lord takes on our judgment of guilty and – what’s more – bears the punishment that is rightly ours. If we want to talk about a need for justice, this is justice turned upside down. An innocent man, the Judge himself, takes on the sentence meant for the damned. The only one not to blame takes on our judgment for us for our own salvation.

At the end of the day, given the standard worldly idea of justice, the Lord’s death on the cross is a reckless, senseless, (shall we even dare to whisper unjust?), love. It is the justice of God that cannot be understood

in terms of give and take, in the terms of the world, but only in terms of love.

With such a sacriFice the Lord Jesus beckons to us: Come, come out from your hiding. Let us imitate the Lord and His disciples by giving, without counting the cost, all that we have to the Lord. Let us anoint him with our life, with our prayers, and with our alms. Let us offer our sacriFice of fasting and prayer this Holy Week, and in the process attend to the most important rending of our hearts: charity, patience, and mercy unto those who hate us and whom we hate. Whether you have kept a strict fast all Lent or

have not fasted at all, this is what it comes down to – commit yourself again to this journey today. Be you Simon Peter, be you Simon the Cyrene or be you Dysmas, the thief on the cross, it is never, never too late to join Christ on this journey.

Come, let us go with joyful hearts on that journey, armed only with a love that sacriFices all for the good of the other. Let us prepare ourselves to die with Him who, through death, gives us life. Let us go on this way with hearts so softened by humility that we no longer look even to blame Adam but instead give awe-‐Filled thanks to the Lord of Mercy, whose praises we sing: “O Happy Fault, O Fortunate Fall, that gave for us so great a Savior.”+


" Holy Week 20156

Holy Week presses on. We continue the journey of Christ’s final footsteps before his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. On this day, Maundy Thursday, the liturgy, the work of the people, is to participate in the Last Supper and foot washing. Today’s Eucharist is the memorial of the institution of the Eucharist itself. Today acknowledges the Son passing over to the Father by his death and resurrection. This New Passover is anticipated in the Last Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist, the sacrament which fulfills the Jewish Passover and anticipates the church’s final passing over in glory to the Kingdom. Today is the beginning of the Triduum, the Three Days, which will culminate in the Easter Vigil. Like the importance that the church gives Sunday in the course of the week, these three days are the culmination of the entire liturgical year. Today, though, is Maundy Thursday. In between tonight and Easter is the fast of Good Friday and Holy Saturday that will remind us that we still await the joy of the Resurrection.

Maundy l ikely comes from mandatum, ‘I give’: “I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). If the Lord gives, we receive. By now, the practices of Lent, those of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, have softened our hearts to the precepts of the Lord. We have been prepared for this night through concrete, bodily practices; practices that are only possible by His grace. Indeed, they are practices that Christ himself ‘practiced’ and in participating in them, we participate in Him. Hopefully, then, our gaze has been refocused to the Lord, our desires recalibrated to the Lord’s – thy will be done. He is the giver not only of all good gifts but of this new commandment too.

Like Peter Maurin’s easy essay, “a philosophy so old that it looks new,” Jesus’ new commandment fulfills the old commandment given to Israel. The Last Supper, too, looks like the passover of old. Tonight, the church reads from Scripture the institution of the first Passover given to Israel by the Lord. “This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your

feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord” (Ex 12:11). Israel was to remember this day not only as the one-‐‑time event of the Lord bringing them out of Egypt but as a perpetual commandment. Their bodily posture in the meal – loins girded, sandals on feet, staff in hand, and eating hurriedly – points to their participatory action in the work of the Lord, the passing over of Israel and the striking down of Egypt.

This readiness for action of the Israelites is not unlike the readiness Jesus demands of his followers at the Last Supper. This readiness is not only required of his disciples but also for himself. He is prepared to fulfill his own words, “and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (Jn 12:32). It

is Jesus who “took a towel, and girded himself” (Jn 13:4). The same Lord who will draw all people and all things to himself by his suffering, death, and resurrection, is the One who took a towel and girded himself. Jesus Christ “his only Son our Lord” is sacrifice and humble servant. The “perpetual memory of that his precious death and sacrifice” is bound up in Jesus’ submission to the Father to be sacrifice and servant. John Chrysostom, commenting on Paul, has this to say about the institution of the Eucharist: “The Master gave up everything, including himself, for us whereas we are reluctant even to share a licle food with our fellow believers. But if

you come for a sacrifice of thanksgiving, do not do anything unworthy of that sacrifice.” On Maundy Thursday, we are reminded that in presenting “unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee” we must be ready to gird ourselves as humble servants. In the Eucharist, we are reminded that how we eat is a reflection of what we eat. In taking the Body and Blood of Christ into ourselves, may we also be girded with faith and humility to enact the new commandment: love one another as Christ loved us.+

Maundy Thursday Joe Sroka, Catholic Worker, Durham

Fritz Eichenberg


Holy Week 2015 " 7

Panhandling and Community News by Joe Sroka

Not much has changed since the last edition in February. Perhaps like Fr. Colin’s description of the ‘Fight with the demons,’ I often let much slip by unnoticed or appear insigniFicant. Rather, there is much from our simple life to be celebrated or to be seen within the cosmic battle. First, the recently remodeled second Floor has given us an ‘extra’ room to be set aside as a Christ Room (ironically, it is Fr. Colin’s old room) and retain nine permanent residents. It is another way for us to embrace our Catholic Worker roots and Dorothy Day’s ideal that we give hospitality not because people remind us of Christ, but because they are Christ. With the actual and anticipated arrival of children, several grandparents have stayed in the Room. Others are our friends who have been turned away from shelter/housing ministries or hotels. They usually stay for a night. Because it is a room, and not the previously offered couch or spot on the Floor, our guests can have as much sleep and privacy as they want. Uninterrupted sleep and privacy are hard to come by even in the House, but they are invaluable gifts on the street.

Recently, we have found a way to accept contributions electronically by ACH (bank transfer) and credit card. There is even a recurring option for those who contribute a monthly pledge. Paper checks are still preferred but many of our supporters have asked for an electronic option. Visit our website, cfw.dionc.org, under the Begging tab for a link to “Donate Now.”

Finally, some news from our friends in diaspora. Clare Inez, daughter of Fr. Stephen and Amanda Crawford, will be baptized into Christ’s one holy catholic and apostolic Church on the Easter Vigil at Trinity Church, Baton Rouge. Also, Greg Little will be joined to Janice Blackburn in Holy Matrimony on Easter Saturday at Trinity UMC, Durham. We enjoyed the company of Natalie and Frances Wentzel (All Saints’, Thomasville, GA) for a week. In town for a recent Duke Divinity School Anglican-‐Episcopal House event, the Rev. Canon Emily Hylden, of Trinity Cathedral, Columbia, SC, celebrated a weekday Mass in St. Clare Chapel and rekindled her cheese grits making skills at St. Joseph’s.

We hope you will pray for and with us, visit us, and send us your spare change.+

SMART PHONE? The idols of the heathen are silver and gold,

the work of human hands. They have mouths, but they cannot speak;

eyes have they, but they cannot see; They have ears, but they cannot hear;

noses, but they cannot smell; They have hands, but they cannot feel;

feet, but they cannot walk; they make no sound with their throat. Those who make them are like them,

and so are all who put their trust in them.

Psalms 115:4-‐8 & 135:15-‐18

http://cfw.dionc.org



" Holy Week 20158

Good Friday Tyler Hambley, Catholic Worker, DurhamThe cross…

Today, we confront that which we’ve known was coming all week. Today, we assemble beneath the dark shadow cast before us by the cross of Christ. What can be said that has not already been said about this instrument of death? How might we get our heads around this suffering of Jesus? The answer, of course, is that we cannot… we cannot adequately explain the cross! We cannot make it more palatable, or subject it to our own desires for certainty and meaning. This is death we’re talking about, and none of us can fully comprehend death, let alone the death of the Son of God.

Indeed, the cross resists our comforting certainties. It deFies our logic and denies our attempts to choose some higher meaning for it. For sure, we can try to come up with neat atonement theories; we can turn the cross into an existential symbol for suffering; we can even try to make the cruciFixion all about our guilt and our sin – in other words, all about us. But here aga in , the c ross re fuses such easy appropriations. In the end, there simply is no Final shifting of focus onto the human condition that adequately accounts for everything that’s happening on the cross.

You see, what we have here is the deepest and darkest of all mysteries! Everything we’ve ever thought about power, about love, about justice, is totally turned over and surpassed by Christ’s passion. And while the cross does have a whole lot to do with us – while it is largely about our salvation – it has very little to do with any salvation scheme we might think up on our own behalf. For as the prophet Isaiah says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Silence, it seems, is the only appropriate response to the mystery of the cross. But silence does not mean despondent dread or meaninglessness. Rather, silence at the foot of the cross may open us out onto that which is truly interesting…

The Gospel of John gives us a whole trial asking the question of whether this man – this Jesus of Nazareth

– is a king or not. And if a king, what kind of king is he? Moreover, we read that Pontius Pilate becomes frightened at the possibility that this man may even be the Son of God. Yet when we hear Jesus invoke Psalm 22 from the cross, we are startled at rereading it: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress? […] Be not far from me, for trouble is near and there is none to help.”

Such a cry doesn’t sound very king-‐like. Kings are sovereign and in control after all! Kings have authority to arrange people as they please. More importantly, kings hold the power of who lives and who dies. In that light, Caesar was a king. We might say that our national government today is a kind of king. Certainly, modern technology arranges our social order in life-‐or-‐death ways. Even science and medicine hold sovereign sway on our hopes and dreams. But this man, this one hanging and bleeding on the cross… surly, he could be no king. He is dying! He is being executed! Our faith in kings is rooted, First and foremost, in their keeping death under their control. SpeciFically, kings are those entities we hope might protect us from, even help us deny, the reality of our own deaths. How can this man – the one nailed to a cross – be a King? For emptied of our notions of power and authority, Jesus leaves us only with quiet stillness. “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,” Isaiah says, “and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.”

If only an unsettling silence greets us, then perhaps what we encounter here on Good Friday is not the desired answers to our readymade questions regarding life and death. Rather, perhaps we are glimpsing an entirely different order altogether – one fashioned by the incomprehensible life of the Holy Trinity. For when we look again with new eyes at this cross, what is revealed is the depth of love shared between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Under this fresh viewing, we see the cross is indeed about us only because it is First about this mysteriously Triune God who refuses to abandon us to our death-‐dealing ways. The sacriFice of the Son by the Father, and the willingness of the Son to be sacriFiced, is not, then, about anyone’s satisfaction, God’s or ours. It is rather the supreme earthly display of Trinitarian love.

(continued on pg. 9)


Holy Week 2015 "9

Christ dies; he descends into hell. In so doing, he extends divine love to human frailty all the way down, even to the deepest, darkest corners of our deadly fallenness. The cross is not about us First; it is about God!

Yet, from here, the haunting silence of this cruciform rabbit hole goes deeper, for the cross of Christ does not leave us perplexed, standing dumbfounded at its foot. Rather, from this peculiar throne, our cruciFied King beckons us come and die with him! He invites us to enter into the triune mystery of his love – love shaped by the contours of a sacriFice to end all earthly sacriFices. And once inside this divine mystery, he beckons us look back out from the cross to view our world through the sovereign lens of his cruciform embrace. For only by jumping headlong into this beautiful mystery, and by taking up our own crosses, do we Find our embrace of the world deepened and stretched by God’s embrace as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This God refuses to abandon us to our desperate, torturous, and self-‐sabotaging attempts at Finding security fashioned by our own devices, whether of cross, car, cruise ship, or cruise missile. Instead, he offers to take us on the most unexpected and surprising journey of all – one full of light-‐hearted cheer and hopeful charity internal to the life of a God whose love stretches deeper and wider than we could possibly imagine!

Indeed, on this Good Friday, Christ the King invites us to dance in the shadow of the cross with unbounded expectations. We are freed from the pressure to run vainly away from death. We are freed from looking for sovereign assurances or sensible salvation schemes anywhere we can. In fact, instead of leaving death for the very end of life, we are called to get started with it as soon as possible (often right after our being born). One by one, we enter the waters of Holy Baptism immersing ourselves in Christ’s death, yet emerge re-‐membered – put back together in that new body, which is the cruciFied Body of Christ. Somehow, in this new life after death, we are given the freedom to Finally enjoy, to Finally drink deeply of God’s good gifts. Here, through Christ’s cross we are taken up into the divine communion freed from the pursuit of a perceived need for self-‐actualization. Here, we discover that we are anything but nothing. Our signiFicance is bound to a love so excessive in its abundance; we couldn’t possibly have imagined it for ourselves.

Yes, here, at the precipice of cruciform silence, this darkest of Fridays becomes something we oddly call… “Good”! For while this Friday is haunting, while it is incomprehensible, it opens up a life to us freed of the burdens of our death-‐dealing schemes. Here, in the silent way of the cross, we Find ourselves wrapped in the deep depths of the Trinity in love. For as we also know this day, the cross is only one end of God’s embrace! Good Friday has no meaning apart from the heights of Easter Sunday. Silent darkness will give way to joyful resurrection. What a blessed mystery this is!

So today, may we re-‐member ourselves in the passion of our Lord. May we remember our baptisms in the deep well of love that is Christ’s death on a cross. And, may we all continue to make that cruciform sign over our bodies that testiFies to the mysterious beauty lying just beyond that darkest silence:

“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Amen.+

(Good Friday cont.)


10 Holy Week 2015

Easter St. John Chrysostom

Archbishop of Constantinople, (c. 349-‐407) If any be a devout lover of God, let him partake with gladness from this fair and radiant feast.

If any be a faithful servant, let him enter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord. If any have wearied himself with fasting, let him now enjoy his reward.

If any have labored from the First hour, let him receive today his rightful due. If any have come after the third, let him celebrate the feast with thankfulness.

If any have come after the sixth, let him not be in doubt, for he will suffer no loss.If any have delayed until the ninth, let him not hesitate but draw near.

If any have arrived only at the eleventh, let him not be afraid because he comes so late.

For the Master is generous and accepts the last even as the First.He gives rest to him who comes at the eleventh hour

in the same was as him who has labored from the First.He accepts the deed, and commends the intention.

Enter then, all of you, into the joy of our Lord.First and last, receive alike your reward.

Rich and poor, dance together.You who fasted and you who have not fasted, rejoice together.

The table is fully laden: let all enjoy it.The calf is fatted: let none go away hungry.

Let none lament his poverty; for the universal Kingdom is revealed.Let none bewail his transgressions; for the light of forgiveness has risen from the tomb.

Let none fear death; for death of the Savior has set us free.

He has destroyed death by undergoing death. He has despoiled hell by descending into hell. He vexed it even as it tasted of His Flesh. Isaiah foretold this when he cried:

Hell was Filled with bitterness when it met Thee face to face below; Filled with bitterness, for it was brought to nothing;

Filled with bitterness, for it was mocked; Filled with bitterness, for it was overthrown; Filled with bitterness, for it was put in chains.

Hell received a body, and encountered God. It received earth, and confronted heaven. O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?

Christ is risen! And you, o death, are annihilated!Christ is risen! And the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is risen! And the angels rejoice!Christ is risen! And life is liberated!

Christ is risen! And the tomb is emptied of its dead;for Christ having risen from the dead,

is become the First-‐fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power, now and forever, and from all ages to all ages. Amen!+


Holy Week 2015 11

EditorsFr. Justin Fletcher Fr. Colin MillerDr. Crystal Hambley Joe SrokaTyler Hambley Michelle SrokaLeigh Edwards Miller Fr. Mac Stewart

Contact UsThe best way to get involved is to come to the Daily Office at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, Monday through Friday at 7:30 am and 5:30 pm. You can also call Fr. Colin at 919-BUM-CHIN (919-286-2446) or the Peter Maurin House at 919-BUM-1-CFW (919-286-1239).

Weekly ScheduleAt St. Josephʹ′s Episcopal Church

(1902 W. Main St.)Morning Prayer: 7:30am Mon-Fri

Breakfast: 8:00am Mon-Fri Evening Prayer: 5:30pm Mon-Fri

At St. Clare Chapel, Maurin House(1116 Iredell St.)

Holy Eucharist 6:25am Mon-Fri Evensong: 6:00pm Sun

Supper: 6:30pm Fri, SunCompline: 8:30pm Fri, Sun

At. St. Mary House(302 Powe St.)

Supper: 6:30pm Tues

All are welcome anytime.

Donate These Things!$500 for an annual CSA to Granite Spgs. Farm

$30k for a Priest’s Stipend coffee

Laundry detergent Dish soap Farm land Toilet paper

13-‐‑gallon trash bags Fresh vegetables Grocery cards

Wheat sandwich bread


The Community of the Franciscan Way

The Little Way is a pamphlet of the Community of the Franciscan Way, a Mission of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. We seek a life of prayer, study, simplicity, and fellowship with the poor. We stand in the tradition of the Catholic Worker Movement, founded in 1933 by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day. The Peter Maurin Catholic Worker House offers food and shelter to the poor. Funds are directly used for the performance of the corporeal and spiritual Works of Mercy, and no one in the House draws any salary from contributions. Donations always welcome.

1116 Iredell StreetDurham, NC 27705

(919) BUM-1-CFW

cfw.dionc.org

The Corporal Works of Mercy To feed the hungry

To give drink to the thirsty To clothe the naked

To harbor the harborless To visit the sick

To ransom the captive To bury the dead

The Spiritual Works of Mercy To instruct the uninformed

To counsel the doubtful To admonish sinners

To bear wrongs patiently To forgive offenses willingly

To comfort the afflicted To pray for the living and the dead



Holy Week 2015

Documents

demons shriek

good things

holy mondaypage

y2 holy week

holy sacrifice

iredell street

day way

good fridaypage