The breaking of the bread and the washing of the feet have taken place. The Easter mysteries have begun.
All the lights of the cloister garden, and the lights of the cloister corridors, are on this evening. The Catholic churches here in the center of Cochabamba are open all evening to the faithful making pilgrimage to them. They visit seven churches in a journey that recapitulates the judgment against Jesus and his condemnation to death. This is a tradition that dates to the year 1300, which was a holy year of jubilee in the Roman Catholic Church. What is the significance of the seven visits? Families go from church to church marking seven moments preceding Jesus’ death, from his agony in the garden of Gethsemane through his arrest, interrogation, beating, trial and condemnation, to his carrying of the cross to Calvary. At each church, the people pause before the Blessed Sacrament, the consecrated bread that makes Christ present, for a moment of adoration and remembering of Jesus’ ultimate struggle against the powers of the world.
This tradition was brought to the Americas by the Spanish conquistadores and evangelizers. Along with the Way of the Cross, observed on Fridays throughout Lent and especially on Good Friday, the Holy Thursday church pilgrimages were adopted by Catholics and handed on down the generations. I suppose this custom is practicable mainly in cities where there are several Catholic churches in walking distance of one another. I know this pilgrimage is being done in midtown Manhattan and includes the Church of St. John the Baptist, our Capuchin church.
As it has been explained to me, the real sense and significance of the pilgrimage comes through a knowledge of the Passion accounts in the Gospels. Perhaps it is best to think of this custom as a folksy form of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises. It is intended to help the faithful put themselves in the scene with Jesus and comprehend the gravity of human betrayal, of sin, of injustice, and violence. It builds empathy for God, whose saving words and acts of love have been rejected. And it builds solidarity with those who are abandoned and left alone to suffer the consequences of personal and structural sin.
Chances are my Christian but not Catholic friends have never heard of this custom. And they might be wondering: Too soon, after Jesus’ loving washing of the feet, his everlasting gift of the Eucharist, and his commandment to love one another? Aren’t we turning the page too quickly to Good Friday? Aren’t we overlooking and underplaying these saving actions of God through Jesus on Holy Thursday? I raise these questions because I entertain my own misgivings about the theological priority being placed on the suffering itself. It seems to elevate what should not be elevated in and of itself: sin and violence. Good Friday seems to crowd out both the salvific work of Jesus’ ministry and the indispensable, un-dismissible reality of his Resurrection. I am especially concerned that, throughout Christian communities today, the significance of the Resurrection is underplayed and its continuing, redeeming, transforming power is underestimated.
But I digress. A theological argument for another day, not this evening. It is time to rest, to reflect, to watch and pray. As for me, I am not going out on the pilgrimage this evening: it’s hard to pray in a crowd. Moreover, with the language students and teachers late this morning, I already stopped by five of the churches in this circuit: La Catedral de San Sebastian, San Juan de Dios, Templo Santa Clara, Templo Santo Domingo, and, of course, my house of worship, Templo San Francisco, where I gave a personal guided tour of the church and convent. What is more, I slept poorly last night, maybe half the night. I feel for the disciples who could not keep watch with Jesus for an hour when he needed protection! Poor Profesora Viviana; she did her best to keep me awake from 8 to 9 a.m., giving me a rest from conversation and giving me an impromptu lecture about the ways that Bolivians of indigenous heritage discouraged their children and grandchildren from learning Aymara or Quechua language and culture.
I have rambled on enough. It is night. It is time to be still. I’ll follow you through the sorrowful mysteries of Good Friday into the glorious mysteries of Easter Sunday. But it is Holy Thursday yet. I want to remain a little while in the light of bread broken and shared, feet held and healed, and a commandment that will always be new.
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