Agony in the Garden:
The place of transformation

Last in a seven-part Lenten series.

		The Garden of Gethsemane  The Place of Transformation Fr. Ronald Rolheiser

"There is only one way to put an end to evil, and that is to do good for evil."

That cryptic phrase from Leo Tolstoy can serve as a key to help understand the real drama that Jesus underwent in Gethsemane.

The blood he sweated there, as lover, was not just the blood of the romantic lover, the obsessive pain of elusive love, the bitter pain of love gone sour, or the crushing pain of having to give up romance for fidelity.

Jesus suffered these in Gethsemane, but there was something more. He also had to sweat the blood of the lover who is willing to absorb the tension inside a community so as to transform it and take it away.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus sweats the blood of the lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

Jesus takes away sins

Jesus is the lamb who takes away the sins of the world. That's the central piece in the Christian notion of salvation and it's also the ultimate icon inside of our faith.

It has a variety of expressions but always the same meaning:

• "Jesus' suffering takes away our sins."

• "We are washed in the blood of the lamb."

• "By his stripes we are healed."

• "Jesus' sufferings reconcile us to God."

But how are we washed clean and reconciled through the blood of Jesus?

Scripture expresses this in metaphors and we must be careful, precisely, to not turn metaphor into literal understanding here.

Jesus did not die to appease a God whose anger at humanity could not be placated by anything humans could do. God didn't need to see Jesus suffer horrific pain and humiliation in order to forgive us for sin.

God doesn't have to be appeased; though, granted, that's what the metaphors and icons of the "lamb of God" can suggest.

Absorbs, transforms sin

Jesus took away sin, not by placating some anger in God, but by absorbing and transforming sin. How?

In ancient times, there were "scapegoat" rituals, liturgies intended to take tension out of a community.

When tensions within ran high, communities would gather and symbolically invest those tensions onto a goat or a sheep that they would then drive out into the wilderness to die. The idea was that this animal, the "scapegoat," took the tension and sin out of the community by leaving the community and dying.

Jesus does this, but in a radically different way. He takes the sin and tension out of the community, not by dying and going away, but by absorbing and transforming it into something else. How does he do this?

Ultimate cleanser

Perhaps an image (sadly, more mechanical than organic) might be helpful. Jesus took away our sins in the same way as a filter purifies water. A filter takes in impure water, holds the impurities inside of itself, and gives back only the pure water. It transforms rather than transmits.

We see this in Jesus: Like the ultimate cleansing filter, he purifies life itself. He takes in hatred, holds it, transforms it, and gives back love; he takes in bitterness, holds it, transforms it, and gives back graciousness; he takes in curses, holds them, transforms them, and gives back blessing; he takes in chaos, holds it, transforms it, and gives back order; he takes in fear, holds it, transforms it, and gives back freedom; he takes in jealousy, holds it, transforms it, and gives back affirmation; and he takes in Satan and murder, holds them, transforms them, and gives back only God and forgiveness.

Jesus takes away the sins of the world in the same way a water filter takes impurities out of water, by absorbing and holding all that isn't clean and giving back only what is.

Facing temptations

This isn't easy. To do this, without resentment, means sweating blood, a lover's blood. Jesus walked into the Garden of Gethsemane as the archetypal lover, but also as one tempted, just as we are, toward bitterness, fear, resentment, and self-protection. He was haunted by all the same proclivities that beset us.

But, and this is the point, in Gethsemane, he transformed rather than transmitted those temptations.

He didn't simply give back in kind, letting the energy simply flow through him. He purified the energy and took the tension and sin out of it by absorbing them. It cost him his blood, his life, and his reputation.

He had to sweat blood, but he emerged from the Garden the truly generative lover who, at the price of giving away everything, gives back peace for tension and forgiveness for sin, absorbing in his own person the tension and sin so as to take them out of the community.

The giving over of that kind of blood really does wash away sin.

Called as followers

And, in doing this, Jesus doesn't want admirers, but followers. The Garden of Gethsemane invites us, every one of us, to step in and to step up.

It invites us to sweat a lover's blood so as to help absorb, purify, and transform tension and sin rather than simply transmit them.

Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser is a theologian, teacher, and award-winning author of several books on spirituality. He currently serves in Toronto and Rome as the general councilor for Canada for his religious order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

Miracles:
Passage of act recognizes rights of unborn child

	Life Issues Forum  Cathy Cleaver Ruse, Esq.

There is no such thing as coincidence, but there are miracles in which God wishes to remain anonymous.

This is the kind of miracle that happened when, after three years of stalling, the Senate finally agreed to take up the Unborn Victims of Violence Act - on the Solemnity of the Annunciation.

Debating status

That day, when Catholics contemplate the moment when the Son of God became man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the U.S. Senate debated whether a child who is in the womb of his mother when she is violently attacked might also be seen as a victim to the assault.

The bill addresses federal crimes of violence wherein the death of an unborn child is not currently recognized or charged. It is also known as "Laci and Conner's Law," in memory of Laci Peterson and her unborn child. Laci's mother, Sharon Rocha, fought for passage of this law, saying that "when a criminal attacks a woman who carries a child, he claims two victims. I lost my daughter, and, I also lost my grandson."

Abortion lobby fought

The bill exempts abortion, but the abortion lobby fought it anyway. Their grievance? The bill commits the unpardonable pro-choice sin: In the words of Senator Dianne Feinstein, it recognizes that a child in utero is "a human being."

Abortion activists recoil from any acknowledgment of a child's existence before birth, whatever the context, and however bizarre the argument, in order to protect the "logic" of Roe v. Wade. Senator Feinstein pushed for a substitute bill that would add penalties for interrupting a woman's "pregnancy" but erases any mention of the child as a victim, because of this fear about undermining Roe.

But the child was the whole point. A woman who has lost an unborn child in a violent attack deserves the law's recognition that both she and her child were victims of the crime. Anything less is an affront to women and their children.

Unborn recognized

Abortion advocates hold up Roe as if it were the standard by which all other laws should be judged, forgetting that legal abortion is the uncomfortable exception, not the rule, when it comes to the way the law treats unborn children.

Outside the context of abortion, unborn children are often recognized by the law. Most states allow legal recourse for prenatal injuries and recognize fetal homicide as a crime.

Unborn children can inherit property, be represented by a guardian, and sue for a wrongful death if their father is killed. They are considered human subjects protected from harmful research, and can qualify as recipients of state-funded health insurance.

Abortion is exception

Abortion is the glaring exception here. An exception that simply cannot be reconciled within this framework of rights for the unborn child. It defies logic that on Monday a child can inherit property or file claims in court and on Tuesday he disappears in the eyes of the law if an abortion choice is made.

The "logic" of Roe v. Wade is like the Emperor's new clothes, and the abortion lobby stands in fear of the day when this logic is revealed to be just as insubstantial.

That day is bound to come. Senator Feinstein herself got so carried away with explaining how the bill threatened abortion that she said too much: "If it's murder here, is it not murder there?"

That is the tricky thing with logic, Senator. It has a conclusion.

Cathy Cleaver Ruse, Esq. is the director of planning and information for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities.

Holy Week:
Powerful lessons from The Passion of the Christ

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

For 51 years, a life-size crucifix has hung in my suburban Washington church - first on the apse wall, now above the renovated sanctuary. It's as familiar as anything the parish has ever known, the "signature" piece that defines this space as our parish.

Yet during Holy Week this year, I expect that thousands of parishioners will look at that crucifix and see something new.

Why? Because they'll bring to their gaze images from The Passion of the Christ. Perhaps some, whose mind's eye had never imagined the brutality of the sorrowful mysteries, will find it difficult to look at that familiar crucifix or to venerate the cross during the Good Friday liturgy.

Far more, I expect, at home and around the world, will live a richer encounter with the crucified Christ because of the experience of The Passion.

Centrality of the cross

I hope, for example, that many Catholics live Holy Week 2004 with a renewed appreciation of the centrality of the cross in the Christian life.

H. Richard Niebuhr's famous critique of liberal Christianity - "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ with a cross" - has been cited frequently during the debate over The Passion, but it deserves repeating.

There is no Christianity without Good Friday because there is no Easter without Good Friday. Good Friday and Easter, together, constitute the mystery of liberating obedience and redemptive suffering that stands at the heart of the Christian proposal.

Those who remember Jesus in The Passion getting up, time and again, to embrace his suffering in obedience to the will of his Father will "see" Good Friday differently this year - and will have a more powerful, joyful experience of Easter.

Mary: mother, disciple

Then there is the Marian dimension of The Passion. Maia Morgenstern, descendant of Holocaust survivors, will be the image of Mary at the foot of the cross in tens of millions of Christian minds this Holy Week. The Passion shows us Mary as "Mother of the Church."

It also shows Mary as the pattern of all Christian discipleship: Mary, whose spoken fiat at the Annunciation - "Be it done unto me according to your word" - is completed by her silent fiat at the foot of the cross, immortalized by Michelangelo in the Pieta.

In a culture of delayed commitments and exit strategies, Mary's unambiguous "yes" invites us to stake everything on the God who keeps his promises to the last generation.

Eucharist as memorial

Many Catholics will approach Holy Thursday differently this year because of the profoundly Eucharistic imagery of The Passion. In recent years, Catholics may have forgotten that the Eucharist is (as the Catechism puts it), "the sacrificial memorial of Christ and his Body."

In The Passion, the juxtaposition of the lifting up of the cross and the lifting up of the bread at the Last Supper is a powerful reminder that every Mass is a memorial of Good Friday, as well as a celebration of the Risen Christ's Eucharistic presence to his Easter people.

To accept the Lord's offer of his Body and Blood in Holy Communion is not just a question of good manners, of saying "yes" to a gracious host; to say "Amen" to the declaration, "the Body and Blood of Christ," is to embrace the sacrifice of the cross, present for our salvation in the Eucharist.

Jewish savior

Finally, I expect that many Catholics will celebrate Holy Week this year with a deeper appreciation of Jesus' words to the Samaritan woman in John 4:22: "Salvation is from the Jews."

The story of Holy Week is a very Jewish story and makes no sense outside the context of God's revelation to his chosen people. Those of us from the "wild olive tree" of the Gentiles who have been grafted onto the "cultivated" olive tree of Israel (Romans 11:23) should reflect with gratitude this year that the savior whose redemption we commemorate and celebrate is a Jewish savior, who lived and died a faithful son of Israel, with the psalms on his lips as he commended his spirit to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

All of which will, I hope, take us from debate to prayer, and from contention to contemplation, in Holy Week 2004.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.