During the Sacred Paschal Triduum last week, many people remarked on the ways in which we infused those celebrations with even greater beauty this year: the elevated music, the singing of the Passion and all the prayers and Gospels of the Masses, the custom-commissioned art, like this year’s Paschal candle, and many new vestments or sacred vessels that have enhanced the beauty of the Sacred Liturgy. But nothing seemed to catch people’s attention like the small army of young men serving at each liturgy.

          Spending three intense days with these young men was one of the best things I have ever done as a priest. We not only rehearsed the ceremonies carefully for the greater glory of God and the edification of the faithful, but even made the Triduum a retreat for the young men who were serving. It was a chance to sum up for these young men our Lenten leitmotif of freedom from slavery, and show them how it is echoed in the beautiful and solemn liturgies of the Sacred Paschal Triduum. It was clear from observing them, and even from their own comments, that they prayed the Mass like never before.

          We began on Holy Thursday by reflecting on Christ’s desire to eat the Last Supper with His disciples, His desire to draw them closer into relationship with Him and with each other. “You’re not here because I need help serving these Masses,” I told them. “You’re here because Christ wants to spend these three most important days of His life with you.” We had their attention from the very beginning. Our question for Holy Thursday was: “What is the deeper desire that Christ has placed in my heart? What do I desire that is even deeper than the natural attractions that I experience? What is it that I really want out of life? What is the deeper desire that I’ve been afraid to say ‘yes’ to?”

          On Good Friday, we recalled that central theme of our Lenten journey: The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years because an entire generation had to die, a generation that only knew how to be slaves. Something in you also only knows how to be a slave. It’s the part of you that can’t let go of that addiction to sin, the sin that is keeping you from saying “yes” to the deeper desires of your own heart. Confront that place of slavery in you, show it to the Lord, and ask Him to kill it through His own agony and death.

          On Holy Saturday, we anticipated the joy of the Lord’s Resurrection, the joy of true freedom. The places of slavery had been brought to light and slain by Christ’s Cross. Now you’ve been set free. But what is that freedom for? What does God want to do with you now? What is the new life to which you want to commit yourself to prevent ever being enslaved again?

          We also we walked through the imagery on our beautiful Paschal candle. The Paschal candle this year was decorated by an artist from South Bend named Anastasia Cassady – a close friend of mine. It is painted entirely by hand, with an iconographic program that narrates liberation from slavery in Egypt and from sin.

          It begins with the Egyptians and the bricks the Hebrews were forced to make in their slavery. The soul without Christ is likewise enslaved to sin. But God intervened dramatically and through the seven plagues scourged Egypt with mighty power, leading Pharoah to let the Hebrews go, as the Lord led them dry-shod through the Red Sea, an image of the Baptism through which our souls were first set free from slavery to sin.

          But the Hebrews’ time of slavery in Egypt had changed them. After hundreds of years of bondage, they only knew how to be slaves. The battles to take control of their new home will be long-fought and hard-won, if they are won at all. “Then all the congregation raised a loud cry; … And all the people of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron; … ‘Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! … Why does the Lord bring us into this land, to fall by the sword? … Let us choose a captain, and go back to Egypt’” – back to slavery.

          It’s interesting, though, that the Lord does not just strike them dead. He works with them slowly to bring about a new generation that, instead of learning to be slaves, learns to rely on Him for everything. Thus, the next symbol is the jar with which the Israelites gathered the manna each day – the miraculous bread that appeared with the dewfall every day for 40 years, the “daily bread” of which the Lord’s prayer speaks. Also with the manna jar is the quail that appeared with the manna after the Israelites grumbled again in dissatisfaction with the tasteless manna, desiring real meat. The Lord’s mercy is ever new as He provides all that His people need, and even gives in to their grumbling in everlasting patience.

          Lastly, there is the Ark of the Covenant ready to be carried across the River Jordan into the Promised Land. The Ark is the sign of God’s abiding presence with His people, and that the Lord will accomplish our definitive freedom from slavery when He leads us into the true Promised Land, the celestial Jerusalem.

          We see in the Acts of the Apostles the proclamation of the Risen Lord through the continuation of His ministry of healing, carried on by the Apostles in their unique status as witnesses of the Resurrection. In Christ’s earthly ministry, physical healing is always connected to the forgiveness of sins. His death has set free the parts of your heart that only know how to be a slave, but there is a lot of healing of the wounds of sin yet to be done.

          Repentance is more than just saying you’re sorry. It is a change of heart, a turning of the self in a new direction. We call it as well “conversion,” literally, “with turning.” To totally turn away from something, you must forget that it’s there. You need a purification of your memory so that you don’t even think about that place of slavery anymore. The good news is that God’s grace can do this. The Egyptian on the Paschal candle is already burning away! Actually, as of this morning, after burning for eight days and nights during the Octave, he has been decapitated! Sin has no more power over you, if only you recognize it for the nothingness that it really is. Christ is purifying your desire for that place of slavery. The fulfillment of the manna, the Eucharist, the real daily bread, is transforming you from within.

          In the middle of the Paschal candle is the Cross, into which are inserted five grains of incense. At the Paschal Vigil, as the priest inserts these incense grains into the Cross, he prays, “By his holy and glorious wounds may Christ our Lord, guard and keep us.” Usually, these incense grains come with the pre-decorated catalogue candles, and they look more like wax squares than incense grains, so I make them out of the incense that we use on Holy Thursday and certain other feasts throughout the year. You melt the incense (which is made out of tree sap) just enough that it becomes sticky and moldable, but not enough that it will burn your hands, and then you form it into a ball at the end of a nail.

          This use of incense to decorate the wounds of Christ is supremely ironic. As I push those nails with their incense balls into the Cross, I’m reminded of the nails of my sins that the soldiers drove into Christ’s broken body. It’s ironic because incense is the symbol of the fragrant and pleasing offering that Christ offers to the Father. How could my sin carry what is beautiful and pleasing to the Father?

          Thus, we can understand how Thomas’s hands must have trembled (nay, shook!) as he placed his finger in the nail holes in the Lord’s hands, and as he placed his hand in the Lord’s side. Every wound of sin can be transformed. Every corner of your heart that only knows how to be a slave can be healed. And not only can it be healed, it can become something new. Every wound of sin can be transformed into a pleasing and fragrant offering to the Lord.

          An essential part of sacrifice is that the victim is consumed – by eating, or by fire. As the incense is consumed by the red-hot coals, the sins that drive in the nails are burnt away as well. After all, the nails were His weapons all along. This supreme and supremely great irony is recorded in the Latin text on the Paschal candle, taken from the Exultet, the great hymn of praise of the Paschal candle sung at the Paschal Vigil: Ut servum redimeres, filium tradidisti: To ransom a slave, You gave away a Son. This is indeed, as the Exultet cries out, the “wonder of [His] humble care for us!” It is the “love, [the] charity beyond all telling,” that the ones who only know how to be slaves can only forget their desire to go back to Egypt, because to ransom us slaves, He gave away His Son.

          The sins and the places of slavery have been driven out. The memory of your past enslavement to sin is burning away like the Egyptian on the Paschal candle. But what is to take its place? Maybe that’s the question for you to answer too.

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

II Sunday of Easter, A.D. MMXXV