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The last Supper was finished. Our Lord had spoken to the disciples and offered His last prayer in company with them. He led the apostles out into the Garden of Gethsemane, and retiring into the recesses of the garden with Peter, James and John, He left them also, for the burden He was now to take on Himself He alone could bear. He wished, indeed, for their sympathy and for ours, but the burden of the sins of the world was one He would carry Himself. Retiring a little, He allowed the sight of all the sins of the whole world to be present before Him. He would look upon all our sins, not in general but in detail. The union of His human mind with His divine nature enabled Him to make our sins the object of His whole attention. Our forgotten sins, the sins we have not acknowledged. The sins we have tried to hide even from ourselves. He saw them all, and the sight was so appalling that His precious blood forced itself through the pores of His skin and presented as drops upon His brow and fell like tears to the ground. His human heart forced Him to come to us, in the persons of His chosen disciples for empathy, and we had none to give Him. Three times He came and each time we were indifferent, and yet in spite of our sins which were torturing Him, and in spite of our coldness He would go on with His Passion, for He loved us with an infinite love, a love that even our unfaithfulness could not quench.

No sooner had Pilate consented to the death of our Lord, he delivered Him to the soldiers to be scourged. Barabbas had been chosen and our Lord had been rejected. The soldiers bound our Lord to the pillar, and taking off the garment with which Herod had clothed Him, they brought thongs and scourges, and in relays scourged Him most cruelly. He was in the power of the Roman soldiery, and therefore the limit prescribed by the Jewish law did not apply to Him. He was scourged, we are told, as a slave. The Roman soldiers quartered in Jerusalem, would have no delicacy in the brutal punishment they were inflicting. They were practiced in the art of inflicting punishment with the scourge. They were, as some contemplatives tell us, bribed to make our Lord suffer the greatest possible torture. When they became weary of their brutal sport, there was no sound spot left on His back or chest. His body was one bleeding sore.

Our Lord had no need to undergo this excessive torment. It did not redeem humankind. We were redeemed by the blood of our Lord shed on the Cross, by His death on the Cross. This precious shedding of His blood was redundant. It did not atone for sin. What object, then, could Jesus have had? He wished to show us how much He loved us, and loved each soul, for He saw that these excessive, superabundant and seemingly useless sufferings would help us to guage the depth of His love; and He also saw some of us ready to find excuses for not doing or suffering something which we see may help some other soul to love Him, but which we find difficulty in doing.

Following the scourging, our Lord is taken into the barracks of the Roman soldiers, and there He is treated like a fool. Everything that He had said or that had been said about Him at His trial is rudely used against Him. They were ingenious in their contemptuous abuse of Him. They had heard Pilate ask, "shall I crucify your king?" and the idea of the King of the Jews suggested the royal state, and this they would give Him in mockery. They seated Him on a throne improvised from the rude furniture of their guard room. They found Him a sceptre in a reed one of them had taken as a trophy of some expidition, but there was no crown. One of them noticed a thorn tree nearby, and running out he brought back a long branch full of sharp long thorns. It took a few minutes to twist the branch into the form of a crown. They must be careful, for the thorns gave an ugly wound. When the improvised crown was finished, the joke was greeted with loud laughter. Now they had their mock king with all His royal accouterments. They were careful in putting the crown on His head, not because of any respect they had for Him, but for the care they had for their own fingers. When in position they beat the crown down upon His head, for it must be secure. The pain was most intense. Why did He suffer this? Because so many of us are touchy about being laughed at, about our words being turned so as to appear ridiculous; because we lose our temper and become annoyed. He would show us how to bear a trial - a serious and hard trial. After suffering this mockery during the whole night, the crowning as a mock king, merely to keep these soldiers in good humor; after carrying the septre our Lord gives His first prayer on the cross for these very men, and excuses them to His Father: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Our Lord now prepares for the arduous journey to Calvary. Mary, His mother, waits for Him at a most difficult part of the road, praying all the time. She feels every sharp stone which wounds His feet. She feels every jolt of the cross on His shoulder, every tug of the cord with which He is lead by the soldiers, every drag of the clothes over the wounds made by the scourges. She is most closely united to Him. She knows that the sight of her will give Him as much pain as pleasure. Her sympathy gives Him relief, but her suffering makes His more intense. When He comes near they exchange glances, and both renew the offering they have often made together, accepting all that may in any way attract those whom He and she would love. They both pray that their friends in all time may have the courage to bear little things or great as God may will. The lesson here is one of cheerful perserverance in the bearing of the burdens placed upon us.

How cheerfully our Lord bore His cross! He was sore and bruised, yet He made no excuse. He made no complaint. "Weep not for me," He said, as if to say, "I have willingly taken this cross upon Myself. It represents the burden of sin, fashioned by each soul that I love. I would lighten that burden; I would bear it all Myself." Yet the good Lord allowed another, not His mother, but a common man, to help Him. At first, no doubt, unwillingly, but afterwards cheerfully and joyfully, Simon of Cyrene assisted Him.

As the former portions of His Passion had been without reserve, so the last act on the cross was most complete. Jesus would leave nothing undone that could attract the sympathy and love of humankind. He told the disciples just before His Passion that if He were lifted up, He would draw all things to Himself. He draws us by His merciful thought for His executioners, giving them the only excuse that could be found - "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." He attracts us by His divine kindness to the poor thief; by His gift to us of His own mother; by His allowing Himself to feel that desolation which is such a severe trial to his servants, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" He draws us to Himself by the intense longing He exhibits for our soul's good - "I thirst." He draws us also to admire and to love Him by the very completeness of his work for our salvation - "It is consummated." Lastly, He draws us by His divine trust in His Father - "Father, into Your hands I commend My Spirit." He parts with the last drop of His blood, and our mother consents to His sacrifice, consents willingly to His death. The crowd still jeer at Him, though He is suffering death for their sakes. We are at the foot of the cross also. We do not jeer, thank God, but even here we shall not be wholly generous. We still refuse to give up something that Jesus asks us to give Him. Oh Jesus! do not ask of us too hard a sacrifice, for we are weak; but do give us the grace and the courage to give You whatever You deem to be for our good.

Jesus, draw us to Yourself. Fill us with Your generous wholehearted spirit that we may have no reservations in serving You and others. Preserve us from being a hinderance to others, from standing between any soul and You. Give us Your generous love, that we may take it as our own, to learn and apply it daily till our lives are finished and we join You in the praise of Your Father forever and ever. Amen.

Of all the stories in the Old Testament, that of Jonah and the conversion of Nineveh is perhaps one of the most wonderful. The great, prosperous Nineveh of Assyria stood out amongst the cities of the earth as one whose wickedness came up before God. Its destruction was at hand; yet one more warning was to be given to it. Jonah was to preach a divine threat in its thoroughfares. "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed" (Jonah 3:4). And for three days the prophet proclaimed the terrible truth. We read that "The people of Nineveh believed in God; and they ordered a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least. The word came to the king of Nineveh; and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from himself, and was clothed in sackcloth and sat in ashes. He caused it to be proclaimed and published in the city from the mouth of the king and the princes, saying: 'Let neither man nor beast, oxen nor sheep, taste anything; let them not feed, nor taste water. Let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord with all their strength; and let them turn from their evil ways, and from the iniquity that is in their hands. Who can tell whether God will turn away from His fierce anger, and we shall not parish'?" (Jonah 3:5-9).

This was no exterior conversion, no outward semblance of penance and humiliation. God cannot be mocked, He truly sees the heart. The heart of the Ninevites must have been very contrite and humbled, for we further read that "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened" (Jonah 3:10).

Such was the effect of a call to penance upon a pagan and sensual people; such was its power with God that it stayed His avenging hand.

Through the celebration of Ash Wednesday, we formally enter the period of Lent, the Church's time for penance, fasting, and special prayer. "Yet forty days," is the cry. How are we going to listen to the warning voice?

We may say to ourselves, we are not pagans; our wickedness does not go up before the Lord like that of the Assyrians. What was good for the truly wicked may not be applicable to us - or is it? The answer is, penance is applicable and beneficial for the holy as well as for the sinful. It preserves as well as atones. Saints have felt the need of it in all ages and at all times, at the beginning of their conversion and at the end of their lives. In whichever category, therefore, we may think well to place ourselves - saint or sinner - penance is an essential for all of us. We are not true to our best nature when we deny the need for mortification. For we feel the struggle within us, the conflict between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, the compassionate side and self- centeredness. We realize that the good, right and compassionate should conquer, and that these often cannot conquer without some struggle, tension or discomfort, and this discomfort generally involves self denial or self-discipline in one form or another.

Many of us tend to dread penance. It opposes our lower nature; in simple terms, it's uncomfortable and may actually hurt. Human nature is such that it typically shrinks from what is uncomfortable. However, it is astonishing how soon penance becomes easy when it is undertaken with courage. Courage counts as two-thirds of the necessary element for most undertakings, be they natural or supernatural. We can best approach penance by looking forward bravely, and engaging in it cheerfully. If the spirit of penance essentially manifests itself through long-faced sadness and fails to engender for us a level of contentment and holy joy, then there is something very wrong with our effort and purpose. If we choose to bathe at the edge of the sea and get wet by driblets, we inevitably shiver. However, if we plunge in deep we are more likely to experience a glow before we feel the shock. In the same way, those who engage in penance peripherally and grudgingly, are unable to taste its joy. If penance is being practiced as it should be, it becomes an act of prayer which positively unites us with the Passion of our Lord. This union enables us to cheerfully express our love for Jesus and one another. Such honest expression of love promotes a joyful surrender of self.

During the month of January, we typically celebrate Christian Unity Week. In times past, this was commonly referred to as "Ecumenical Sunday." Central to this celebration is the reading of our Lord's prayer for unity as recorded in John 17: 20-26. The verse of this prayer which generally receives particular attention is: "may they all be one as you Father, are in Me, and I in You" (John 17:20).

According to Webster's Dictionary, the term ecumenism is derived from the Greek "oikoumene" meaning universal; representative of the Church in the inhabited world. Such a definition, albeit brief, assuredly encompasses and endorses the relevance of multi-cultural perspectives and influences.

New Testament scholars have unequivocally demonstrated that the four Gospel traditions, each with their origins in different early Christian communities present the life and time of Christ within the concept of their own mentality, local associations and theological understandings. Indigenous religious and cultural practices also colored the expressions of the primitive Church from the outset. The Jewish Church of Jerusalem continued to practice the rite of circumcision whereas the gentile Christians of Antioch did not. Although Easter was celebrated throughout much of Christendom by the beginning of the second century, its date was claculated differently in the East than in the West. Despite a gradual imposition of liturgical conformity within the undivided Church, there were no fewer than five unique liturgical expressions which existed well into the nineth century. These reflected the great ecclesiastical Sees of Europe, Asia and Africa.

In contemporary times, the Christian ecumenical movement received an invigorating "shot in the arm" via the Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church. This Council defined ecumenism as "the restoration of unity among all Christians - those who invoke the Triune God and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior" (Decree on Ecumenism, 1964, Section 1). Over the past several decades, there have been numerous efforts among the various Christian denominations toward a level of intercommunion with one another, with the eventual goal being Christian unity.

Ecumenism should never be construed as the equivalent of absorption - the assimilation of one Christian group or tradition by another. On the contrary, it needs to be an open process of meaningful communion, bolstered by loving concern, with the ultimate goal being unity under our Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

If we permit ourselves to meditate on John 17:20 with an open mind and heart, I believe we can come to an understanding of the wonderful uniqueness of our Lord's prayer for Christian unity.

Jesus' oneness with the Father was founded upon His unique personal communion with the Father. If the Church is tobe one like Jesus and the Father are one, then true Christian unity, ecumenism if you will, must be a reflection of the oneness present within the Triune God, that is, unity in essence and diversity in personality.

If we return to the first centuries of the early Christian Church, to a time when communion was rather informal, we are able to glean some insights on how to reconcile unity with diversity. From the outset, the primitive Christian communities were deeply conscious of their unity and oneness in Jesus Christ. This sense of oneness was nurtured not by a homogenous approach to religious life and faith, but rather by open communication, deliberate and thoughtful sharing and a profound level of genuine tolerance for one another's charisms. The particular charism of each local Church community (Judeo-Christians or Hellenists) was respected by the others. This, in turn, served to enrich the entire Christian Communion. History teaches us repeatedly that only when a charism was "sinfully" pushed to excess, schism occurred. The fracture in 1054 between the Churches of the East and the West as well as the inception of the Old Catholic Church in 1724 are salient examples of such.

Our efforts toward true ecumenism (unity with diversity) should be supported and encouraged by all Christians. Every step we are able to make in the direction of agreement deepens the communion among us and enriches each of us by providing a more balanced awareness and grasp of the revelation to which we all bear witness. On the other hand, whenever we pursue unity on the maxim of assimilation, we engage with our brothers and sisters in a manner contrary to Jesus' prayer for oneness. Whenever we hurl such epithets as: "schismatic" or "invalid" at any of our Christian brethren we damage ourselves and present a compelling argument to the world that we have in fact lost sight of our true redemptive mission - to share God's love as experienced and lived by Christ.

The foundation for all efforts toward unity must be modeled after our Lord's oneness with His Father and rooted in the nature of God and Jesus' obedient love. The Father is "in" Jesus, and Jesus is "in" the Father. If we love one another as Jesus loves His Father and the Father loves the Son, this same expression of love will manifest itself in our lives and efforts with one another. The motivating power of God's love which guided the earthly ministry of Jesus would then assuredly become the dominating expression of the Church's mission, including its various endeavors in the arena of ecumenism.