“There are few authentic prophetic voices among us, guiding truth-seekers along the right path. Among them is Fr. Gordon MacRae, a mighty voice in the prison tradition of John the Baptist, Maximilian Kolbe, Alfred Delp, SJ, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.”
— Deacon David Jones
Behold the Lamb of God Upon the Altar of Mount Moriah
“This is the night when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld. Our birth would have been no gain had we not been redeemed.”
“This is the night when Christ broke the prison-bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld. Our birth would have been no gain had we not been redeemed.”
Holy Week 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae
You might readily see the irony of my invoking the haunting passage above. It is from the Exultet, that wondrous proclamation of Salvation History as the Paschal Candle is blessed at the doors of the church in the liturgy for the Easter Vigil. The imagery of Christ breaking the prison bars of death may understandably have deep meaning for me. The excerpt recalls a scene from Holy Week that I once wrote about in “To the Spirits in Prison: When Jesus Descended into Hell.”
That post tells the story referenced in the Second Letter of Saint Peter, about what happened to Jesus on what we now call Holy Saturday, that period of darkness between the Cross and the Resurrection. And I just now realized, looking back at that post from several years ago, that I cited that same passage from the Exultet in its opening.
Back in February 2025, I wrote a post entitled “On the Great Biblical Adventure, the Truth Will Make You Free.” It mentioned my recent acquisition of the much anticipated Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testament edited by Dr. Scott Hahn. That post also referred to a recent and surprising resurgence of biblical interest throughout the free world. I learned of that explosion of interest when Ignatius Press placed me on a waiting list for that particular bible which is now in its fourth or fifth printing. I have been lugging the weighty hardcover tome, consisting of 2,314 pages, around with me for two months at this writing. I don’t seem to be able to part with it for long. It is a treasure trove of biblical insight and truth, filled not only with readable and scholarly translations of Sacred Scripture, but also with scholars’ notes on the biblical texts. From a historical perspective it draws clear connections between the Old and New Testaments. From a spiritual perspective it is as though a lamp has been relit opening for me, and hopefully also for you, a world of deeper meaning embedded within the texts. As I mentioned in a previous post, my goal has been two-fold: to educate, or rather reeducate myself on the story of God and us, and to avoid dropping the very heavy book on my foot in the process.
The interpretation of a religious text is a study called exegesis. It seeks to convey and understand both the literal and spiritual sense of biblical truths. Neither should be sacrificed in pursuit of the other. I have often described it this way: There is a story on its surface, which is true, and a far greater story in its depths which points to even greater truths. One way in which the spiritual truth of Scripture is expressed is in allegory. Jesus told many allegorical accounts in parables. Most readers are clear that the truth in these precious accounts is in the lesson they convey. Two of the most famous examples are the “Parable of the Good Samaritan” and the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” You know these stories well, and they need no explanation.
Most of Sacred Scripture is not conveyed in parable form, but as a historical narrative. Allegory is still very much a part of that narrative, and we are cheating our understanding of a text when we suppress its allegorical content. We should start by accepting both truths: the truth of the historical content of Scripture and the equal and sometimes even greater truth in its allegorical content. In this sense allegory refers to a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or religious one. In the 19th and 20th centuries, fundamentalist Scripture scholars stripped allegory from their interpretations of the text, but at great cost. More modern scholars have restored it. One of them has been Dr. Scott Hahn.
When I cited an excerpt from the Exultet Proclamation from the Easter Vigil liturgy as I opened this post, I later realized that the Second Reading for the Easter Vigil Mass is one that I have pondered for a very long time. It is from Genesis 22:1-19, the story of God calling upon Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved son. “So momentous is this event in its outcome,” wrote Scott Hahn, “that it stands as one of the defining moments of Salvation History.” I have set out to study the great depths of this account and they are astonishing.
Abraham and Isaac
Isaac is a Hebrew name, of course, and it means “He laughs.” It has its origin in Genesis 17:16-17: “ ‘I will bless (Sarah) and moreover I will give you a son by her; I will bless her and she shall be the mother of nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.’ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ ”
Abraham apparently gave little thought to the wisdom of falling to the ground and laughing at God. The fact that he “said it to himself” is no guarantee that God would not have heard it loud and clear. And so it was that the Word of God came to give the son of Abraham and Sarah the name “Isaac,” which means “He laughs.”
Abraham was apparently not the only one laughing. God seemed to get a chuckle out of it as well.
As the story progressed, the significance of Isaac’s birth was immediate. He was to be the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. Isaac was to be the bearer of the covenant into future generations: “I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for him and his descendants after him” (Genesis 17:19). Then the drama of the Book of Genesis reaches its greatest intensity with the heart-wrenching story of God’s call to Abraham to sacrifice as a burnt offering his beloved son upon the heights of Mount Moriah. Had Abraham shown anything less than heroic faith and obedience the grand narrative of the Bible would have developed very differently thereafter. Here is the Genesis account which became the Second Reading of our Easter Vigil liturgy.
From the Book of Genesis 22:1-18:
After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, “Take your son, your only begotten son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and went to the place of which God had told him. … Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on the shoulders of his son to carry, and he took in his own hands the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. Isaac said to his father, “Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.”
When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order, and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. Then Abraham put forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham! Do not lay your hand on your son or do anything to him for now I know that you have not withheld your only begotten son from me.” Abraham then lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. So Abraham went and took the lamb and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place YHWH YIR’EH, in Hebrew, “The Lord will see.”
It is from this very account that, twenty one centuries later, the Gospel of John (1:29) proclaims “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
I have always felt that this account in Genesis was a presage, a looking far ahead, to the sacrifice of Jesus upon Golgotha. It is allegorical in that sense. The account is true on its literal face but it is also true that it echoes the Greatest Story Ever Told which will come many centuries later. All the elements are there. The Second Book of Chronicles (3:1) identifies Moriah as the site upon which, nearly one thousand years later, Solomon would build the Jerusalem Temple, and Calvary, where the only begotten Son of God was crucified, is a hillock in the Moriah range. So for the Hebrew reader of the story of the Crucifixion, there is a powerful sense of déjà vu: the place, the mount, Abraham placing the wood for sacrifice upon the back of Isaac, and is not the ram caught by its horns in the thicket highly reminiscent of the Crown of Thorns? But we cannot reminisce backwards. This amazing account from Genesis is a mysterious example of the power of biblical inspiration. Only in the mind of God, in the time of Genesis, was the story of Christ evident.
From Sheol to the Kingdom of Heaven
In the Old Testament, “to die” meant to descend to Sheol. It was our final destination. To rise from the dead, therefore, meant to rise from Sheol, but no one ever did. The concept of Sheol being the “underworld” is a simple employment of the cosmology of ancient Judaism which understood the abode of God and the heavens as being above the Earth, and Sheol, the place of the dead, as below it. This is the source of our common understanding of Heaven and hell, but it omits a vast theological comprehension of the death, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus and the human need to understand our own death in terms of faith.
If, up to the time of Jesus, “to die” meant to descend into Sheol, then Jesus introduced an entirely new understanding of death in his statement from the Cross to the penitent criminal, Dismas, who pleaded from his own cross, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus responded, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). This is an account that I once told entitled, “Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found.”
It is by far the most widely read of our Holy Week posts, and not just at Holy Week. On the Cross, where the penitent criminal comes to faith while being crucified along with Jesus, God dissolves the bonds of death because death can have no power over Jesus. It is highly relevant for us that the conditions in which the penitent Dismas entered Paradise were to bear his cross and to come to faith.
It was at the moment Jesus declared, in His final word from the Cross, “It is finished,” that Heaven, the abode of God, opened for human souls for the first time in human history. The Gospels do not treat this moment lightly:
“It was now about the sixth hour [3:00 PM], and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the Temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Saying this he breathed his last.”
— Luke 23:44-46
“And behold, the curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the Earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised ... When the centurion, and those who were with him keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake, and what took place, they were filled with awe, and said, ‘Clearly, this was the Son of God.’”
— Matthew 27:51-54
The veil of the Temple being torn in two appears also in Mark’s Gospel (15:38) and is highly significant. Two veils hung in the Jerusalem Temple. One was visible, separating the outer courts from the sanctuary. The other was visible only to the priests as it hung inside the sanctuary before its most sacred chamber in which the Holy of Holies dwelled (see Exodus 26:31-34). At the death of Jesus, the curtain of the Temple being torn from top to bottom is symbolic of salvation itself. Upon the death of Jesus, the barrier between the Face of God and His people was removed.
According to the works of the ancient Jewish historian, Josephus, the curtain barrier before the inner sanctuary that was torn in two was heavily embroidered with images of the Creation and the Cosmos. Its destruction symbolized the opening of Heaven, God’s dwelling place and the Angelic Realm, to human souls.
In ancient Israel in the time of Abraham and Isaac the concept of Sheol after death was closely connected with the grave and pictured only as a gloomy underworld hidden deep in the bowels of the Earth. There human souls descended after death (Genesis 37:35) to a joyless existence where the Lord is neither seen nor worshipped. Both the righteous and the wicked sank into the nether world (Genesis 44:31). Despite the apparent finality of death, Scripture displays great confidence in the power of God to deliver his people from its clutches. That confidence was made manifest in the deliverance of Jesus from his tomb after he displayed the power of God to the one place where he had always been absent, the realm of the dead. “For Christ also died for sins once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and declared to the spirits in prison who did not formerly obey when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah.” (1 Peter 3:18-20)
The essential point for us could not be clearer or more hopeful. Besides Jesus himself, the first to be sanctioned with a promise of paradise was a condemned prisoner who, even in the intense suffering of his own cross, refused to mock Jesus but rather came to believe and then place all his final hope in that belief. As I ended “Dismas, Crucified to the Right” Dismas was given a new view from his cross, a view beyond death away from the East of Eden, across the Undiscovered Country of Death, toward his sunrise and eternal home.
I have written many times that we live in a most important time. The story of Abraham told above took place twenty one centuries before the Birth of the Messiah. We now live in the twenty first century after. Christ is now at the very center of Salvation History.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Here are some recommended posts along a similar theme.
The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead
To the Kingdom of Heaven through a Narrow Gate
Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found
A Devil in the Desert for the Last Temptation of Christ
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Our “From Ashes to Easter” feature will be retitled after the Easter Season to become “Salvation History.” We will adding other Scripture-based posts at that time.
News Alert: When we tried to share some of these Holy Week posts in several Facebook Catholic groups, Facebook characterized them as “SPAM” and then disabled our account. There is no easy way to communicate with Facebook about this. We have opened an “X” account (formerly Twitter) and find it a much more accepting platform for Catholic or traditional viewpoints. Please follow us there at BeyondTheseStoneWalls.
With many thanks and Easter Blessings,
Father Gordon MacRae
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
Our Holy Week Retreat for Beyond These Stone Walls
Each Holy Week since 2010 Fr Gordon MacRae has composed a special post based on the Scriptural events of the Way of the Cross. They now comprise a Holy Week retreat.
Each Holy Week since 2010 Fr Gordon MacRae has composed a special post based on the Scriptural events of the Way of the Cross. They now comprise a Holy Week retreat.
March 20, 2024 by Father Gordon MacRae
As many of our readers know, this blog began in controversy in 2009. Born out of a challenge from the late Cardinal Avery Dulles to rise above suffering and consider instead its legacy. Many posts in my long Prison Journal since 2010 have been about the injustices that I and other priests have faced. But in the weeks before his death in December 2008, Cardinal Dulles sent a series of letters to me in prison. He challenged me to dig deeper into my own passion narrative. Cardinal Dulles wrote:
“Someone might want to add a new chapter to the volume of Christian literature from those unjustly in prison. In the tradition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr Alfred Delp, Fr Walter Ciszek, and Saint Paul, your writing, which is clear, eloquent and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials.”
And so in preparation for Holy Week in 2010, I began to make a concerted effort to set aside my own unjust plight to write a post about the Passion of the Christ. I compose a new Holy Week post every year since to present a different scene in the Way of the Cross. For me, this has become a sacred obligation as a priest to take part in my own unique way in the events that led to Calvary and beyond. And, yes, there IS a beyond.
Many readers, especially those who have also suffered in ways large or small, have found these posts to be inspiring. No one has been more surprised by this than me. So we have collected our Holy Week posts in the order in which they appear in the Gospel narrative to become an invitation for a personal retreat. We invite you to make these posts a part of your Holy Week and Easter observance.
If any of them touches your heart and soul in some way, or gives you a deeper understanding of the Scriptures, then please also share a link to them with others. I hear from many newer readers who first came to this blog in just that way, and then found in these pages spiritual consolation and a path to peace.
We will add a new post on Wednesday of Holy Week this year and will make the title linked here, active at that time. We will retain these links at our “Special Post” feature until Pentecost, the conclusion of the Easter Season:
The Passion of the Christ in an Age of Outrage (2020)
Overshadowing Holy Week with forced pandemic restrictions and political outrage recalls the Bar Kochba revolt of AD 132 against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem.
Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light (2020)
The central figures present before the Sacrament for the Life of the World are Jesus on the eve of sacrifice and Satan on the eve of battle to restore the darkness.
Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane (2019)
The Agony in the Garden, the First Sorrowful Mystery, is a painful scene in the Passion of the Christ, but in each of the Synoptic Gospels the Apostles slept through it.
The Apostle Falls: Simon Peter Denies Christ (2024)
The fall of Simon Peter was a scandal of biblical proportions. His three-time denial of Jesus is recounted in every Gospel, but all is not as it first seems to be.
Behold the Man, as Pilate Washes His Hands (2014)
‘Ecce Homo,’ an 1871 painting of Christ before Pilate by Antonio Ciseri, depicts a moment woven into Salvation History and into our very souls. ‘Shall I crucify your king?’
The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’ (2017)
The Passion of the Christ has historical meaning on its face, but a far deeper story lies beneath where the threads of faith and history connect to awaken the soul.
Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross (2023)
Simon of Cyrene was just a man on his way to Jerusalem but the scourging of Jesus was so severe that Roman soldiers feared he may not live to carry his cross alone.
Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found (2012)
Who was Saint Dismas, the Penitent Thief, crucified to the right of Jesus at Calvary? His brief Passion Narrative appearance has deep meaning for Salvation.
To the Spirits in Prison: When Jesus Descended into Hell (2022)
The Apostles Creed is the oldest statement of Catholic belief and apostolic witness. Its Fifth Article, what happened to Jesus between the Cross and the Resurrection, is a mystery to be unveiled.
Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb (2015)
History unjustly sullied her name without evidence, but Mary Magdalene emerges from the Gospel a faithful, courageous, and noble woman, an Apostle to the Apostles.
Before the gates there sat, On either side a formidable Shape
One of Gustave Dore’s illustrations of the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton (Courtesy of University at Buffalo)
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
A Personal Holy Week Retreat at Beyond These Stone Walls
Each year since 2010, Fr Gordon MacRae composed from prison a special Holy Week post. These posts follow the Way of the Cross creating a personal Holy Week retreat.
Each year since 2010, Fr Gordon MacRae composed from prison a special Holy Week post. These posts follow the Way of the Cross creating a personal Holy Week retreat.
March 29, 2023 by Fr. Gordon MacRae
As many of our readers know, this blog began in controversy in 2009. It was born out of a challenge from the late Cardinal Avery Dulles to rise above suffering and consider its legacy. Many posts in this Prison Journal have been about the injustices that I and other priests have faced. But in the weeks before his death in December 2008, Cardinal Dulles sent a series of letters to me in prison. He challenged me to dig deeper into my own passion narrative. Cardinal Dulles wrote:
“Someone might want to add a new chapter to the volume of Christian literature from those unjustly in prison. In the tradition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fr Alfred Delp, Fr Walter Ciszek, and Saint Paul, your writing, which is clear, eloquent and spiritually sound, will be a monument to your trials.”
And so in preparation for Holy Week in 2010, I began to make a concerted effort to set aside my own unjust plight for a time to write a post about the ascent to Calvary. Then I repeated that effort year after year, with each post presenting a different scene in the Passion of the Christ.
Taken as a whole, these Holy Week posts now form a complete Way of the Cross. Some readers have found them to be inspiring. So this year we have collected our Holy Week posts, not in the order in which they were written, but in the order in which they appear in the Gospel narrative. They become, for some readers, a personal Holy Week retreat.
We invite you to make these posts a part of your Holy Week and Easter observance. We will retain them at our “Holy Week” page until Pentecost, the conclusion of the Easter Season:
The Passion of the Christ in an Age of Outrage
Overshadowing Holy Week with forced pandemic restrictions and political outrage recalls the Bar Kochba revolt of AD 132 against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem.
Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light
The central figures present before the Sacrament for the Life of the World are Jesus on the eve of sacrifice and Satan on the eve of battle to restore the darkness.
Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane
The Agony in the Garden, the First Sorrowful Mystery, is a painful scene in the Passion of the Christ, but in each of the Synoptic Gospels the Apostles slept through it.
Behold the Man, as Pilate Washes His Hands
‘Ecce Homo,’ an 1871 painting of Christ before Pilate by Antonio Ciseri, depicts a moment woven into Salvation History and into our very souls. ‘Shall I crucify your king?’
The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’
The Passion of the Christ has historical meaning on its face, but a far deeper story lies beneath where the threads of faith and history connect to awaken the soul.
Simon of Cyrene Compelled to Carry the Cross
Simon of Cyrene was just a man on his way to Jerusalem but the scourging of Jesus was so severe that Roman soldiers feared he may not live to carry his cross alone.
Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found
Who was Saint Dismas, the Penitent Thief, crucified to the right of Jesus at Calvary? His brief Passion Narrative appearance has deep meaning for Christians.
To the Spirits in Prison: When Jesus Descended into Hell
The Apostles Creed is the oldest statement of Catholic belief and apostolic witness. Its Fifth Article, that Jesus descended into hell, is a mystery to be unveiled.
Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb
History unjustly sullied her name without evidence, but Mary Magdalene emerge from the Gospel a faithful, courageous, and noble woman, an Apostle to the Apostles.
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”
The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead
The commemoration of our beloved dead on All Souls Day has roots in ancient Christian tradition, Faith in the God of Life in the land of the living survives death.
The commemoration of our beloved dead on All Souls Day has roots in ancient Christian tradition, Faith in the God of Life in the land of the living survives death.
Introduction from Fr. Gordon MacRae: In the last days of October 2020, I wrote a special post to commemorate All Souls Day and to honor our beloved dead. One reviewer called it “A tour de force of Sacred Scripture on the most crucial question of all time: the meaning of life and death.” I’m not sure it actually rises to that level, but I thought it was an okay post.
It was the last one published at These Stone Walls, the older version of this blog that one week later was taken down and then reborn anew as Beyond These Stone Walls. I wrote of how and why that happened in “Life Goes On, Behind and Beyond These Stone Walls.”
It was not planned this way, but my post to mark the commemoration of All Souls was published in the midst of a global pandemic just days before the most contentious U.S. presidential election of modern time. That was also the time in which my friend, Pornchai Moontri, had been handed over to ICE for a long and grueling ordeal leading up to deportation to his native Thailand.
For many readers, my All Souls Day post was relegated to a far back burner then so I have decided to rewrite it and post it anew. It is, after all, a matter of life and death. Please ponder it and share it with others.
Like all of you reading this, I, too, have been touched by death in ways that have changed my life. I once wrote of how death left me not only grieving, but entirely alone and stranded. It was a post about the essence of Purgatory and why it should not be feared. That post — which I highly recommend if you have ever been touched by death, is “The Holy Longing: An All Souls Day Spark for Broken Hearts.”
It is one of the mysteries of Sacred Scripture that certain concepts exist there in almost equal measure with their polar opposites. I wrote during Holy Week, 2020, of the presence of both good and evil at the same table in “Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness and Light.” Many readers expressed amazement at my revelation that the concepts of light and darkness are represented in Scripture in almost equal measure, but with light just only slightly more prevalent.
I was surprised, for this post, to discover that the same is true in the matter of life and death. I conducted some research into the various permutations of the word, “death” in Sacred Scripture. The terms, death, dead, die, died, and killed have a combined appearance for a total of 1,620 times in our Old and New Testaments. The same research into occurrences of the word, “life” included the terms, life, alive, living, lives and lived. The combined appearances of “life” totaled 1,621. Pro-life wins!
Our Scriptures, and especially their revelations in the words of Jesus who had … well … the “inside scoop,” not only give life and death almost equal weight, but place them on a continuum. This becomes most evident in a challenge of Jesus to the Sadducees who rejected any notion of an afterlife or resurrection:
“You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God … And as for the resurrection from the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God? ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
Jesus was citing the Book of Exodus (3:1-6) and the story of Moses’ first encounter with God in the burning bush. By Yahweh’s self-description that he is the God of these Patriarchs who died long ago, Jesus brings his listeners to a conclusion that they must still live for God to still be their God. Their ongoing presence with God is the decisive precondition for future resurrection.
For Jesus, this ongoing presence of the soul with God is a continuation of the very life you know — but without the excess baggage. What must such a state be like? I sometimes hear from people who long to have some affirmation from their departed loved ones that they still exist. Do we really need such evidence? One of the most hopeful verses in all of Scripture comes from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, and it has an answer:
“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world?… If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on Earth. For you have died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
The Resurrection and the Life
There is another way to phrase what I wrote above: “For Jesus, this ongoing presence of the soul with God is a continuation of the very life you know…” It is also a continuation of the very life that knows you. It is that which is imparted in our ensoulment as being “in the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26). In the Biblical account of creation, filled with rich theological meaning, “The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). I wrote of this once in “Inherit the Wind: Pentecost and the Breath of God.”
What animates us, what makes us living beings in the image of God, is that which survives the body. In Biblical Hebrew, the word that is translated in English as “soul” is “nepeŝ.” A survey of its use throughout the Hebrew Scriptures shows that there is no adequate word in English that captures its meaning. In the Genesis account of the creation of man, it means the totality of the self, both one’s spiritual and physical being. The Prophet Jeremiah shows that we can prove our nepeŝ to be righteous (3:11), that we must not try to deceive our nepeŝ (37:9), or expose our nepeŝ to evil (26:19).
It is, for the Prophet Ezekiel, the source of our capacity for empathy; “To know the nepeŝ of the stranger” is to know how it feels to be a stranger (Ezekiel 23:9). It is the subject of human attributes of the heart (Psalm 139:14, Proverbs 19:4). It is also a source of our consciousness (Esther 4:13, Proverbs 23:7). There are 317 references to it in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the New Testament, it is that which, for Mary, “magnifies the Lord” (Luke 1:46).
Of interest, in the Greek of the New Testament, “nepeŝ” is translated as “psyche.” It is the source of one’s consciousness and life. Some Scripture scholars equate the “ego” of Freudian psychology as coming closer to the meaning of nepeŝ than any other word. It is the source of one’s self, one’s identity and self-awareness. It is what remains of the immortality lost in Eden and restored in Christ. Our nepeŝ survives our death.
To believe in God and not believe in the reality of our soul is folly. Hope, the assurance of salvation, is the anchor of the soul (Hebrews 6:19). The New Testament presentation of the immortality of the soul is not a new idea, but a radically new revelation of the meaning of life and salvation illuminated by the Resurrection of Jesus.
The word, “resurrection” appears only twice in Hebrew Scripture, and both are in the Second Book of Maccabees. When Eleazar and seven brothers were being tortured to death for their fidelity to God, one of the brothers proclaimed to Antiochus the king:
“I cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life.”
That account is also referenced in the Book of Daniel (3:16-18). It was written in about 150 BC during the emergence of a Messianic Age in Judaism. The other account found in Second Maccabees also presents Biblical support for the existence of Purgatory and the Spiritual Work of Mercy to pray and atone for the dead:
“The noble Judas (Maccabeus) took up a collection … and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this, he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection … therefore he made atonement for the dead that they might be delivered from their sin.”
Almost Heaven
Despite the famous song of John Denver, Heaven is not in West Virginia. Not even almost. I take the liberty of capitalizing it because what the Hebrew Scriptures refer to as “Heaven” and “the heavens” are two different places. The heavens refer to the ancient Semitic conception of the visible Universe. God is there, but only because He is everywhere. “Heaven,” on the other hand, refers to the dwelling place of God. In modern translation, it has 575 references in Sacred Scripture as opposed to 113 for “the heavens.”
There are multiple passages in both Testaments of Scripture that refer to Heaven as the dwelling place of God, but in some, the dwelling of God is said to be in the “Heaven of Heavens,” or in “the Highest Heaven” (see Deuteronomy 10:14, 1 Kings 8:27, and Psalm 148:4). Hebrew literature was influenced by the use of the Hebrew word, “ŝamāyim” for Heaven, though it is in the plural. There are obscure references to stages or levels of Heaven. Being a Jew educated in the traditions of the Pharisees, this conception was the basis for Saint Paul’s description (2 Corinthians 12:2) that he was taken up to the Third Heaven which is identified with Paradise:
“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third Heaven – whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise.”
I wrote of the Scriptural use of the word “Paradise” some years ago in one of the most-read posts on Beyond These Stone Walls, “Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found.” The Greek term, “Parádeisos, came into Greek from the Akkadian term for Paradise. It is used three times in the New Testament: here, in St. Paul’s reference to Heaven; In the Book of Revelations (2:7) as the eternal dwelling that awaits the saints; and in the above-cited link referencing the Gospel of St. Luke (23:43) and his account of the words of Jesus to the criminal who comes to faith while being crucified next to Him: “Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
The same term, Parádeisos, appears in the Septuagint, the only surviving translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. The word, “Septuagint” means “seventy,” referring to the number of Greek translators of the Hebrew Bible who developed it in the Second Century B.C. It is sometimes referred to by its Roman numerals: The LXX. Back to my point, the word, “Parádeisos” makes its first Biblical appearance in Genesis 2:8. It was a reference to the original state of Eden before the Fall of Adam, a state restored to human souls on the Cross of Christ.
It is the inheritance of true discipleship, the qualities of which are described in the Judgment of the Nations (Matthew 25:31-46). One of them is that “when I was in prison you came to me.” If you are reading this, then you have fulfilled that tenet. Jesus told us that His Father’s House has many mansions. In his parting words to me, my friend, Pornchai Moontri, said that we will next meet there — and we will one day have a house there — and it will be more than 60-square feet!
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Please share this post and join us in prayer for our beloved dead family and friends on All Souls Day and throughout November.
You may also wish to read and share these related posts:
The Holy Longing: An All Souls Day Spark for Broken Hearts
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Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane
The Agony in the Garden, the First Sorrowful Mystery, is a painful scene in the Passion of Christ, but in each of the Synoptic Gospels the Apostles slept through it.
The Agony in the Garden, the First Sorrowful Mystery, is a painful scene in the Passion of Christ, but in each of the Synoptic Gospels the Apostles slept through it.
It seems so long ago now, but a few years back I wrote a post that stunned some TSW readers out of the doldrums of a long nap in the Garden of Gethsemane where, sooner or later, we will all spend some time. That post was “Pentecost, Priesthood, and Death in the Afternoon.”
It was about one of our friends, a middle-aged prisoner named Anthony, and his discovery of having terminal cancer. Anthony was one of the most irritating and obnoxious individuals I had ever met. He was the only prisoner I have ever thrown out of my cell with a demand that he never return. Very few people have had that kind of effect on me, but Anthony was masterful at it.
But then Anthony discovered that he was dying. As an unintended result of our “falling out” he believed that he could not come to me. He was Pornchai Moontri’s friend but the story of his impending doom was my comeuppance. I cannot forget the day that Pornchai told me, “You have to help Anthony. He is going to die and he doesn’t know how.” After a long sleep when the priest in me had succumbed too much to the prisoner, that was my awakening in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Over the next 18 months, Pornchai and I took care of Anthony for as long as we possibly could before handing him over to the prison version of hospice from where we would never see him again. But before that happened, Anthony became a Catholic, was received into the Church, and had a transformation of spirit that, in the midst of death, proclaimed an incomparable stress on life.
Pornchai and I were eyewitnesses to how all the things that once took priority in Anthony’s life just fell away. He became, in the end, like “Dismas, Crucified to the Right” of the Lamb of God. It seemed so ironic that it was his impending death that opened up for Anthony a world of faith, hope and trust that overcame all other forces at work in his life. In the end, I no longer, recognized the man I had once so disdained.
Not long after leaving us, Anthony died in the prison’s medical center where a small group of hospice volunteers took turns being with him around the clock. I once wrote of Anthony’s death, and of an event that shook our world back then, but it’s a story worth telling again. I told it at a brief memorial service for Anthony that was attended by about sixty prisoners, twice the normal for such things.
At the service in the prison chapel, those attending were invited to speak. So Pornchai nudged me and said, “Tell them about the book.” I told those in attendance that Anthony left this world having committed a second crime against the State of New Hampshire: an unreturned library book. The rest of the story generated a collective gasp.
The Library where I work has a computer system that tracks the 22,000 volumes from which prisoners can select and check out books. When a prisoner is released from prison without returning a book, an alert would come across the screen a week later to give us a last chance to find and retrieve a book left behind.
I had no knowledge that Anthony ever checked a book out of the Library. I never saw him there, and he never asked me for a book. But a week after he died, this appeared on my screen:
“Anthony Begin #76810 — Gone/Released — Heaven Is for Real”
The Agony in the Garden
Heaven is for real, but for it to be a reality for us required an Exodus from the slavery of sin and death. That second Exodus commenced in the Garden of Gethsemane, and in the course of it, God exacted from Himself the same price — the death of His Son — that he imposed upon Pharaoh to bring about the first Exodus.
The Biblical account of Jesus and His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane opens the Passion Narrative of the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In the Gospel of John (18:1), the place is simply referred to as “across the Kidron Valley where there is a garden.” John, writing from a different tradition, cites only the betrayal by Judas there whereas the other Gospels precede that betrayal with the agony of Jesus at prayer.
Almost immediately preceding this in each of the Synoptic Gospels was the Institution of the Eucharist at what has been famously depicted by Leonardo Da Vinci as The Last Supper. This was the decisive turning point in Salvation History:
“Drink of it, all of you, for this is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink of it anew with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”
— Matthew 26: 28-29
Following this in the account of Saint Luke, Jesus addresses Peter about the spiritual warfare that is to come:
“‘Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.’ And [Peter] said to him, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.’”
— Luke 22:31-34
Peter’s “readiness” for prison and for death will soon become an issue. From here the scene moves to the Mount of Olives where Jesus went to pray “as was His custom” (Luke 22:39).
Only the Gospels of Matthew and Mark name the place “Gethsemane.” Once there, Jesus withdrew from His disciples to pray. As you already know, the suffering and death he now faced would be set in motion by the betrayal of Judas who provided “the more opportune time” that Satan awaited when the Temptation of Christ in the desert failed (Luke 4:13), a scene depicted in “To Azazel: The Fate of a Church That Wanders in the Desert.”
Jesus, fully human in his suffering by God’s design, recoils not only from the image of suffering he knows to be upon Him, but also by the weight of the Apostolic betrayal just moments away. The betrayal by Judas is intensified by the dreadful weight of humanity’s sin for which Jesus is offered up as the Scapegoat — the Sacrificial Lamb of God — for the sins of all humanity.
For Hebrew ears, the account of Jesus at Gethsemane is a mirror image in reverse of a scene that occurred at this very same site 1,000 years earlier. It was a story not of a son obedient unto death, but of a son who betrayed his father. It was the agony of King David and his flight from his son, Absolom, and his traitorous revolt. As David learned that his trusted counselor, Ahithophel, had betrayed him in league with Absolom…
“David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, with his head covered and walking barefoot, and all the people who were with him covered their heads and went up, weeping as they went. David was told that Ahithophel was one of the conspirators with Absolom.”
— 2 Samuel 15:30-31
And, as with Judas 1,000 years later, Ahithophel hanged himself when the consequences of his betrayal weighed upon him.
In Saint Matthew’s account of the Gethsemane scene (26:37), Jesus left His disciples and brought Peter, James and John with Him to the place of prayer. Note that Peter, James and John witnessed Jesus raise the daughter of Jairus from death (Mark 5:37) and they were also witnesses to His Transfiguration in the presence of Moses and Elijah that I wrote of during this Lent in “Turmoil in Rome and the Transfiguration of Christ.”
In the Gospel of Luke (22:31ff) Jesus is alone and apart from the others as He prays in agony in the face of death: “Father if you are willing, remove this chalice from me; nevertheless not my will but yours be done.” I cannot tell you how often I have prayed that same prayer in the last 25 years. I pray it still.
In the Gospel, God answers the prayer of Jesus, not by removing the suffering, for His suffering is to be our Exodus, but by strengthening Him to endure it. And He will endure it unto death:
“There appeared to him an angel from heaven to strengthen him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.”
— Luke 22:43
In each of the Gospel accounts, Jesus returned to His disciples to discover that they have all slept through His agony. None were there to console Him except the angel sent from heaven while humanity slept.
Consoling the Heart of Jesus
The Gospel of Saint Mark presents a more vivid account of the inner suffering that betrayal and death brought to the heart of Jesus. Mark describes that Jesus “began to be greatly distressed and troubled” (Mark 14:33). The Greek of Mark’s Gospel used the terms έκθαμβεῖσθαι and άδημονεῖν which vividly express in Greek the depth of distress and anxiety that came upon Him. The comfort the angel brings is reminiscent of Psalm 42:
“Why are you cast down O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”
— Psalm 42:12
The coming betrayal by Judas marks the climax of the ministry of Jesus who has left hints throughout the Gospel of Mark:
“And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly.”
— Mark 8:31
“The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”
— Mark 9:31
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles, and they will mock him, and spit on him, and scourge him, and kill him, and after three days he will rise.”
— Mark 10:33-34
So how do we, His disciples by Baptism and by the fidelity we claim, how do we console the heart of Jesus at Gethsemane? For the answer, I am indebted to Father Michael Gaitley, M.I.C. for his profound book, Consoling the Heart of Jesus which was the text for a six-week course offered here by the Marians of the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy.
Like many, I believe I learn the most from Sacred Scripture when the circumstances of my life force me to live it. So picking up this book for the first time, I asked myself, “How can I console Jesus, who is happy in Heaven, while I am stuck in this hellhole called prison?” That’s what Pornchai Moontri called it in these pages in his post, “Imprisoned by Walls, Set Free by Wood.”
Father Gaitley has an answer called “Retroactive Consolation” that comes from the theology of Pope Pius XI and the Dominican theologian, Réginald Marie Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. whom Father Gaitley quotes:
“During his earthly life and particularly while in Gethsemane, Jesus suffered from all future acts of profanation and ingratitude. He knew them in detail with a superior intuition that governed all times… Thus his suffering encompassed the present instant and extended to future centuries. ‘This drop of blood I shed for you.’ So in the Garden of Olives, Jesus suffered for all, and for each of us in particular.”
— Consoling the Heart of Jesus, P. 394
So, if His suffering is projected into the future, how can our consolation of Him at Gethsemane become retroactive into the past? What will awaken us from our sleep in the Garden of Gethsemane? Jesus Himself provides that answer, and it has something to do with our story about Anthony that began this post. It is laid out powerfully in the Gospel of Matthew:
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and care for you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.’”
— Matthew 25:37-40
Now
“Arise. Let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.”
— Matthew 26:46
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Editor’s Note: Please share this Holy Week post with your contacts on Facebook and other social media. To prepare for a meaningful Holy Week and Easter, you may also like these other posts from along the Way of the Cross at Beyond These Stone Walls :
A Personal Holy Week Retreat at Beyond These Stone Walls
The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’
Behold the Man, as Pilate Washes His Hands
Simon of Cyrene at Calvary: Compelled to Carry the Cross
