My Father’s House Has Many Rooms. Is There a Room for Latin Mass?

In Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis dealt a sharp but not fatal blow to Catholics who treasure the TLM. I hear from many who hope and pray for reconsideration.

In the photo above His Holiness Pope John Paul II offers Mass in Latin, ad orientem, from the Sistine Chapel.

August 20, 2025 by Father Gordon MacRae

My title for this post is from the Gospel of John, Chapter 14, verse 2, “My Father’s House Has Many Rooms.” It is seen by scholars as a reference to the Jerusalem Temple, hinting of its heavenly sanctuary, the dwelling place of angels and saints who worship in eternal liturgy. The Letter to the Hebrews describes it:

“You have come to Mount Zion, to the City of the Living God in the heavenly Jerusalem, to choirs of angels in festal gathering and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect, and to Jesus, mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.”

— Hebrews 12:22-24

The Gospel passage from John 14:2 speaks of God’s House having many chambers. Could one of them accommodate the Latin Mass? In 1947, Pope Pius XII wrote in Mediator Dei, his encyclical on the liturgy, that “the mystery of the most Holy Eucharist which Christ, the High Priest, instituted and commands to be continually renewed, is the culmination and center of the Christian religion.” In the Mass the redemptive action of the death and Resurrection of Jesus is made actually present to the faithful across the centuries. This mystery of faith, the Mysterium Fidei, is found in the liturgy of the entire Church, both East and West.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 889) tells us that “By a supernatural sense of faith” the whole People of God, under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium, “unfailingly adheres to this faith.” To comprehend how the whole people of God is infallible in its sense of the faith — its sensus fidelium — it must be understood that the body of the faithful goes far beyond limits of space and time. The People of God always includes those of all past generations as well as those in the present. Those of the past are in fact the vast majority and it is easier to ascertain what they believed and practiced. It is that belief that marks the sensus fidelium pointing infallibly to truth.

I have never been a devotee of the Traditional Latin Mass. Growing up, I had nothing but the barest and most minimal exposure to our Catholic faith until my later adolescence. Then, in the 1960s, Latin in the Mass had receded and all manner of confusing experimentation took its place. I attended an inner city public high school then, and had begun to attend Mass just as Latin was disappearing. I wondered what all the agony in the garden of faith was about so I registered for Latin among my high school courses.

I took three successive years of Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced Classical Latin then. I developed a fascination with both the ancient language and the Roman Empire that flourished because of it. More than a half century later, I still recall my exposure to Latin. Endless declensions and conjugations still stream through my mind. My friend, Pornchai Moontri once suggested that I know Latin because it was my first language.

A House Divided Cannot Stand

On July 16, 2021, the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the late Pope Francis published Traditionis Custodes, a Pastoral Letter that placed immediate and severe restrictions on a Catholic celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. The wound this inflicted on the spirit of Traditional Catholics, some of the most faithful among us, was also severe. Despite my own lack of experience with the Latin Mass, I wrote, not so much in protest, but in support of those who felt cast adrift. My post was “A House Divided: Cancel Culture and the Latin Mass.”

The restrictions became effective immediately, including a mandate barring newly ordained priests from celebration of the TLM and barring its celebration in any parish church. Bishops were suddenly required to first consult the Holy See before granting any exceptions to the Traditional (Extraordinary) Form of the Mass.

For expressed reasons of “unity,” Pope Francis imposed these restrictions without explanation in open contradiction of a 2014 Motu Proprio of his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who permitted celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass without preconditions and without consent from any bishop. Some of the best early reaction to this new and draconian development came from Father John Zuhlsdorf (Father Z’s Blog) in “First Reactions to Traditionis Custodes.”

His reactions inspired me and many. Father Z’s bottom line was that Catholics with devotion to the TLM should pause, take a deep breath, and adopt a wait-and-see attitude. He wrote,

“Fathers... change nothing, do nothing differently for now. It is not rational to leap around without mapping the mine field we are entering. Keep calm and carry on.

“Lay people... be temperate. Set your faces like flint. When you are on fire, it avails you nothing to run around flapping your arms. Drop and roll and be calm.

“To those of you who have put your heart and goods and hopes into supporting and building the Traditional Latin Mass, thank you. Do not for a moment despair or wonder if what you did was worth the effort, time, cost and suffering. It was worth it. It still is.”

— Father John Zuhlsdorf, July 16, 2021

I found myself cheering inside for Father Z. I am not a rebel priest and neither is he, but I would have been a rebel without a clue had I taken this on. I have never even experienced the TLM. But human nature being what it is, this edict of Pope Francis had the opposite effect from unity. Telling people that they cannot have something drew worldwide attention to it.

So I wrote back then, not so much in defense of the TLM, but in defense of the many people who told me of their grief in having it taken summarily away and without apparent just cause or dialogue. I cannot help but wonder what Pope Francis might have been thinking at Mass just days later as he listened to the First Reading on the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time on July 18, 2021. Was he at all conscious that Catholics all over the world were hearing the same rebuke from the Prophet Jeremiah that we heard that Sunday?

“Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but... I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands and bring them back to their meadow... I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble, and none shall be missing, says the Lord.”

— Jeremiah 23:1-6

A Catholic Unraveling in Germany

I have been searching for a more panoramic map of the minefield Father Zuhlsdorf suggested that we were entering then, and I think I found some of its rumblings. While reading from Volume Two of the Prison Journal of George Cardinal Pell (which, for full disclosure, included five pages quoting this blog) I came upon his entry for 9 August 2019, the feast of Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, that we observed this month. I wrote about her once in “Saints and Sacrifices: Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein at Auschwitz.”

Edith Stein was German by birth. In his book, Cardinal Pell advised readers to seek her intercession for the Church in Germany. Cardinal Pell quoted Cardinal Gerhard Muller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

“The Catholic Church [in Germany] is going down. Leaders there are not aware of the real problems. [They are] self-centered and concerned primarily with sexual morality, celibacy, and women priests. They don’t speak about God, Jesus Christ, grace, the sacraments, and faith, hope, and love.”

— Prison Journal, Volume 2, p.75

It gets worse. Later in Prison Journal, Volume 2, in an entry dated 16 October 2019, Cardinal Pell wrote candidly about German Catholic fears of the possibility of schism that had been raised there. If allowed to happen, such a break would sweep much of Europe. Cardinal Pell quoted from a Catholic Culture article by Philip Lawler entitled, “Who Benefits from All This Talk of Schism?” (September 19, 2019):

“Lawler argues that Pope Francis has spoken calmly about such a prospect, saying he is not frightened by it, something Lawler believes is frightening in itself.”

— Prison Journal, Volume 2, p. 214

Cardinal Pell wrote of earlier confidence about the unlikelihood of a schism, but acknowledged that “the odds against it have shortened.” He added,

“Not surprisingly, the New York Times has been writing about the prospect of a schism by the John Paul and Benedict followers in the United States, the Gospel Catholics... . I believe Lawler’s diagnosis is correct when he points out that the topic of schism has been raised by the busiest and most aggressive defenders of Pope Francis who recognize that they cannot engineer the radical changes they want without precipitating a split in the Church. So they want orthodox Catholics to break away first, leaving [progressives] free to enact their own revolutionary agenda.”

— Prison Journal, Volume 2, pp. 214-215

It was that final sentence that I vividly recalled and revisited after hearing these new restrictions imposed by Pope Francis on the Traditional Latin Mass. Were we then witnessing the opening salvo of such a manipulated schism? Was there a move under way to antagonize conservative and traditional Catholics into breaking away?

China, Catholics, and the Dalai Lama

I am certain this was not by design, but on the day after this announcement by Pope Francis, the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal carried a stunning pair of articles. I will summarize their major points:

The first was entitled, “Beijing Targets Tibet for Assimilation” by Liza Lin, Eva Xaio, and Jonathan Cheng. The assimilation referred to is better described as suppression, and it needs a little historical background.

Twelve centuries had passed between the establishment of Tibetan Buddhism in AD 747 and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gaining control of China in 1949. By 1950, the CCP came into increasing conflict with Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is believed by Buddhists to be a reincarnation of the Buddha. When he dies, his soul is thought to enter the body of a newborn boy, who, after being identified by traditional tests, becomes the new Dalai Lama.

As such, the Dalai Lama is spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism and the ex officio ruler of Tibet since the Eighth Century. In 1959, during the Chinese Communist absorption of Tibet (resistance was futile!) the Dalai Lama was forced into exile in India where he has remained since. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for leading nonviolent opposition to continued Chinese claims to rule Tibet.

Xi Jinping, President of China and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has as his national priority the forging of a single Chinese identity centered on unity and Party loyalty. His agenda placed new restrictions on Tibetan Buddhism and launched an effort to replace traditional Tibetan language with Mandarin Chinese while insisting on courses designed for indoctrination in socialism and the CCP.

The Dalai Lama, in exile in India, will soon turn 90 years of age. His eventual death is expected to trigger a clash with the Chinese government over control of Tibetan Buddhism. One of the major points of Chinese suppression is a CCP claim that it has the right to choose the Dalai Lama’s “reincarnation,” and thus establish full control over the heart of Tibetan religion and identity. In late 2020, President Xi Jinping commanded an effort to make Tibetan Buddhism “compatible with a socialist identity.”

This affront to Tibet’s religious freedom actually had a strange sort of precedent. In 2019, Pope Francis signed a concordat — the tenets of which are still secret — in which he agreed to a Chinese Communist Party demand to select Catholic bishops in the State-approved Chinese Catholic church. This has translated into increased harassment and suppression of the underground Catholic Church for which many have suffered for their loyalty to Rome.

The Threat of Schism

A second major article, this one by Vatican correspondent Francis X. Rocca, appeared on the same day in The Wall Street Journal, again just two days after the announced suppression of the Latin Mass. Its title asked an ominous question: “Is Pope Francis Leading the Church to a Schism?” Pope Francis had used some of the same reasoning and language in restricting the TLM that Xi Jinping used while suppressing Tibetan Buddhism. Pope Francis cited “unity” as his principal reason and goal, but its effect seemed to invite just the opposite.

Two years after Cardinal Pell wrote from his prison cell with dismal foreboding about the state of the Church in Germany, Francis X. Rocca quoted Cardinal Rainer Woelki, Archbishop of Cologne and leader of the conservative minority of German bishops. He warned that the current wave of dissent sweeping Germany could lead to schism and the formation of a German national church. Rocca reported that similar warnings have been echoed by cardinals and bishops of other European countries.

Subsequently, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone asked for prayers for the universal Church and the bishops of Germany “that they step back from this radical rupture.” Schism is more a threat to the Catholic Church than any other because, as Rocca points out, its “core identity is inextricably tied to its global unity under the pope.”

Francis X. Rocca wrote that Pope Francis has played down the concerns of more traditional African bishops who, in the view of many represent the future of the Church’s moral integrity. For a glimpse of the mindset at work in the German church, consider this statement by Joachim Frank, a German journalist who took part in the synod there, and described its work:

“There was this sense of movement, of change, another spirit, another type of church after these boring and very painful years of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.”

In his 26-year papacy, Saint John Paul II is widely considered to have almost single-handedly brought down the Soviet Union and ended European communism. To dismiss his papacy and that of Benedict XVI as "boring and painful" is to break, not just with Catholic tradition, but with reality.

The trending Catholic mindset of Germany and much of Europe should not steer the Barque of Peter and the moral authority and praxis of the Church. In Germany, before the 2019-2021 pandemic, only about nine-percent of Catholics attended Mass on a regular basis. Post-Covid, that is now down to two or three percent. Among African Catholics, regular Mass participation is the world’s highest. By 2050, there will be twice as many practicing Catholics in Africa than in all of Europe.

Throughout Asia, Catholicism is relatively small, but growing. In Thailand, Catholics account for less than one-percent of the population but they leave a large footprint on the culture because of an orthodox commitment to living their faith, often heroically. I was recently informed by an active Catholic in Thailand that many people in his village attend the Buddhist Temple to observe local tradition, and then attend Sunday Mass to observe faith.

Our friend, Pornchai Moontri, told me that in the years he has lived in Thailand, he has heard Masses in Thai, Vietnamese, Lao, Issan, and English, all of them filled to capacity. Few of the Thai, Vietnamese, or Lao converts understand each other, nor can they understand the Mass in any language but their own. “If the Church had kept Latin,” Pornchai recently offered, “this might not happen.” He pointed out rather wisely that in the mobile culture this world has become, an ancient but universal language in the Mass promotes unity instead of detracting from it. It overlooks national identity to establish a Catholic one.

This is not meant to be a critique of Pope Francis. He had his reasons for imposing Traditionis Custodes, but new information suggests that one of them may have been based on erroneous information conveyed to him. Newly emerging information paints another picture, and I hope to present that soon. Meanwhile, please keep the faith. The Body and Blood of Christ become manifest in every Mass. That Communion is the source and summit of all grace.

“Ad Altare Dei”

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Note from Fr Gordon MacRae: Thank you for reading and sharing this post. Sharing it helps to reach others who might benefit from these pages. You may also like these related posts:

Fr Gordon MacRae in the Prison Journal of George Cardinal Pell

A House Divided: Cancel Culture and the Latin Mass

Behold the Lamb of God Upon the Altar of Mount Moriah

The Vatican Today: Cardinal George Pell’s Last Gift to the Church

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.”

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, what happened to Jesus between the Cross and the Resurrection, is a mystery to be unveiled.

“This is the night when Christ broke the prison bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld.”

— The Easter Vigil Exultet

April 13, 2022 by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae

This is my 13th Holy Week post from prison. In each of them, I have tried to move away from my usual format, which is sort of a prison journal, to make our Holy Week post a more serious theological endeavor. That has been a challenge where I live because my resources for research are few. Despite that obstacle, we have over these years presented a series of posts about the events of Holy Week that have become popular with readers.

Some of these posts stand out more than others. They tend to follow the Way of the Cross so we have selected seven (besides this one) that could become daily readings for a personal Holy Week retreat. We have now gathered them in one place “Our Holy Week Retreat for Beyond These Stone Walls” .

A few weeks ago in my post, “The Annunciation and the Consecration of Russia and Ukraine,” I wrote of my path of reversion to Catholic faith at age 16 in 1969. At a time when most of my peers were drifting away from faith in protests of one sort or another, I was drifting toward it. It was 1969, after all, and it was the age of protest and dissent. It was a strange time to commence taking Catholic faith seriously. It was the year after Pope Paul VI published “Humanae Vitae,” a year in which much of the world resisted authority and fidelity. It was a year of exodus for many priests and religious, a year in which secular and Catholic Culture began a misguided quest for relevance in a fracturing world.

It was also the year that I first paused while reciting the Apostles’ Creed to ponder its Fifth Article, a perplexing statement that Jesus, upon His death on the Cross, descended into hell. The Apostles’ Creed is a summary statement of the core beliefs of our faith’s first witnesses about the person and mission of Jesus. Did they really believe that upon His death He went to hell? For a 16-year-old struggling with faith, it was a startling question.

The answer to it has been a long and winding road into the meaning of the Cross, death, covenant, hell, and Heaven, the most fundamental questions for people of any faith. I have written a post that perhaps should precede this one for those who want a serious inquiry into the meaning of life and death in Sacred Scripture: “The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead.”

There are two creeds — summaries of belief — that have a special place in the life of the Church. The Apostles’ Creed identifies with the centrality of the Church of Rome and the See of Peter from Apostolic times to the present. It is the Church’s core statement of belief. The second, the Nicene Creed used in the Mass, is formulated from the first two Councils in the life of the Church, the Councils of Nicea (325 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD).

The Nicene Creed does not reflect a statement that Jesus descended into hell, but the Councils did not negate or refute it. This statement from the Apostolic era of the Church remains a dogma of faith. But what does it mean? What happened between the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus?

Hell on Earth — Or under It?

The phrase, “descended into hell” rests entirely on the language of the Old Testament. The place we commonly understand as hell was not a destination for souls in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The place for the souls of the dead was Sheol (pronounced SHAYole), a Hebrew term of uncertain Hebrew origin. It was simply the abode of the dead and it implied no sense of moral standing, neither salvation nor condemnation, and no distinction between the righteous and the wicked. Depending on the life that was lived, souls could go to Sheol bearing peace or bearing sorrow, but Sheol itself imparted neither. Life in relation to God was this life alone.

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. 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 approach to understanding death in His statement from the Cross to the penitent criminal: “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.”

On the Cross, where the penitent thief 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:

(Luke 23:44-46): “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.”

(Matthew 27:51-54): “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.’”

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.

The Descent of Jesus to the Spirits in Prison

A very different tradition — and a highly perplexing one for Scripture scholars — exists in just a few verses in the New Testament First Letter of Peter (3:18-20):

“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 formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah.”

Interpreting this passage has been a challenge for scholars for centuries beginning with the Fathers of the Church and their predecessors known as the Apostolic Fathers. That is the term applied to certain disciples and successors of the Twelve Apostles. They were Greek-language writers who were among the martyrs and major figures of the 1st and 2nd centuries in the Christian church.

Although their writings were not considered canonical for inclusion in the New Testament, they are ranked as a continuation of the writings of the Apostles themselves and are a valuable source of early Church history. Among them was Clement of Alexandria. He understood the above verses from the First Letter of Peter as evidence that, during the silence of Holy Saturday, Christ descended to the dead to make a final offer of salvation to the deceased sinners of Noah’s day who rejected Noah and his covenant.

A few centuries later, St. Augustine proposed a different and far more complex interpretation. He suggested that Christ, through an exercise of pre-existent divinity, preached to the ancient world through the person of Noah urging disbelievers to repentance before the floodwaters of judgment (according to commentary in the 2010 Ignatius Study Bible New Testament adapted from the Revised Standard Version).

In the 17th Century, St. Robert Bellarmine reconnected this passage with Holy Saturday. He proposed that Christ descended to the souls in prison since the time of Noah to announce his salvation to those who had privately repented before the onset of the flood. A possibly related verse is also found in 1 Peter 4:6:

“For this is why the Gospel was preached even to the dead, that though judged in the flesh like men, they might live in the spirit like God.”

However, 20th Century discoveries in Biblical archeology have found yet another interpretation that likely circulated among the earliest Christian communities but was lost after the first few centuries, A.D. These discoveries might possibly link the appearance of Jesus to the spirits in prison not as an event during his descent to Sheol but rather connected to his Ascent as he passed through one of the lower heavens. An element of interest preceding the passage from First Peter above concerns an interpretation of the term “sons of God” from Genesis (6:2). According to some ancient Jewish texts, these were the “Watchers,” rebel angels who corrupted mankind before the flood, and therefore were in part the cause of it. Being spirits, they could not be destroyed by the waters of the flood so the Lord cast them into the prisons of the lower heavens.

These references occur in the Books of Enoch and Jubilees, Jewish apocryphal works that had a strong influence on the Essene community in the Intertestamental period from the First Century B.C. through the First Century A.D. One of these traditions, from the apocryphal First Book of Enoch, describes these spirits imprisoned not in Sheol, but in one of the lower heavens. There is evidence that these traditions were well known to the Essenes and thus had some influence in the Early Church. Thanks to the mid-20th Century discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and related material in and around the area of Qumran in the 1940s, scholars have been able to reconnect with ancient Jewish traditions and lore known to First Century Christians but lost to antiquity for much of the later life of the Church. These remarkable discoveries added context to our understanding of New Testament Scriptures. This was the subject of my post, “Qumran: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coming Apocalypse.”

In this sense, the spirits in prison to whom Christ is revealed on Holy Saturday between the Cross and Resurrection may not have been human souls at all, but fallen angels whose fall was closely connected to original sin and the flood of Noah’s time.

Whatever the solution to the mystery of Christ’s Holy Saturday mission, the total disabling of the enemy coincides with His triumphant entry into the innermost chambers of Satan’s power. “For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the living and the dead.” (Romans 14:9)

On the Third Day He arose again from the dead — from Sheol — and resumed His Earthly body proclaimed in Revelation (1:2): “The Firstborn of the dead.” Death could have no power over Him. The Resurrection and Easter morning followed, then the first eyewitness: Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb.

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Note from Fr. Gordon MacRae: As described early in this post, some of our Holy Week posts have been gathered into a personal Holy Week Retreat available from now until the Solemnity of Pentecost. Please see our Special Events page.

You may also like these related posts on Sacred Scripture:

The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead

Qumran: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coming Apocalypse

The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God

Casting the First Stone: What Jesus Wrote in the Sand

The Passion of the Christ in an Age of Outrage

Prayerful observance of Holy Week is a challenge in a climate of woke ideology and political outrage. Spend time with us this week Beyond These Stone Walls.

Something timely and fascinating was unearthed in the days just before Holy Week in 2021. It actually began in 1960 near the Dead Sea in Qumran, an ancient Hebrew settlement in Jordan. Archeologists discovered fragments showing that caves there were used as a hide-out by Bar Kochba’s rebel army which staged a three-year revolt against the Roman occupation of Jerusalem from AD 132-135.

The 1960 discovery included Roman coins, arrows, and a fragment of parchment bearing sixteen verses in Hebrew from the Book of Exodus. In a deep cave in Wadi Haver, archeologists also discovered several of Bar Kochba’s letters on papyri and wood.

Sixty-one years later, on March 16, 2021 the Israeli government announced the discovery of dozens of Dead Sea Scroll fragments of Hebrew texts from the Prophets Zechariah and Nahum from an adjacent cave. The “Cave of Horrors,” as it is called, contained other evidence that it was used by followers of Bar Kochba to evade the Roman armies. The cave is located in the Judean desert about 262 feet (80 meters) below a cliff top.

The Bar Kochba rebellion took place about 60 years after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, an event predicted by Jesus during his triumphant entry into Jerusalem (Luke 19:28ff). In AD 70, Romans destroyed the Temple. The revolt of Bar Kochba was triggered 60 years later when Roman emperor Hadrian decided to erect a shrine to the mythological Roman god, Jupiter, upon the site of the Temple.

Emperor Hadrian came personally to Judea to put down the Bar Kochba revolt which ultimately cost the lives of over a half million Jews. The revolt was called the “Liberation of Jerusalem” by its adherents. It was led by Simon Ben Kosibah, known to the documents of the early Christian Church as Bar Kochba.

Hadrian and his General, Sextus Julius Severus, crushed the revolt by a long, slow starvation of the Jewish revolutionaries and their families who had been driven into the desert to take refuge in the desert caves. When it was all over, Hadrian destroyed what was left of Jerusalem. He then decreed that the whole Jewish nation should be barred, from that day forward, from entering the City of Jerusalem and its surrounding area so that “they may not even view from afar their ancestral home.”

Little is known today about the state of Christianity at the time of the Bar Kochba revolt. It was a time in which a break between synagogue and church was taking place for Jewish Christians. A succession of thirteen Jewish-Christian bishops ruled Jerusalem until the time of Hadrian. At the time of the first destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70, Simeon, son of Clopas, was Bishop of Jerusalem and was martyred there. The Second Century historian Eusebius, reported that between the martyrdom of Simeon and the Bar Kochba revolt, “many thousands of Jews had come to believe in Christ.”

A Revolution in the Soul

These remnants of a revolution seem an almost fitting discovery just before Holy Week in this of all years. I believe that the bones of Bar Kochba’s faithful Jewish and Jewish-Christian revolutionaries are calling to us from those caves. I have never written a Holy Week post like this before because we have never had a Holy Week like this before in our lifetimes. For the second year in a row, many Catholics face a drastic reduction in their ability to participate in the liturgy and Sacraments of their Faith.

The first time Holy Week was limited by fears of a pandemic — in Holy Week 2020 — Christianity was caught off guard on a global scale. We never imagined that the restrictions set in place by both civil and religious authorities would further impede our faith as we approach another Holy Week a year later. We never imagined that many of our spiritual leaders would continue their passive acceptance of the severe limits placed on our practice of faith. I wrote of this at the turn of the year in “A Year in the Grip of Earthly Powers.”

On what we today call “Passion Sunday,” Jesus entered Jerusalem as the triumphant Son of David, a title given to him by Sacred Scripture. As he entered the Holy City, he wept. It is notable that he did not weep over his knowledge that he enters Jerusalem to commence the Passion of the Christ. Saint Luke’s Passion Narrative makes clear that Jesus wept over Jerusalem and what he knew to be the coming destruction of the Temple and Holy City by Earthly Powers. He knew that many would lose their lives in revolt against it.

Many people in our era are just now awakening to a revolution in the soul as clarity dawns that demonic forces behind so-called “cancel culture” are using a pandemic to suppress our churches, our liturgy, our voices, and our communal values and expressions of faith. Many are also awakening to the reality that some — but certainly not all — of our religious leaders have acquiesced to this suppression, most by their silence, but some by outright endorsement of government-imposed shutdowns.

I have written of at least two instances in which the courts have overruled political impositions on Mass attendance and Catholic practice only to have the local Catholic bishop re-impose the same restrictions the courts had declared unconstitutional. I feel indebted to the many priests — and, in fairness, some bishops too — who have found courage in their fidelity to reject the modern version of one of my most memorable Holy Week posts: “The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’.”

That Whisper in the Ear of Judas

There is another force, also seemingly demonic in its origin, that has impinged upon our expressions of fidelity in the public square. I could sense it all around us throughout the last year and it has not abated. It has just festered and grown deeper within many of us as persons and as communities. I had a hard time putting a name on it until I saw it spelled out by one of my favorite columnists in The Wall Street Journal.

On March 9, 2021, political columnist Gerald F. Seib published a masterful analysis entitled “The Perpetual Outrage Machine Churns On.” You may not be able to read it without a subscription but I will give a brief summary of its evidence.

Two months after the January 6 events at the U.S. Capitol, prison-like fencing still surrounded the area. In Minneapolis, the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin over the death of George Floyd — seemingly every horrid moment of it caught on national television — has commenced amid another round of protests. Innocent Asian Americans have suddenly become targets of physical and verbal assault across the nation. Four women at a Bed and Body Works store in Arizona erupted into a wild brawl. Eight persons were killed by a single gunman in a spa in Atlanta. Ten more were murdered while shopping in a Colorado supermarket.

This list of present day atrocities spawned by rage could go on for pages. There is an influence behind it. A master opportunist has been doing what he does best. In Holy Week 2020, I wrote “Satan at the Last Supper: Hours of Darkness & Light.” Its point was that the whisper into the ear of Judas at the Last Supper was preceded by other events. Before it happened, Satan entered into Judas (Luke 22:3) as Judas entered into a deal with the chief priests to betray Christ. His sin of greed left him vulnerable to the exploitation of Satan and his minions. That is always the case. The mere whisper in the dark is never enough. Through a long, slow, barely noticeable descent toward ever greater darkness, Satan finds an opportunity just as he found one in Judas Iscariot.

Our rage against the affairs of this world can also be a point of vulnerability. The great Christian writer, C. S. Lewis, described that path to spiritual destruction in his allegorical story, The Screwtape Letters (1940). He captures Satan instructing his nephew in the ways of spiritual warfare: “It is the cumulative effect of sin that draws the Man away from the Light and out into the Nothing ... The safest road to Hell is the gradual one, the gentle curves, soft underfoot, without turns, without signposts, without a roadmap. (The Screwtape Letters, p. 61)

Satan exploits fear, rage, even political contention and a pandemic to drive a wedge not only between persons, but within them. If your life of faith has been assailed by the world, the flesh, and the devil in this past year, we invite you to walk the Way of the Cross Beyond These Stone Walls this week.

We are posting on Monday of Holy Week instead of our usual Wednesday post day to present this special Holy Week post and a short list of six others for you to read and share in each day of Holy Week. The list begins in an hour of darkness and ends in the glory of Salvation.

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Satan at The Last Supper: Hours of Darkness & Light

Waking Up in the Garden of Gethsemane

The Chief Priests Answered, ‘We Have No King but Caesar’

Behold the Man, as Pilate Washes His Hands

Dismas, Crucified to the Right: Paradise Lost and Found

Mary Magdalene: Faith, Courage, and an Empty Tomb