The Heart of the Holy Week

Joel Tabora, S.J.

Apr 5

[Homily. Funeral Mass. Fyodor Eliab. Christ the King Chapel, April 5, 2023]

We are in the middle of the Holy Week. In the rest of Christendom, the Catholic community ponders the betrayal by Judas of Jesus, a betrayal that always unsettles us who know our own vulnerability – if not propensity - to betrayal.

Betrayal, however, is not the center of the Holy Week.

The center of the Holy Week is fidelity, God's fidelity. In his compassion, he is faithful to us. No matter our betrayals.

The heart of the Holy Week is the Paschal Mystery: the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Last Palm Sunday, in the proclamation of the Gospel, we recalled the Passion and Death of Jesus. In the next three days of Sacred Triduum, in ancient liturgical celebrations, we will recall the Lord's Last Supper, His Passion and Death, his Resurrection and Ascension.

In the middle of the Holy Week, we focus on the death of our beloved Fyodor, whom we lay to rest today, as many have bemoaned, too soon, too young, too abruptly. Too short this life loaned to us that was filled with vivacity, adventure, basketball, music, scholarship, compassion, gentleness, and genuine care for others – for friends in distress with whom he journeyed, for puppies whose lives he cherished, and for a younger brother whom he truly loved.

But Fyodor died, as Lazarus did. In the light of our Gospel story today we might say with Martha, "Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died." Jesus's response to her was, "Your brother will rise. … I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he die, will live. And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die." Martha responded with a profound act of faith, "Yes, Lord, I have come to believe: you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the One who is coming into the world."

When Mary, Martha' sister, approached Jesus and said the same words "Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died" while weeping, Jesus wept with her. Even as we might say, "Lord, if you had been there, our brother, Fyodor, would not have died." I am sure that as you wept many times since March 29^th, Jesus wept with you. Mysteriously, however, Jesus might also have responded: His accident was not unto death, but unto the glory of God. Through my death on the Cross, in obedience to the Father, I have conquered death. Though my blood shed on the Cross, I have overcome sin. Through my crucifixion, death and resurrection, I have drawn Fyodor to myself as I was lifted up on the Cross, and as I was lifted up in Resurrection, I have lifted him up to the Father. His ordeal, his life, was not unto death, but unto everlasting life. And the glory of God.

This is the heart of the Holy Week, if not of the entire gospel of Jesus Christ, however painful. "God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). In whatever manner God chooses to manifest this as true, with him we say, (what else can we say?), "Lord, not my will. Thine be done!" (Lk 22:42b). Today, against the light of God's paschal mystery, we know that Fyodor has not just perished, but lives unto everlasting life, "life to the full" (Jn 10:10). That is why in our bereavement, we can still feel him with us; in our emptiness, we can still talk to him; in our distress we can still feel peace; in our anger, we can still feel consolation; in our helplessness, we can still offer one another love and support. There lies the profundity of Bong's manifestations to our community. No word expresses the pain of a parent's loss in the death of a child. No word expresses the pain of the loss of Kuya. Yet, "All is grace." All is gift.

"Thine was the gift. To thee we all resign" (cf. SpEx 234).

Photos by Ms. Ace Villanueva and Mr. Igy Castrillo