Meaningful hotspots this Holy Week

It’s Holy Week!

 

It’s a time to reflect on how Jesus suffered and sacrificed for us.

 

It’s this time of the year when I can’t help reading a very “disturbing” article about The Scientific Death of Jesus Christ (author unknown), expressing the intense pain that you and I, can shed quiet tears because of the overwhelming love of God showed each one of us when He allowed His only begotten Son to suffer that excruciating pain for our sake!

 

I first published that short article in this corner in 2011 and I’m reprinting it for the benefit of those who missed it back then. Here it is:

 

At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to the death penalty.

 

At the time crucifixion was the "worst" death. Only the worst criminals are condemned to be crucified. Yet it was even more dreadful for Jesus, unlike other criminals condemned to death by crucifixion Jesus
was to be nailed to the cross by His hands and feet.

 

Each nail was 5 to 8 inches long.

 

The nails were driven into His wrist. Not into His palms as is commonly portrayed. There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder. The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support himself so that He could breath.

 

Both of His feet were nailed together. Thus He was forced to support Himself on the single nail that impaled His feet to the cross. Jesus could not support himself with His legs because of the pain so He was forced to alternate between arching His back then using his legs just to continue to breath. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the suffering, the courage.

 

Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours. Yes, over 3 hours! Can you imagine this kind of suffering? A few minutes before He died, Jesus stopped bleeding.

He was simply pouring water from his wounds.

 

From common images we see wounds to His hands and feet and even the spear wound to His side. But do we realize His wounds were actually made in his body. A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped and an even large nail hammered through the arches, then a Roman guard piercing His side with a spear. But before the nails and the spear Jesus was whipped and beaten. The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from His body. The beating so horrific that His face was torn and his beard ripped from His face. The crown of thorns cut deeply into His scalp. Most men would not have survived this torture.

He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from His wounds. The human adult body contains about 3.5 litres (just less than a gallon) of blood.

 

Jesus poured all 3.5 litres of his blood; He had three nails hammered into his members; a crown of thorns on his head and, beyond that, a Roman soldier who stabbed a spear into his chest.

 

All these without mentioning the humiliation He passed after carrying his own cross for almost 2 kilometres, while the crowd spat in his face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight, only for its higher part, where his hands were nailed).

Jesus had to endure this experience, so that you can have free access to God. So that your sins could be "washed" away. 

 

All of them, with no exception! Don't ignore this situation. Jesus Christ died for you! Do not believe that He only died for others (those who go to church or for pastors, bishops, etc). He died for you! It is easy to pass jokes or foolish photos by e-mail, but when it comes to God, sometimes you feel ashamed to forward to others because you are worried of what they may think about you.

 

God has plans for you, show all your friends what He experienced to save you.

 

Now think about this!

 

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Clueless on where to go this Holy Week?

 

For those wishing to adhere to tradition, VRS has picked some places to make your activities meaningful.

 

Fatima Hill- The Fatima Rosary Hill in barangay Buenavista in Carmen town is the home of the Madonna of the Miraculous Blessed Virgin Mary. The shrine was built sometime in the early 1940s. There is a concrete chapel, a spring and a souvenir shop. Spiritual recollection becomes more enhancing on top of this hill where one can look at the wide plains of Carmen and Sierra-Bullones. Don’t forget that it is holy and quiet. Burn a candle and pray.

 

Spiritual recollection becomes more enhancing
at Fatima Hill. Through reflection on our lives,
 Lent will help to make us ready for the next days
 and living more fully in an increasing light.-LPU 

Village of the Compassionate God the Father- Located in barangay Fatima in Inabanga town, the place is peaceful, tranquil and something different.  There are life-size structures of the 14 Stations of the Cross with a big figure of the God the Father of All Mankind at the top of the hill.

Virgen sa Kaluoy in Calape- The image of the Virgin is believed to be growing from an empty giant shell. From a mere obscure figure, the image now is very visible, showing the beautiful virgin with the giant shell in the background.

 

San Antonio de Padua Shrine- Located in barangay Tinibgan in Calape town, it houses the miraculous image of St. Anthony of Padua, one of the Catholic Church’s most popular saints. Saint Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost and stolen articles.

 

Kruz Daku in Loboc – It is one of the favorite destinations of the pilgrims during the Holy Week. A huge white cross 80 feet in height is on top of the highest hill, where one can view the towns of Loay and Loboc.

 

Lenten Procession in Baclayon- During Holy Wednesday and Good Friday, the streets of this town are filled with life-size religious statues depicting key events of the Passion and Death of Christ on decorated carrozas which are solemnly paraded along the streets followed either by devotees reciting the rosary.

 

Hugos in Loboc- The ritual that dramatizes the first meeting of Christ and Mary after His resurrection, and takes place at dawn on Easter Sunday.  It begins with two processions, where statues of Christ and Mary are carried from opposite ends of the community. The statue of Mary is covered in a black veil of mourning. Eventually, they will meet at midpoint, during which an angel (typically played by a young girl from the community) will lift the veil, ending Mary’s mourning and Holy Week celebrations.  Well, what makes it special is the world-famous Loboc Children’s Choir sings during the mass and the ritual.

 

The Village of the Compassionate God the Father
is a perfect place to celebrate the Holy Week.
The time of Lent is precious, a time to slow down,
 restrain ourselves, and prepare our hearts
for the remembrance of Jesus' death.-LPU

Amulet hunting-It is a folk belief that anting-anting (amulets) are especially potent if collected, made, or charged on Good Friday. In Lamanok Point in Anda town and in Kalagan in Garcia-Hernandez, some albularyo search for anting-anting in caves and forests.

 

There’s no place better than Bohol to make your Visita Iglesia pilgrimage, a good try for spiritual journey. There are 14 churches to visit in remembrance of the 14 Stations of the Cross.

 

Mediate and pray at Alburquerque (Sta. Monica Parish), Anda (Sto Nino Parish), Alicia (San Joaquin),  Antequera (The Nuestra Señora del Rosario), Baclayon (The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception), Balilihan (Nuestra Señora del Carmen Parish), Calape (San Vicente Ferrer), Candijay (Saint Joseph),Corella (Parish of Our Lady of the Village), Cortes (Santo Niño Parish), Dauis (Church of Our Lady of the Assumption), Dimiao (San Nicolas Tolentino Parish), Duero (Immaculate Conception), Garcia Hernandez (St. John the Baptist), Getafe (Santo Niño), Guindulman (Nuestra Señora de la Consolacion), Inabanga (San Pablo Apostol), Jagna (San Miguel Arcángel Parish), Lila (Virgin of the Holy Rosary), Loay (Santissima Trinidad Parish), Loboc (Church of San Pedro), Loon (Church of Our Lady of Light),  Maribojoc (Santa Cruz Parish),  Panglao (San Agustin Parish), Tagbilaran City (Cathedral of San José), Talibon (Most Holy Trinity), and Valencia (Santo Niño Parish).

 

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Thanks for your letters, all will be answered. Comments welcome at leoudtohan@yahoo.com, follow leoudtohan at Twitter /Facebook.

Holy Week reflections

I love Holy Week. It’s quite possibly my favorite week of the whole year.

The art depicting the death of Jesus Christ attracts people inside the gallery archive at the Getty Center.

Since we are observing the most sacred week of the year,  I’m sharing to all Bared readers, I am Thine, O Lord, one of my favorite hymns, written by blind poet and hymnist Fanny Crosby. You can read alongside the passion accounts in the Gospels. (On this page and next are pictures taken in USA and in Philippines " to feel" the spirit of the Holy Week.)

I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice,
And it told Thy love to me;
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee.

Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died.
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.

Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord,
By the power of grace divine;
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope,
And my will be lost in Thine.

O the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend,
When I kneel in prayer, and with Thee, my God
I commune as friend with friend!

There are depths of love that I cannot know
Till I cross the narrow sea;
There are heights of joy that I may not reach
Till I rest in peace with Thee.

The Getty Center in Los Angeles, California houses the largest archive of Christian arts in the world. People visit the center to appreciate the arts and its meaning.

According to cyberhymnal.org, Fanny Crosby was visiting Mr. W. H. Doane, in his home in Cin­cin­nati, Ohio. They were talk­ing to­ge­ther about the near­ness of God, as the sun was set­ting and even­ing sha­dows were ga­ther­ing around them. The subject so imp­ressed the well-known hymn-writer, that be­fore re­tir­ing she had writ­ten the words to this hymn, which has become one of the most use­ful she has ever writ­ten. The mu­sic by Mr. Doane so well fit­ted the words that the hymn has become a spe­cial fa­vo­rite wher­ev­er the Gos­pel Hymns are known.

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Thanks for your letters, all will be answered. Comments welcome at leoudtohan@yahoo.com, follow leoudtohan at Twitter /Facebook.

 

 

Last Wednesday, yours truly with fellow Boholanos (l-r) JunJun Karaan, Cindy Gonzaga and Liezel Gonzaga-Bingas visited  the famous Divine Mercy Shrine in El Salvador, Misamis Oriental.  The Divine Mercy stands 50 feet tall on top  of hill surrounded by flower garden with a total land area  of 11.8 hectares. "It's a solemn place to pray and meditate," said JunJun. This is a project of archdiocese of Cagayan De Oro City (CDO) which cost around 65 million pesos. Half of its amount is donated by Adaza family and half is from befecators  in Poland and archdiocese of CDO.  Courtesy: Rammel Sumatra

The Gospel of Judas

Note: The Gospel of Judas is a non-canonical gospel that purportedly documents conversations between the Disciple Judas Iscariot and Jesus Christ. It is believed to have been written by an early alternative Christian movement, rather than by Judas himself, and probably dates from no earlier than the 2nd century, since it contains late 2nd century theology. In 180 A.D., Irenaeus, an influential Christian priest, wrote a document in which he railed against this gospel, indicating the book was already in circulation. In contrast to the canonical gospels which paint Judas as a betrayer of Christ who delivered him up to the authorities for crucifixion, the Gospel of Judas portrays Judas's actions as done in obedience to instructions given by Christ. The document also suggests that Christ planned the course of events which led to his death. The Gospel of Judas does not claim that the other disciples knew about Jesus's true teachings. On the contrary, it asserts that they had not learned the true Gospel, which Jesus taught only to Judas Iscariot, the sole follower belonging to the "holy generation" among the disciples. (From Wikipedia)

THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
A Talk with Elaine Pagels

The first time I heard of the Gospel of Judas was about five years ago, when I got a call from someone who said, I have a book for you to edit—the Gospel of Judas. That astonished me, since I knew that the "church father" Irenaeus had mentioned such a gospel nearly 2000 years ago, denouncing it as terrible blasphemy: but no one had ever seen it, or known whether it actually existed.

But this dealer in Cleveland was telling me he had it there. Was he telling the truth? I called the Met, the Getty, and the Frist to ask about him, and they told me that he is a reputable dealer who has important material—but when I called back he suddenly stopped answering the phone. I realized then what already had seemed likely—that the book had been stolen from Egypt, and could not be legally sold.
I located a man who often bought rare books from this dealer, and who also has given many of them to Princeton, hoping that he might buy the Gospel of Judas, give it to Princeton, and then return it formally to Egypt, which would legalize the arrangement. Then we could photograph and publish it—that was the plan.

So I went to Madison Square Garden to meet the dealer, and confronted him: "I'm Elaine Pagels, why won't you talk to me?" Startled, he explained what we had suspected—that the owner of the text had told him not to talk about it, since it had been bought illegally. He then invited me out to Cleveland to see it, and I went, and looked at it. And there was the title—"The Gospel of Judas" in Coptic—and then he showed me the following five pages—which turned out to be five pages of rather uninteresting Coptic text. So I said, Okay, well, they've hyped it, they were hoping to get fifteen million dollars—it's not what they said.
But when suddenly it resurfaced last year, and I was asked to be on the advisory committee presenting it publicly, I learned what had happened: the dealer didn't realize that when you have a Greek or Coptic text, the title is often placed at the end of the text. It turns out that the previous 26 pages were the actual Gospel of Judas—a fascinating  dialogue between Jesus and Judas about what happened when Judas handed Jesus over for arrest—and why he did it. Startlingly, this gospel presents Judas Iscariot as Jesus' favorite disciple, the only one whom he trusts with his deepest mysteries. And all the other disciples appear as people who completely missed the message of Jesus, and entirely distorted it—and this is what has come down to us as "Christianity."

Many people see the main message of Jesus as "Jesus died for your sins"—and see Jesus' death as a sacrifice God requires to forgive human sins. This gospel asks, What does that make of God? Is he a bloodthirsty pagan god who demands human sacrifice? The God of Abraham prevented Abraham from offering his son as a sacrifice—does the God of Jesus then require it?
Second, we've all heard of Christian martyrs. This text sees Judas dying as a martyr—because here the other disciples hate him so much that they kill him! But the Gospel of Judas challenges the idea that God wants people to  die as martyrs—just as it challenges the idea that God wanted Jesus to die. Whoever wrote this gospel—and the author is anonymous—is challenging church leaders who teach that. It's as if an imam were to challenge the radical imams who encourage "martyrdom operations" and accuse them of complicity in murder—the Gospel of Judas shows "the twelve disciples"—stand-ins for church leaders—offering human sacrifice on the altar—and doing this in the name of Jesus! Conservative Christians hate gospels like this—usually call them fakes and the people who publish them (like us) anti Christian.  There was a great deal of censorship in the early Christian movement—especially after the emperor became a Christian, and made it the religion of the empire—and voices like those of this author were silenced and denounced as "heretics" and "liars." The story of Jesus was simplified and cleaned up—made "orthodox."

But what really happened in the early movement is far messier, more intriguing, and more human. These recently discovered sources show us what was censored—and what those who didn't become "orthodox" were saying.  For this is the only gospel we've ever seen that shows Jesus laughing at his disciples—because they have distorted his message and gotten it so wrong. What we have here is evidence of how some people in the early movement were struggling with the story of how Jesus died, betrayed by one of his own men.  We don't have any  stories of Jesus written down within 40 years of his death, but after that time many people wrote down accounts of what happened. One of the most puzzling  parts of the story is that people knew that Judas Iscariot, one of his closest followers, had handed him over to the people who arrested him, and to the Roman authorities who killed him. The question was,  Why? What was the motive? Why would Judas do that?

The earliest account that we have, Mark's account in the New Testament, gives no answer at all: it simply says that this is what happened. Judas handed him over—no motive given. The second account was by Luke who read the first, and apparently found it inadequate. Feeling that he had to suggest a motive, Luke retold the story saying  that Satan, the power of evil, entered into Judas Iscariot and made him do it. Satan embodied the evil power that opposed the divine spirit in Jesus—so Luke says—and that is why Jesus was overcome and killed.

A third account, that of the New Testament gospel of Matthew,  offers a different motive: he did it for money. The way Matthew tells the story is that Judas went to the chief priest and said, what will you give me if I hand him over to you? And having gotten a certain price he agreed to do it—so, according to Matthew, the motive was obviously greed.

This new account, the Gospel of Judas, says that Jesus not only anticipated that he would die and went into it with his eyes open, so to speak, aware that this somehow had to happen because there was a deep mystery in it, asked Judas to perform this act as a friend, and that Judas was the only one who could and would do it, and the others completely misunderstood it and took it as betrayal. Matthew's gospel says Judas was so remorseful he went out and hung himself. But this gospel says the others stoned him to death, out of rage. So it's a very different kind of account.

When the National Geographic first heard that there was such a Gospel of Judas, several experts interpreted it the way we have basically always have interpreted Gnostic text. When we first heard about Gnostic texts, we were told that they were "weird"—"Gnostic", that meant they were the wrong kind of gospel, not  like the "real" gospels.

But when (Harvard Professor) Karen King and I approach these texts, we treat each as another Christian gospel—another way that this powerful and strange and tangled story of betrayal was told by Jesus' followers in the decades after his death. We can't assume it tells us much about what happened between Jesus and Judas—it's probably guesswork, like all the other gospels—but it also offers a lot more than that: it places us right in the heart of the historical situation in the generations after his death.

Anyone who joined this movement was aware that he or she could be killed for it, as many had been—Jesus' closet disciple Peter was crucified by the Romans, Paul was beheaded, while other followers of Jesus, like his brother James and his follower Stephen, were lynched by public mobs and riots. It was very dangerous to be a part of this movement. And one of the most troubling problems with anybody associated with it was, what do you do if you're arrested? What do you do, knowing that this could happen? Do you run? Do you accept persecution as if this were something God wanted? There is a Jewish tradition about persecution and about martyrdom which sees dying for God, as they called it, as a way of witnessing God's power. The followers of Jesus argued intensely about that question. And the Gospel of Judas is one of the writings that comes out of these intense, painful arguments involving the threat of violence—arrest, threat of torture and public execution. This shows us what DIDN'T become Christianity—and casts very new light on what did.

For when Jesus' followers tried to make sense of how their messiah died, some suggested that Jesus died as a sacrifice—"he died for our sins." The idea that Jesus' death is an atonement for the sins of the world becomes the heart of the Christian message, for many. It's certainly the heart of the New Testament gospels. There Jesus, before he dies, tells his disciples, when you eat this bread you're eating my body, which I'm giving for you; you're drinking my blood when you drink this wine. Because I'm giving my body and my blood as a voluntary sacrifice for you. So the worship of Jesus' followers became a sacred meal in which people drank wine and ate bread, ceremonially reenacting the death of Jesus.

We call it the Eucharist, the Mass. We're so used to it we hardly see that it's a cannibalistic feast. But whoever wrote the Gospel of Judas has Jesus laughing at the disciples,  to say, what you're doing is ludicrous. Turning the death of Jesus into something like an animal sacrifice. Eating flesh and drinking blood ritually, even, is a kind of obscene gesture. This author, this follower of Jesus, sees the idea of Jesus dying for our sins as a complete misunderstanding of the whole message of Jesus.

So, although the Gospel of Judas is an authentic early Christian document, it was early condemned as "blasphemy". We don't know whether this actually IS what Jesus taught—for although New Testament Gospels say that Jesus did teach secret teaching, they don't tell us what it was. But we do have many new texts that show us secret teaching, like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Gospel of Phillip. And probably Jesus, like other first-century rabbis, taught one kind of message in public, with thousands of people listening, and other kinds of teaching in private. We don't think the Gospel of Judas belongs in the canon—but we also don't think it belongs in the trash: instead it belongs in the history of Christianity—a history that now, in light of all these recent discoveries, we now have to rewrite completely.