Making Spiritual Preparations -- Full text here

As someone who likes to be well-prepared for any and all occasions, I love to visual what’s going on in this Gospel. It sets the stage for how Jesus will encounter his disciples at the Last Supper. Much like what is going on here at St. Joseph’s to prepare for the Triduum liturgies and the reception of our RCIA Elect and the sacred celebration of Easter, Jesus gave the disciples, Peter and John, very clear instructions about how they would celebrate the Passover together – a Passover that would turn out to be unlike any other.

Sometimes we miss the significance of the celebration of the Passover in Jerusalem. It was no small matter. Every Jewish male within 15 miles of the city was required to be there but it also was the aspiration of every Jewish person, in every part of the world, to at least once make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. Even in the time of Jesus, it’s estimated that 2.7 million people could have been there. And even today, when Jewish people pray at home on Passover, they pray that the next year they might celebrate in the holy city.

By law, locals could not charge for rooms at Passover during the time of Jesus. So imagine the lengths Jesus must have gone to so that he could secure just the right room for his Passover encounter with his disciples. The upper room is particularly significant – it’s the place where the rabbi would take his disciples and share faith with them from his heart. So Jesus has made arrangements for such a room. He knows what he is going to share with them – his very own Body and Blood so that they can be transformed, so that they will become the Body of Christ in the world.

And what an odd way of knowing who would be giving them the room. “A man will meet you carrying a jar of water.” It’s odd to think that the man and Peter and John would be able to find each other in the vast Jerusalem crowds. But one detail stands out. Men didn’t carry jars of water—that was women’s work. So a man with a jar of water on his head would indeed be a man who stood out in the crowd. And so it works out just as Jesus intended it to. Peter and John found the man carrying the water; and the master of the house had a large upper room furnished just right – everything was exactly as Jesus has promised.

And so too Jesus has planned our Triduum and Easter liturgies. All of our human liturgical preparations, the formation of our RCIA candidates, the choir rehearsals -- just pave the way so that all will be just as Jesus said it would be. It will all come together.

The real question is: are we prepared to encounter Jesus in the upper room of our hearts? Have we carved out space in our busy world to enter fully into the Paschal Mystery over these next three days? Are we ready to be led by the beauty of our Triduum liturgies from the washing of each other’s feet in imitation of the servanthood of Jesus … to the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist … to the darkest hours of Good Friday? Will we wait and grieve outside the tomb? Will we proclaim him Risen on Easter Sunday morning as Mary Magdalene did, the Apostle to the Apostles? Will we be apostles to others who Jesus desires to draw to himself and to the Church?

So we must go and make preparations. Not the ham and the colored eggs and the Easter baskets filled with candy – that will all come together. We must go with intention and make spiritual preparations to truly encounter Jesus. We have to find that upper room in our heart where Jesus can enter in and fill us with his infinite love and mercy. Then everything will be exactly as he promised.