Holy Wednesday: “A sword shall pierce through thy own soul; that the
thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
The Epistle reading for Wednesday in Holy Week recalls and completes the Epistle reading for Passion Sunday from Hebrews 9. It centers our attention on Christ’s Passion as the “forgiveness of sins” through “the shedding of his blood” in the sacrifice of himself.. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness,” and “now, once for all, at the end of time, he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” It offers a way of understanding theologically just what it means to say that “Christ is the Mediator of the new covenant, [and] that by means of death” so that “they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” This theological understanding is complemented by the Passion according to St. Luke, read today and tomorrow.
Luke, in Dante’s famous phrase, is “scriba mansuetudinis Christi,” the scribe of the gentleness of Christ. This, wonderfully illustrated in The Beginning of the Passion According to St. Luke. Luke, helps us to feel something of the meaning of Christ’s Passion psychologically, emotionally, and personally, and what it means for us. In other words, Luke gives us a sense of the inner struggles, turmoil and dynamic of the Passion in Christ himself in the movement towards the Cross.
Luke shows what is at work in the forces of evil that seek to kill Jesus especially with respect to the intentions of the chief priests and scribes and the role of Judas in Christ’s betrayal. Satan, Luke tells us, “entered into Judas” who conspires with the chief priests and captains to betray Jesus unto them. Satan is the tempter, the devil, who as a created being is good but exists in denial of his own being. He is, as Augustine nicely puts it, “an evil good”. He shows us the radical nature of evil as the contradiction and negation of the good upon which it utterly depends, the evil to which we concede so easily.
Luke tells us about the Last Supper but in greater detail about the mindset of Christ and his awareness of the suffering which is to follow. Luke gives a full account of the giving of himself in the bread and the cup of the Passover as meaning his sacrifice through betrayal. “Behold, the hand of him that betrayeth is with me on the table.” It is not just about Judas. Luke also anticipates Peter’s betrayal in terms of Satan desiring to control him. He foretells not just the circumstances of the betrayal but also Peter’s conversion and later mission and leadership. Thus Luke provides an insight into both the humanity and the divinity of Christ that belong to his being “the Mediator of the new covenant.” This builds upon the images of the old covenant about forgiveness and sacrifice recapitulated and transformed in Christ’s sacrifice.
Two scenes in the beginning of Luke’s Passion highlight his literary and gentle touch: Christ in Gethsemane and Christ’s betrayal by Peter. Luke allows us to feel something of the inward force of the Passion as anticipated by Christ. It is captured in his prayer to the Father that “nevertheless, not my will but thine be done”, an echo of both Mary’s fiat mihi and the Lord’s Prayer. In a moving and graphic image, he conveys the agony of Gethsemane in Christ “pray[ing] more earnestly; and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” The image complements the idea that there is no forgiveness of sins, no redemption, “without the shedding of blood.” Blood is symbolic of the life-force of created beings. Luke shows us the inner struggle of his humanity, pierced by human sin and pierced by divine love.
Forgiveness is shown too in terms of healing such as the healing of the servant of the high priest in the scene of violence that follows Christ being betrayed in Gethsemane by the kiss of Judas and in the struggle between the other disciples and the servants of the high priest. As Luke records, Jesus says “this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”
The last scene is Peter’s betrayal of Christ. The cock crew while Peter spoke the third time. Luke, in a powerful and artistic touch, simply tells us that “the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.” That look convicts Peter’s conscience. His thoughts are revealed to him, “and Peter remembered the word of the Lord.” He is pierced inwardly and moved to sorrow and contrition simply by the look and the words of Christ. “And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.” This is the beginning of his conversion, of his being recalled to who he is in Christ. Yet it can only happen through the process of sounding those “two vast spacious things, Sinne and Love,” particularly as imaged by Luke.
Wednesday in Holy Week anticipates the Triduum Sacrum, the three great holy Days of Holy Week, perhaps most powerfully in the service of Tenebrae, meaning shadows or darkness. Tenebrae is the Psalm Office of Mattins traditionally sung the evening before each of the three holy days. In every way we immerse ourselves in the meaning of the Passion through the language and images of the Scriptures. Only so might we be pierced in sorrow and pierced by love.
“A sword shall pierce through thy own soul; that the
thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”
Fr. David Curry
Wednesday in Holy Week, Tenebrae 2026