A Church Shaped by Calvary

I recently led a 3-day parish mission for a small Catholic community located in the shadow of a once-thriving industrial center outside Philadelphia. The white clapboard church perched on the hillside overlooking Chester Creek harkens back to a simpler time when the world seemed less complicated and neighbor looked out for neighbor. Faith and hard work were valued then as were mutual respect and common courtesy. I can imagine most of us now would say we’ve lost a bit of that original ideal.

But maybe, then again, we haven’t. Not really.

Nearly a week later, I’m still trying to process a moment so simple and yet so beautifully-profound that it has now become the lens through which I’m choosing to celebrate not only Holy Week but ultimately how I envision the Church for which Christ poured out His entire life at Calvary.

At the 8 a.m. Sunday Mass last weekend — known for its no-frills, no-music atmosphere — a young man sat toward the front of the church, the large statue of the Holy Family casting a shadow over the pew where he and his family sat. It was clear that there were some physical and developmental challenges which shaped this parishioner’s life, and I noted from the start of Mass at just how attentive his family was to this man, and how engaged he was with the liturgy. That alone is notable for the attentive sincerity on display so early on a Sunday morning.

But where everything really changed for me was the moment after the Consecration when we stand to pray the Lord’s Prayer as one. With some effort, the young man rose to his feet and then, with a voice both loud and strong, began proclaiming along with the congregation, “Our Father, who art in heaven …”

I didn’t understand one word. No one did. His pace was slow; it didn’t match with anyone seated around him. In fact, there were points when he was the only one who could be heard. As a visiting priest, I was thrown off guard as I tried to process what was happening. It was a lot.

But this I knew: I was witnessing the purest love and purest prayer that I have ever been privileged to be a part of, coming from the heart of one who loves in a way most of us won’t know until we ourselves return Home to the One who created us. His love made me want to love God more than I do, and I can only imagine that this young man’s love was shaped by the cross he and his family carry in caring for him.

For me, that’s really what Holy Week is about: allowing the Cross of Jesus Christ — the Cross in which we all share — transform our lives and hearts in order to become a living witness of a love that chooses life over death and sacrifice over selfishness.

At every turn in this Holy Week drama, Jesus chose to love when everyone else chose to turn away, to run in fear, and to crucify with hatred and bitterness. God could have walked away from all of us at that moment, knowing that our hearts were hardened and we refused to accept the covenant He constantly and continuously held out to us.

He could have turned around and walked away. Instead, He chose the hard way of love. He chose Calvary. He said “yes” knowing that we could still refuse His offer.

He still fed betrayers with His very life. He chose forgiveness and mercy, and allowed those very things to be His “revenge.”

And still to this day we ask why. Why would God do this for us? Why would He choose to love us despite our sinfulness and our turning away? Why would He thirst for us knowing so many would reject such an offer of complete transformative love?

Because He still sees the best in us. Love formed from the lens of the Cross — in the shape of open arms – sees beyond the sin and selfishness, anger and hate, in order to keep calling us back to healing and hope, peace and purity. Calvary-love sees everything good and true and holy in us when we refuse to see it in ourselves or in others. 

That’s why Holy Week matters. That’s why this entire week with its tales of betrayal and shouts for crucifixion is really about a love that cries out: “I see you for who you really are, and not for what Satan and the world claim you as being.”

Jesus sees us through the lens of mercy and challenges us to be that for the world. He calls us to be a Church that unites herself at the foot of His Cross, willing to become sacrificial love for the ones with whom we live and work and encounter in our daily lives.

The Passion Week is the week of choosing to say ‘yes’ to a love that isn’t easy, but instead dies-to-self in order that new life and new love can burst forth from the graves we often spend our lives digging.

The Church born at Calvary always calls forth resurrection, even in the humblest of ways.

And make no mistake: it’s still happening, these little moments of new life. I saw it with my own eyes — and heart — in that little church on the hill outside Philadelphia. Maybe for the first time in a long time I finally “got” what Church is supposed to be. It’s not about the administration or the fancy adult ed programs. It’s not about great liturgical music or even stirring homilies … although these things are certainly good.

Rather, it’s the moment when a young man carrying a heavy cross prays aloud to our Father in heaven, and the entire congregation around him lovingly and patiently waits for him to finish, even when the rest of us ended thirty seconds before him.

Church is a love that sacrifices for the other. It’s a love that walks beside and chooses to do so. It invites all, embracing everyone.

It’s a Church unafraid of the ways in which the Passion comes, knowing that Resurrection will always follow.

It’s a Church of Our Father, not just mine.

It’s a Church where a special young man reveals the Heart of God who will stop at nothing in order to love us and make us one in Him.



It’s a Church that chooses a love shaped by Calvary.