Between Two Gardens

Homily at the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion

On Ash Wednesday, we began our pilgrimage to the Triduum

by comparing the garden tools of trellis, pruning shears, and seeds
to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. 

Today, St John’s Passion opens and closes in a garden—
Gethsemane and the garden of Joseph of Arimathea.

In Eden, Adam and Eve forfeited the garden:

by hiding from God, they did not pray;
by eating the forbidden fruit, they did not fast;
by mutual accusation, they did not give alms.

 But in the gardens of Jesus’ Passion, the New Creation began.

In Gethsemane,

He offered the High Priestly Prayer—
fasting from the option to flee,
and asking the Father to bestow the alms of unity and peace.

At the Cross, near Joseph's garden,

the seed of the New Eden was planted:
praying, He gave voice to Psalm 22;
fasting, He rejected Pilate’s amnesty;
almsgiving, He relinquished vengeance and gave us mercy.

On the sixth day of Creation, God formed human nature;
on that first Good Friday—another sixth day—God refashioned it.

Just as Eve came forth from Adam’s side in the old garden,
so now the Church is born from Christ’s pierced side in the new:
by the water and the blood,
by the indwelling Spirit and the Eucharist celebrated,
we are translated into the Eden of the New Creation.

Tonight, on the Seventh Day, we will rest.

And tomorrow night, on the new First Day,
we will hear again: “Let there be Light.”

And we shall rise—

co-gardeners with the Divine Gardener,
tending the soil of the world He loved unto death.