Daily Reflection Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

Did you attend the Easter Vigil service at your parish this year? I did, where I heard our pastor refer to it as 'the mother of all liturgies.' I don't think he was referring to its length alone. (With a baptism and confirmations to celebrate, our 8:00 start time at the fire pit had us leaving well after 10:30!) No, he was reminding us that we find in the treasure of this liturgy everything it means and demands of us to say we are people of faith. As a former Protestant with my Bible memory verse pins in a shadow box somewhere in the house, and now a lector, I have always appreciated in a special way the sense of rootedness that the first five sacred readings in the liturgy, each bookended with prayer and psalm, provide. This sweep through Salvation History and its Traditions ends with both Christ-resurrected and with me, in the pew, now called to add my own chapter to the Story.
 
In our first reading from Acts today, we hear a mini-sweep from the apostle Paul. Now in the synagogue once again, Paul has said yes to the invitation, asked with good manners and curiosity, to give an exhortation to the people. The very God who had with compassion and mighty power broken the yoke of slavery in Egypt, who accompanied the vulnerable community in desert wanderings, who established a land and home in Canaan, who raised up judges and leaders and the kingship of David, who appointed prophets to call the people to a return to their best selves through a baptism of repentance -- it is this same God, Paul preaches, whose sign of faithfulness and communion reaches its culmination in the gift of Jesus the Savior. And our Gospel passage continues that movement. Jesus, in an exhortation of his own, seated now back at table after washing the feet of the disciples, embeds servant leadership as a sign of the new covenant. When we serve others, we receive the Christ who himself is the fullest expression of love sent by the Father.
 
Isn't it interesting that the Latin words for 'tradition' and 'traitor' find their home in the not so subtle difference between 'handing on' and 'handing over?' After leaving the Passover meal, Jesus will be handed over to the authorities by the traitor Judas. Peter will deny Jesus three times, the dawn will break with the cock's crow, and Jesus will hand on his very life.
 
Questions to ponder today: Where have I in actions small and large handed over -- betrayed -- the precious traditions that have formed my ancestors in faith? No matter my age, what is the legacy I yearn to leave? What am I handing on? What deposit in the sweep of salvation history will be mine to make today? 
 
Time to visit the ATM machine.....