[LA EN] Holy Tuesday, inserted in the profound austerity of Holy Week, is a day marked by the imminence of the redemptive sacrifice and by the hardening of the betrayals that surround Our Lord. Historically, the Roman liturgy does not dedicate this day to a specific saint, but concentrates all its attention on the mystery of the approaching Passion, preparing the faithful for the Sacred Triduum. Since the early days of the Church, this day was reserved for the reading of the Passion according to Saint Mark, offering a particular perspective on the suffering of Christ, characterized by the brevity and visceral impact of the Gospel account. The liturgical tradition establishes as the stational church the Basilica of Saint Prisca, in Rome, one of the oldest titular churches of the city, built over the house where, according to tradition, the apostle Peter baptized Prisca (or Priscilla) and where she and her husband Aquila welcomed the nascent Christian community. To direct oneself spiritually to this venerable place evokes the fidelity of the early Church amid persecutions, contrasting vividly with the conspiracy and abandonment that Our Lord suffered in the hours preceding his crucifixion, inviting us to a more intimate and courageous union with the Divine Master.
🎵 Introit (Gl 6, 14; Sl 66, 2)
Nos autem gloriári opórtet in cruce Dómini nostri Jesu Christi: in quo est salus, vita, et resurréctio nostra: per quem salváti, et liberáti sumus. Deus misereátur nostri, et benedícat nobis: illúminet vultum suum super nos, et misereátur nostri.
But as for us, we ought to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: in him is our salvation, life and resurrection; through him we have been saved and set free. May God have mercy on us and bless us: may he make his face shine upon us and have mercy on us.
📜 Reading (Jr 11, 18-20)
Reading from the Prophet Jeremiah. In those days, Jeremiah said: O Lord, you have made me know it and I understood it; then you revealed their plans to me. I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter; and I did not know that they had formed plots against me, saying: Let us put wood in his bread and eliminate him from the land of the living, so that his name may no longer be remembered. But you, O God of hosts, judge with wisdom and search the kidneys and the hearts; let me see your vengeance upon them, for I have entrusted my cause to you, O Lord, my God.
📖 Gospel (Mc 14, 32-72; 15, 1-46)
At that time: Jesus and his disciples went to a garden, whose name was Gethsemane. And Jesus said to his disciples: Sit here, while I pray. And he took with him Peter, James and John; and he began to be afraid and distressed. And he said to them: My soul is sorrowful even unto death; stay here and watch. Having taken a few steps, he fell to the ground. And he prayed that, if possible, that hour might be taken away from him. And he said: Abba, Father, all things are possible to you; remove this chalice from me; yet not what I will, but what you will. And he came to his disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter: Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not watch one hour with me? Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. And going away again, he prayed, repeating the same words. Returning, he found them still sleeping (for their eyes were heavy with sleep) and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them: Sleep now, and take your rest. It is enough; the hour has come. Behold, the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go; he who is to betray me is at hand. And while he was still speaking, Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, arrived, and with him a great multitude with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests, scribes and elders. He who betrayed him had given them a sign, saying: The one I shall kiss, that is he; seize him and lead him away carefully. Having come, he immediately approached him and said to him: Hail, Master. And he kissed him. Then they laid hands on Jesus and seized him. One of those present, drawing his sword, struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. And Jesus, taking the floor, said to them: Have you come out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to arrest me? Every day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled. Then his disciples abandoned him and all fled. A young man who was following him, clothed only in a linen cloth, was seized by them. But he left the linen cloth behind and fled from them naked. And they led Jesus to the high priest; and all the priests, scribes and elders were gathered there. Peter, however, followed him from a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest; and he sat with the servants by the fire to warm himself. The chief priests and the whole council, meanwhile, were seeking testimony against Jesus to condemn him to death, but they did not find any. For many brought false testimony against him, but their statements did not agree. Some, finally, stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying: We heard him say: I will destroy this temple made by human hands and in three days I will build another, not made by human hands. But their testimonies did not agree. Then the high priest stood up in the midst of the assembly and questioned Jesus, saying: Have you no answer to what these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent and answered nothing. The high priest questioned him again and said to him: Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed God? Jesus answered him: I am. And you will see the Son of man seated at the right hand of the power of God and coming with the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest, tearing his garments, said: What further need do we have of witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy; what is your opinion? And they all condemned Jesus as deserving death. Then they began to spit on him, to cover his face, to strike him with their fists, and to say to him: Prophesy. And the servants struck him with slaps. While Peter was in the courtyard below, one of the maidservants of the high priest came, and seeing Peter warming himself, she looked at him and said: You also were with Jesus of Nazareth. But he denied it, saying: I neither know nor understand what you are saying. And going outside the courtyard, the cock crowed. Seeing him again, the maidservant began to say to those present: This man is one of them. And Peter denied it again. A little later, some of those who were there said to Peter: Surely you are one of them, for you are also a Galilean. But he began to curse and to swear: I do not know this man of whom you speak. And at that moment the cock crowed a second time. Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had said to him: Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times. And he began to weep. Early in the morning, after holding a meeting, the chief priests, the elders, the scribes and the whole council decided; and binding Jesus, they led him away and delivered him to Pilate. And Pilate questioned him: Are you the King of the Jews? And he, answering, said to him: Yes, I am. The chief priests accused him of many things. Pilate questioned him again, saying: Have you no answer? See how much they accuse you! But Jesus answered nothing more, which filled Pilate with wonder. Now on the feast day, it was customary to release to them one prisoner, whomever they requested. There was then one called Barabbas, who had been imprisoned with rebels, because in a riot he had committed murder. When the crowd came up, they began to ask him to grant them what was customary. Pilate answered and said to them: Do you want me to release the King of the Jews for you? For he knew that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him. But the high priests urged the crowd to have Barabbas released instead. Pilate, speaking again, said to them: What do you want me to do with the King of the Jews? And they shouted even louder: Crucify him. But Pilate said to them: What evil has he done then? And they shouted even more: Crucify him. Pilate, wishing to satisfy the people, released Barabbas to them and, after having Jesus scourged, delivered him to be crucified. Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the praetorium, and after gathering the whole cohort, they clothed him in purple, placing on his head a crown that they had woven with thorns. And then they saluted him: Hail, King of the Jews. They struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him; and kneeling down, they worshiped him. After they had mocked him in this way, they took off the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And then they led him away to crucify him. Then they found a certain man passing by, coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry Jesus' cross. And they led him to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the Skull. And they gave him wine mixed with myrrh to drink. But he did not take it. After they had crucified him, they divided his garments, casting lots for them to see what each would receive. It was the third hour when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge against him was: The King of the Jews. With him they crucified two robbers: one on his right and one on his left. Thus the Scripture was fulfilled which says: He was numbered with the transgressors. Those who passed by blasphemed against him, wagging their heads and saying: You who would destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests, mocking him among themselves with the scribes, said: He saved others, but he cannot save himself. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, that we may see and believe. And those who had been crucified with him also insulted him. When the sixth hour came, darkness covered the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice: Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabacthani? Which is translated: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Some of those present, hearing him, said: Behold, he is calling Elijah. And one of them ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar; and putting it on a reed, he gave it to him to drink, saying: Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to deliver him. But Jesus, uttering a loud cry, expired. And the veil of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Seeing that Jesus had expired with that cry, the centurion who stood facing him said: Truly this man was the Son of God. There were also there Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Less and of Joseph, and Salome, who had followed him and served him since he was in Galilee. And there were many other women who had gone up with him to Jerusalem. When evening had come (it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath), Joseph of Arimathea, a noble counselor who was also waiting for the Kingdom of God, came. He went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate wondered if he had already died. And calling the centurion, he asked him if Jesus was already dead. And when he was assured of it by the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. Joseph bought a linen cloth, took him down from the cross, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock; then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb.
✝️ The glory on the cross and obedience unto death
The account of the Passion according to Saint Mark presents to us the rawness of abandonment and the depth of Our Lord's obedience. In Gethsemane, Christ fully assumes the weakness of human nature, teaching us, as Saint Gregory the Great points out, that true submission to the Father's will surpasses all natural fear and transforms suffering into a path of redemption. The Savior's silence before the Sanhedrin and Pilate is not passive resignation, but the supreme manifestation that Divine Truth does not beg for earthly defense; his kingship and victory are enthroned in the humiliation of the wood, as Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches. Saint Peter's own denial reveals the abyss of our fragility when we trust in our own strength; however, as Saint Ambrose reflects, the Master's gaze and the crowing of the cock awaken the tears of repentance, proving that grace abounds where human misery recognizes itself and weeps for its sin.
The figure of the prophet Jeremiah, in the reading of the day, stands as the most perfect literary and spiritual prefiguration of the suffering Christ. By describing himself as a "gentle lamb led to the slaughter", the prophet anticipates the Lamb of God who does not open his mouth before his shearers. The conspiracy of the wicked who say "let us put wood in his bread" is a prophecy that is at once literal and mystical: the wood is the torment of the Cross, and the bread is Christ's own Body, offered for the life of the world. Saint Augustine meditates on this passage, recalling that the just man, by embracing the enmity of men for love of the divine will, finds his only support in the justice of God, He who searches the kidneys and the hearts. The prophet's apparent defeat is the seed of Christ's victory, who fully entrusts his cause into the hands of the Father, transforming the conspiracy and human hatred into the eternal and unshakable design of salvation.
It is in the profound convergence of this absolute surrender that the liturgy makes us sing in the Introit: "But as for us, we ought to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ". The humiliation narrated in the Gospel and prefigured in the prophet is not a cause for scandal, but the very source where "our salvation, life and resurrection" are found. The wood plotted by Jeremiah's enemies became the tree of life, through which we were forgiven and set free. When we contemplate the face of Christ veiled by spittle and crowned with thorns during the sorrowful Passion, we see the fulfillment of the psalm that pleads: "may he make his face shine upon us and have mercy on us". The Cross, therefore, is not the tragic end of an innocent man condemned by the world, but the glorious throne of the King who, perfectly obedient unto death, draws all things to the love of the Father.