Editorial

The next three days are the holiest in the Christian calendar as they commemorate so many different things that are fundamental to Christianity.

During these days, Christians will remember the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The institution of the Eucharist and the priesthood are also commemorated. The drama of love versus hate, life versus death and grace versus sin will be re-enacted. Love, life and grace will be the definitive winners.

Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil/Easter Sunday form part of one stretch of time called the Easter Triduum. One event seamlessly leads to the other and all will culminate in Easter.

However, these three days for Christians are not just a commemoration of past events. They are and, indeed, should be much more than that. They are, in fact, the proclamation of a programme of action; a life plan; a method of living in and organising society; a way of being human. These celebrations have enormous implications for the micro (that is, our relationships; actions on a personal level) and the macro (political choices) of our existence.

When Christians stop at the level of remembering, without moving up to the level of enactment, they will be devaluing these feasts from their real meanings. For such celebrations will then become mere traditional or cultural events having a lot of form and pomp but with little content and consequence. Unfortunately, we will certainly witness a lot of this kind of alienation in the coming days. When this temptation is surmounted, the Easter Triduum becomes the time of a collective examination of conscience par excellence through which the Christian community can see whether the values of these celebrations are incarnated or not in Maltese society.

Just two examples would suffice to clarify the point being made here.

During the Last Supper, He who was the Lord performed the menial tasks of servants. Jesus, thus, strongly put forward the concept of authority as a service. When He washed the feet of the disciples, He was presenting us with a paradigmatic shift in the way authority should be exercised. Is this the dominant model of exercising authority present on different levels of our society? The exercise of authority, it should constantly be borne in mind, goes beyond political authority. Teachers, parents, trade unionists, employers, etc exercise a kind of authority.

The Passion and death of our Lord are a glaring example of the horrible effect that intolerance can have and usually has. This is a monster that takes on many faces: religious, ethnic, social and political are just a few. It is often beget by fear of the new, and ignorance of the unknown. It then tends to mushroom into a monster fed by hate. Consequences vary from bullying at school or on the place of work to collective exclusion, punishment and even massacres.

This week, the world also commemorated the Rwanda genocide; perhaps the worst example of ethnic intolerance in the last 20 years. How tolerant is our society towards all sorts of minorities present in our midst? Is not the emerging sense of xenophobia towards irregular/illegal immigrants another example of intolerance rearing its head among us?

More than anything else, the Easter Triduum inspires hope and a positive attitude towards living. In the midst of all adversities, suffering and injustices, Easter is a clear sign that love, life and justice will have the final word in human history.