Velum Templi Scissum Est

Meditations on Good Friday Matins

At the Office of Tenebrae last night, we sang the following Responsory:

“But He spoke of the Temple of His Body”

All the Synoptic Gospels include this line: Velum templi Scissum est. “The veil of the temple was rent.” (Mt 27:51, Mk 15:38, Lk, 23:45) The Gospel of John does not include this detail, instead it shows something more. From the beginning of his Gospel, Saint John depicts our Lord Himself as the True Temple:

Jesus answered, and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said: Six and forty years was this temple in building; and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But He spoke of the temple of his body. (Jn 2:19-21)

When he approaches the same point in the narrative where the Synoptics reveal that the veil was torn, John does not repeat this same detail already given by the other evangelists. St John may have had — Saint Thomas Aquinas states that he did have — the other Gospels before him as he wrote, and he is interested not in repeating the details included in the Synoptics, but in illuminating them. And so, when the others speak of the veil, Saint John rather unveils the spiritual meaning of the veil by showing what it symbolises. He writes:

After they were come to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers with a spear opened His side, and immediately there came out blood and water. And he that saw it, hath given testimony, and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true; that you also may believe. For these things were done, that the scripture might be fulfilled: You shall not break a bone of him. And again another scripture saith: They shall look on him whom they pierced. (Jn 19:33-37)

The opening of the side of Jesus takes the place in Saint John’s Gospel of the rending of the veil. Saint Paul’s letter to the Hebrews indicates to us that this is the correct interpretation, that the Flesh of the Lord takes the place of the veil, for Saint Paul states that a new and living way has been opened to us through the veil that is the Body of Jesus (Heb 10:20).

When we hear the second Responsory at Matins, should we not keep this in mind? The veil has been rent — not just the veil of cloth that covers the temple of stone — the veil which is His Flesh.  Our Lord’s side has been opened, the Fount of Life is poured out.

“The Whole Earth Shook”

Four months ago on Christmas day, filled with joy, we sang:

Viderunt omnes fines terræ salutare Dei nostri.

“All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.” (Ps 97:3)

Jesus is the salvation of our God (Yeshua is Hebrew for “Salvation”). Jesus has finally come to save us; we are filled with joy as our Saviour has finally arrived! But today, this salvation is fully unveiled.  What Christ was born to do, He brings today to its consummation. And the whole earth shook. Omnis terra tremuit.

How surprising this salvation is! Is this the salvation we had rejoiced in on Christmas day? As we contemplated Jesus on the Cross with Jeremiah, did not the liturgy of Tenebrae make us ask:

All they that passed by the way have clapped their hands at thee: they have hissed, and wagged their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying: Is this the city of perfect beauty, the joy of all the earth? (Lam 2:15, Lesson II of Matins)

Is the One Crucified here really our Salvation? The one beaten and killed as a criminal, is He really the one all creation was longing for?

We were filled with joy when we began to see the salvation of God.  But now that this salvation is revealed, the whole world quakes.

“That You Also May Believe”

In the Synoptic Gospels, a Roman centurion confesses that “Truly, this was the Son of God.” (Mt 27:54, Mk 15:39)  In the Fourth Gospel, Saint John “breaks the fourth wall” so to speak and asks the reader to take the role of this centurion:

He that saw it, hath given testimony, and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith true; that you also may believe. (Jn 19:35)

The centurion was given faith in light of the opening of the veil of Christ’s side and the pouring out of the fount of life. And now we too are called to believe.  Like the Good Thief we now cry out for the Cross of our own sins: Memento mei, Domine, dum veneris in regnum tuum. “Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into thy kingdom!”

And in this we see why the Church juxtaposes these texts in this way, out of chronological order, first stating that the veil was rent and then that the thief cried out, for it is only after the rending of the Veil of Christ’s Flesh — that is, the opening of His Side — that we — in the place of the Good Thief and like the centurion — can join this confession and beg for His mercy.  The time for showing mercy has come.

It Is Time for the Lord to Act

Leading up to Christmas, all throughout Advent, we repeated the refrain: Veni.

Here we have the final Veni of sorts: dum veneris in regnum tuum. Not now a request for Him to come to us, for He is already here with us.  But now that He goes to the Father (cf Jn 14:28), we beg that He take us with Him. The Lord is acting here.  His work is consummated and we must now ask Him to unite us to His action.

And His response is immediate:

Petræ scissæ sunt, et monumenta aperta sunt, et multa corpora sanctorum, qui dormierant, surrexerunt.

The rocks rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints, which slept, arose. (Mt 27:52)

The Church shows in actions what our Lord said in words to the thief: “Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.” (Lk 23:43) Now we see that the earth is shaking not just out of fear but because sin is conquered, death is destroyed.  Like the centurion, we have pierced the Lord with our sins, but like the Good Thief, we will follow the Lord in rising from the grave, and we shall look upon Him Whom we have pierced.

Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in the entering into the holies by the blood of Christ; a new and living way which he hath dedicated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and a high priest over the house of God: let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with clean water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering (for he is faithful that hath promised), and let us consider one another, to provoke unto charity and to good works. (Heb 10:19-24)

The veil of the Temple of His body has been rent.  Let us enter in and be cleansed with the Blood and Water which flows from His side. Let us be raised up from the death of our sin. Let us look upon Him Whom we have pierced and contemplate for eternity the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. (Apoc 13:8)

The time for showing mercy has come.