Wednesday of Passion Week in the Maronite Liturgical Calendar is a celebration of a rarely understood Rite, found in the middle of a week filled with penance, pain, sorrow, suffering, darkness, awaiting, and finally, joy.
This celebration concludes the healing journey that began with the miracles of Christ throughout the Season of Great Lent. The Gospels of Great Lent emphasise the re-creation and renewal of man, preparing us in our journey toward the New Creation in Christ, the Feast of the Resurrection.
After all has been healed and made anew through Christ’s healing ministry, which is the focus of Lent, there remains but one thing before the celebration of the Paschal Mystery.
Each and every one of us, the faithful, is invited to personally experience this healing, both body and soul. We are called to be renewed and strengthened, as we await the light of Christ, the New Adam, who calls all to new life.
This celebration is called Job Wednesday, or the Rite of the Lamp, with an emphasis on healing and renewal through anointing and the power of prayer, as shown in the Epistle to James (5:13-18). This theme is echoed in the Gospel of Luke (10:25-37), the account of the Good Samaritan.
We might appear wise and holy, like the Temple priests and Levites. Yet it is the works of love, of charity, the works of the Spirit, that mend the brokenness of our hearts.
Like the friends of Job who could do nothing but judge in his time of suffering, the priest and the Levite in the parable did nothing but condemn the wounded man to continued suffering by ignoring him.
Job suffered, yet found consolation in the Lord. The man in the Gospel parable suffered, and found healing not in the Samaritan as a person, but in his works of love and mercy, in the works of the Lord. This is what we are called to remember on this day. The Lord calls us to act through His mercy and love, drawing us not only to physical healing but also to spiritual renewal, filled with the Spirit and the light of His eternal life.
This is symbolised in the Rite of the Lamp. The tradition highlights the need, during Passion Week, for healing of our body and soul through oil and dough blessed by the priest. The oil is for the healing of the body, following the ancient tradition of balms and oils used to anoint wounds and those seeking healing from various illnesses.
Yet we must keep in mind that while the physical oil represents bodily healing, we are also called to repentance and contrition. This is the healing of the soul. It fills the lamps of our hearts with oil to light the path of our life’s journey as we await the coming of the Bridegroom.
The dough is symbolic of humanity’s brokenness: kneaded, folded and shapeless. The dough finds its true meaning and life when bearing the light of wicks placed in it.
These seven lit wicks are not a coincidence; they are images of prophecies. They are the seven eyes of the Lord (Zechariah 4:1-10) keeping watch and leading Creation. They are the branches of the tree of Jesse, springing from the shoot (Messiah) that has the seven-fold Spirit of the Lord resting upon it (Isaiah 11:1-2). They are the lights of the Seven Churches (Revelation 1:12-20), bringing the Light of Christ, His love, mercy, healing and Resurrection, to the whole world.
The wicks remind us that by abandoning our fallen nature and brokenness to the will of the Lord, we allow Him to re-create us. We become beacons of the Light of Christ, beacons of true life in the darkness of the world.
During the celebration of the Rites in Passion Week, let us always remember the light in the midst of the darkness of suffering, the consolation that Job found which allowed him not to rebuke the Lord.
Let us remember our own consolation in Christ, reminding us that even in our brokenness, weakness, and even in death, there is always the light of the Lord, filled with the Spirit who leads and strengthens us.
Let us always look beyond suffering and death, and remember the empty tomb, for the New Adam has liberated creation. He has re-created it out of the darkness of death, giving new and eternal life.