Ascension Thursday May 29th/Sunday May 31st 2014
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of the Risen Lord Jesus, to the right hand of His Father in Glory. Yet, if you think about it, this seems to be a contradiction. After all, Jesus said in the Gospel we just read, “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” So, if Jesus ascends into heaven, how can he be with us until the end of time? If Jesus wanted to be with us until the end of the world, how come he didn’t just stay in Jerusalem and be available to everyone there? If he truly loved us, wouldn’t he have stayed so that we could encounter him, personally, just like his disciples, so that we too could see him, touch him--hear him? These are good questions. How can we answer them?
In our own lives, we can certainly feel as if Jesus has left us alone, especially when we experience bad things, like the death of a loved one, a personal tragedy; but also we can seem abandoned by Jesus our God even in just the everyday struggles of life. In ordinary life we can often experience sadness or loneliness, or sometimes even incredible anguish. I believe the apostles and disciples of Jesus felt many of these things, especially after Jesus was cruelly crucified—he left them alone through the stark reality of his death and then later apparently, through his ascension into heaven. How did they overcome their anguish and how do we overcome our own? Where lies our hope in this life?..... Well, the answer is simple, yet hard; but the ascension gives us the answer. The ascension points to our hope.
At the Ascension the Disciples believed in Jesus’ promise. So we, like them, also must believe in His promise. They believed in faith that even though Jesus was with the Father in heaven, and at the same time He was with them; and not just in their memory or in their heart. They believed that Jesus was still on earth physically with them, in His resurrected and now glorified body. This brings up one of the mistakes that many can make in their understanding about Christ’s ascension into heaven. The mistake is to think that Jesus is no longer with us here on earth.
When we think of the ascension, we can wrongly picture Jesus standing before the apostles and then floating up into the clouds disappearing from their sight. This is not what the language of the Gospel means. We have to understand the words of today's Gospel mystically; because they are speaking of great mysteries.
Mystically speaking what does it mean, as we are told in today's Gospel, "and he was taken up into heaven."? Well first of all Heaven is not a place up in the sky somewhere beyond the clouds or beyond the stars at the edge of the universe; nor is heaven some type of other dimension or parallel universe, talk of which is so in vogue now a days; heaven is not the stuff of science fiction.
Heaven is all around us because God is all around us. There is however, a veil that separates heaven from us. Heaven goes beyond our senses; even though it is all around, it transcends our ability to see it, touch it, taste it, hear it or smell it. Yet is more a reality around us than that which we can sense….we believe in what is invisible…
To be taken up into heaven means then to enter through that veil that separates heaven and earth; it is to go beyond our sense perception and behold that which we can only see now through the eyes of faith. To be taken up into heaven is to behold that reality above all other realities which no eye as seen, no ear has heard nor has never even entered into the mind of man. It is to behold that God who is all around as He truly is, to behold Him face to face, which means to become One with Him in an eternal union of unending Love. Heaven is the ultimate reality all around us, more real than what we can experience with our senses.
At His ascension then, Jesus in His human body enters through that veil and becomes the way, in fact the only way for us to enter through as well. And so Jesus' humanity has become a type of doorway, if you will, from earth to heaven. And so where He has gone in His human nature we can also now go with Him, in Him and through Him-He is the Way. By the way, we can enter into heaven with Him, in Him and through Him not only at our death but beginning already here on earth; this is our hope.
Hang with me here... Because of the ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost to the Apostles, who were the first priests (which we will celebrated liturgically next week), Jesus' Human body can now be present both on earth and in heaven at the very same time. And so, in His Human nature, in His human body, blood, and soul--heaven and earth become one. In Jesus, heaven and earth unite.
The fact of the matter is, and this is very, very important to understand....the fact of the matter is, Jesus is also still on earth as He is in heaven. Not just spiritually, not just in the minds and hearts of the faithful, not just mystically in His Body the Church. Jesus is still present on earth in his human, corporal, physical and resurrected body. His human body, with all that makes up a human body: His hands and feet, His bones and blood and yes, His Human Heart alive and beating and His eyes looking lovingly at us, and ears with which to hear us, our pleading and our words of love.
The ascension was merely the end of His visible presence on earth, not the end of His physical presence on earth. Don't ever say, "when Jesus was on earth; and if you hear someone else say that correct them immediately. To say when Jesus was on earth is heresy. Jesus is still on earth, He is still on earth; He is still on earth.
But where, where is Jesus on earth as He is in heaven? At the Holy Mass, and only at the Holy Mass. It is at the Holy Mass that heaven and earth unite. At Holy Mass the veil is lifted and we entered into eternity and experience the resurrected and ascended Jesus sitting at His Throne at the Right Hand of the Father. The Heavenly Liturgy and the Earthly Liturgy literally become one; we worship and adore our God with all the angels and saints.
When we are in the presence of the Holy Eucharist we are at the same time both on earth and in heaven; in fact more in heaven than we are on earth. Where Jesus is there is heaven. Whether we encounter the Holy Eucharist, which is Jesus in His resurrected and ascended body, at Mass or outside of Mass in the tabernacle or at hours of adoration through Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we enter already through that veil that separates heaven and earth; we begin to process already that which we hope in; being embrace in the love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Yes we can't see with our human eyes the body of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist because we can't see Heaven. Yet, through faith we can know with certainty that He is really there and we can touch Him. "In faith God present in the Holy Eucharist can come to us, and show himself to the eyes of our heart." How we must present our self, before the throne of God at Holy Mass. Exteriorly, how we must act, how we must dress, even during the summer months, always wearing our Sunday best; dressed for the wedding feast of the Lamb not for a day at the park or the beach. Interiorly how we must present ourselves, how souls cleansed and made pure by confession,
Because Jesus is still on earth in the Holy Eucharist we discover that this, "The Mystery of Our Faith," is our hope in the present life of struggle and fear. But we must believe with our whole hearts and minds that He is really there in the tabernacle and on our altars after the words of consecration are spoken; and we must, we must, if we are to possess hope, live out that belief by adoring Him in the Holy Eucharist, falling on our knees and crying out in love, "Oh my God I believe, please help my unbelief. We must allow our encounter with the Eucharist, Jesus, to transform us. We must give our hearts to Jesus who gives His heart to us in the Holy Eucharist.
The Eucharist is our resurrected and ascended Lord. The Eucharist is Jesus and where Jesus is there is our hope, there is Heaven on earth. …we go to heaven to the extent we go to Jesus Christ and enter into him… (Pope Benedict)
Let us turn to Our Lady for help…Holy Mary, Mother of our hope, Queen of Peace, pray for us. Come Holy Spirit, Come by means of the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Your well-beloved spouse. Amen.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
May 25th, 2014 Sixth Sunday in Easter.
“Beloved, Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping for conscience clear.” These words of St. Peter written in the first century were repeated to us by his successor, His Holiness, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at His last visit to our beloved Country before he retired. By these words of Peter, the pope was calling us called, each and every Catholic in the United States, to give a stronger witness to others of the hope that we hold in our hearts. This was and is is a great challenge for us in our culture, which is in so many ways is quickly losing hope. It is a great challenge in our current environment that is becoming increasingly hostile to the truths of the Gospel. However, in today’s Gospel, we learn that the Holy Spirit will be with us to give us His help in all the little moments and in all the difficult moments that we are called to give faithful witness to Christ who is our hope, our Way, our Truth and our Life.
Certainly our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, understands us intimately well. After all He knitted us while we were in our mother’s womb; He knows us better than we know our self. And so He knows our feeble human nature and how fickle can be our love. He understood that His apostles would be scattered during His passion and death. He knew it would take time and His help for them to be able to grow in their faith, hope (trust) and their love so that they could be His faithful witness, His faithful friends who would witness to His love by proclaiming His truth in its fullness, boldly and without fear even unto death.
We too, like those first apostles, are afraid of giving witness to Jesus, and He as well knows our fear. We can be afraid what the truth may cost us. He knows that we can be tempted to not give a reason for the hope that is within us by burying our head and the sand and pretending that we can somehow be faithful Catholics without fidelity to the teachings of the Church which are the same as the truths of the Gospel. Jesus today however tells us that we will not be orphaned; he will not leave us alone, that through the Sacraments of the Church, He will be with us until the end of the world. And even more, He promises to send the Advocate, the Spirit of truth to us in order to help us, to strengthen our love for Him, and to lead us to all truth, to lead us to The Truth who is Jesus; and Jesus is the hope that never disappoints. He will be our strength in order to faithful witnesses to the truth He came to give us in order that we would be free and have life and have it to the full.
While he was last in the United States, Pope Emeritus Benedict also reminded us of the great dignity and the great responsibility we American Roman Catholics have in Christ. His words bear repeating; Pope Emeritus Benedict said to us:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people he claims for his own, to
proclaim his glorious works” (1 Pet 2:9). These words of the Apostle Peter do not simply remind us of the dignity, which is ours by God’s grace; they also challenge us to an ever-greater fidelity to the glorious inheritance, which we have received in Christ (cf. Eph 1:18). They challenge us to examine our consciences, to purify our hearts, to renew our baptismal commitment to reject Satan and all his empty promises. They challenge us to be a people of joy, heralds of the unfailing hope (cf. Rom 5:5) born of faith in God’s word, and trust in his promises."
Benedict here is telling us that to be faithful witnesses to Hope for our increasingly hopeless country and world entails many difficulties. To begin with, we have to do the difficult work of examining our conscience, particularly in the Sacrament of Penance. There, in the Tribunal of God’s Divine Mercy, honestly and humbly confessing those areas of our lives where we have not been faithful and which we continue to not be faithful to our baptismal promises. This hard work is the very foundation of our ability to give effective witness to our world to Christ.
Our witness is not and cannot be authentic if we fail to do this difficult work of repentance, of changing for the better with the help of God’s grace and our own hard work. So often we can tend to avoid trying to witness to our faith because we are ashamed of our sins. We can feel like hypocrites; for we ourselves have failed to live the Gospel so many times and in so many ways. Yet, the Sacrament of penance cleanses us from this fear and shame and gives us the grace to do better, to become better, more faithful, stronger and bolder followers of Christ; thus, giving witness not so much by what we say but by how we live.
Another aspect of our difficulty with giving witness is our culture is that our culture has basically relegated religion to solely a private affair. Our culture says if you want to belief that fine as long as you keep your beliefs to yourself; sadly many Catholics buy into this great error. Now, it is true that we want to respect the freedom of people to believe as their conscience dictates; we shouldn’t force our beliefs on others. This is also a true principle for civic life; the state should not dictate our beliefs.
This all being said, on the other hand, however, faith is really an ascent of our hearts and minds to the truth that is revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Church and through the Church. In other words, faith is a commitment to not just believe, but to live fully the truth, which is contained in its fullness only in the Teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. Faith is to live the teachings of the Church, all of them, no picking and choosing, to live them with our whole heart, mind, will, strength, with all our being, with the help of the necessary grace of the sacraments. To live the truth, to live the teachings of the Church is what is known as holiness and sanctity and is what the second Vatican called the universal call to holiness.
Sadly, us Catholics so often have difficulties with this reality of our faith, that of living the truth, living all the teachings of the Church. I think one of the main reasons is because of the false notion of freedom that our culture purposes to us and even imposes on us. Many think that obedience to the Church’s teachings is oppressive, that they stifle our ability to be free and even to think and be ourselves. Our Holy Father addressed this when he said,
“Authority”… “obedience”. To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays. Words like these represent a “stumbling stone” for many of our contemporaries, especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom. Yet, in the light of our faith in Jesus Christ – “the way and the truth and the life” – we come to see the fullest meaning, value, and indeed beauty, of those words. The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves (cf. Lk 17:33). True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. “In his will is our peace”.
If we turn to Him in faith, hope and love, the Holy Spirit allows us to surrender ourselves fully to Christ and to all that He has revealed; to live the truth no matter how hard or difficult. Surrender to the truth that comes from God far from restricting our freedom gives us true freedom, freedom to chose the True, the Good and the Beautiful. In this, freedom is not freedom from something but freedom for something; and that something is God and the truth of His life giving ways, which bring us, Hope and fill us with God’s Divine Mercy and Love. And far from asking us to abandon our intelligence in some kind of blind obedience, the Church calls us to us all of our intelligence in service of the Gospel.
As we are preparing this coming week for the Ascension of our Lord, which will be celebrated next Sunday, and following this Pentecost, let us ask for an outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the life of the Whole Church. Let ask Him to enlighten us to our sins, to our failure to love God by falling faithful to His Commandments and confess them truthfully and with a contrite heart in Confession, His tribunal of Mercy. Let us ask Him to help us surrender ourselves totally to our loving Father through Christ His Son. When we give ourselves totally to Christ and struggle to live fully the teachings of the Church, we lose nothing of ourselves, but instead we find ourselves and inherit true freedom and true dignity and life, the freedom, dignity and the life of sons and daughters of the Almighty God, our loving Father.
By obedience to Our Heavenly Father’s Commandments, which includes obedience to all the teachings of His Church, we show not only our faith in Him, but also our Love for Him; and He in return brings us into an intimate union with Himself through Christ His Son, in the Love of the Holy Spirit. Yes the truth may cost us, but it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil. And proclaiming the truth of the teachings of the Church which are the teachings of Christ of God Himself, not only by our words but most especially by our lives is the good to which we are called in order to be used to lead souls to Christ so that they too may embrace the truth and be saved.
Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit; come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy well beloved Spouse. (x3) Amen.
“Beloved, Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping for conscience clear.” These words of St. Peter written in the first century were repeated to us by his successor, His Holiness, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at His last visit to our beloved Country before he retired. By these words of Peter, the pope was calling us called, each and every Catholic in the United States, to give a stronger witness to others of the hope that we hold in our hearts. This was and is is a great challenge for us in our culture, which is in so many ways is quickly losing hope. It is a great challenge in our current environment that is becoming increasingly hostile to the truths of the Gospel. However, in today’s Gospel, we learn that the Holy Spirit will be with us to give us His help in all the little moments and in all the difficult moments that we are called to give faithful witness to Christ who is our hope, our Way, our Truth and our Life.
Certainly our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, understands us intimately well. After all He knitted us while we were in our mother’s womb; He knows us better than we know our self. And so He knows our feeble human nature and how fickle can be our love. He understood that His apostles would be scattered during His passion and death. He knew it would take time and His help for them to be able to grow in their faith, hope (trust) and their love so that they could be His faithful witness, His faithful friends who would witness to His love by proclaiming His truth in its fullness, boldly and without fear even unto death.
We too, like those first apostles, are afraid of giving witness to Jesus, and He as well knows our fear. We can be afraid what the truth may cost us. He knows that we can be tempted to not give a reason for the hope that is within us by burying our head and the sand and pretending that we can somehow be faithful Catholics without fidelity to the teachings of the Church which are the same as the truths of the Gospel. Jesus today however tells us that we will not be orphaned; he will not leave us alone, that through the Sacraments of the Church, He will be with us until the end of the world. And even more, He promises to send the Advocate, the Spirit of truth to us in order to help us, to strengthen our love for Him, and to lead us to all truth, to lead us to The Truth who is Jesus; and Jesus is the hope that never disappoints. He will be our strength in order to faithful witnesses to the truth He came to give us in order that we would be free and have life and have it to the full.
While he was last in the United States, Pope Emeritus Benedict also reminded us of the great dignity and the great responsibility we American Roman Catholics have in Christ. His words bear repeating; Pope Emeritus Benedict said to us:
“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people he claims for his own, to
proclaim his glorious works” (1 Pet 2:9). These words of the Apostle Peter do not simply remind us of the dignity, which is ours by God’s grace; they also challenge us to an ever-greater fidelity to the glorious inheritance, which we have received in Christ (cf. Eph 1:18). They challenge us to examine our consciences, to purify our hearts, to renew our baptismal commitment to reject Satan and all his empty promises. They challenge us to be a people of joy, heralds of the unfailing hope (cf. Rom 5:5) born of faith in God’s word, and trust in his promises."
Benedict here is telling us that to be faithful witnesses to Hope for our increasingly hopeless country and world entails many difficulties. To begin with, we have to do the difficult work of examining our conscience, particularly in the Sacrament of Penance. There, in the Tribunal of God’s Divine Mercy, honestly and humbly confessing those areas of our lives where we have not been faithful and which we continue to not be faithful to our baptismal promises. This hard work is the very foundation of our ability to give effective witness to our world to Christ.
Our witness is not and cannot be authentic if we fail to do this difficult work of repentance, of changing for the better with the help of God’s grace and our own hard work. So often we can tend to avoid trying to witness to our faith because we are ashamed of our sins. We can feel like hypocrites; for we ourselves have failed to live the Gospel so many times and in so many ways. Yet, the Sacrament of penance cleanses us from this fear and shame and gives us the grace to do better, to become better, more faithful, stronger and bolder followers of Christ; thus, giving witness not so much by what we say but by how we live.
Another aspect of our difficulty with giving witness is our culture is that our culture has basically relegated religion to solely a private affair. Our culture says if you want to belief that fine as long as you keep your beliefs to yourself; sadly many Catholics buy into this great error. Now, it is true that we want to respect the freedom of people to believe as their conscience dictates; we shouldn’t force our beliefs on others. This is also a true principle for civic life; the state should not dictate our beliefs.
This all being said, on the other hand, however, faith is really an ascent of our hearts and minds to the truth that is revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Church and through the Church. In other words, faith is a commitment to not just believe, but to live fully the truth, which is contained in its fullness only in the Teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. Faith is to live the teachings of the Church, all of them, no picking and choosing, to live them with our whole heart, mind, will, strength, with all our being, with the help of the necessary grace of the sacraments. To live the truth, to live the teachings of the Church is what is known as holiness and sanctity and is what the second Vatican called the universal call to holiness.
Sadly, us Catholics so often have difficulties with this reality of our faith, that of living the truth, living all the teachings of the Church. I think one of the main reasons is because of the false notion of freedom that our culture purposes to us and even imposes on us. Many think that obedience to the Church’s teachings is oppressive, that they stifle our ability to be free and even to think and be ourselves. Our Holy Father addressed this when he said,
“Authority”… “obedience”. To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays. Words like these represent a “stumbling stone” for many of our contemporaries, especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom. Yet, in the light of our faith in Jesus Christ – “the way and the truth and the life” – we come to see the fullest meaning, value, and indeed beauty, of those words. The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves (cf. Lk 17:33). True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. “In his will is our peace”.
If we turn to Him in faith, hope and love, the Holy Spirit allows us to surrender ourselves fully to Christ and to all that He has revealed; to live the truth no matter how hard or difficult. Surrender to the truth that comes from God far from restricting our freedom gives us true freedom, freedom to chose the True, the Good and the Beautiful. In this, freedom is not freedom from something but freedom for something; and that something is God and the truth of His life giving ways, which bring us, Hope and fill us with God’s Divine Mercy and Love. And far from asking us to abandon our intelligence in some kind of blind obedience, the Church calls us to us all of our intelligence in service of the Gospel.
As we are preparing this coming week for the Ascension of our Lord, which will be celebrated next Sunday, and following this Pentecost, let us ask for an outpouring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the life of the Whole Church. Let ask Him to enlighten us to our sins, to our failure to love God by falling faithful to His Commandments and confess them truthfully and with a contrite heart in Confession, His tribunal of Mercy. Let us ask Him to help us surrender ourselves totally to our loving Father through Christ His Son. When we give ourselves totally to Christ and struggle to live fully the teachings of the Church, we lose nothing of ourselves, but instead we find ourselves and inherit true freedom and true dignity and life, the freedom, dignity and the life of sons and daughters of the Almighty God, our loving Father.
By obedience to Our Heavenly Father’s Commandments, which includes obedience to all the teachings of His Church, we show not only our faith in Him, but also our Love for Him; and He in return brings us into an intimate union with Himself through Christ His Son, in the Love of the Holy Spirit. Yes the truth may cost us, but it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil. And proclaiming the truth of the teachings of the Church which are the teachings of Christ of God Himself, not only by our words but most especially by our lives is the good to which we are called in order to be used to lead souls to Christ so that they too may embrace the truth and be saved.
Let us pray: Come Holy Spirit; come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Thy well beloved Spouse. (x3) Amen.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Mary
Mary is the great believer. She took up Abraham’s role of being a believer and crystallized Abraham’s faith in faith in Jesus Christ, thereby showing us all the way of faith, the courage to entrust ourselves to the God who puts himself in our hands, the joy of being his witnesses; and then his determination to stand firm when everyone else had fled, the courage to remain on the Lord’s side when he seemed to be lost and thus to make our own the testimony that led to Easter.
Address
Hall of Popes
28 May 2011
Saturday, May 17, 2014
May 18th. Fifth Sunday in Easter.
Many of you may have seen the film, “The Lord of the Rings- The Fellowship of the Ring?” It is the first in a trilogy written by the great Catholic writer, JRR Tolkien. In preparing today’s homily I thought of this movie, because in a scene from this very Catholic movie, we hear these words “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” The scene was when the companions of the ring had just narrowly escaped from a dangerous journey in the mines of Moria, where their leader Gandolf, after battling what can only be described as a demon from hell itself, had fallen into the deep and was lost forever, at least so it seemed. The mission of the remaining members of the “Companion of the Ring, was now to some pull themselves back together in order to flee from their present danger, only to go into even greater danger in order to destroy an evil ring of power that was in their possession. Needless to say, they are anxious and afraid, not knowing what was going to happen next. And so, worn out, both from this perilous journey and from the anxiety from the dismal future they faced, the group enters the home of the elfin princess, the Lady Galadriel. She looks at each one and says ever so warmly speaking to the depths of their tired and aching hearts, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Things are never without hope.
We hear these same words today in our Gospel. But here they are not spoken in a fairy tale, but in reality by God Himself in person. By these words, Jesus, who is God in the flesh, is preparing his disciples for his upcoming passion and death. Jesus here has just celebrated the Last Supper-the first Holy Mass and unites it to His passion by speaking of His blood which is about to poured out. The apostles, his closest friends, have heavy hearts to say the least. And, they know they themselves are about to go into danger with Jesus. A darkness has come over their hearts and minds; they just don’t know what will happen next. They are anxious and full of fear over Jesus impeding death and their own seeming soon to be death. Yet, Jesus, as the true and living God, sees this in their hearts and tells them with so much concern and compassion in his voice, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”
The example of the scene from the movie, the Lord of the Rings, and Jesus’ upcoming passion in this Gospel, were both very dramatic events filled with anxiety and fear, Jesus passion however unlike the movie, was of course real. For us, perhaps we do not personal face this intensity of drama. But we do face situations that make us anxious and fearful and so Jesus today speaks in person to each one of us.
Our current world is filled with much that can make us anxious and fearful. We can become anxious and fearful from all sorts of circumstances in our lives. These can be financial, or family problems, or an serious illness or the illness of, or death of a loved one. All of this, and world events can make us feel overwhelmed by fear and anxiety, a kind of darkness can take over our lives and enter into our hearts and minds. We can begin to live by just trying to get through the next week, over even through the next day. What will happen next? We can become so full of anxiety and fear that we become hopeless and fall into the deep, into despair. Where do we turn for help? Who will help us out of the mess in our lives and in our world? Why is all of this happening to me?
It is then that we need to listen these words of Jesus who speaks to us in the depths of our heart, even in the darkness of our current situation-Jesus who is always present to us, speaks to us in the present moment- “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” How can we hear these words of Jesus address to us personally? Through prayer from our hearts, from the depths of our being…crying out….de profundis clamor meus ad te veniat dominum….out of the depths I cry unto thee O Lord….
When we turn to Jesus in heartfelt prayer we find in our conversation with Him a peace that surpasses all understanding; we discover that Jesus speaks these words to us personally in the present moment what ever may be occuring in the present moment. It is only in intimate prayer that we will find peace, the peace that our hearts long for. Prayer is a real, active, intimate action and friendship with the person of Jesus Christ. In this type of relationship we are enabled, empowered to face the anxieties and fears of our circumstances with confidence, with fortitude and begin to rebuild our hope that has been weakened by fear, anxiety and despair.
Hope is the very antidote for fear and despair. When the world (or even members and leaders of the Church), loses hope, it turns instead to violence and terror, to worldly power. Hope is a theological virtue: it is to long to be with Jesus for eternity and to trust in Him during our time here on earth, that he never abandon us, that He brings us His mercy and forgiveness; and by doing so to already obtain that or who in which we hope for, Jesus Himself. Hope unites with Jesus already in the present moment what ever that moment may be. And so, nothing can get in the way of this except ourself, that is if we fail to turn to and pray to Jesus, to cry out to Jesus, in order to trust in Jesus.
Hope, however is a difficult virtue for any of us to live, especially when we are in the heat of the battle. And so, we can only live hope in a deep relationship with Jesus- in and through our prayer. It is only in prayer that our hope is strengthened; and prayer not just in the heat of the moment when we need Jesus, but prayer before the heat of the moment comes…in fact we always need Jesus even in times of apparent calm. Now I am not speaking here about just formal prayer, which is definitely needed. But I am talking about intimate prayer, prayer in which we approach and speak to Jesus as we would our dearest and truest friend, because He is.
I like to teach little children why we need to pray to Jesus every day. Not just memorized prayers, Our Fathers, Hail Mary’s, and Glory be’s as important and needed as these are, but prayer in which we pray to Jesus as our best friend. I ask children if they pray every day? Usually they tell me, “well not every day.” Then I usually ask them this question. “What would happen if you didn’t speak to your best friend at school every day or if you went to his house and didn’t talk to him? I always get the same correct answer from the children, “then we wouldn’t be friends.
Well what happens if you and I don’t talk to Jesus? We wouldn’t be friends either. Then we should always talk to Jesus everyday, just like we talk to our best friends, because Jesus is always with us and he wants to be our dearest and truest friends. What is it called when you talk to Jesus? Prayer. I then ask the children, “why try to face your cares and anxieties alone.” I tell them, “Do not let your problems trouble your heart, have hope in Jesus--trust him.”
The same is true as adults with our relationship with Jesus- do we speak to him each and everyday? Do we speak to him in intimate terms telling him all of our dreams, cares and concerns, do we tell him we don’t feel like praying; or even that we are mad at Him; or that we are afraid. For a long time, I personally never realize that one could speak to Jesus in this way. When I found out I could speak to him honestly as a friend and tell him everything, my relationship with him changed, I began to have more peace in my life, even amidst my troubles. Without this type of prayer, we don’t have much of a relationship with Jesus and we surely don’t have peace.
In our world and in our lives without this type of relationship, without prayer, both formal and conversational with Jesus, anxiety, fear and despair can take control and we can feel completely hopeless. Without daily prayer, we fall into sin and our hope is weakened even more, we no longer posses what we need to face the burdens of this world. With the current unsettling drama unfolding in our world we need, more than ever, to be on intimate speaking terms with Jesus who longs to tell us personally, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
The problem of course with praying to Jesus like this, is that it is the very business of our lives and its cares and concerns, which make it difficult for us to pray to Jesus in this way and daily. I know that even as a priest I struggle to find time to have daily conversation with Jesus. All the cares of my day can distract me, and if I am not careful before I know it, I can go most the day without an intimate conversation with our Lord. In times of great struggle, such as an illness or economic struggle, it is easy to take our eyes off of Jesus and begin to give into fear and so lose our peace, we fail to realize that Jesus is with us in the present moment, again however difficult the present moment might be.
As we approach the end of the Easter Season and the great Solemnities of the Ascension of our Lord into heaven and the following Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, let us turn to the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness and to help us to daily pray intimately to Jesus even when its hard and devoid of feelings. Jesus has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit to be our advocate, our divine helper.
It is the Holy Spirit who helps us to pray and draw closer to Jesus. Pope Francis, at His weekly audiences in Rome has been teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This past week He taught about the gift of fortitude; Francis explained that the gifts of the Spirit – wisdom, understanding and counsel – “enable us to contemplate God’s loving plan and to know his will,” but through the gift of fortitude, “we receive the strength to do God’s will in spite of our own natural weakness and limitations.” He said:
“In our everyday life, in difficult times it would do us good to say this 'I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me,'” said the Pope. “The Lord always gives us strength, the Lord never gives us more than we can handle, 'I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.'"
The Holy Father acknowledged that “sometimes we may be tempted to allow ourselves to be overtaken by laziness or despondency, especially when faced with the hardships and trials of life.”
Yet, he said, “do not lose heart, but invoke the Holy Spirit.” In doing so, “He can lift our hearts and communicate new vigor and enthusiasm to our lives and our following Jesus.”:
Let us ask the Holy Spirit at this Holy Mass not only for an increase in hope, but also for an increase in the gift of fortitude. Let us ask Him to help us to pray more and with deeper intensity and intimacy and let us ask Him to help us to fix our eyes always on Jesus and never take our stare off of Him no matter what real drama is unfolding in the world around us. May He lead us to the source of our strength and hope, the very source of the Holy Spirit in our lives, that source is Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. In the Holy Eucharist through faith we see the face of the Father by seeing the face of the Son Jesus who is truly present their with His human face. In the Holy Eucharist Jesus comes to us, and if we are open, He leaves us the Holy Spirit to be our constant companion.
Let us pray: Holy Spirit, strengthen our faith to keep our eyes on Jesus, strengthen our hope to trust in Jesus fully, strengthen our love, our charity, to be always united to Him in perfect friendship, and through Him united to You and the Father.
Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary Your well beloved spouse. Holy Spirit, help us to pray and make us into best friends with Jesus, united to Him in and by Your divine power and love. Stengthen our fortitude, Give us a strong hope and grant us your peace, which surpasses all understanding. Amen.
Many of you may have seen the film, “The Lord of the Rings- The Fellowship of the Ring?” It is the first in a trilogy written by the great Catholic writer, JRR Tolkien. In preparing today’s homily I thought of this movie, because in a scene from this very Catholic movie, we hear these words “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” The scene was when the companions of the ring had just narrowly escaped from a dangerous journey in the mines of Moria, where their leader Gandolf, after battling what can only be described as a demon from hell itself, had fallen into the deep and was lost forever, at least so it seemed. The mission of the remaining members of the “Companion of the Ring, was now to some pull themselves back together in order to flee from their present danger, only to go into even greater danger in order to destroy an evil ring of power that was in their possession. Needless to say, they are anxious and afraid, not knowing what was going to happen next. And so, worn out, both from this perilous journey and from the anxiety from the dismal future they faced, the group enters the home of the elfin princess, the Lady Galadriel. She looks at each one and says ever so warmly speaking to the depths of their tired and aching hearts, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Things are never without hope.
We hear these same words today in our Gospel. But here they are not spoken in a fairy tale, but in reality by God Himself in person. By these words, Jesus, who is God in the flesh, is preparing his disciples for his upcoming passion and death. Jesus here has just celebrated the Last Supper-the first Holy Mass and unites it to His passion by speaking of His blood which is about to poured out. The apostles, his closest friends, have heavy hearts to say the least. And, they know they themselves are about to go into danger with Jesus. A darkness has come over their hearts and minds; they just don’t know what will happen next. They are anxious and full of fear over Jesus impeding death and their own seeming soon to be death. Yet, Jesus, as the true and living God, sees this in their hearts and tells them with so much concern and compassion in his voice, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”
The example of the scene from the movie, the Lord of the Rings, and Jesus’ upcoming passion in this Gospel, were both very dramatic events filled with anxiety and fear, Jesus passion however unlike the movie, was of course real. For us, perhaps we do not personal face this intensity of drama. But we do face situations that make us anxious and fearful and so Jesus today speaks in person to each one of us.
Our current world is filled with much that can make us anxious and fearful. We can become anxious and fearful from all sorts of circumstances in our lives. These can be financial, or family problems, or an serious illness or the illness of, or death of a loved one. All of this, and world events can make us feel overwhelmed by fear and anxiety, a kind of darkness can take over our lives and enter into our hearts and minds. We can begin to live by just trying to get through the next week, over even through the next day. What will happen next? We can become so full of anxiety and fear that we become hopeless and fall into the deep, into despair. Where do we turn for help? Who will help us out of the mess in our lives and in our world? Why is all of this happening to me?
It is then that we need to listen these words of Jesus who speaks to us in the depths of our heart, even in the darkness of our current situation-Jesus who is always present to us, speaks to us in the present moment- “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” How can we hear these words of Jesus address to us personally? Through prayer from our hearts, from the depths of our being…crying out….de profundis clamor meus ad te veniat dominum….out of the depths I cry unto thee O Lord….
When we turn to Jesus in heartfelt prayer we find in our conversation with Him a peace that surpasses all understanding; we discover that Jesus speaks these words to us personally in the present moment what ever may be occuring in the present moment. It is only in intimate prayer that we will find peace, the peace that our hearts long for. Prayer is a real, active, intimate action and friendship with the person of Jesus Christ. In this type of relationship we are enabled, empowered to face the anxieties and fears of our circumstances with confidence, with fortitude and begin to rebuild our hope that has been weakened by fear, anxiety and despair.
Hope is the very antidote for fear and despair. When the world (or even members and leaders of the Church), loses hope, it turns instead to violence and terror, to worldly power. Hope is a theological virtue: it is to long to be with Jesus for eternity and to trust in Him during our time here on earth, that he never abandon us, that He brings us His mercy and forgiveness; and by doing so to already obtain that or who in which we hope for, Jesus Himself. Hope unites with Jesus already in the present moment what ever that moment may be. And so, nothing can get in the way of this except ourself, that is if we fail to turn to and pray to Jesus, to cry out to Jesus, in order to trust in Jesus.
Hope, however is a difficult virtue for any of us to live, especially when we are in the heat of the battle. And so, we can only live hope in a deep relationship with Jesus- in and through our prayer. It is only in prayer that our hope is strengthened; and prayer not just in the heat of the moment when we need Jesus, but prayer before the heat of the moment comes…in fact we always need Jesus even in times of apparent calm. Now I am not speaking here about just formal prayer, which is definitely needed. But I am talking about intimate prayer, prayer in which we approach and speak to Jesus as we would our dearest and truest friend, because He is.
I like to teach little children why we need to pray to Jesus every day. Not just memorized prayers, Our Fathers, Hail Mary’s, and Glory be’s as important and needed as these are, but prayer in which we pray to Jesus as our best friend. I ask children if they pray every day? Usually they tell me, “well not every day.” Then I usually ask them this question. “What would happen if you didn’t speak to your best friend at school every day or if you went to his house and didn’t talk to him? I always get the same correct answer from the children, “then we wouldn’t be friends.
Well what happens if you and I don’t talk to Jesus? We wouldn’t be friends either. Then we should always talk to Jesus everyday, just like we talk to our best friends, because Jesus is always with us and he wants to be our dearest and truest friends. What is it called when you talk to Jesus? Prayer. I then ask the children, “why try to face your cares and anxieties alone.” I tell them, “Do not let your problems trouble your heart, have hope in Jesus--trust him.”
The same is true as adults with our relationship with Jesus- do we speak to him each and everyday? Do we speak to him in intimate terms telling him all of our dreams, cares and concerns, do we tell him we don’t feel like praying; or even that we are mad at Him; or that we are afraid. For a long time, I personally never realize that one could speak to Jesus in this way. When I found out I could speak to him honestly as a friend and tell him everything, my relationship with him changed, I began to have more peace in my life, even amidst my troubles. Without this type of prayer, we don’t have much of a relationship with Jesus and we surely don’t have peace.
In our world and in our lives without this type of relationship, without prayer, both formal and conversational with Jesus, anxiety, fear and despair can take control and we can feel completely hopeless. Without daily prayer, we fall into sin and our hope is weakened even more, we no longer posses what we need to face the burdens of this world. With the current unsettling drama unfolding in our world we need, more than ever, to be on intimate speaking terms with Jesus who longs to tell us personally, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
The problem of course with praying to Jesus like this, is that it is the very business of our lives and its cares and concerns, which make it difficult for us to pray to Jesus in this way and daily. I know that even as a priest I struggle to find time to have daily conversation with Jesus. All the cares of my day can distract me, and if I am not careful before I know it, I can go most the day without an intimate conversation with our Lord. In times of great struggle, such as an illness or economic struggle, it is easy to take our eyes off of Jesus and begin to give into fear and so lose our peace, we fail to realize that Jesus is with us in the present moment, again however difficult the present moment might be.
As we approach the end of the Easter Season and the great Solemnities of the Ascension of our Lord into heaven and the following Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, let us turn to the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness and to help us to daily pray intimately to Jesus even when its hard and devoid of feelings. Jesus has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit to be our advocate, our divine helper.
It is the Holy Spirit who helps us to pray and draw closer to Jesus. Pope Francis, at His weekly audiences in Rome has been teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. This past week He taught about the gift of fortitude; Francis explained that the gifts of the Spirit – wisdom, understanding and counsel – “enable us to contemplate God’s loving plan and to know his will,” but through the gift of fortitude, “we receive the strength to do God’s will in spite of our own natural weakness and limitations.” He said:
“In our everyday life, in difficult times it would do us good to say this 'I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me,'” said the Pope. “The Lord always gives us strength, the Lord never gives us more than we can handle, 'I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me.'"
The Holy Father acknowledged that “sometimes we may be tempted to allow ourselves to be overtaken by laziness or despondency, especially when faced with the hardships and trials of life.”
Yet, he said, “do not lose heart, but invoke the Holy Spirit.” In doing so, “He can lift our hearts and communicate new vigor and enthusiasm to our lives and our following Jesus.”:
Let us ask the Holy Spirit at this Holy Mass not only for an increase in hope, but also for an increase in the gift of fortitude. Let us ask Him to help us to pray more and with deeper intensity and intimacy and let us ask Him to help us to fix our eyes always on Jesus and never take our stare off of Him no matter what real drama is unfolding in the world around us. May He lead us to the source of our strength and hope, the very source of the Holy Spirit in our lives, that source is Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. In the Holy Eucharist through faith we see the face of the Father by seeing the face of the Son Jesus who is truly present their with His human face. In the Holy Eucharist Jesus comes to us, and if we are open, He leaves us the Holy Spirit to be our constant companion.
Let us pray: Holy Spirit, strengthen our faith to keep our eyes on Jesus, strengthen our hope to trust in Jesus fully, strengthen our love, our charity, to be always united to Him in perfect friendship, and through Him united to You and the Father.
Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary Your well beloved spouse. Holy Spirit, help us to pray and make us into best friends with Jesus, united to Him in and by Your divine power and love. Stengthen our fortitude, Give us a strong hope and grant us your peace, which surpasses all understanding. Amen.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Today as we celebrate this Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we ask the newest saints of the Church, St. John Paul II and St. John XXIII, to intercede for us. As you know Pope Francis Canonized them today in Rome; It is no coincident that these canonizations were celebrated today on the feast of Divine Mercy. These canonizations are a great gift to the Church just as is the Feast of Divine Mercy. It was John Paul himself who was primarily responsible for bringing the revelation given to St. Faustina on the infinite mercy of our Lord to the whole world. It was John XXIII who called the Second Vatican council in order to help bring the message of God’s mercy and love to a world quickly falling away from its Creator.
It is important to note that St. Faustina’s revelations which focused on the mystery of Divine mercy occurred just as two great evils in our age were taking shape, those of Nazism and Communism, which both denied any notion of objective truth-they were an attack on the truth especially about the truth of the dignity and sanctity of the Human Person. In a world, which seemed to be on the verge of being totally overtaken by these two evils, the one message that showed the world evil would not overcome the world was given to this obscure nun in Poland. And that message was and is this--that God is Mercy, and this mercy has a name, it is Jesus Christ, the merciful risen Savior—He is the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, nor will it ever overcome it. And even more, this Divine Mercy named Jesus is with us in Person in the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is at the heart of the Message of Divine Mercy because It is Jesus and so is the font of God’s Mercy for us and the whole world. It is by faith, adoration, trust and love in the Eucharist that we shall call down God’s Mercy on us and on the whole world.
As these two evils were being overcome, that of Nazism and Communism, John Paul, who lived through both of them, saw very clearly that the source of these evils and every evil is Man trying to usurp the rights of the Creator God. Man rejects God as Creator and consequently rejects the very source determining what is good and evil. And so man tries to find happiness apart from God.
Since the fall of our first parents, Man has a tendency to put himself in the place of God, to be the creator of his own history and his own civilization. Alone, apart from God, man now decides what is good and what is bad. Man is now the one who would exist and operate, as if there were not a God. Another way of saying this is that man loves himself, more than he loves His creator—or as our Holy Father has put it, self-love to the point of contempt for God. It was this corrupt love of self that drove our first parents out of the garden, bringing sin and death into the world throughout human history.
The fruit of Divine mercy is this, that the Church has been given by the Holy Spirit the power to call evil by its name; in other words, to call sin for what it is, the cause of all unhappiness, pain and sorrow in the world. The Church however, calls sin for what it is, not to condemn the world, but so that we can over come evil by the power of Divine grace—grace which pours forth from the merciful heart of Christ. And we can only overcome the evil in our world if we open ourselves to the Mercy and love of God, to put our love for God over and above all else; and to love our neighbor as our self.
Our Holy Father points out that this is what divine mercy is all about. In Jesus Christ, through his suffering, death and resurrection (the Pascal mystery), God bends down over man to hold out a hand to him, to raise him up, and to help him continue his journey toward God with renewed strength. Man cannot get back onto his feet unaided; he needs the help of the Holy Spirit sent by God. However, if man refuses this help he commits the sin against the Holy Spirit, because man refuses the love and the mercy of God, since he believes himself to be God. He believes himself to be capable of self-sufficiency.
Our world needs the message of Divine mercy more than ever. Our world is proclaiming freedom, but too often it is freedom apart from truth, apart from God and His truth. Our world that says men must be “Free” to do what ever each one personally feels is right. However this is false freedom; because true freedom comes from not doing what we want, but from doing what we ought. True freedom gives us the ability to choose the good, the true and the Beautiful. It is the freedom of a child of God to do the right thing according to the truth that comes from God and has its source in God. And so it is the freedom to love, truly love and to be loved by Love.
As a result of this misuse of freedom, we now see replacing the evils of communism and Nazism a new type of extermination of the human person. So many died during these horrible regimes, but now we are seeing more and more the legal extermination of human beings conceived but unborn. And in these cases, the extermination is beginning legalized by democratically elected governments. This extermination is spilling over into other areas such as the destruction of the family as God has created it through the legal recognition of homosexual unions as an alternative type of family, with the right to equal rights and protection under the law, even to the point of adoption of children; even in some states forcing Catholic adoption agency to do so; Catholic agencies which have stopped adoptions whether than to go against their moral principles.
And too, we are now seeing the right to kill, euthanasia being more and more upheld in the courts. It has now become legal to refuse to give to another human person who is not dying, but who wishes to die or who someone wishes to have die, the very basic necessities of life--food and water. Not extraordinary care, mind you, but basic comfort care, on the same level as blankets and warmth. Back when the case of Terri Shiavo was in the headlines, someone told my mom that they would not want to live if they were like Terri Shiavo. My mother said, she would not want to be like Terri Shiavo either, but who are we to decide who lives and dies. Terri was not dying, she was only disabled--brain damaged but not brain dead. Other than her disability she was in good health, that is until food and water were taken away from her. Food and water are not life support, they are basic human needs; and unless one is at the point of death or cannot assimilate them, they must always be provided.
Additionally, we all must never forget the great value of suffering and its redemptive power of saving souls when it is united to the cross of Jesus. In fact, Blessed John Paul in His own great suffering at the end of his life taught as anew the value of suffering and the great dignity of the human person even amidst such sufferings. In his sufferings, John Paul has taught us anew that with the cross comes the grace of God through His mercy, not only to carry it, but to carry it with great joy, if we but trust in Him.
And this last point is the great proclamation of the message of Divine Mercy. It invites us to face with confidence, through the Divine benevolence of God, the difficulties and trials that mankind will experience in the years to come, and that we individually will face in the days and years to come. Evil has a limit, and for those who place their trust in God, it will not overcome them, just as it did not overcome the savior who defeated evil when HE rose triumphantly from the grave-Love won the victory.
The Paschal mystery, the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord made truly present for us at every Mass, continues to confirm that good is ultimately victorious, that life conquers death, that love triumphs over hate. The Limit imposed on evil which man is both the perpetrator and victim is ultimately Divine Mercy. Of course there is also justice, but this alone does not have the last word in the divine economy of the world. God can always draw good from evil, he wills that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth: God is love. Christ, crucified and risen, just as he appeared to Sister Faustina (point to picture), is the supreme revelation of this truth.
The message of Divine Mercy is then a call to a lively active faith, a faith that humbly submits in love to the revealed truth of God and then lives it out in loving deeds through the assistance of Grace; contrarily, a lack of lively loving faith only leads to despair and to a culture of death. God is mercy for all of those who turn their lives completely over to Him and live according to His truth, for He is truth itself—this is where true freedom lies, and where the way to life lies.
This faith and the power to live it comes first of all from the realization that the Divine Mercy of God in Jesus Christ is Son is still available to us on earth through His Catholic Church, in the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is Divine Mercy Himself; and so, the Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of the authentic faithful loving Christian life.
The Eucharist is God Himself and so it just goes to reason that contact with the Eucharist in faith put us in touch with the Divine Power of God which is really the Divine Power of God’s Love. The Eucharist is the Risen Christ among us; the same Christ who defeated our greatest enemy by the power of Love. If we come before the Eucharist in faith, adoration, hope and love, not only at Holy Mass but also during Holy Hours of adoration or before Him in the tabernacle of our Churches then we can experience the Love of God, share in His victory of Love, and call down His Divine Mercy upon us and upon the whole World.
John Paul the second’s first words after he was elected Pope were the words of Mercy itself--Jesus, “do not be afraid.” Has You behold Jesus held up in front of you at this Holy Mass cried out to Him in your heart of hearts, Jesus I trust in Thee, Jesus I trust in Thee; Jesus I trust in Thee…Eternal Father, have Mercy on us and on the Whole world.
Jesus, help us not to be afraid for we place our trust in Thee. Help us not to just admire Sts. John Paul II and John XXIII, but to follow their example of fidelity to the truth of the Gospel revealed in the teachings of Your Church. For there is no meaning in life apart from the Truth, because Jesus you are the Truth, as well as the Way and the Life. Have Mercy on us and on the whole world. Jesus, truly present in the Holy Eucharist, I trust in Thee, Jesus I trust in Thee, Jesus I trust in Thee!!!
It is important to note that St. Faustina’s revelations which focused on the mystery of Divine mercy occurred just as two great evils in our age were taking shape, those of Nazism and Communism, which both denied any notion of objective truth-they were an attack on the truth especially about the truth of the dignity and sanctity of the Human Person. In a world, which seemed to be on the verge of being totally overtaken by these two evils, the one message that showed the world evil would not overcome the world was given to this obscure nun in Poland. And that message was and is this--that God is Mercy, and this mercy has a name, it is Jesus Christ, the merciful risen Savior—He is the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, nor will it ever overcome it. And even more, this Divine Mercy named Jesus is with us in Person in the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is at the heart of the Message of Divine Mercy because It is Jesus and so is the font of God’s Mercy for us and the whole world. It is by faith, adoration, trust and love in the Eucharist that we shall call down God’s Mercy on us and on the whole world.
As these two evils were being overcome, that of Nazism and Communism, John Paul, who lived through both of them, saw very clearly that the source of these evils and every evil is Man trying to usurp the rights of the Creator God. Man rejects God as Creator and consequently rejects the very source determining what is good and evil. And so man tries to find happiness apart from God.
Since the fall of our first parents, Man has a tendency to put himself in the place of God, to be the creator of his own history and his own civilization. Alone, apart from God, man now decides what is good and what is bad. Man is now the one who would exist and operate, as if there were not a God. Another way of saying this is that man loves himself, more than he loves His creator—or as our Holy Father has put it, self-love to the point of contempt for God. It was this corrupt love of self that drove our first parents out of the garden, bringing sin and death into the world throughout human history.
The fruit of Divine mercy is this, that the Church has been given by the Holy Spirit the power to call evil by its name; in other words, to call sin for what it is, the cause of all unhappiness, pain and sorrow in the world. The Church however, calls sin for what it is, not to condemn the world, but so that we can over come evil by the power of Divine grace—grace which pours forth from the merciful heart of Christ. And we can only overcome the evil in our world if we open ourselves to the Mercy and love of God, to put our love for God over and above all else; and to love our neighbor as our self.
Our Holy Father points out that this is what divine mercy is all about. In Jesus Christ, through his suffering, death and resurrection (the Pascal mystery), God bends down over man to hold out a hand to him, to raise him up, and to help him continue his journey toward God with renewed strength. Man cannot get back onto his feet unaided; he needs the help of the Holy Spirit sent by God. However, if man refuses this help he commits the sin against the Holy Spirit, because man refuses the love and the mercy of God, since he believes himself to be God. He believes himself to be capable of self-sufficiency.
Our world needs the message of Divine mercy more than ever. Our world is proclaiming freedom, but too often it is freedom apart from truth, apart from God and His truth. Our world that says men must be “Free” to do what ever each one personally feels is right. However this is false freedom; because true freedom comes from not doing what we want, but from doing what we ought. True freedom gives us the ability to choose the good, the true and the Beautiful. It is the freedom of a child of God to do the right thing according to the truth that comes from God and has its source in God. And so it is the freedom to love, truly love and to be loved by Love.
As a result of this misuse of freedom, we now see replacing the evils of communism and Nazism a new type of extermination of the human person. So many died during these horrible regimes, but now we are seeing more and more the legal extermination of human beings conceived but unborn. And in these cases, the extermination is beginning legalized by democratically elected governments. This extermination is spilling over into other areas such as the destruction of the family as God has created it through the legal recognition of homosexual unions as an alternative type of family, with the right to equal rights and protection under the law, even to the point of adoption of children; even in some states forcing Catholic adoption agency to do so; Catholic agencies which have stopped adoptions whether than to go against their moral principles.
And too, we are now seeing the right to kill, euthanasia being more and more upheld in the courts. It has now become legal to refuse to give to another human person who is not dying, but who wishes to die or who someone wishes to have die, the very basic necessities of life--food and water. Not extraordinary care, mind you, but basic comfort care, on the same level as blankets and warmth. Back when the case of Terri Shiavo was in the headlines, someone told my mom that they would not want to live if they were like Terri Shiavo. My mother said, she would not want to be like Terri Shiavo either, but who are we to decide who lives and dies. Terri was not dying, she was only disabled--brain damaged but not brain dead. Other than her disability she was in good health, that is until food and water were taken away from her. Food and water are not life support, they are basic human needs; and unless one is at the point of death or cannot assimilate them, they must always be provided.
Additionally, we all must never forget the great value of suffering and its redemptive power of saving souls when it is united to the cross of Jesus. In fact, Blessed John Paul in His own great suffering at the end of his life taught as anew the value of suffering and the great dignity of the human person even amidst such sufferings. In his sufferings, John Paul has taught us anew that with the cross comes the grace of God through His mercy, not only to carry it, but to carry it with great joy, if we but trust in Him.
And this last point is the great proclamation of the message of Divine Mercy. It invites us to face with confidence, through the Divine benevolence of God, the difficulties and trials that mankind will experience in the years to come, and that we individually will face in the days and years to come. Evil has a limit, and for those who place their trust in God, it will not overcome them, just as it did not overcome the savior who defeated evil when HE rose triumphantly from the grave-Love won the victory.
The Paschal mystery, the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord made truly present for us at every Mass, continues to confirm that good is ultimately victorious, that life conquers death, that love triumphs over hate. The Limit imposed on evil which man is both the perpetrator and victim is ultimately Divine Mercy. Of course there is also justice, but this alone does not have the last word in the divine economy of the world. God can always draw good from evil, he wills that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth: God is love. Christ, crucified and risen, just as he appeared to Sister Faustina (point to picture), is the supreme revelation of this truth.
The message of Divine Mercy is then a call to a lively active faith, a faith that humbly submits in love to the revealed truth of God and then lives it out in loving deeds through the assistance of Grace; contrarily, a lack of lively loving faith only leads to despair and to a culture of death. God is mercy for all of those who turn their lives completely over to Him and live according to His truth, for He is truth itself—this is where true freedom lies, and where the way to life lies.
This faith and the power to live it comes first of all from the realization that the Divine Mercy of God in Jesus Christ is Son is still available to us on earth through His Catholic Church, in the Holy Eucharist. The Holy Eucharist is Divine Mercy Himself; and so, the Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of the authentic faithful loving Christian life.
The Eucharist is God Himself and so it just goes to reason that contact with the Eucharist in faith put us in touch with the Divine Power of God which is really the Divine Power of God’s Love. The Eucharist is the Risen Christ among us; the same Christ who defeated our greatest enemy by the power of Love. If we come before the Eucharist in faith, adoration, hope and love, not only at Holy Mass but also during Holy Hours of adoration or before Him in the tabernacle of our Churches then we can experience the Love of God, share in His victory of Love, and call down His Divine Mercy upon us and upon the whole World.
John Paul the second’s first words after he was elected Pope were the words of Mercy itself--Jesus, “do not be afraid.” Has You behold Jesus held up in front of you at this Holy Mass cried out to Him in your heart of hearts, Jesus I trust in Thee, Jesus I trust in Thee; Jesus I trust in Thee…Eternal Father, have Mercy on us and on the Whole world.
Jesus, help us not to be afraid for we place our trust in Thee. Help us not to just admire Sts. John Paul II and John XXIII, but to follow their example of fidelity to the truth of the Gospel revealed in the teachings of Your Church. For there is no meaning in life apart from the Truth, because Jesus you are the Truth, as well as the Way and the Life. Have Mercy on us and on the whole world. Jesus, truly present in the Holy Eucharist, I trust in Thee, Jesus I trust in Thee, Jesus I trust in Thee!!!
Sunday, April 20, 2014
There was a body in the grave. It was cold, it was definitely a dead corpse, it did not breath, and the heart did not pump. You could see it; you could touch it. It looked no different than any other corpse. For those of you who have had a realistic experience with a dead body, you know that it is profound experience. When one sees a truly dead body, a corpse there is no doubt that it is dead. In my training as an EMT we were taught over and over how to check to see if a body was dead. Check the breathing, check the pulse, recheck. However, when my first opportunity of during CPR on a real body came, there was no doubt the person was dead. It was obvious.
The disciples of Jesus had such an experience with the dead body of Jesus. They saw it hanging on a tree. They saw the spear go deep into the side and without a doubt pierce the heart. They saw the blood and water come forth. They saw the corpse laid into Mary’s arms. The women touch it as they prepared it for burial.
What a profound experience then, it must have been to see the empty tomb. What vivid realism it must have impressed on Peter as he saw where the body was laid. This was the place without a doubt, their were soldiers guarding who would never let their guard down for fear of the punishment, which was the punishment of death.
St. John’s Gospels is filled with words to describe this profound experience of Peter. The whole scene in the tomb paints a picture of the resurrection. However, elements of this are lost in the translation, which are more apparent in the Greek language.
In the phrase “The linen clothes lying there” the Greek indicates that the clothes were flattened, deflated, as if they were emptied when the body of Jesus rose—as if it had come out of the clothes and bandages without their being taken off, passing right through them (just has Jesus entered the upper room when the doors where locked). The Greek says the clothes where fallen, flat, lying, after Jesus’ body—which had filled them—left them. On can readily understand the amazement and realism that this conveyed on the witnesses to it.
The language to describe the shroud that wrapped Jesus head, says that it was not on the top of the clothes but to one side. It was like the clothes stilled rolled up, but unlike them, it still had a certain volume, like a container, possibly due to the stiffness given it by the ointments. It reminds me of paper mache formed around a balloon and then the balloon popped.
These details point to a body being raised in a heavenly manner, which transcended the laws of nature. It was not just a body being reanimated as happened in the case of Lazarus, who by the way had to be unbound before he could walk. Because of this unique experience of the state of the linens left behind the two Apostles realized that it was not a question of a robbery, which is what Mary Madgalene had thought
This realistic experience of the empty tomb left many facts perceptible to the human senses, but the resurrection still requires faith to be accepted. Christ’s resurrection is a real, historical fact: there was a dead body and it come back to life, literally. It was a real physical body that had its soul reunited to it. This was apparent because Thomas could touch it-he put his hands into the nail holes and into the pierced side, “My Lord and my God.” But yet, there was something also different about the body. It could pass through the burial cloth and walls. It could no longer suffer damage, decay, pain; it could no longer change.
The resurrection of Jesus, although historical, is also supernatural event, that is, it is far beyond our capacity in this life to totally understand. It transcends sense experience, it requires a special gift of God to accept it as a fact with certainty, and that gift is the gift of faith. As St. Thomas Aquinas says in his great work the Summa Theologica, “the individual arguments taken alone are not sufficient proof of Christ’s resurrection but taken together, in a cumulative way, they manifest it perfectly. Particularly important in this regard are the spiritual proofs specially the angelic testimony and Christ’s own post-resurrection words confirmed by miracles. (cf Jn3:13,; Mt 16:21; 17:22; 20:18).
This gift of faith in the resurrection is what we as believing Catholic Christians are celebrating with great joy this day. The apostles’ faith is strengthen through the Holy Triduum, the time from Thursday evening to Sunday morning. We too have just passed through this time, symbolically, in the Church’s celebration of this Holy time. But Christ has left us something even more remarkable to strengthen our faith and joy in the resurrection. He as left us the great mystery of the Holy Eucharist.
“At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the pascal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it. We return to Good Friday, the hour of our redemption. In spirit and through the power and authority of the Holy priesthood, as the priest who acts in the person of Jesus Christ, we are all able to be present at the foot of the cross, present alongside St. John and the Blessed Virgin Mary. “This is the wood of the Cross on which hung the Savior of the World, come let us adore! And we are present too at the empty tomb and are able to proclaim, “The Lord is risen from the tomb; for our sake he hung on the Cross, Alleluia.”
The Holy Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice, it does not it multiply it. It makes Christ’s one definitive sacrifice always present in time. But, the Holy Mass not only makes present the mystery of Christ’s passion and death, but also the mystery of the resurrection which crowned his sacrifice (EE:14).
As the Church’s great celebration of Easter was made possible the passion and death of Jesus, our share in its saving power is made possible by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. At every Mass we are enable to be present at all of these events, not in mind, but in reality. And not only are we able to be present sacramentally, truly—we are able to share, here on earth, in the Joy of that eternal Easter in heaven.
The Holy Mass makes truly present, not only the saving events of our salvation but makes truly, sacramentally present the one who is our salvation—Jesus Christ and his self emptying sacficie of love for us. And so, at Masss we, by our baptism, are enabled to offer ourselves to the Father through Jesus Christ by uniting ourselves to Jesus’ one and only Sacrifice of Love. And we are also enable to receive Him into our bodies and souls and be transformed into His Body, into Love incarnate.
Those who feed on Christ in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth as the first fruits of that eternal life. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world; “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day: This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact, that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were the “secret” of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of Antioch, rightly defined the Eucharist as “a medicine for immortality and antidote to death.
I took the last few sentences from an Encyclical on the Holy Eucharist released on Holy Thursday in 2003 by Blessed John Paul the Second. I recommend to all of you to read this incredible Letter.
In this encyclical John Paul points out that the Joy of the Resurrection is more than just a pipe dream in your life and mine. It is a tangible and livable reality because Jesus, the crucified and the resurrection one is still in our midst. He is truly here, not just in our hearts, not just in the proclamation of the word, not just in our community gathered, Jesus Christ is still physical with us. Let me repeat it, Jesus Christ is still physical with us, in his resurrected body, a real body, albeit a glorified one. Jesus Christ Emmanuel, He who promised he would be with us until the end of the ages, becomes physically, sacramentally present, IN HIS BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, and DIVINITY at this very Mass and He comes into us at Holy Communion. For this reason we know the grave is empty, there are no bones of Jesus in the ground anywhere. He lives again in His body which is present in its entirety in the Holy Eucharist
This is the reason for our Easter Joy! A joy that is real, because the Eucharist is real. A Joy that is obtainable in the midst of our sorrow, pain and death, because Jesus suffered sorrow, pain and death. But he has defeated death—He has risen! Jesus is the resurrection and the Life. Ever Holy Mass is an Easter, because At every Holy Mass we can encounter the the Risen Jesus in the Holy Eucharist…this is a real encounter with Him in His resurrected and now living body and if we have faith He will transform us into His otherselfs as His love for the world…O Come let us adore His resurrected body at this Mass in the Holy Eucharist which I acting in His person am about to make present—physically—sacramentally—truly, on this altar of Sacrifice.
Let us, as John Paul the Second has taught at the beginning of this new millennium, put out into the deep of Jesus’ love by offering ourselves totally to Him, with Him, in Him, to the Father. Let us adore Jesus--beholding the face of Jesus through the eyes of the Virgin Mary, she who will be with us to help us in our offering of ourselves. For we are weak and we need a mother’s help. Let us pray, to Jesus through her, “Hail true body that was born of Mary, the Virgin, that truly suffered and was offered in sacrifice on the cross for man and that gave forth true blood from its pierced side. Be to us a foretaste of heaven…”
Our sense fail to see the Risen one, but faith alone rooted in the words of Christ handed down to us by the Apostle is sufficient. Our words become the words of St. Peter spoken to our Lord after he revealed the mystery of the Eucharist and the necessity of eating His body and drinking His Blood in order to obtain eternal life…“Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). A BLESSED EASTER to all of you and your families.
The disciples of Jesus had such an experience with the dead body of Jesus. They saw it hanging on a tree. They saw the spear go deep into the side and without a doubt pierce the heart. They saw the blood and water come forth. They saw the corpse laid into Mary’s arms. The women touch it as they prepared it for burial.
What a profound experience then, it must have been to see the empty tomb. What vivid realism it must have impressed on Peter as he saw where the body was laid. This was the place without a doubt, their were soldiers guarding who would never let their guard down for fear of the punishment, which was the punishment of death.
St. John’s Gospels is filled with words to describe this profound experience of Peter. The whole scene in the tomb paints a picture of the resurrection. However, elements of this are lost in the translation, which are more apparent in the Greek language.
In the phrase “The linen clothes lying there” the Greek indicates that the clothes were flattened, deflated, as if they were emptied when the body of Jesus rose—as if it had come out of the clothes and bandages without their being taken off, passing right through them (just has Jesus entered the upper room when the doors where locked). The Greek says the clothes where fallen, flat, lying, after Jesus’ body—which had filled them—left them. On can readily understand the amazement and realism that this conveyed on the witnesses to it.
The language to describe the shroud that wrapped Jesus head, says that it was not on the top of the clothes but to one side. It was like the clothes stilled rolled up, but unlike them, it still had a certain volume, like a container, possibly due to the stiffness given it by the ointments. It reminds me of paper mache formed around a balloon and then the balloon popped.
These details point to a body being raised in a heavenly manner, which transcended the laws of nature. It was not just a body being reanimated as happened in the case of Lazarus, who by the way had to be unbound before he could walk. Because of this unique experience of the state of the linens left behind the two Apostles realized that it was not a question of a robbery, which is what Mary Madgalene had thought
This realistic experience of the empty tomb left many facts perceptible to the human senses, but the resurrection still requires faith to be accepted. Christ’s resurrection is a real, historical fact: there was a dead body and it come back to life, literally. It was a real physical body that had its soul reunited to it. This was apparent because Thomas could touch it-he put his hands into the nail holes and into the pierced side, “My Lord and my God.” But yet, there was something also different about the body. It could pass through the burial cloth and walls. It could no longer suffer damage, decay, pain; it could no longer change.
The resurrection of Jesus, although historical, is also supernatural event, that is, it is far beyond our capacity in this life to totally understand. It transcends sense experience, it requires a special gift of God to accept it as a fact with certainty, and that gift is the gift of faith. As St. Thomas Aquinas says in his great work the Summa Theologica, “the individual arguments taken alone are not sufficient proof of Christ’s resurrection but taken together, in a cumulative way, they manifest it perfectly. Particularly important in this regard are the spiritual proofs specially the angelic testimony and Christ’s own post-resurrection words confirmed by miracles. (cf Jn3:13,; Mt 16:21; 17:22; 20:18).
This gift of faith in the resurrection is what we as believing Catholic Christians are celebrating with great joy this day. The apostles’ faith is strengthen through the Holy Triduum, the time from Thursday evening to Sunday morning. We too have just passed through this time, symbolically, in the Church’s celebration of this Holy time. But Christ has left us something even more remarkable to strengthen our faith and joy in the resurrection. He as left us the great mystery of the Holy Eucharist.
“At every celebration of the Eucharist, we are spiritually brought back to the pascal Triduum: to the events of the evening of Holy Thursday, to the Last Supper and to what followed it. We return to Good Friday, the hour of our redemption. In spirit and through the power and authority of the Holy priesthood, as the priest who acts in the person of Jesus Christ, we are all able to be present at the foot of the cross, present alongside St. John and the Blessed Virgin Mary. “This is the wood of the Cross on which hung the Savior of the World, come let us adore! And we are present too at the empty tomb and are able to proclaim, “The Lord is risen from the tomb; for our sake he hung on the Cross, Alleluia.”
The Holy Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross; it does not add to that sacrifice, it does not it multiply it. It makes Christ’s one definitive sacrifice always present in time. But, the Holy Mass not only makes present the mystery of Christ’s passion and death, but also the mystery of the resurrection which crowned his sacrifice (EE:14).
As the Church’s great celebration of Easter was made possible the passion and death of Jesus, our share in its saving power is made possible by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. At every Mass we are enable to be present at all of these events, not in mind, but in reality. And not only are we able to be present sacramentally, truly—we are able to share, here on earth, in the Joy of that eternal Easter in heaven.
The Holy Mass makes truly present, not only the saving events of our salvation but makes truly, sacramentally present the one who is our salvation—Jesus Christ and his self emptying sacficie of love for us. And so, at Masss we, by our baptism, are enabled to offer ourselves to the Father through Jesus Christ by uniting ourselves to Jesus’ one and only Sacrifice of Love. And we are also enable to receive Him into our bodies and souls and be transformed into His Body, into Love incarnate.
Those who feed on Christ in the Eucharist need not wait until the hereafter to receive eternal life: they already possess it on earth as the first fruits of that eternal life. For in the Eucharist we also receive the pledge of our bodily resurrection at the end of the world; “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day: This pledge of the future resurrection comes from the fact, that the flesh of the Son of Man, given as food, is his body in its glorious state after the resurrection. With the Eucharist we digest, as it were the “secret” of the resurrection. For this reason Saint Ignatius of Antioch, rightly defined the Eucharist as “a medicine for immortality and antidote to death.
I took the last few sentences from an Encyclical on the Holy Eucharist released on Holy Thursday in 2003 by Blessed John Paul the Second. I recommend to all of you to read this incredible Letter.
In this encyclical John Paul points out that the Joy of the Resurrection is more than just a pipe dream in your life and mine. It is a tangible and livable reality because Jesus, the crucified and the resurrection one is still in our midst. He is truly here, not just in our hearts, not just in the proclamation of the word, not just in our community gathered, Jesus Christ is still physical with us. Let me repeat it, Jesus Christ is still physical with us, in his resurrected body, a real body, albeit a glorified one. Jesus Christ Emmanuel, He who promised he would be with us until the end of the ages, becomes physically, sacramentally present, IN HIS BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, and DIVINITY at this very Mass and He comes into us at Holy Communion. For this reason we know the grave is empty, there are no bones of Jesus in the ground anywhere. He lives again in His body which is present in its entirety in the Holy Eucharist
This is the reason for our Easter Joy! A joy that is real, because the Eucharist is real. A Joy that is obtainable in the midst of our sorrow, pain and death, because Jesus suffered sorrow, pain and death. But he has defeated death—He has risen! Jesus is the resurrection and the Life. Ever Holy Mass is an Easter, because At every Holy Mass we can encounter the the Risen Jesus in the Holy Eucharist…this is a real encounter with Him in His resurrected and now living body and if we have faith He will transform us into His otherselfs as His love for the world…O Come let us adore His resurrected body at this Mass in the Holy Eucharist which I acting in His person am about to make present—physically—sacramentally—truly, on this altar of Sacrifice.
Let us, as John Paul the Second has taught at the beginning of this new millennium, put out into the deep of Jesus’ love by offering ourselves totally to Him, with Him, in Him, to the Father. Let us adore Jesus--beholding the face of Jesus through the eyes of the Virgin Mary, she who will be with us to help us in our offering of ourselves. For we are weak and we need a mother’s help. Let us pray, to Jesus through her, “Hail true body that was born of Mary, the Virgin, that truly suffered and was offered in sacrifice on the cross for man and that gave forth true blood from its pierced side. Be to us a foretaste of heaven…”
Our sense fail to see the Risen one, but faith alone rooted in the words of Christ handed down to us by the Apostle is sufficient. Our words become the words of St. Peter spoken to our Lord after he revealed the mystery of the Eucharist and the necessity of eating His body and drinking His Blood in order to obtain eternal life…“Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68). A BLESSED EASTER to all of you and your families.
Friday, April 18, 2014
Good Friday
Homily for Good Friday Passion of our Lord according to St. John
Each year on the Friday we call “good,” we read the beautiful account of our Lord’s passion and death according to the Gospel of St. John. The Church does this because it is St. John who reveals the deepest secrets of the heart of Jesus, the most precious and intimate words and gestures of Christ.
Many are the secrets that St. John reveals to those who look for them by meditating on St. John’s Gospel; I want to mention just a few of the secrets that St. John reveals and shares with us. There is the resting of St. John on the bosom--on the heart of Jesus; Jesus’ witness to the Truth before Pilate; the great gift of Mary to the beloved disciple; and the wounding of the heart of Jesus by the soldier’s lance. Much of course can be said, but I want to look more closely at one of the secrets I just mention, that of the great gift of Mary to the beloved disciple. I think that in this secret that St. John has given us a precious gift to help us enter into, and live more deeply the Pascal mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.
The Virgin Mary is the one who stands with the strength of faith at the foot of the cross. The most extreme moment for our Lady is to watch her Son slowly being tortured to death, in fulfillment of all the prophecies about the death of the suffering servant, such as the one we heard in our first reading from Isaiah. Jesus gives the gift of His Mother to St. John, to help John’s faith in the midst of this terrible moment of Jesus suffering.
The gift of the Blessed Mother is a gift to John that will also help him in the terrible moments of his own sufferings to come. But through John, Jesus also gives this gift to us. Jesus gives us, as He gave St. John, the great gift of His Mother, as we too struggle with the darkness and suffering of our own sins. She is the gift to help us in our crosses, in all of our pains, sufferings and of course in the hour of our death. She is present to us to strengthen our faith if we call upon her powerful intercession. It’s interesting that St. John who was the first to receive the gift of Jesus’ mother, will also be the first apostle to believe in the resurrection.
This gift of the Virgin is given to us so that we will be able to enter into, be able to live in our own bodies, the mystery of the death of Jesus; for as Jesus had to pass through suffering and death to reach the resurrection, we too must pass through suffering and death to reach the resurrection.
The Virgin is the source of our hope. We are afraid, for we don’t know what is in store for us, what cross is in store for us with its pains and sufferings, with it’s death. But, if we ask her in confidence she will obtain for us the grace we need to, not only endure the cross in our lives, but to unite it to Jesus’ own suffering and death, to united it to his cross so that our cross will become our hope, our beacon, our joyful means to life, to eternal life, for ourselves and for others. She will help us to allow Jesus by the power of His cross to transform our suffering and pain into love to become a source of life…
This is transformation occurs when one accepts ones cross. This is the difference between the Good thief and the bad thief. The Bad thief refused his cross, refused to allow the transformation of His suffering and pain by the power of Jesus cross. The Bad thief allowed His pain and suffering to turn to bitterness and anger, thus transmitting this venom by blaspheming Jesus and saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!"
The good thief however allowed his suffering to be transformed by the power of Jesus suffering, death and resurrection. He accepted His cross as a just reward for His sins rebuking the other by saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed suffer justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
The Church, after the Second Vatican Council, restored Holy Saturday. Nothing happens on Holy Saturday, for it is a day of preparation, just as it was for the first believers. For us, Holy Saturday is a day of silent preparation for the resurrection, a day to spend in expectant hope with the Virgin in contemplation of Jesus great love for us—“He who love us to the end.” On Holy Saturday the entire world is hushed in silence awaiting that most glorious event that broke the chains of sin and death for ever for those who would believe. We enter the tomb with Christ, to die to our old life of sin that we might share more fully in the joy and power of the resurrection. May our faith strengthened by the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, prepare us to celebrate with Joy, her Son’s resurrection, not only on Easter Sunday, but fully in our lives. Then we too will hear those beautiful words of Jesus addressed to us, "Truly, I say to you, this day you will be with me in Paradise."
.
Each year on the Friday we call “good,” we read the beautiful account of our Lord’s passion and death according to the Gospel of St. John. The Church does this because it is St. John who reveals the deepest secrets of the heart of Jesus, the most precious and intimate words and gestures of Christ.
Many are the secrets that St. John reveals to those who look for them by meditating on St. John’s Gospel; I want to mention just a few of the secrets that St. John reveals and shares with us. There is the resting of St. John on the bosom--on the heart of Jesus; Jesus’ witness to the Truth before Pilate; the great gift of Mary to the beloved disciple; and the wounding of the heart of Jesus by the soldier’s lance. Much of course can be said, but I want to look more closely at one of the secrets I just mention, that of the great gift of Mary to the beloved disciple. I think that in this secret that St. John has given us a precious gift to help us enter into, and live more deeply the Pascal mystery of Christ’s passion, death and resurrection.
The Virgin Mary is the one who stands with the strength of faith at the foot of the cross. The most extreme moment for our Lady is to watch her Son slowly being tortured to death, in fulfillment of all the prophecies about the death of the suffering servant, such as the one we heard in our first reading from Isaiah. Jesus gives the gift of His Mother to St. John, to help John’s faith in the midst of this terrible moment of Jesus suffering.
The gift of the Blessed Mother is a gift to John that will also help him in the terrible moments of his own sufferings to come. But through John, Jesus also gives this gift to us. Jesus gives us, as He gave St. John, the great gift of His Mother, as we too struggle with the darkness and suffering of our own sins. She is the gift to help us in our crosses, in all of our pains, sufferings and of course in the hour of our death. She is present to us to strengthen our faith if we call upon her powerful intercession. It’s interesting that St. John who was the first to receive the gift of Jesus’ mother, will also be the first apostle to believe in the resurrection.
This gift of the Virgin is given to us so that we will be able to enter into, be able to live in our own bodies, the mystery of the death of Jesus; for as Jesus had to pass through suffering and death to reach the resurrection, we too must pass through suffering and death to reach the resurrection.
The Virgin is the source of our hope. We are afraid, for we don’t know what is in store for us, what cross is in store for us with its pains and sufferings, with it’s death. But, if we ask her in confidence she will obtain for us the grace we need to, not only endure the cross in our lives, but to unite it to Jesus’ own suffering and death, to united it to his cross so that our cross will become our hope, our beacon, our joyful means to life, to eternal life, for ourselves and for others. She will help us to allow Jesus by the power of His cross to transform our suffering and pain into love to become a source of life…
This is transformation occurs when one accepts ones cross. This is the difference between the Good thief and the bad thief. The Bad thief refused his cross, refused to allow the transformation of His suffering and pain by the power of Jesus cross. The Bad thief allowed His pain and suffering to turn to bitterness and anger, thus transmitting this venom by blaspheming Jesus and saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!"
The good thief however allowed his suffering to be transformed by the power of Jesus suffering, death and resurrection. He accepted His cross as a just reward for His sins rebuking the other by saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed suffer justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
The Church, after the Second Vatican Council, restored Holy Saturday. Nothing happens on Holy Saturday, for it is a day of preparation, just as it was for the first believers. For us, Holy Saturday is a day of silent preparation for the resurrection, a day to spend in expectant hope with the Virgin in contemplation of Jesus great love for us—“He who love us to the end.” On Holy Saturday the entire world is hushed in silence awaiting that most glorious event that broke the chains of sin and death for ever for those who would believe. We enter the tomb with Christ, to die to our old life of sin that we might share more fully in the joy and power of the resurrection. May our faith strengthened by the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, prepare us to celebrate with Joy, her Son’s resurrection, not only on Easter Sunday, but fully in our lives. Then we too will hear those beautiful words of Jesus addressed to us, "Truly, I say to you, this day you will be with me in Paradise."
.
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