Month: March 2016

Holy Week, Monday (2)

by

Only a few days away from Good Friday, knowing how the story ends, today’s Gospel foreshadows the closeness of Our Lord’s death . The raising of Lazarus is the last straw for the chief priests. Ironically Our Lord has shown power over death itself, yet they decide to kill him and Lazarus. In John’s Gospel the raising of Lazarus was the last sign to encourage people to believe in Jesus, but his death is on his mind: when Mary anoints his feet he speaks of his burial and departure.

Judas’ hypocrisy is evident, feigning moral outrage when he is actually lamenting that the funds for that aromatic nard could have been put in the common purse so that he could steal them. The stage is set for betrayal. Jews are believing in Our Lord despite the intrigue. Martha and Mary are celebrating the return of their brother, healthy and alive. It reminds us that while life can come under the shadow of the cross, life goes on and should always be our focus.

As we continue Holy Week let’s focus on life, not on death, knowing that is how this story truly ends. The darkness cannot stop the dawn.

Readings: Isaiah 42:1–7; Psalm 27:1–3, 13–14; John 12:1–11. See also Holy Week, Monday.

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Cycle C

by

With Palm Sunday we begin Holy Week by remembering the Lord’s Passion. The word “Passion,” like the word “love,” is a used and abused term in our day. When we speak of Passion in the case of what Our Lord underwent there’s room for multiple for understandings of passion. Passion meant suffering; Our Lord suffered a great deal for us. Passion meant having something done to you, and not necessarily something pleasant; Our Lord put up no struggle and went as a lamb to the slaughter (cf. Isaiah 53:7), the Suffering Servant in today’s First Reading.

Passion means emotion; in Luke’s account of the Last Supper Our Lord expresses how ardently he desired to be with his disciples before suffering. Passions can be good or bad; he was passionate about his cause, and we can only imagine the emotions he was experiencing knowing one of his most trusted friends would betray him, experiencing the fear in Gethsemane of what he was going to undergo, feeling the betrayal and abandonment by his disciples when things became dangerous, and the torture and ridicule he experienced.

Lastly, and most importantly for today’s liturgy, Passion means love. People are encouraged today to be passionate about what they do, and to change what they’re doing if they’re not. We’re expected to love what we do and we consider people blessed who love what they do. However, the mystery of Christ’s Passion shows us that it is not so much loving what you’re doing as those whom you love and for whom you are doing what you’re doing. You probably don’t love changing diapers, but you change them because you love your baby. Your job may be tedious or grueling, but you do it to love your family and provide for them. You may not love the cross, but you take up your cross daily for those you love. Jesus love us through the Cross.

Holy Week has begun. In imitation of Christ in these days, contemplate not what you love or don’t love, but whom you are loving through what you do. As we follow Our Lord, step by step, blow by blow, to Calvary, ask him to show you for whom he is suffering: you.

Readings: Isaiah 50:4–7; Psalm 22:8–9, 17–20, 23–24; Philippians 2:6–11; Luke 22:14–23:56. See also Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (Cycle B).

 

Saint Joseph, Husband of Mary

by

The simplest description of today’s solemnity is that it acknowledges that Joseph is the husband of Mary, as the genealogy at the start of today’s Gospel describes. Mary has an important role in the Lord’s plan of salvation; through her fiat at the Annunciation Our Lord became flesh and started to dwell among us. The First Reading today also shows Joseph’s importance in the mystery of salvation: The Lord promised David that one of his descendants would establish his royal dynasty forever. Joseph was a descendant of David, as today’s Gospel reminds us, therefore thanks to marrying Mary Our Lord would be of the lineage of David.

However, we don’t just remember Joseph today for his blood lineage. As the genealogy reminds us today, there were some bad people descended from David too: breeding is not everything. In today’s Second Reading Paul reminds us what is truly special about Joseph’s lineage, as he proved by believing the angel and taking Mary as his wife: it is a lineage of faith. Abraham was considered righteous before God because of his faith. Joseph not only passes along the heritage of David’s line, but also a heritage of faith. Joseph had the generosity, simplicity, and faith to help Mary to raise Our Lord well.

Many countries celebrate today as Father’s Day. Let’s pray for all fathers to imitate the virtues of St. Joseph, and also not be shy about asking him to help us with those practical and tough things a father likes to help resolve.

Readings: 2 Samuel 7:4–5a, 12–14a, 16; Psalm 89:2–5, 27, 29; Romans 4:13, 16–18, 22; Matthew 1:16, 18–21, 24a. See also Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Advent, December 18th.

5th Week of Lent, Friday

by

Yesterday‘s Gospel ended with the Jews taking up stones because Jesus claimed he was God. Today’s Gospel takes up John’s account a few chapters later, after Jesus heals the man born blind (John 9) and preaches the Good Shepherd discourse (John 10:1–22). The Jews have once again taken up stones and he challenges them about it. They believe his claim to be God is blasphemy, and he points them back to the many signs he has already performed that show they should believe in him. For them Jesus is either crazy, a blasphemer, or both. For them it’s unthinkable that God could be standing before him, which is why to rationalize how he could be performing these signs they claim he has a demon (John 7:20, 8:48-49, 10:20-21): possession would make him crazy and able to have powers. Even that explanation does not hold weight for everyone in the crowd, because some of his signs are to great for them to conceive anyone other than God doing them (see John 10:21).

As John’s account tells us, Jesus has to escape and hide now to avoid arrest. John no longer simply says his hour had not yet come. The “hour” in John’s Gospel refers to Jesus’ Passion and death, and it is close. Despite the charged atmosphere and hostility the Word sown has begun to bear fruit. People come to Our Lord across the Jordan and continue to follow and believe in him because of the signs he has performed. They know those signs could only be explained by Our Lord being sent by God. It’s poignant that the story comes full circle, back to where John had been baptizing; John had pointed to Our Lord and testified to him being the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the greatest power of all. Now the Lamb is gathering his disciples around himself not long before before he does take away the sins of the world on the Cross.

Our Lord still works signs, but to those who have faith. When he appears after the Resurrection, he only appears to those who had faith in him. Make this last week of Lent a moment of prayer where you contemplate the things Our Lord has worked in your life. He’s always willing to reveal something new.

Readings: Jeremiah 20:10–13; Psalm 18:2–7; John 10:31–42.

5th Week of Lent, Thursday

by

Today’s Gospel concludes the long discourse we’ve read in the liturgy over the last week regarding the arguments between Jesus and the Jews who didn’t believe in him (John 8). Yesterday he spoke with some who had believed in him, but, scratching beneath the surface, their faith was shaped more by his telling off the incredulous Jews than by deep convictions. Even yesterday Our Lord warned those in the crowd who believed in him that they were slaves to sin in need of liberation in order to really treat God as their Father again. The response was hostility.

Now Our Lord, having just received another barrage of name-calling due to his teachings (John 8:47–49), and after a long attempt to tell them the truth, a truth that could only be accepted in faith, he lays it on the line: he claims to have power over life and death, and to have seen Abraham and pleased him. The crowds respond that he is possessed (in other words, insane) to think that he is greater than Abraham and greater than the prophets, yet he is. It all comes down to the words for which they sought to stone him: “before Abraham came to be, I AM.” “I AM” was how the Lord told Moses to identify him when he went to free Abraham’s descendants in Egypt (Exodus 3:13–15), and now Jesus was identifying not only his Father as God, but himself. If he is God he’d have power over death, and be able to know Abraham personally. For his listeners that is the last straw.

A deeper relationship with Christ requires not only embracing his humanity, through which he makes himself accessible to us, but his divinity as well. Through faith in him we are led to a deeper trust in him and love for him, and God goes from being some all-powerful being overshadowing us, aloof and distant, to someone who loves us and is close to us. In a week and a day we’ll see the depths of his love on the Cross.

Readings: Genesis 17:3–9; Psalm 105:4–9; John 8:51–59.