Being a shepherd is not a glamorous job and it’s certainly not an easy one.  It’s hard, physical work that requires 24 hour vigilance.   Being a Good Shepherd is even tougher.  A good shepherd not only herds his sheep, he knows the needs of each one of them.  He knows how to care for them; how to nourish them and protect them from all sorts of predators that lurk in waiting.

I recently read an article about a joint study conducted by Harvard and Columbia Universities that covered 20 years of data.  The study tracked over 1 million fourth grade students into their early adulthood.  It focused on the difference that was made in the student’s life from being assigned a highly rated 4^th grade teacher. The difference between having a strong teacher or a poor one was dramatic – much like the difference Jesus describes between having a good shepherd or a hired hand tend your sheep. Continue reading “There’s a Shepherd in Each of Us” →

CELEBRATION OF THE LORD’S PASSION – With the all-night vigil with Jesus from the Last Supper to Good Friday morning behind us, we reflect on what Jesus would have experienced during those night hours.  Arrested and moved from place to place, questioned and finally lowered into the prison cell, weak, tired and afraid.  The morn comes and He is once again treated cruelly, he is condemned to die and begins his journey to Calvary.  Our celebration of the Lord’s passion remembers this with the Liturgy of the Word and the Proclamation of the Passion.  How our hearts skip a beat when we read that He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.   We kneel in reverence of Jesus’ total giving of self for our sins and love of His Father.  We then move to the second section of this liturgy and reverence the Cross of Christ.  The crucifix, draped in a red cloth with the symbol of His wounds visible, is carried in procession on the shoulders of our Deacon and Deacon candidate through the church with lighted candles.  The silence at this time is palpable.  Once at the altar, the crucifix is uncovered and placed before us in the stark reality of the death of Jesus.  We all process forward and offer a sign of respect and love for what Jesus has done for us.  During this procession, we sing “Were You There” – it does cause me to tremble realizing that my sins are part of Jesus suffering.  But, it also brings great joy to know that through this action of Jesus, our sin are forgiven – all sins are forgiven.  We then celebrate the Communion Rite and receive the broken body of our Savior, Jesus Christ.   Our celebration ends in silence with the crucifix before us as a reminder of Jesus gift of salvation to us on that Good Friday.  This action continues today each time Mass is celebrated.  Let us rejoice in the great love that God has for us, to give His only Son for our sake.  This is why this Friday is called “Good”.

CELEBRATION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER – Thursday of Holy Week is filled with varied experiences.  As we noted in the beginning of these reflections, the Chrism Mass opens the day.  The day ends with the Celebration of the Lord’s Supper.  Here, we are offered two graces – service and Sacrament (Eucharist and Priesthood).  Part of the celebration includes the “washing of the feet”.  It is here that Jesus calls us to service in His Church.  Before I came to Mother of DivineProvidence Parish, my ministry was at St. Charles Seminary in the Permanent Diaconte Formation Program.  The charism of the deacon is service and we used the washing of the feet to symbolize this.  We are all called to service — to wash each other’s feet – we do this in so many different ways.  We visit the sick, feed the hungry, comfort those who are grieving – any service, any kindess we offer to someone is how we “wash feet”.  The gift of the Eucharist remembered this night is perhaps the greatest gift.  Imagine, Jesus loves us so much that he found a way to be present to us in our Churches — present in the Blessed Sacrament.  Do we realize the gift that we have in this Sacrament?  Or do we take it for granted?  We  (the Sisters of Mercy) are blessed to have the Eucharist in our convent chapel.  But, on Holy Thursday evening the tabernacle is emptied and remains so until after the Ester Vigil.  The loss of the Eucharistic presence just for those 2 days left an empty space in our home for me.  May the celebration of the Lord’s Supper deepen our appreciation of the power of the Eucharistic in our lives and allow It to strengthen us in our ministry of “foot washing”.

In the long history since the creation of the world, we have come to understand that “God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good.” (Genesis 1:31)

God created us and established in our human nature a relationship that is eternal and loving. God reached deep into the ocean of his love and formed humanity in his image and likeness. We are good from the core of our being and free to return his love, which is mirrored in our living a virtuous life.

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When Adam and Eve turned away from God they chose to be alienated from him and estranged from one another. They found in their shame no way home and wandered aimlessly without direction; lost and confused in their own self-absorption. This rejection of God was repeated many times throughout history. Every time God reached out in love, we ignored or rejected him.… the more I called to them, the further they went from me (Hosea 11:2).

But then something happened, an event ritualized in these past few days that abruptly changed reality for the world. God gave up his Son to death, the last and most desperate result of Adam’s sin, so the new Adam might lead us back to the Father.

We are present now in the most ancient tradition of the Catholic Church to bring these men and women to the point of their death in Christ. They do not run away, they are running toward the font of living water. Through this Baptism, Christ will lead them back to the Father and the new Adam will give them full communion in His Church.

With the rising of the Sun we will hear a voice calling us to return ‘on the first day of the week.’  It will ignite our Church with new life! The message will reverberate around the world, lighting up its darkened corners and nourishing it’s most wanting dwellings. He will be Risen!  Alleluia!

My dear friends, now we too can proclaim what has been handed down to us through the Apostles! We too can give testimony to the truth and be salt for the earth! Christ is alive and “makes all things new.”

Pope Benedict, in his call for a Year of Faith (Porta Fidei, 2011) wrote: “We cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden (cf. Mt 5:13-16). The people of today can still experience the need to go to the well, like the Samaritan woman, in order to hear Jesus, who invites us to believe in him and to draw upon the source of living water welling up within him (cf. Jn 4:14). We must rediscover a taste for feeding ourselves on the word of God, faithfully handed down by the Church, and on the bread of life, offered as sustenance for his disciples (cf. Jn 6:51). Indeed, the teaching of Jesus still resounds in our day with the same power: “Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life” (Jn 6:27). The question posed by his listeners is the same that we ask today: “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” (Jn 6:28). We know Jesus’ reply: “This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent” (Jn 6:29). Belief in Jesus Christ, then, is the way to arrive definitively at salvation.”

This call will convert souls, crushing their complacency with a great fire re-ignited this holy night! The fire your hold in your heart, Jesus asks you to release it into the world as a leaven! Release your faith to be salt for the earth!

The Resurrection of Jesus transforms the contentment of our religious practice with a missionary zeal that will transform the earth to a temple for the virtuous life rather than a prison for the vices.

Christ can help us convert souls, illuminating the darkness of this world and filling it with grace.  The barriers we built up to stop Christ, all destroyed, all shattered in the wind of the Holy Spirit.

The man who walked through Galilee walks with us still.  Evil in all its forms does not have the last word. The final triumph is Christ’s! If we are prepared to suffer and die with Him, as St. Paul reminds us his life becomes our life. We are certain of this truth which is eternal and unchanging!

This now is a new age of Christian hope and faithful maturity, where the virtues will root us in the glory of God. We will save souls in this parish, a small part of the Kingdom of God. We will follow our Apostle to teach and sanctify God’s holy People.

Let us begin by welcoming those who have been lost, confused or like us, complacent, in our faith practice. In our joy this holy night, we welcome them home and invite them to share in the new life Christ gives to us all.

God’s love begins at home, in our families and in our hearts. It is a spark of resurrection joy that helps us forgive; helps us recognize in each other the Christ we seek. In the school of the family, we can enrich a culture that supports virtue; builds solid communities of hope and ensures that neighborhoods and homes practice human respect, consequences for wrongdoing and dignity for all.

Here and now, we can take the light given and proclaimed through us and rededicate our parish to ignite other hearts to an active and vital participation in the life of God.

All Christians are called this day to interior meditation on the mysteries we hold sacred; called to live the virtuous life with a quieter and more serene countenance. But to preach as if Christ is plunging his hands into our hearts and pulling forth love, forgiveness and joy for anyone who seeks him! Christ is alive and “makes all things new!”

 

 

 

With the sign of the Cross, our parish enters the mystery of God!

We gather in this Upper Room to commemorate the commingling of the ritual of the Mass with the sacrifice of Calvary: the offering of Christ’s Body to the Father. And in this sacred mystery, we commemorate the vehicle through which this sacrifice is offered, the priesthood of the Apostles.

Christ willed that his sacrifice be continually present as a sign of authentic Christian unity. The Eucharist is one and the same time Christ’s sacrifice and the Church’s sacrifice, because in it Christ unites the Church with his redemptive work and invites the Church to share in his suffering.

It is important then that we, who share the one bread and the one-cup, assume a personal attitude of offering. We cannot come to just listen and watch, we need to engage the mystery, to make Christ’s suffering our own, sacrificing our pain, our difficulties, our trials- our whole humanity with him and in him so as to commingle our gift with the gift Christ makes of Himself.

By entering the ritual sacrifice of this night, we share in the victory won by Him over evil in the world. When the words of consecration are uttered and the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ become present in this ritual act, love triumphs over hatred, holiness succeeds over sin, selfless joy conquers selfish pleasure.

The Eucharistic celebration is stronger than all the evil in the universe because Christ offers himself freely as gift to His Father. This night too, Jesus becomes the servant washer, as an example to his apostles of servant leadership and how they will sacrifice their bodies for the love of God. In this way the Eucharist becomes for us an act of freedom and communion with the Father and with the Church.

When we join this moment of grace, the breaking of bread and the washing of the Twelve become how we define our freedom and how we live our communion.  For if we do not allow the Eucharist to transform our lives, we surrender to a state of bondage and alienation risking the loss of our souls and the souls of others.

The love of Christ in this Sacrament enlarges our capacity to love and moves us to more sincere and credible acts of charity-because it is Christ living within us! In the Eucharist made present here on our Altar through the hands of the priest, Christ comes to finish the work His Father gave him. He establishes the sacrificial priesthood in the Twelve that our souls might be filled with the same Charity, which led him to die for us on the Cross.

Jesus comes to live in our hearts and to lead us to the one end toward which we struggle every day: the love of God and the love of our neighbors in God. If we will but respond to His love, if we will but let this divine sacrament purify our hearts of all attachments to worldly things, Christ will make us stronger and more determined to love him. He will teach us through the ministry of the Apostle, to understand not only his love for us, but also his love of our neighbor. He will teach us to see into the depths of our brother’s heart, through the humility and compassion of each priest who opens his heart to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

As Christ came to overcome evil with good, so we too, nourished by this sacrament, will learn in our reception, that the charity of Christ is strong enough to reach out and embrace even our enemies, strong enough to conquer them, turning them from enemies into friends.

Yes, we celebrate the ritual Sacrifice of Calvary and the Washing of the Twelve because he has “given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should do also.”