The Resurrection - Today

 

 How do we experience the Resurrection of Jesus for ourselves today?

 First of all, we experience the Resurrection in our lives by the forgiveness of our sins. 

Saint Peter teaches us in Sunday’s first reading that “...everyone who believes in [Jesus] has forgiveness of sins through His name.” All of us have experienced the shame, discouragement and suffering that come with sin. We have made bad choices and brought pain into the lives of others. With the Resurrection of Jesus, there is hope for us. We can be forgiven. He has taken upon Himself all our sinfulness. We can put our weakness, sin and guilt into His hands and be assured that He will erase it from our conscience through the blood He spilled for us on the cross and the new life He holds out to us in His Resurrection. Jesus, risen from the dead, has conquered sin and offers all of us who turn to Him with real sorrow in our hearts the gift of forgiveness

 Secondly, we experience the Resurrection in our lives through hope in everlasting life.

As believers in Christ, we no longer need to fear death. It is not the last word on our lives. Rather, because Jesus conquered death, we can be assured of everlasting life if we believe in Him and follow His commandments. Death now is the means by which we enter the inheritance that is ours as sons and daughters of God

 Finally, we experience the Resurrection in our lives through the good works we perform for others.

  It is natural for us to put ourselves and our needs before others. We fear that if we do not watch out for ourselves, no one else will. However, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection, we receive power to overcome our selfishness and pride. As we ponder all that He did to save us, we cannot but be filled with the love of God. And that love energizes us to serve others through works of mercy. We put aside our own needs trusting that God will meet them for us and so are open to the work of the Spirit within us calling us to feed the hungry, to visit prisoners and to pray for the needy. All this is a result of the new life that flows into our hearts because of Jesus’ victory over sin

Easter Mysteries Of The Rosary

 

The First Mystery 
JESUS APPEARS TO MARY MAGDALENE 
 For the virtue of charity

The Second Mystery

JESUS APPEARS TO THE DISCIPLES ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS 

 For the virtue of love of Scripture

The Third Mystery

 JESUS  APPEARS TO THE APOSTLES

 For the virtue of fear of the Lord

The Fourth Mystery

 JESUS APPEARS TO THOMAS 

 For the virtue of faith

The Fifth Mystery

 JESUS APPEARS TO THE DISCIPLES AT THE SEA OF GALILEE 

 For the virtue of accepting the forgiveness of Jesus 

A World Transformed By The Resurrection Of Jesus

 

 There is no celebration like the liturgy we celebrate at the Easter Vigil. 

The Church pulls out all the stops- fire, candles, water, incense, extra readings, special songs. All of it is meant to capture the grandeur, the might and the joy of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

The evening starts with a darkened church. It is meant to symbolize the ignorance of sin and the hopelessness of a world without God. 

One candle enters the church giving a small glimmer of hope. And, finally, as we light our individual candles from the Easter candle, the whole church is flooded with light. Christ's resurrection has scattered the darkness of ignorance, of fear and of sin. We no longer have to grope around in the darkness not knowing where to find meaning or truth or love. 

There is now no doubt. In the light of His resurrection, we have found our meaning, our truth and our love in Christ.

 How do we tap into the power of Jesus' resurrection so that His new life can be real and active in our lives?

 It is already ours through our baptism. 

Our baptism seals us with the gift of the Holy Spirit and the promise of the gift of faith.

 Like most elements of our faith, baptism has its roots in the experience of the people of Israel. To escape slavery in Egypt, God parted the Red Sea for his People. And, after forty years in the desert, the people of Israel crossed the Jordan River to enter the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey. The waters, then, came to symbolize the passage from enslavement to new life in the promised land. John the Baptist chose the Jordan River and the symbol of baptism as a means of preparing the way for the coming of Jesus. Jesus himself chose to undergo John's baptism and commanded his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

The faith, the new life and the power of Jesus' resurrection are ours 2000 years later because of baptism.

Most of us were babies when we were baptized. Our parents and godparents made a profession of faith on our behalf and committed themselves to raising us to know and love Jesus. 

But, at the Easter Vigil, we have an opportunity to renew the promises of our baptism. We reject sin and embrace the new life offered to us through faith in the resurrection of Jesus. We make our own the promises made for us at our baptism so that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ can be the driving force of our lives. 

Why?

 

Every Good Friday we read together the story of the Lord's passion from the gospel of John and have to ask ourselves, "why?". Why would anyone want to torture and kill Jesus? He came to preach the love of God but encountered such hate. He came to heal but was stripped, beaten and scourged. 

Why?

The cross convinces us how offensive our sins are to God. If our reconciliation with the Father required his Son to take on flesh and die for us then how far must our sins drive us from God? If our sins caused Jesus to die, then can there be any such thing as a "harmless" or "victimless" sin? 

The cross not only teaches us about the love of God, but it also teaches us something about ourselves. It convinces us that we are sinners in need of mercy and forgiveness. And it teaches us to fly to the cross for strength in temptation and for mercy when we have sinned.

Just as importantly, the cross begins to answer for us the most heart-wrenching question that every human being faces, "If God is good and all-powerful, why is there so much suffering?" 

When we look upon the cross, we do not see a God who keeps himself at a safe distance from the suffering of the people he created. We see instead a God who is with us in our trials, who feels every pain we feel and who carries us in our affliction. 

Because of Jesus' sacrifice, suffering takes on a whole new meaning in our lives. By accepting our pains and difficulties and offering them to God together with Jesus, we participate in the mystery of salvation. 

 The second reading from the letter to the Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered and was thus perfected to become a means of salvation for the world. God wants to use our suffering to bring forgiveness of sins to the world. 

Without the cross, our suffering would be meaningless and would drive us to despair. Now in the light of Jesus' sacrifice, our pains and difficulties do not separate us from the Father but help us to grow closer to him

We Remember, We Re-live

 

 Though the word, "remember", appears frequently in the Old Testament, we only hear Jesus use the word during the Last Supper. 

It is not his miracles or his parables that Jesus tells his disciples to remember. Rather, it is the gift of his Body and Blood in the Eucharist that he wishes to leave as an everlasting legacy to his followers. 

As a good Jew, when Jesus says to his disciples, "Do this in remembrance of me", he is not asking them to reenact the Last Supper the way we might reenact a play. Instead, he wants his Body and Blood to be given to believers to sustain them throughout the centuries. 

What we celebrate is not just a commemoration of what Jesus did. It is the real thing. Whenever we celebrate Mass, we are at the foot of the cross where Jesus' body is offered and his blood spilled for us.

 It is what Saint Paul describes so clearly for us in this evening's second reading: "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Cor 11:26 RSV). 

 One of the most powerful and moving Negro spirituals is "Were You There." In beautiful simplicity, the song asks us if we were there when they crucified our Lord and invites us to tremble at the thought of our Savior's death. 

We were not there. We were not in the upper room at the Last Supper to share a meal with Jesus and have our feet washed by him. We were not in the garden when Jesus was undergoing his agony. We were not at the foot of the cross when he suffered and died. Nor were we at the tomb when the women discovered that it was empty and that Jesus was alive. Yet at every Mass we are brought there through the power of memory and the mystery of faith. 

Jesus comes to us in the form of bread and wine just as surely as he was present to the apostles. It is the same flesh crucified to the cross and the same blood which was spilled which we receive. Our sins are truly forgiven and we are empowered to live a new life in the Spirit.

 With this evening's liturgy, Lent officially comes to an end and the great feast we call the "Holy Triduum" begins. 

During these three days- Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil- we relive the events of Jesus' life which won for us the forgiveness of sins and the promise of everlasting life. These days mark our Passover from the slavery of sin and death to the freedom of the children of God. 

Through our commemoration of these saving events, we are brought "there"- to Jerusalem, to the upper room, to Golgotha- so that we may bring Jesus and his saving power "here"- "here" to our homes, "here" to our schools, "here" to our places of business, and "here" to our hearts. 

 The thought of it should cause us to tremble

Having The Same Mind As Christ

 

Palm Sunday begins Holy Week- the most solemn week of the year for Christians. We spend these days remembering all that Jesus did to save us- the indignities He suffered, the blood He shed, the life He gave. He willingly suffered such a cruel death out of love for you and for me. He took upon Himself the punishment we deserved for our selfishness, pride and hatred. The forgiveness of our sins and the hope of everlasting life are ours because of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross for us.

His death on the cross was an act of pure love. He had the power to put an end to it all, to allow the cup to pass Him by. He could have called down legions of angels to save Him from the Roman soldiers. As the Son of God, He could have come down from the cross. Instead, He chose to lay down His life and so take upon Himself the sins of all the world. 

 Because of His great love, He accepted a humiliating death even though He knew that so many would still refuse to recognize Him as Lord. He knew that many would still reject Him or be indifferent to His sacrifice. He knew that for many people His death would make no difference in the way they lived. Yet He pressed on obedient to the will of His Father. As the prophet Isaiah writes, “[He] set His face like flint knowing He would not be put to shame”.

This is the mystery we remember and celebrate on Palm Sunday as we read the account of His passion and death with palm branches in our hands.

 But we would miss the purpose of today’s solemnity entirely if all we did was remember it. It would be nothing more than a retelling or a re-enactment of an historic event of the past. Rather what we must do is imitate our Lord in His humility, patience and, most especially, His love. As Saint Paul tells us in the second reading, we must have within us the same attitude that Christ had.

 As He suffered for us, so we must accept suffering for Him and for others. Just as He loved those who hated Him, we must love our enemies as well as our friends. Just as He forgave those who tortured and killed Him, so we must forgive those who offend us. And just as He has shown mercy to us poor sinners, so we must reach out to the poor who are in need of our generosity.

 When we do so, the love of Christ becomes real for us and the healing power of the cross breaks into our world which can so often be dark and cold. Considering all that Jesus has done to save us, how could we ever close our hand to or turn our backs on our neighbors in their need?

Holy Week Mysteries Of The Rosary

 

1.THE ANOINTING AT BETHANY

For the virtue of magnanimity

2. THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM

For the grace to welcome Christ into our hearts

3. THE CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE

For purity of heart

4. JESUS WASHES THE DISCIPLES’ FEET

For love of neighbor

5. JESUS PRAYS FOR HIS DISCIPLES

For unity among Christians