Showing posts with label Saints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saints. Show all posts

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Second Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday

The Risen Jesus reveals Himself to the Apostles, breathing the Holy Spirit on them and giving them His authority to forgive sins. St. Thomas, absent from that first appearance, is skeptical. He simply cannot believe the marvelous news of Christ being risen after the cruel death on the Cross. He comes to instant belief seeing Christ the second Sunday!
Are we slow to doubt the good news, to reject the word of others? If so, perhaps we should ask that the Lord would reveal Himself to us like He did to St. Thomas, and pray for the gift of faith.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Mass of the Lord's Supper Homily of Pope Benedict

Pope Benedict's Homily for the Mass of the Lord's Supper:
Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Holy Thursday is not only the day of the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, whose splendour bathes all else and in some ways draws it to itself. To Holy Thursday also belongs the dark night of the Mount of Olives, to which Jesus goes with his disciples; the solitude and abandonment of Jesus, who in prayer goes forth to encounter the darkness of death; the betrayal of Judas, Jesus’ arrest and his denial by Peter; his indictment before the Sanhedrin and his being handed over to the Gentiles, to Pilate. Let us try at this hour to understand more deeply something of these events, for in them the mystery of our redemption takes place.

Jesus goes forth into the night. Night signifies lack of communication, a situation where people do not see one another. It is a symbol of incomprehension, of the obscuring of truth. It is the place where evil, which has to hide before the light, can grow. Jesus himself is light and truth, communication, purity and goodness. He enters into the night. Night is ultimately a symbol of death, the definitive loss of fellowship and life. Jesus enters into the night in order to overcome it and to inaugurate the new Day of God in the history of humanity.

On the way, he sang with his disciples Israel’s psalms of liberation and redemption, which evoked the first Passover in Egypt, the night of liberation. Now he goes, as was his custom, to pray in solitude and, as Son, to speak with the Father. But, unusually, he wants to have close to him three disciples: Peter, James and John. These are the three who had experienced his Transfiguration – when the light of God’s glory shone through his human figure – and had seen him standing between the Law and the Prophets, between Moses and Elijah. They had heard him speaking to both of them about his “exodus” to Jerusalem. Jesus’ exodus to Jerusalem – how mysterious are these words! Israel’s exodus from Egypt had been the event of escape and liberation for God’s People. What would be the form taken by the exodus of Jesus, in whom the meaning of that historic drama was to be definitively fulfilled? The disciples were now witnessing the first stage of that exodus – the utter abasement which was nonetheless the essential step of the going forth to the freedom and new life which was the goal of the exodus. The disciples, whom Jesus wanted to have close to him as an element of human support in that hour of extreme distress, quickly fell asleep. Yet they heard some fragments of the words of Jesus’ prayer and they witnessed his way of acting. Both were deeply impressed on their hearts and they transmitted them to Christians for all time. Jesus called God “Abba”. The word means – as they add – “Father”. Yet it is not the usual form of the word “father”, but rather a children’s word – an affectionate name which one would not have dared to use in speaking to God. It is the language of the one who is truly a “child”, the Son of the Father, the one who is conscious of being in communion with God, in deepest union with him.

If we ask ourselves what is most characteristic of the figure of Jesus in the Gospels, we have to say that it is his relationship with God. He is constantly in communion with God. Being with the Father is the core of his personality. Through Christ we know God truly. “No one has ever seen God”, says Saint John. The one “who is close to the Father’s heart … has made him known” (1:18). Now we know God as he truly is. He is Father, and this in an absolute goodness to which we can entrust ourselves. The evangelist Mark, who has preserved the memories of Saint Peter, relates that Jesus, after calling God “Abba”, went on to say: “Everything is possible for you. You can do all things” (cf. 14:36). The one who is Goodness is at the same time Power; he is all-powerful. Power is goodness and goodness is power. We can learn this trust from Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives.

Before reflecting on the content of Jesus’ petition, we must still consider what the evangelists tell us about Jesus’ posture during his prayer. Matthew and Mark tell us that he “threw himself on the ground” (Mt 26:39; cf. Mk 14:35), thus assuming a posture of complete submission, as is preserved in the Roman liturgy of Good Friday. Luke, on the other hand, tells us that Jesus prayed on his knees. In the Acts of the Apostles, he speaks of the saints praying on their knees: Stephen during his stoning, Peter at the raising of someone who had died, Paul on his way to martyrdom. In this way Luke has sketched a brief history of prayer on one’s knees in the early Church. Christians, in kneeling, enter into Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives. When menaced by the power of evil, as they kneel, they are upright before the world, while as sons and daughters, they kneel before the Father. Before God’s glory we Christians kneel and acknowledge his divinity; by that posture we also express our confidence that he will prevail.

Jesus struggles with the Father. He struggles with himself. And he struggles for us. He experiences anguish before the power of death. First and foremost this is simply the dread natural to every living creature in the face of death. In Jesus, however, something more is at work. His gaze peers deeper, into the nights of evil. He sees the filthy flood of all the lies and all the disgrace which he will encounter in that chalice from which he must drink. His is the dread of one who is completely pure and holy as he sees the entire flood of this world’s evil bursting upon him. He also sees me, and he prays for me. This moment of Jesus’ mortal anguish is thus an essential part of the process of redemption. Consequently, the Letter to the Hebrews describes the struggle of Jesus on the Mount of Olives as a priestly event. In this prayer of Jesus, pervaded by mortal anguish, the Lord performs the office of a priest: he takes upon himself the sins of humanity, of us all, and he brings us before the Father.

Lastly, we must also pay attention to the content of Jesus’ prayer on the Mount of Olives. Jesus says: “Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet not what I want, but what you want” (Mk 14:36). The natural will of the man Jesus recoils in fear before the enormity of the matter. He asks to be spared. Yet as the Son, he places this human will into the Father’s will: not I, but you. In this way he transformed the stance of Adam, the primordial human sin, and thus heals humanity. The stance of Adam was: not what you, O God, have desired; rather, I myself want to be a god. This pride is the real essence of sin. We think we are free and truly ourselves only if we follow our own will. God appears as the opposite of our freedom. We need to be free of him – so we think – and only then will we be free. This is the fundamental rebellion present throughout history and the fundamental lie which perverts life. When human beings set themselves against God, they set themselves against the truth of their own being and consequently do not become free, but alienated from themselves. We are free only if we stand in the truth of our being, if we are united to God. Then we become truly “like God” – not by resisting God, eliminating him, or denying him. In his anguished prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus resolved the false opposition between obedience and freedom, and opened the path to freedom. Let us ask the Lord to draw us into this “yes” to God’s will, and in this way to make us truly free. Amen.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Second Sunday of Lent

Jesus Christ reveals to Peter, James, and John His divine nature veiled by His Human flesh as a foreshadowing of what is to come. While Christ is to die on the cross, He will be raised from the dead because He is divine. This foreshadowing is one that is frequent - it is how God the Father, who wrote the history of salvation, gives hints of how he is going to save us, gave prophets and seers the glimpse. It is seen in the first reading as Isaac, bound and laid on the altar and nearly sacrificed, Is this not a foreshadowing - the Father will provide His only Begotten Son, who will carry the wood of the Cross, and be attached to it. The Father will raise Him up again, and through His Son, Salvation will be given.
The Father speaks to the apostles with a message for us, too: this is my beloved son - listen to Him!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Lord desires us to be free, so He heals the leper. Not all the time, though, is healing bodily. The healing that we do experience, often healing of our spirits, demonstrate Christ's love. No longer does He tell us to not tell anyone, so we should follow the example of this leper and tell all how we were healed.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus heals Simon Peter's mother-in-law, but knows that he came to preach in more toms that just Capernaum. He tells them that they must move on. His purpose drives His action.
When we know why God created us (certainly to know, love and serve Him) with some more clarity, it sets us on a path. We must follow Jesus's example, therefore, and spend time in prayer in asking the Father what purpose He has planted in our hearts.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Second Sunday In Ordinary Time

Speak. Lord, your servant is listening! Samuel opens his ears and heart to the Lord, who called to him but he did not recognize who was calling. He lived in a time and culture when, as the verses before this reading relate, revelations were infrequent and visions rare. But the Lord was calling - the people were accustomed to not listening. Even Eli, the priest, missed the signs the first two times. But the beauty is that once he realizes what is going on, he is able to instruct Samuel, who then never ceases to listen to the Lord.
Andrew does not struggle with listening to the God. He, as a follower of John the Baptist, hears John point of Christ Jesus, calling Him the Lamb of God. He follows Jesus. When asked what he is looking for, he answers not with a desire to see the house of Jesus, but to know Him, to see where he lives. Andrew finds Simon, and tells him. Simon and Andrew both are able to hear the Lord, and they in turn help others.
We live in time that has distanced the Lord, by and large. But we have some people like Eli, John the Baptist, and Andrew. They can help us listen to the voice of the Lord, and help us to open our hearts to Him.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

Mary is the Mother of God, and on this octave of Christmas, we take a further look at her Son. To proclaim Mary is the Mother of God is a proclamation that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word of God. The Blessed Mother is often titled Theotokos, the God-bearer. It is not that she gave Christ existence - He was begotten by the Father before the ages - but gave Him flesh. Mary, Mother of God, reveals Christ to us. So we honor her, and we worship her Son who was born for our salvation.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Second Sunday of Advent

John the Baptist's purpose in life was clear: he was to proclaim the coming of Christ the Messiah, to prepare the hearts of those who would receive Him through repentance. He gives comfort to the people who long to see Christ, and most likely disturbed those satisfied with the status quo. But John simply proclaims the message, disturbed neither by those clamoring or opposed to come to Christ. Perhaps he can serve as an example to us who are striving to live our vocations. We must simply do our best!

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We tend to make things so difficult, but in the end, only one thing is required: That we lave. But even that, we make complicated, but thinking love is something it is not. It is not an emotion, not a feeling of benevolence. It is an act of benevolence - and choice of the will to act for the best. Love is not easy, but it is not any more complicated than that. So let us choose to love, until those choices become who we are!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

ZENIT - Pope's Address to German Seminarians

On his recent trip to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech to seminarians. Here are some highlights:

The seminary is therefore a time for training; also, of course, a time for discernment, for learning: does he want me for this? The mission must be tested, and this includes being in community with others and also of course speaking with your spiritual directors, in order to learn how to discern what his will is. And then learning to trust: if he truly wants this, then I may entrust myself to him.

A time for discernment, a time for learning, a time for vocation ... and then, naturally, a time for being with him [Jesus Christ], a time for praying, for listening to him. Listening, truly learning to listen to him -- in the word of sacred Scripture, in the faith of the Church, in the liturgy of the Church -- and learning to understand the present time in his word.

Studying is essential: only thus can we stand firm in these times and proclaim within them the reason for our faith. And it is essential that we study critically -- because we know that tomorrow someone else will have something else to say -- while being alert, open and humble as we study, so that our studying is always with the Lord, before the Lord, and for him.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Just as the Lord called St. Peter out of the boat, so to does He call us. We are invited to leave behind the place of comfort and walk with Christ. With our eyes fixed intently on Him, we can walk safe and secure through all the storms of life… but when we take our eyes of of Him, focusing on the stuff that is coming at us, we will surely be overwhelmed. So, let us keep our eye on Jesus Christ.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Whatever we have (and all that we have) is enough for the Lord. He can take our offering, as minuscule as it may seem, and by His grace make it enough. But we have to give it…
Take Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all that I have and possess. Thou hast given all to me. To Thee, O lord, I return it. All is Thine, dispose of it wholly according to Thy will. Give me Thy love and thy grace, for this is sufficient for me.

Ignatius Loyola

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A man finds a hidden treasure… a merchant finds a pearl of great value… Solomon asks not for riches, but wisdom. What's the connection - they all are willing to give everything else up to have what they desire. Christ asks us the same question that the Father asks Solomon. What are we truly looking for? Would we know it when we see it? That is why our prayer and discernment is so important. It purifies our desires, assuring that what we desire is truly good and beautiful, worthy of our given all to 'have' it. Unlike the rich man who ceases to follow Christ because of his wealth, can we give all to follow God?

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Trinity Sunday, 2011

As we celebrate the feast of the Holy Trinity, we remember that the union of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is so much so that they are one being and existence, while still being Three divine persons. Our minds cannot grasp the reality of their union, nor will we ever understand. Even in Heaven, when those blessed with the vision of the Trinity will see God, the mystery of who the Trinity is will remain. All the same, we know that we can serve the Trinity, and ask for their grace that we may enjoy the beatific vision.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Do not let your hearts be troubled... it is too easy to let fear and anxiety enter our hearts. But faith in Christ means not letting these rob us of our peace. In a world filled with false prophets and false promises, when we place our faith in Christ, we come to know Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life. He reveals the Father to us, but also reveals what it means to be human. So, when the storms of life blow, we turn to the Lord in confidence, admitting the fear, but finding the strength in Christ to not let it rob us of our peace.

As St. Teresa of Avila wrote (translated by HW Longfellow):
Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Holy Saturday, 2011

From the Office of Readings for Holy Saturday:


Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ Christ answered him: ‘And with your spirit.’ He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: ‘Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’

I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.

See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree.

I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.

Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Fifth Sunday of Lent

"Lazurus, come out!" Jesus Christ calls to the dead man, and he hears and obeys. It was for the glory of God that he should experience this death, that Christ could display His authority on earth. But Christ's authority does not end with His power over the physically dead... He stands in front of those spiritually dead and calls out to us, to come out of the places of sin and darkness. Some might object like Martha, initially... Lord, there is a stench there. But He longs to heal us, and perfume us with the odor of His sanctity. Lazurus, though dead, could not resist the call of Christ, but can we?

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Fourth Sunday in Lent

A blind man is given his sight by the Lord, and the 'Jews' (those in leadership) are shown to be blind. Jesus heals the man, and is given faith in the Lord at the same time. The means of the healing is interesting: The Lord made mud, and put it on the blind man's eyes - Jesus is re-creating him, giving new eyes. As we continue our Lenten journey, we are called to be like this man - to let Christ give us the eyes of faith.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Second Sunday of Lent

Jesus is transfigured, and gives Peter, James, and John a glimpse of His glory. He tells them not to share what they have witnessed until after He rises from the dead. The transfiguration most likely allowed them to see through the scandal of the cross, eventually, to believe in the Resurrection. But look what their first response was to the Crucifixion - one denied knowing Jesus, one presumably hid, while one stood at the foot of the Cross in worship. Let us follow the example of John, and recognize Jesus in our midst, and worship Him.