The Holy Saturday message is we are never abandoned by what seems to be the silent love of God.

We are in the midst of the great Easter Triduum as we remember and as we celebrate our sharing in the paschal mystery of the Lord Jesus  -- our sharing in the dying and the rising of Jesus.  On Holy Saturday,  remembering that Christ is now buried in the tomb, we gather in silence and in expectation between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

On Good Friday, we celebrated the depth of the Lord’s saving love for us.  He died out of love for us.  His death on the cross expresses the limitless love of God.  In giving up his spirit on the cross, Jesus said:  “It is finished.”  The words of Jesus do not convey the defeat of death; rather “it is finished” communicates that the saving mission of Jesus for our forgiveness and reconciliation is complete.  The mission of our salvation has been accomplished by Jesus.

On Easter Sunday, we celebrate our sharing in the new life of Christ Jesus.   We are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.  Jesus Christ is Risen.    All of creation shouts with joy.

But back to Holy Saturday morning, we are in-between.  We are buried with Christ in the tomb.  It is time of silence.  It is time of expectation. It is a time of faith.  God does not abandon us in the experience of grief, of loss, and of death. 

Holy Saturday is about real life when it seems that God is too silent for us.  We can be overcome with grief, despair, and with fear. 

Yet, we called to believe in the silent love of God who grieves with us, who is buried in the tomb with us, who has a solidarity with all who feel helpless and are vulnerable.

But the clear Holy Saturday message is that we are never abandoned by the silent love of God.  We are called to trust in Christ Jesus, to trust that death is the pathway to life, to a sharing in the fullness of the Risen life of Jesus.

In this prayer, we celebrate with our elect from the parish who will celebrate the Sacraments of Initiation this evening during the great Easter Vigil   This is a most beautiful and inspiring liturgy.   It is the mother of all vigils.

Our chosen elect will share in the risen life of Jesus in the celebration of the sacraments of initiation.  We pray for our elect and we pray for all of us, even those of us who have washed in the waters of baptisms many, many moons ago.   We gather in silent expectation on this Holy Saturday to prepare in prayer and in silence to celebrate our baptismal grace of being God’s beloved and to commit ourselves to bear witness to the love of Jesus in all that we say and do.

The disciples of Jesus are to change the world by getting down on their knees and washing the feet of God's poor.

With this solemn liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, we enter the heart and soul of the entire liturgical year.  We celebrate the paschal mystery – the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.  As the disciples of Jesus, we gather during the Triduum to celebrate the mystery of the ways we encounter the Lord.

In today’s Gospel account, Jesus wraps a towel around his waist, takes a pitcher of water and, on the night before he dies, begins washing the feet of his disciples.  The disciples are stunned.  The washing of feet was usually done by a slave.   It was Jesus who was washing their feet.  Jesus is certainly acknowledging in gratitude the courage of his disciples in having walked with him for three years to this dark night.  He is surely proclaiming that in such walking, despite all that will happen on the next day, they have arrived nonetheless at the threshold of new life.  But most of all, Jesus is teaching them that this new life is gained not in presiding over multitudes from royal thrones;  it is gained, however, in walking with the humble and in humbly serving this world’s walkers.  When he tells his disciples to do as he has done in washing their feet, he is commissioning them to walk as he has walked and to heal as he has healed.

His disciples are to change the world by getting down on their knees and washing the feet of God’s poor.

This is the authentic mark of the follower of Jesus Christ:  that he and she wash the feet of the beggar, the leper, the miserable sinner rejected by everyone else.

Jesus the teacher demonstrated his life-giving message:  foot washing.  He did not ask his friends to die for one another, but to live for one another.  Holy Thursday is a celebration of life, and life together as a people of God.

In the Gospel account we find that Peter was uncomfortable with having Jesus wash his feet.  Peter, who was somewhat of an activist, would have preferred to see himself doing the washing, washing the feet of Jesus, and even of the other disciples.  Sometimes it is harder to remain passive and allow someone else to bathe us than it is to bathe someone else. 

But having our feet washed and washing the feet of others are two necessary components of Christian discipleship.

Peter’s image of God was more of a king rather than a humble servant.  He was imprisoned by his image of who God is.  Jesus was giving Peter a different image of God and saying the only way to stay close to Jesus was to let him wash you.

The first and most essential part is to let the Lord wash us.  As Jesus said to Peter, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.  First, the Lord washes us clean so that we belong to the Lord.  Only then are we qualified and empowered to wash the feet of our sisters and brothers. When this truth dawned on Peter, he overcame his reluctance and cried out “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head.”  For this to happen all that the Lord needs from us is simply to be there, to present ourselves to him and to let him wash us.

The other side of the coin, which is equally important, is that after our feet have been washed by the Lord, we must go and wash the feet of others.  After Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he said to them: “Do you know what I have done for you?  You call me Teacher and Lord – and rightly so, for that is what I am.  So if I, your Lord and Master, wash your feet, you are to wash the feet of one another.  I have given you an example, what I have done, you are to do likewise.

On this holy night, we pledge once again to use our hands and feet for the work of forgiveness, for the work of loving each other.  We pledge to wash each other’s feet, to hand over our lives for each other, for the sake of the world.  We pledge ourselves to do Eucharist, to do this in memory of the One who gave his life for us.

Isn’t it odd what we experience this evening in this liturgy of the Lord’s Supper?  The meaning of salvation focuses on the voice of God speaking to us through Jesus with a towel around his waist asking us to find the towel with our name on it:  “As I have done for you, so you also must do.”

Service rooted in love is the example Jesus gives to his disciples.  It is a radical form of service because it is based on a radical form of love.

So, the question I leave with you as we ritually wash the feet of parishioners is:  Where is your towel with your name on it?

We will never perceive the Reality beneath the bread and wine unless we first understand the point of the basin and feet;  we never see Christ in the Eucharist we kneel to adore, if we do not first see Christ in those before whom we kneel to serve.

Have a blessed day.

God wants us to die before we die.

In the first Gospel proclaimed for our Palm Sunday liturgy, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey with palm branches being spread on the road…When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil.  “Who is this?” people asked.

Palm Sunday presents us with a very unusual version of who Jesus is.  St. Paul in the second Scripture reading proclaims:  “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality to God something to be grasped, rather he emptied himself taking the form of a slave…he humbled himself.”

This is the kind of God Jesus preaches and imitates.  God is the one who identifies with and enters into the experience of the people He loves.

God is sending a message through Jesus in this Palm Sunday celebration that states that nothing human is abhorrent to me. 

All of life –even the most horrible kind of suffering, even death – is something so precious that God wants to be in solidarity with it.  God wants to embrace it and transform it.

That’s who our God is.

So, what is it that this same God wants from us?  Jesus wants us to die with him, only the death he’s talking about is not the one when our earthly life is over.  The death in which our God is interested in is the death of our egos.  He wants us to die to our egos.  He wants us to die to that part of us that wishes to enthrone our own selves, that part of us that dreams of being on top of the ladder, to be No. 1, to be among the elite in a self-centered fashion.

God wants us to die before we die.  This is such an important component of our spiritual journey.  As we enter into the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus during these days of holy week, may we also pray over our sharing in this paschal mystery of dying and rising.  The dying we embrace during these days is the dying to our demons, our sinfulness, and our self-centeredness.  For us to share in the risen life of Jesus, we need to die to all that is in us that does not reflect the Gospel message of Jesus.  Plain and Simple, how do I live more fully in the service of others, how do I wash the feet of God’s poor?

Who is God?  Again to quote Paul, “Christ Jesus though He was in the form of God did not regard equality to God something to be grasped, rather he emptied himself taking the form of a slave…he humbled himself.”

Who are we as the disciples of Jesus?  Our God wants us to embody the humble actions of Jesus:  The God who emptied himself, the God who humbled himself, the God who sat on a donkey.

Have a blessed day.

We are missioned to bring the love of Christ to those imprisoned by a tomb, of fear, a tomb of indifference, or a tomb of stress,

As we pray over this beautiful story of the raising of Lazarus, we reflect on the Lord’s desire to not only to renew our physical life; but much more important, to raise us to the fullness of eternal life by giving us a share in the dying and the rising of Jesus..

Lord, there are many people who are Lazarus in our Church, in our neighborhood, and in our nation, seemingly alive but really in the tomb.

n  Those who are letting themselves by killed by alcohol  or drugs,

n  Those who are cynical, who have no energy or enthusiasm,

n  Those for whom the Church is no longer a part of their lives,

n  Those who have been hurt by someone in the life of the Church,

n  Those young people who are spiritual but do not feel connected to the Church in any way.

We ask you Father to send them Jesus:

n  Someone who will be a friend to them as was Jesus to Lazarus.

n  Will not be afraid to remove the stone that is closing them in,

n  Will ignore us when we protest that they are already four days in the grave and will smell.

n  Will call them to come out, and set them free.

Lord, we pray for the Church of the Holy Spirit:

n  That we may be Jesus in the world,

n  That we may be led to where Lazarus is lying in a tomb,

Fill the Church of the Holy Spirit with the love of Jesus for Lazarus, so that she may call him out of the tomb and set him free.

We can find the mission of the Church in this beautiful Gospel account.  We as a parish community are missioned to our young, to our senior citizens, to the families of our parish, to one and all to bring the presence and the love of Christ to those who seem to be imprisoned in a tomb of fear, a tomb of indifference, and a tomb of stress for whatever reason.  We are missioned to bring the love and the healing of Jesus to our parish community and to one and all.

On this Commitment Sunday, we are asking you to commit financially to our parish so that we have the resources to build up our vibrant community.  Yes, there is a financial dimension to our spirituality.  When we give generously in praise of to God and in service of our community, we indeed are doing the work of God in sharing what has been given us.

If it is possible, and only if it is possible, we are asking you to increase your financial commitment as you are able, so that we as a parish community can proclaim the love of Jesus to all who are in need.

May this be the rhythm of our spiritual lives:  As we are loved, so we love; as we are forgiven, so we forgive; as we receive mercy, so we must be merciful; and we have been blessed, so must we share in support of our Church.

Have a blessed day.

Today we journey in the company of the blind man. What spiritual blindness of yours needs to be removed by the healing of Jesus?

The fourth Sunday of Lent is known as Laetare Sunday – Rejoice Sunday – marking that we are more than halfway through our Lenten journey and so we begin to anticipate the joy of the Risen Lord on Easter.  We wear rose vestments not to celebrate a birthday, but to celebrate the joy of the Risen Lord beginning to invade the Lenten season as we have passed the halfway point in our journey to Easter.

Today we journey in the company of the blind man.  It is the long, often painful, journey of a person who is called to see life in a new way and as a result makes a new commitment.  As his blindness was removed, the man could now see.  The gift of sight is a most precious gift.  But the real message of this Gospel is greater than the gift of sight is the gift of faith.  Jesus bestows not merely sight but a faith-filled insight.  The man born blind eventually sees Jesus, but – a greater gift – he comes to see who Jesus really is. 

The man born blind is symbolic of the human condition.  We need the continuing creation of God, spreading mud on our eyes and washing in the waters of the pool of Siloam. 

Again and again in the course of our spiritual journey, God’s saving work, symbolically opening our eyes, but really opening our hearts, happens through the One who is sent, Jesus Christ.   In the second Scripture reading from the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul challenges us to make this miracle our own:   “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light.”

As we listen to the story of the man born blind, pray for the discernment of how each one of us is able to have our eyes opened to see the saving power of God calling us to a relationship with Jesus Christ.  As the man born blind witnessed to “that man they call Jesus”, we are to witness to a spiritual sightedness that was not from birth, but one that we have learned through life experience.

The Scriptures invite us to reflect how has the season of Lent has revealed to you your “blindness” and your need for Christ’s light, Christ’s reconciliation?

As hopefully I advance in wisdom, age and grace, I can recall experiences in my journey of life where a blindness has been removed, and I can see more clearly the light of Christ.

In preparation for ordination to the priesthood, I spent 12 years in the seminary from age 14 to 26.  In those days, seminary formation was on the rigid side.  Discipline was a high priority.  In my seminary formation, I don’t recall any faculty member asking if I have experienced the love of Jesus or the love of another human being.  My seminary training was invaluable in learning some significant life values but the relational side of life and spirituality wasn’t a high priority.  The emphasis was on obedience and discipline and rule-keeping.

It took some years of priestly ministry to come to the experience of letting myself be loved and really valuing the relational side of prayer and ministry.  Being loved in healthy ways opened my eyes to experiencing God’s love for me.

In your own journey of faith, how much have you opened   yourself up to being loved?  The spiritual sightedness we seek is to know the depth of God’s love for us, how Jesus embraces us with open arms.  I suggest we will not know the depth of God’s unending love for us if we do not let ourselves be loved by others.

There is no way to over-emphasize the priority of knowing we are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  This is the spiritual sightedness that the man born blind came to.

The real darkness in my life and in yours is not knowing how much we are God’s beloved.

Another ongoing blindness that we can wrestle with is control and telling God how we want our future planned, rather than opening up ourselves to the sightedness of God’s plan for our life.  Yes, God’s plan for your life and mine does not include a free pass from the challenges of life.   In some form or fashion, the cross is going to be a part of your life and mine.   When we can trust in God’s love for us while we are experiencing the cross the in our life,  we come to know the sightedness of the man born blind in the Gospel.  The question is how much of our life plans can we let go of, trusting not just another person but trusting the unseen mystery of God’s unending love for us? 

Trusting another is a most precious quality of the friendships of our life.  Even more so, trusting in God’s unending love for us is the sightedness that overcomes much blindness in our lives.

Trusting in God is easy to talk about, but it is a blindness we struggle with in the face of the crosses of life that turn our life upside down.

Another source of blindness can be in our in ability to find our own voice, the courage to follow our own intuition, like the Samaritan woman in last Sunday’s Gospel who went from being an outcast, an outsider to being the person who invited others to come to know Jesus.

We have within ourselves the wellspring of eternal life.  May we have the sightedness to tap into our inner voice, our inner strength.  This past week I had the privilege of sharing with some of our 15 year old Confirmation candidates.  It filled my heart with considerable joy to listen to these teenage parishioners speak of their desire to serve and to help others in visiting a nursing home and in using their gift of music to bring prayer and joy into the lives of others.  They are beautiful witnesses of God’s love that flows from deep within their spirit.

In our parish life, there were many more examples of people finding their inner voice that comes from their journey of faith.   But  yes, we need to be patient.  God isn’t finished with us yet.  There is still blindness in the eyes and hearts of each of us. 

May the grace of this Lenten season continue to go with us as we journey from spiritual blindness to living in the light and joy of the Risen Lord.

Have a blessed day.

May we find our story in the story of the samaritan woman.

The intriguing account of the Samaritan’s woman encounter with the Lord is a most beautiful story of an outcast, an outsider, a Samaritan woman, someone who has endured the school of hard knocks, one who is even cynical and sarcastic and suspicious even when someone is trying to be kind to her.  And yet, through her encounter with Jesus at this well in Samaria, she is transformed from being an outsider to becoming an enthusiastic evangelizer inviting other people in town to come to know Jesus.

Jesus,  the Son of God, the Savior of the world, wasn’t too busy to listen patiently and dialogue with and affirm with considerable love this outcast of society.  If we are to follow the way of Jesus in our ministry, may we take the time to listen and to affirm the beauty of people in their time of need.

This is a most dramatic conversion story.

As we pray over this Gospel, may we find our story in the story of the Samaritan woman.  Imagine a situation in your life in which you felt like an outsider, an outcast – maybe you did get not the promotion you were hoping for, maybe you had to deal with the after effects of a relationship that has gone wrong in your life, maybe you are being misunderstood by someone you love, maybe the
Church you love is making you feel like an outsider, maybe the nation you are so proud of is turning upside down --  whatever it is.  My hunch is that all of us at one time or another or maybe several times,  have felt like the outsider.

May we observe closely the dialogue of Jesus with the Samaritan in three stages:

1.      In the first stage, the Samaritan woman displays her mistrust, her sarcasm, and the hurt she has felt over a long period.  She says:  “What you a Jew asking me, a Samaritan, for a drink.”  Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans; men don’t talk to strange women.  Are you trying to make a fool of me?

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But in this encounter, Jesus was breaking previously drawn lines in the sand and listened to her anger and hurt with great hope in the dialogue.  Jesus saw much more beauty in the Samaritan woman than she saw in herself.  He listened to her with kindness and believing in her dignity.

The beginning of the conversion story for the Samaritan woman was that she was listened with much compassion and understanding and affirmation of her inner dignity.

I have counted a great blessing to my life when I am listened to and filled with hope when I wasn’t able to see a way forward.  The way forward was revealed through the listening heart of another.

May we know that the dialogue Jesus has with the Samaritan woman is the dialogue the Lord wishes to have with each one of us,  especially when we are feeling fragile or vulnerable.  This is the real message of the Gospel.

In the second stage, 

2    because she felt affirmed in her dialogue with Jesus, when she then was confronted by Jesus in saying that indeed the person you are living with is not your husband -- Indeed you have had five previous husbands – she did not become defensive as many times I have become defensive when confronted or criticized.  Why was she able to listen with openness to Jesus?  The answer is simple in some ways.  Jesus had first listened to her and affirmed her as a person of worth and dignity.  Even when confronted, she was confronted with great love in the heart of Jesus.

When we know that we are loved and affirmed, an inner lock is released within us and we are able to listen to critique that invites our growth.  Is it not true we can listen better to others when we know that we are understood and loved.   In the spiritual life, it is a conversion in our lives when we know how much we are loved and affirmed by Jesus.

3.       Finally, Jesus reveals to the woman at the well that he is the living water, the anointed one, the Savior.  Jesus was calling her to a life that she cannot imagine for herself.  Please note that Jesus did not send her away, admonishing her to avoid further sin.  Instead Christ makes her an evangelist, sending her out to call others to him.

The woman at the well has a complicated and tragic past but becomes a wellspring of hope for her village.

How is her story our story?   It is not God’s plan for us to be trapped in the darkness of sin.  It is not God’s plan for us to be the outsider.  Rather the Lord wished to affirm us that we are loved and forgiven and we too are called to be a wellspring of hope for others.  In God’s plan, the greatest sinners are often enough those whom the Lord calls to lead others to him.

The church provides us this Gospel during the Lenten Gospel because it is only in opening ourselves to God’s plan for our lives, by our openness to embracing even the crosses of life, by opening ourselves to dialogue and pray with Jesus that we genuinely encounter the Lord in a way that transforms our lives.  Indeed this beautiful Gospel prepares us to share in the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus, prepares us to share in the joy of the Risen Lord.

Have a blessed day.

 ,;/,

The cost of discipleship challenges us to move out of our comfort zone.

From the first Scripture reading in the Book of Genesis:  “The Lord said to Abram: ‘Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you.’”

What was asked of Abram sets the stage for us to reflect on our own cost of discipleship.  The detachment that was asked of Abram is this:  Abram is commanded to leave his country, his kinfolk, and finally his father’s house, that is, what we would call his entire support system, material and psychological, the whole deal, and depend on God alone.

Does this not challenge us to reflect on our cost of discipleship during this Lenten season?   Lent’s call to stark honesty compels us to ask if our discipleship of Jesus is too comfortable.  Our Lenten conversion process requires some measure of detachment from and attachment to values and lifestyle, priorities and preferences that may be counter-cultural.

The call of Abram who was later named Abraham was to leave home and settle in a foreign land.  God asked and so Abram went.  He had trust and hope.  How do we respond when asks us to move beyond our comfort zone and to more fully trust in the plan of God for us?  We are all used to what we are used to.  There is the tendency in all of us to say my way or the highway.  But if our call to discipleship is any way similar to God’s call of Abram, we will need to revisit that old wisdom.  In some way, the Lord asks of you and the Lord asks of me to let go of some of my comfort zone and to trust more fully in God’s plan for us.

As I reflect on the ministries I have had as a priest over the last 49 years, the assignments I have had are not my doing or my suggestions but I deeply believe they are God’s plan for me.   I have always thought that God has a sense of humor in His plan for my life.  My hunch is that all of us have had curve balls thrown at us that are not of our doing and in fact we may have resisted what was being asked of us.  The truth is nothing happens my accident.  Our call to discipleship, our cost of discipleship means we need to trust and hope in God’s plan as did Abram.

The call of Abram is the scriptural set-up for the call of the disciples – Peter, James and John – in this Transfiguration gospel.  Like Abram’s call, the apostles are being called to go forth from the comfort of their preconceived notions of Messiahship – and the powerful prestige they imagine will be theirs in Jesus’ kingdom – to a new vision of the kind of Messiah Jesus is and therefore what it means to be his disciples.  Peter, James and John the same three who glimpse on Mt Tabor their Master’s transfigured glory will witness in Gethsemane his most abject suffering.

From the Gospel, as the apostles experienced the transfigured glory of Jesus, Peter says:  “Lord, it is good that we are here.”  While he was still speaking. Behold, then from a cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him.”

Notice these three simple words spoken by God the Father to the disciples of Jesus:  Listen to Him.

To this point, the apostles have been unable to understand Jesus’ predictions about his upcoming suffering, death and resurrection. They have not listened.  In fact, there was no need to listen because they already knew what they wanted the Savior to be like – a successful, prestigious, powerful Messiah.  Now the voice of God commands them to listen.

Jesus message is that his disciples must be willing to join Him in His passion and death as well.  We too have difficulty listening to Jesus when our discipleship involved dealing with the crosses of life – the cross of sickness, the cross of the death of a loved one, the cross of coping with a relationship that has gone wrong.

The apostles were given the vision of the transfigured Lord to overcome their resistance to listening to Jesus in moments of suffering.  What the apostles experienced in this beautiful Transfiguration experience was like the end of the story appearing in the middle.  Why?  The apostles needed their faith to be strengthened to have a faith and hope in accepting their Savior as one who was going to be crucified in his journey to resurrection and new life. The apostles had balked at the future Jesus was insisting upon.  The privilege of witnessing Jesus’ Transfiguration was for the purpose of confirming Jesus as someone to whom they must listen to.  They have, as of yet, not understood the mission of Jesus.  They must open themselves up to what Jesus is saying about his suffering, death, and resurrection.

The real action of discipleship is not just on the mountaintop but in the upcoming events of death and resurrection in Jerusalem.  As we pray over this Transfiguration Gospel, know that the message for us is not just the identity of Jesus in his transfigured glory but it is a story for us to reflect on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  In the words of the Father:  Listen to him.   As with the first disciples, we need to let go of old notions of discipleship that get in the way of listening to the message of Jesus.  We need to accept the cross in our own lives and to trust more fully in God’s plan for our lives.

Please God we all can identify with Transfiguration events that put us in touch with the glory of the Lord.  For me the glory is revealed in the sacredness of the ocean as well as on the mountaintop.  The glory of the Lord is revealed in the friendships of my life that are so life giving and I so deeply treasure and need.  The glory of the Lord is revealed in sacred moments of ministry.  Recently I vividly recall being in the hospital room at Strong and praying with patient who was about to go home to the Lord.  I was praying with his wife and son as well.  It was apparent to all that God was with us and all will be well.

We all need those treasured moments of faith to strengthen us for the times we will be vulnerable and fragile and wonder why God is asking to embrace this cross in our life.  The crosses in life we will experience as individuals, as families, as the faith community of the Church of the Holy Spirit, and as a nation.  There will be no dimension of our lives in which we get a free pass from the cross.

May our journey of faith have those beautiful Transfiguration in which we say with the apostle:  “Lord, it is good we are here.” And may we be able to listen to the call of God in our journey of faith when we need to lead go of our familiar comfort zones and embrace the cross and Gethsemane in our lives.

Have a blessed day.