Alleluia!  He is Risen!  On this Easter Sunday, our hearts are filled with joy as we celebrate this great feast on which Jesus rose victorious from the dead.  His victory was not just for Him alone, but for all for whom He died.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes this beautifully in the following words:

Christ’s Resurrection—and the risen Christ himself—is the principle and source of our future resurrection: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.… For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor 15:20-22) The risen Christ lives in the hearts of his faithful while they await that fulfillment. In Christ, Christians “have tasted … the powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:5) and their lives are swept up by Christ into the heart of divine life, so that they may “live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”(2 Cor 5:15; cf. Col 3:1-3) (CCC 655)

Because of His Resurrection, and through the gift of Baptism, we share in the new life He makes possible, a life which promises victory over death for those who remain united to Him.  As such, the most fitting invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart for this day is the following:

Heart of Jesus, our Life and Resurrection, have mercy on us

Easter Sunday radically changes the trajectory of human history and gives new hope to our lives.  It also shifts the Lord’s day from the Sabbath (Saturday) to eighth day (Sunday), the first day of the week and the first day of the new creation which the Resurrection ushers in.  Sunday becomes the fulfillment of the Sabbath, and each Sunday is to be celebrated with a special focus on worship and joy.  Our celebration of Easter Sunday sets the pattern for how we should ideally celebrate every Sunday.  The new life on the Resurrection should guide how we observe this day not just once a year, but every week.

When we think about how so many of us observe Easter Sunday, we prioritize going to Mass.  Such should be our priority every Sunday.  When we go to Mass on this day, we often see people making special efforts to dress in a special way as a sign of our joy on this great day.  If every Sunday is a little Easter, shouldn’t we consider this choice of dress each week?  After going to Mass, we then spend much of the rest of the day with family and friends, resting and rejoicing.  Many of us would not even think about shopping or doing work on Easter Sunday because of the nature of so special a day.  Should we not approach every Sunday this way?

Perhaps as we celebrate with family and friends this Easter Sunday, experiencing the gift of worship, rest, and rejoicing, it can be an opportunity for us to commit to carrying this on to every Sunday of the year, such that they stand out as different from every other day of the week.  Sundays are days on which we rejoice in the gift of new life the Lord has won for us on this day, and should be a foretaste of the worship, rest, and rejoicing we will experience with our family, the Church, in the Resurrection.

Happy Easter! He has risen from the dead, never to die again! And in his great love for us, our Lord Jesus Christ promises to raise us from the dead too, when he comes again!

He has risen, we will rise, and there is no news better than that! It is such good news that you just feel a need to end all sentences with an exclamation point 🙂

All jokes aside, I truly wish you and your families all the best this Easter. It is such a beautiful season, because in this season we remember the reason for our Christian joy. We remember that we live for another world, a world that will be free of suffering and death. We remember that this other world (Heaven) is not some made-up dream, but a promise – a promise made to us by our God who became man, died, and rose from the dead for us. 

It takes faith to believe this promise. It takes faith to abide by God’s law and remain in a state of right relationship with him. But the fact that it takes faith doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Jesus is alive and well, seated at the right hand of the Father, and is really present on our altars, in our tabernacles, and in our hearts. He holds out to us an offer of eternal life. 

The faith we hold in this future reality makes all the suffering of this life seem so little and so insignificant that no matter how bad things are here and now, we can rejoice in Christ’s victory. If we hold fast to our faith in Christ and the promise of our baptism, we will rise in Him at the last day. Our bodies will rise up again as glorious bodies, never to die again.

The resurrection of the body is a central and foundational teaching of Christianity. Our resurrection at the end of time is one of the key elements of the first proclamation of Christianity in the early years of the Church. It brought the early Christians joy and hope and gave them courage to die for their faith at the hands of the brutal Roman torturers. Still, as fundamental as this teaching is, it is seemingly one of the most often forgotten truths of the faith. 

Case in point: I think, over the past month, I have been asked at least three times about the concept of reincarnation. “Can a Christian/Catholic believe in reincarnation?”

The answer: “No, absolutely not!”

The answer to this question is “no” for several reasons. 

First: A human being exists as a body-soul composite. You are not just your soul. Your particular body is just as much “you” as your soul is “you.” Therefore, for your soul to be able to enter a second body would make no logical sense. 

Second: the dignity of the human person militates against the concept of reincarnation. It would be supremely undignified for a human soul to enter the body of anything lesser – such as a dog, cat, dolphin, or butterfly, for example.  

Finally, and perhaps most fittingly for today, God has already revealed to us in a very definitive way exactly what our end will be. Although it is still somewhat shrouded in the mystery of faith and future reality, we firmly believe in the resurrection of the body. Our faith assures us that at the end of time, all those who have died will be reunited to their bodies and live forever in the new heavens and new earth (cf. 1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 21, and Isaiah 65:17). We are not going to be disembodied souls for all eternity, thank goodness!

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He gave even more dignity to our human bodies than ever before by joining a body to his divinity. Through our entrance into his death and resurrection in baptism, we are promised a share in his resurrection when we pass through our death. May we always remain steadfast in our relationship with him and persevere in grace to the very end! Happy Easter!

Every year, on both Palm Sunday and Good Friday, we listen to the account of the Lord’s Passion.  On Palm Sunday, we hear the account from one of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark or Luke) and on Good Friday, we always hear the account from John’s Gospel.  Having both accounts is helpful as there are certain details that are unique to each account.  For example, after Peter denies Jesus, Luke alone recounts the words: “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter.” (Lk 22:61) That simple detail has been a source of many hours of meditation for me personally, praying with the power of the gaze of Jesus – His sorrow when I choose against His will, and His delight when I consider His profound love for me.

One detail of the Passion which is only found in John’s Passion narrative is the account of the solider piercing the side of Jesus after He had died on the Cross.  Here is what we will hear:

So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out. (Jn 19:32-24)

The Church has reflected deeply on this scene, seeing the blood and water as symbols of the sacraments of the Eucharist (blood) and Baptism (water).  We can therefore say that the pierced Sacred Heart of Jesus is the source of the sacramental life, and as such, is the source of our ongoing spiritual lives.  I have therefore chosen the following invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart for this Holy Week:

Heart of Jesus, pierced with a lance, have mercy on us.

During Holy Week, spending time praying with the Crucifix can be a fruitful spiritual exercise.  Looking at Jesus hanging on the Cross evokes a variety of emotions.  On the one hand, we know that it was our sins that were the cause of His suffering.  This certainly fills us with sorrow.  But as we gaze upon the wound in His side, we are filled with hope as we recall the gift that comes from this sacrifice – new life for us and the light of hope that scatters our darkness.

In that regard, I share one of my favorite little quotes about the Crucifix, which I first came across many years ago in a Stations of the Cross booklet.  The quote has been attributed to St. Bonaventure, and it encourages us to look upon the Crucifix and see in it an invitation to draw close to Jesus in this most powerful image of His love for us:

Behold Jesus crucified!  Behold His wounds received for love of YOU!  His whole appearance betokens love.  His head is bent to kiss you.  His arms are extended to embrace you.  His heart is open to receive you.  Oh what love!  Jesus dies on the Cross, to preserve you from eternal death.

While St. Francis is perhaps best known nowadays (popularly) for his love of nature and animals, these loves were in large part only accidental. The reason he is a great saint is not because of his earthly loves but because of his undying and tireless love of the Lord, Jesus Christ. He loved the incarnation of the Lord; he loved the nativity, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; he loved the Holy Eucharist – Jesus’ continued presence here on earth. These were his great loves, and out of love for the whole past and present life of Jesus Christ, St. Francis loved poverty and simplicity.

What is holy simplicity?

My apologies about this near pun, but we may ask the question, “Is simplicity simply about having fewer things? Is it just about slowing down and taking time to stop and smell the roses?” Based on me asking the questions this way, you’ve probably guessed that the answer is “no, it’s not that,” and you would be correct!

Simplicity runs deeper than possessions. 

Certainly, in St. Francis’ case, his renunciation of worldly possessions gave him a greater ease in his simplicity of life, but his simplicity began before he renounced all worldly possessions. It was something not so much external but internal, and I would argue that this quality of simplicity is something shared by every saint.

St. Francis had no conflicting loves.

St. Francis had no conflicting desires.

He was not complicated.

How could this be?

It could be because he had only one true love and thus only one desire – to love and serve the one he loved. At even this somewhat early stage in his life where he is just beginning the foundation of his religious order and a few men are beginning to join him, he willfully channeled all of his love, strength, and desire to the service of his divine king. 

As Francis hears those words from the Gospel that I wrote about last week, he knows he cannot do anything but live in just the same way. St. Bonaventure writes, “He directed all his heart’s desire to carry out what he had heard and to conform in every way to the rule of right living given to the apostles” (Quoted from The Life of St. Francis, Translated by Ewert Cousin, ch. 3.1). This led him to wear the habit, accept men who wanted to join him, go about preaching and teaching, and to eventually write a first draft of a rule of life for these brothers so that they could live in accord with the Gospel demands.

There was no ulterior motive here. There was solely a desire to live like Jesus and to serve Jesus – to draw others to love Jesus in his life, death, resurrection, and continued living presence in the Eucharist. And this one-ness of mind and heart drew other men to Francis to live in the same way.

You would think that this radical poverty would turn people away, but no! The heart behind the poverty – the desire behind the simplicity – set other hearts on fire!

May we too love with one love, desire with one desire, and so be truly simple. May the Lord bless us this lent, through the intercession of St. Francis, with a renewal of Holy Simplicity!

The final two weeks of Lent have traditionally been called Passiontide, as the character of these final days of Lent invite us to focus more intensely on the Passion of Jesus Christ.  We can see this in the prayers of the Mass during this time.  For the first four weeks of Lent, the Prefaces of Lent I-IV are used, but for the next two weeks, the Church shifts to Prefaces of the Passion of the Lord.  Here is a part of one of those Prefaces:

For through the saving Passion of your Son the whole world has received a heart          to confess the infinite power of your majesty, since by the wondrous power of the Cross your judgment on the world is now revealed and the authority of Christ crucified. (Preface I of the Passion of the Lord)

Given our theme of the Sacred Heart of Jesus during this series, I am drawn to the mention of our receiving a renewed heart through the saving Passion of Jesus.  We know that the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is connected to His heart being pierced after He had died on the Cross, so His Passion is very much at the center of this devotion.  In His Passion, Jesus demonstrates the depth of His love for us.  This is expressed beautifully by St. Paul in his Letter to the Romans which we heard on the 3^rd Sunday of Lent: “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)

We proclaim Jesus to be the Lamb of God, and He makes Himself the innocent victim for our sins, so that we might not remain in the slavery of sin.  Through His Passion, we have an outlet by which our hearts, wounded by our sins, can be renewed and set free – first in Baptism, and then every time we come to Him in confession.  Therefore, I have chosen the following invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart for this week:

Heart of Jesus, victim for our sin, have mercy on us

This can be a good aspiration, or short prayer, that we have ready on our lips during these final days of Lent.  Perhaps we can modify it slightly to make it more personal, saying:  “Heart of Jesus, victim for my sins, have mercy on me!”  This will help to foster a sense of the personal love that Jesus had while on the Cross for each of us, not just those around Him at the time, but for everybody who has ever come into existence, and all who have yet to come into existence.  The Passion He endured was for all, for as St. Paul reminds, He “desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim 2:4)

The answer to that question is fruitful to reflect on. These texts were divinely inspired, so their author is God, but they were written in a human way, in a time, place, and culture, by human authors, so their author is also a human being. Because of this, there are two “audiences” – the audience intended by the human author and the audience intended by the divine author. These audiences many times overlap, but God sees much further than any human author sees.

The evangelist, Matthew, for example, wrote his Gospel to a primarily Jewish audience. There are many Jewish themes, elements, and arguments throughout that Gospel which make it clear that it came from a learned Jew who was writing to convince Jews of Jesus’ divinity and his claim to be the Christ. Matthew probably had a good sense that his gospel would outlast him and so we could also say that he wrote for a future audience who would one day read his work and come to know Jesus. 

One difference here between Matthew and God is that God not only intends the scripture to be read by a future audience, but he knows the future audience. Additionally, Matthew only passively speaks to any future audience members – they read his words knowing he wrote them but not considering that they can in any way communicate with Matthew through the reading of the text. 

God, on the other hand, actively speaks to these future audience members – they read his words knowing he wrote them and realizing that he truly is presently speaking as they read that text and they can communicate with him directly in conversation with these texts. As St. Augustine once wrote, “Your prayer is a conversation with God: when you read, God is speaking to you; when you pray, you are speaking to God” (En. Ps. 85.7, Trans. Boulding, p. 227). 

It is for this reason that the author of the Letter to the Hebrews can write, “Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). This word is living not because the words on the page have any special power in themselves but because of the One who communicates through them and the ideas, stories, and images they transmit – that One speaks in them.

You’re probably wondering, “What about St. Francis?”

Well, the next phase in Francis’ life is so powerfully moving because he heard the words of the Gospel and acted as perfectly according to them as possible. He wanted to live his life as the apostles did, and he knew Jesus spoke directly to him in those holy words read at Mass.

At the beginning of his third chapter of the Life of St. Francis, St. Bonaventure shares that Francis heard a call from the Lord into a deeper poverty while he was at Mass. St. Bonaventure writes, “One day when he was devoutly hearing a Mass of the Apostles, the Gospel was read in which Christ sends forth his disciples to preach and explains to them the way of life according to the Gospel: that they should not keep gold or silver or money in their belts, nor have wallet for the journey… (Matt. 10:9). When he heard this, he grasped its meaning and committed it to memory. This lover of apostolic poverty was filled with an indescribable joy and said: ‘this is what I want; this is what I long for with all my heart.’” (Quoted from The Life of St. Francis, Translated by Ewert Cousin, ch. 3.1) 

St. Francis not only committed this to memory, he committed it to action. It is from this seed that his order would be founded. May we strive with all our hearts, like St. Francis, to listen to God’s word in the scriptures and follow his call with joy!

When a priest is called to administer the “last rites” to somebody before they die, they are being called on to do a few things.  In the ideal circumstances, the person who is dying would go to Confession, receive the Anointing of the Sick, receive Holy Communion as Viaticum, and receive the plenary indulgence known as the Apostolic Pardon.  More often than not, however, the person is no longer conscious and unable to confess their sins or receive Holy Communion, so we provide as much as we can for the person, namely Anointing and the Apostolic Pardon.  

After administering these rites, the priest will then pray from a selection of prayers from the Order of the Commendation of the Dying.  I usually choose to recite Psalm 23, one of the most recognized and most consoling passages in all of Sacred Scripture.  It offers an expression of hope that for those who have followed the Good Shepherd throughout life, He will “give them repose.”  Even when we find ourselves in the shadow of death in our final moments, we “fear no evil” for the Good Shepherd is “at our side.”  When we reach the end of our earthly journey, we shall “dwell in the house of the Lord for length of days unending.”  It is my hope that the one who is dying will hear those words and be encouraged, but I also hope that those who are standing by, praying with and for their loved one, hear them as well and are strengthened even as they mourn.

The Church gives this Psalm 23 for our Responsorial Psalm today, and as we hear it, our hearts should be comforted and we can rejoice in the salvation that Christ, our Good Shepherd, has won for us through His Passion, death, and Resurrection.  Through Baptism, we pass through the gate that grants us access to a share in His life, a share that promises us a place in His house in Heaven one day.  With this imagery in mind, I have chosen the following invocation of the Litany of the Sacred Heart for this week:

Heart of Jesus, house of God and gate of Heaven, have mercy on us.

One of my favorite prayers is the Anima Christi, which is Latin for Soul of Christ.  It is a short but powerful prayer, and one that the faithful often pray after receiving Holy Communion.  When considering the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I often consider the following line of the Anima Christi:  within your wounds, hide me.  As we look at the image of the Sacred Heart, we see the wound that came from the thrust of the soldier’s lance.  That wound serves as an invitation from Jesus to us to come to Him, to pass through the gate that has been opened in His heart, to take refuge there, and to experience the protection of His love and mercy.  Whenever we find ourselves in the dark valleys of life, we have access to the Heart of our Good Shepherd.  He will ever be at our side and He will give us courage to persevere, trusting that by staying close to Him, He will deliver us safely to the “house of the Lord” where we will be rest in peace, and where we will be able to see Him face to face for eternity.

On the first Sunday of Lent, the diocese always celebrates the Rite of Election, a ceremony in which those preparing for Baptism at the Easter Vigil come to the Cathedral to be received by the Bishop and given a new designation as the Elect, those who have been chosen by the Church to receive these sacraments.  I am pleased to report that we have five members of the Elect who will be baptized here at the Easter Vigil.  Looking through our parish Book of the Elect which lists the names of those to be baptized each year, the last time we had this number was ten years ago!  This is a great sign of hope for our parish and for the diocese, which has experienced increased numbers over the past two years.  Please keep our Elect in your prayers: Tony, Mike, Reece, Grace, and Ava.

An important part of Lent for these Elect are the three Scrutinies that take place on the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th Sundays of Lent.  The Order of Christian Initiation of Adults describes these three Scrutinies in this way:

In order to awaken a desire for purification and redemption by Christ, three Scrutinies take place, both to teach the elect gradually about that mystery of sin from which the whole world and every person longs to be rescued in order to be saved from its present and future consequences, and to fill their spirit with the sense of Christ the Redeemer, who is living water (cf. the Gospel of the Samaritan Woman), light (cf. the Gospel of the Man Born Blind), resurrection and life (cf. the Gospel of the Raising of Lazarus).  From the first to the final Scrutiny, they must grow in the awareness of sin and in the desire for salvation. (OCIA, 143)

Given that the first Scrutiny that takes place this weekend points to Jesus as the Living Water, the invocation that I have chosen for this week is the following:

Heart of Jesus, fountain of life and holiness, have mercy on us.

Throughout the dialog with the Samaritan Woman, Jesus is leading her toward a deeper understanding of what He desires to offer to her, not just physical water that will temporarily satisfy her thirst, but a water that will well up to Eternal Life. (cf. Jn 4:13-14) There is an often-overlooked detail in the account that is worth mentioning.  After Jesus offers this living water to her, she departs and we read: “The woman left her water jar.” (Jn 4:28) St. Thomas Aquinas comments on this detail in the following way:

The water jar is a symbol of worldly desires, by which men draw out pleasures from the depths of darkness—symbolized by the well—i.e., from a worldly manner of life. Accordingly, those who abandon worldly desires for the sake of God leave their water jars (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John: Chapters 1–21, trans. Fabian Larcher and James A. Weisheipl, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 229)

This is what our Elect are being invited to at the Easter Vigil.  As they receive Jesus in the fount of Baptism, they receive a new life in which they are cleansed of their sins, characterized by worldly desires, and they are equipped to live new lives of holiness as they pursue the life of the Gospel and the goods of Eternal Life.

May our Lenten journey also be a time in which we recall our Baptism and the invitation from Christ to continue to turn to His Heart, the fountain of life, to help us in our daily struggle to turn away from worldly desires and recommit to living lives of holiness.

Jesus reigns from his throne in heaven and governs his Church, not in some far-off and distant way, but in a very intimate and loving way. We can speak to him, and he can speak to us, and he does so powerfully and consistently through the scriptures and the writings of the saints. In these sources, we find the voice of God in a clear and trustworthy way. 

Additionally, however, Jesus speaks to us in the silence of prayer, and in the voice of our conscience moving us to actions of love. It is this latter presence of Christ’s voice in quiet prayer that many in our Church today fail to accept. I believe this comes from a profound lack of faith in the present, truly human, and actual life of the risen and ascended Jesus, who is still alive and has been for nearly two-thousand years after his death and resurrection. St. Francis had faith that he served a very much alive Lord, who he could follow and serve just as he could follow and serve an earthly Lord as a knight. 

Before recording the major call of Francis, which he received in the small and broken-down church of San Damiano, which I will reflect on next week, St. Bonaventure writes a short little poem about the source of Francis’ wisdom. In this small poem, we read this brief but meaningful sentence:

“Francis, the servant of the Most High, had no other teacher in these matters except Christ.” 

(Quoted from The Life of St. Francis, Translated by Ewert Cousin) 

What Bonaventure is referring to by “these matters” is St. Francis’ radical life of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, poverty, and desire to live like Christ in the Gospel. Francis listened deeply to the Word of God in the Gospels. It was there that he knew the voice of Christ still lived, and it is there that Francis constantly looked for guidance. He knew also, however, that Jesus could speak to him and teach him in his own heart. Thus, we see that he heard and trusted the voice of Christ in his dream calling him to be a knight, and the voice of Christ in his heart leading him to embrace and kiss the leper. 

Francis believed Jesus was still alive and able to speak to him. 

This sounds so simple, almost too simple even to write down. How many of us, though, at one time or other in our lives, have treated Jesus more as simply a character in a story from the past, more as a historical figure like George Washington or Buddha, than as a currently alive and reigning man (who is God) who wants to have a real relationship with us? He wants us to speak to him and to listen to him.

Admittedly, he speaks differently than the friend sitting next to us. We talk to Jesus in our hearts and he speaks to us there, most often in silence and most often without words (though to some saints, he has even spoken out loud in words their ears can hear). But is this form of silent communication therefore less real? No, not at all. It just requires a form of listening that we have to practice. 

Jesus is alive. He is a moment’s consideration away. He hears our every thought and when we give him our attention, he will give us his. He wants to teach us to do his will. He may not speak in a way we can understand right away, but in time our understanding will grow. Through the intercession of St. Francis, may our faith be strengthened to live with, speak to, learn from, and serve the living Lord Jesus, our high priest and king. Amen!