A few weeks ago, the beginning of Holy Week, I was browsing news sites on the Internet and was greeted with a large headline that read “Pope Declares No Hell!” I am sure that many of you saw that headline also or at least heard about it. My first thought was “great, its not like there isn’t anything else going on this week,” but that was immediately followed by the assumption that something was just not right about that headline. What did not further help matters was that the Vatican Press Office did not do much to forcefully denounce the story line as false.

Last month the Holy Father began the sixth year of his pontificate and, even with five years behind us, many people still have not gotten used to his style of speaking which is very different from his two most recent predecessors, Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who were both known for their precision when speaking. That is not exactly Pope Francis’s style. He is much more “off the cuff” which can have its challenges. Some people love his style, some do not, but whether you do or do not, this is who Pope Francis is.

The “Hell controversy” stemmed from a conversation with the 93-year-old editor of an Italian journal. This editor is notoriously known for not taking any notes when interviewing someone. The story was based on his own recollections of what the Holy Father supposedly said. This editor is also known for liking to “stir the pot,” you might say. Do I think that Pope Francis denied the existence of hell? No. I do not believe that for one minute. Pope Francis has been unrelenting in his belief that the devil does truly exist and that the devil is actively engaged against the work of the church and good in the world. The Holy Father reaffirms this in his most recent apostolic exhortation that was released April 9th entitled Gaudete et exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad) on the call to holiness. If there is a devil then there must be a hell.

When a pope speaks, no one should stand in expectation that he might say something that alters the Church’s theological tradition. Yes, the pope can speak infallibly on matters of faith and morals, and the popes have done so or they have spoken authoritatively on other matters not considered infallible but still important. When they do, it generally occurs after consultation with members of the College of Bishops, it is done in very specific terms and in specific Papal documents, namely in what are called apostolic constitutions or encyclicals, and it is not done in private conversations with haphazard journalists.

If you want to learn more about what the Church teaches definitively on the existence of hell, go to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1033-1037. If you want to know more about what Pope Francis is saying and teaching, visit the website of the Holy See at www.vatican.va and you will find his writings, homilies, prayers, and speeches. Be careful of what you read in the media, secular and “religious;” some of it is true, some of it is not, and some of it is a mix of the two. The media loves a headline…and so do most readers. Remember to pray daily for our Holy Father as he has an unenviable duty. God bless you!

The Church Fathers were fond of exploring the relationship between Eve, mother of all the living, and the new Eve, Mary the Mother of God. Where Eve grasped and lost, Mary surrendered and received; where Eve said no to the alluring mystery, Mary said yes.

The angel of the Lord—an agent from a realm beyond what can be seen and known—appears to the maid of Nazareth and greets her in what Balthasar describes as the language of heaven: “Hail, full of grace.” The sinful earth is a place of grasping, but the angel salutes her as someone who is ready to accept gifts.

Then he lays out for her the divine plan in which she is to play a signal role: “And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32). Standing still within the confines of what she can know, Mary responds, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” What the angel has told her does not conform to her expectations, and she is, understandably enough, puzzled.

Then the messenger says: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). In other words: someone much more powerful than you will overwhelm your physical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual capacities, and in the measure that you cooperate with this intervention, you will come to a life you hadn’t imagined.

Finally, he reminds Mary of her cousin Elizabeth’s unlikely pregnancy and adds, “Nothing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:37).

Søren Kierkegaard, tweaking the noses of the tidy rationalists of his day, said that authentic faith is a “passion for the impossible.” It is a surrender in love to that which the mind (the too-often arrogant determiner of what is and is not possible) cannot see.

When Mary says, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word,” she exhibits such faith and thereby undoes the refusal of Eve. And this fiat to the impossible made possible the Incarnation of God.

In accepting the seduction of the alluring Mystery, Mary allowed God’s love to become enfleshed for the transformation of the world. In the Catholic faith, Mary is praised as the mother of the Church, the matrix of all discipleship. What this means is that her fiat is the ground and model of every disciple’s response to God’s desire for incarnation.

Meister Eckhart said that all believers become “mothers of Christ,” bearers of the incarnate word, in the measure that they acquiesce to the divine passion to push concretely into creation.

Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He is also the host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary about the Catholic Faith, which aired on PBS.

When my mother thought the garage would make a nice study, my father—a talented designer, builder and woodsmith—got to work. She eventually took her leisure in a splendid room lined with bookcases and boasting a fireplace with hidden storage, but she’d had to trust him about it, because Dad never drew out a plan. He just kept it all in his head.

We children apprenticed, and would hand off hammers, wood planes, plumb bobs, and vises to him—like nurses to a particularly intense surgeon—while he worked.

My favorite of his tools was the level— the long steel frame with three round windows containing marked tubes filled with liquid. When the little bubble in the tube was centered between the markings, it signaled that a balance had been achieved; the lines were straight, the measure sound.

My depression-era father, who had left school in the fourth grade in order to work, probably had no idea that when he pronounced, “In the middle is perfection,” he was echoing Aristotle in praise of the “via media”—the desirable golden mean that signifies a right-effort.

The via media speaks to the life of faith, too. We seek stability as, with God’s help, we continually do the interior work of spiritual repair and new construction. Virtus in medio stat, wrote Thomas Aquinas: “Virtue lies in the middle,” away from the extremes and all that is out of order, or unbalanced. As with that bubble in the level, when it is dead center, there we are aligned with God, the center of all things.

During the seasonal pageantries of the church we need to frequently check ourselves and judge whether we are maintaining a proper balance in our observances—neither overdoing Lent to an overscrupulous degree, nor becoming so lazy in Easter as to keep grace at a distance. Our renewed excitement over Christ’s victory over death often requires a recalibration of sorts: we need to take another look at the work we have done, discern which tools we can put away for now, which we must keep handy, and which we need to pick up as we head toward Pentecost.

The one indispensable tool, however, is that level—the sacred gauge that can warn us when we have lost our center and are working on something that is tilted and liable to collapse under pressure. For me, this gauge is St. Ignatius Loyola’s examen—a five-step process of discerning my own spiritual drift, so I can make adjustments early and often.

The meditation begins with Light: we can see nothing in darkness, and so we ask God to give us his light, that we might look back on our day not only with our own eyes but his as well. Like Bartimeaus, we want to see. (Mark 10:51).

The second step is Thanksgiving: a sincere expression of gratitude for the day itself, which is a gift. Cultivating a daily sense of gratitude is essential to developing a consistent sense of joy.

After Thanksgiving, we make a Review of the whole day we have just lived through, and allow the Holy Spirit to guide our attention most particularly to what God wishes us to notice and dwell upon. There is always something to learn. Then, we Recognize where we have failed or fallen short: as with any good examination of conscience, we face up to our faults . Perhaps we were so preoccupied with ourselves that we missed another’s need, or lost our temper without just cause. This is where we check that gauge: were we moving away from God, who is at the center, or moving nearer? What was the catalyst to pull us out of balance in either case, and can we entrust it all to the Lord, in his mercy?

Finally, because we do trust in that mercy, we let it go, and Look toward tomorrow—really go into the details of what is before us and where we know we will need God’s help.

The examen concludes with an Our Father.

We need this tool kept at the ready, each day, because it doesn’t take much for us to lose our equilibrium. Every new bit of stimulus, from a troubling headline to an unexpected celebration, can tempt us away from where we want to be. Trained in the examen, we learn to detach from much that comes our way— everything doesn’t have to impact us in dramatic ways. Some things can simply blow by.

Particularly in these first days of Easter, we do well to consider how difficult it must have been for the apostles to maintain a sense of spiritual steadiness. Imagine entering Jerusalem with Jesus amid palms—“the throng wild with joy” (Psalm 42:5). It must have felt like a promise of future conquest.

And yet within days, the same mobs, malleable and ever-fickle, were calling for crucifixion. Jesus was dead, and Peter and the rest were hiding in an upper room. Imagine one’s bubble drifting first in one direction—trending triumphal—and then veering into the other direction, full of fear and doubt; in neither case able to find the still center, where God resides.

Disorientation must have doubled when Jesus appeared to Mary of Magdala. He entered the upper room and talked to the apostles while noshing on a little baked fish!

Forever after, their lives were full of challenges and upheavals; there were shipwrecks, imprisonments and in-fighting, and those bloody martyrdoms by which the faith was seeded and grown.

Up and down. Back and forth. The Church was built through a shifting of triumph and tragedy, over and over again. Just like our lives. Each shift requires another glance at the level, to ensure that we’re building something straight, sane, and strong.

Life can change on a dime, so to speak, and when it does, it is always confounding, sometimes even frightening. But to be mindful of how regularly each day brings us slip-sliding into the next helps us maintain a balance in how we receive and process what happens around us, and whether or not we permit the unavoidable highs and lows of life—all the spiritual and mental jostling we cannot prevent —from disturbing our centered balance in Christ, who is our peace.

Elizabeth Scalia is a Benedictine Oblate and author of several books including the award-winning Strange Gods: Unmasking the Idols in Everyday Life (Ave Maria Press) and Little Sins Mean a Lot (OSV). Elizabeth also blogs as “The Anchoress” at www.theanchoress.com.

The Easter Season is a time of celebration and great joy! In this same spirit, we have an opportunity to embrace the challenge of living our lives as disciples. They were struck with awe and wonder, but fully immersed themselves in their new calls to ministry and to spreading the good news of the Gospel into the world. With a courageous spirit, they stewarded. They used their gifts from God of time, talent, and treasure to spread the Good News! How can each of us take on this challenge?

Here are a few ideas:

Stewardship of Time:

• Join us for the Soup Suppers, as Fr. House leads us in a reflection, the next is coming up on April 19th at 6:30pm in the Atrium. We will be looking at “The Mystery of the Resurrection.”
• Take a break and open up the Scripture each week before Sunday. Take a look at the Gospel to familiarize yourself.
• Pray for those in our community who have shared prayer intentions on the Cathedral Online Prayer Wall: https://spicathedral.org/lenten-prayer-wall/

Stewardship of Talents:

• Take some time discerning your charisms. The Catherine of Siena Institute has a few resources and FAQ’s to help with this process: https://siena.org/charisms-faq
• Become involved in a ministry at the Cathedral. You can learn about the ministries at https://spicathedral.org/ministries/ or contact the Parish Offices for more information.
• During your spring cleaning, consider making a donation to our area shelters or sharing your time. For more information on volunteering in the area, contact Catholic Charities at: https://cc.dio.org/volunteer

Stewardship of Treasure:

• Summer months bring travel and weekend plans, don’t forget to mail in or drop by your envelopes, if you are going to be away on Sunday.
• Consider e-giving as an option. It is efficient for you and the Parish and allows the Cathedral to plan more accurately, even during the summer months when Mass attendance is inconsistent. To sign-up, go to: https://spicathedral.org/give-online/
• Consider supporting Cathedral by leaving a legacy of generosity. You can leave the Cathedral in your will or estate plans, and this is a great way to provide a generous gift that will impact the Cathedral and serve the community for years to come.

Katie Price is the Coordinator of Stewardship at the Cathedral. She has worked in Parish Stewardship for ten years, previously as the Archdiocese of Chicago Parish Stewardship Coordinator. She can be reached at [email protected].

In first century Judaism, there were many views concerning what happened to people after they died. Following a very venerable tradition, some said that death was the end, that the dead simply returned to the dust of the earth from which they came. Others maintained that the righteous dead would rise at the close of the age. Still others thought that the souls of the just went to live with God after the demise of their bodies. There were even some who believed in a kind of reincarnation.

What is particularly fascinating about the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection is that none of these familiar frameworks of understanding is invoked. The first witnesses maintain that the same Jesus who had been brutally and unmistakably put to death and buried was, through the power of God, alive again.

 He was not vaguely “with God,” nor had his soul escaped from his body; nor had he risen in a purely symbolic or metaphorical sense. He, Jeshoua from Nazareth, the friend whom they knew, was alive again.

What was expected for all the righteous dead at the end of time had happened, in time, to this one particular man, to this Jesus. It was the very novelty of the event that gave such energy and verve to the first Christian proclamation. On practically every page of the New Testament, we find a grab-you-by-the-lapels quality, for the early Christians were not trading in bland spiritual abstractions or moral bromides. They were trying to tell the whole world that something so new and astounding had happened that nothing would ever again be the same.

 Over the past couple of centuries, many thinkers, both inside and outside of the Christian churches, endeavored to reduce the resurrection message to the level of myth or symbol. Easter, they argued, was one more iteration of the “springtime saga” that can be found, in one form or another, in most cultures, namely, that life triumphs over death in the “resurrection” of nature after the bleak months of winter. Or it was a symbolic way of saying that the cause of Jesus lives on in his followers.

 But as C.S. Lewis keenly observed, those who think the resurrection story is a myth haven’t read many myths. Mythic literature deals in ahistorical archetypes, and thus it tends to speak of things that happened “once upon a time” or “in a galaxy far, far away.”

But the Gospels don’t use that sort of language. In describing the resurrection, they mention particular places like Judea and Jerusalem, and they specify that the event took place when Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of the region, and they name distinct individuals—Peter, John, Thomas, etc.—who encountered Jesus after he rose from the dead. Moreover, no one dies defending mythic claims. The myths of Greece, Rome, and Egypt are powerful and illuminating indeed, but there are no martyrs to Zeus or Dionysus or Osiris. But practically all of the first heralds of the resurrection went to their deaths defending the truth of their message.

Yet assuming the resurrection is true, what does it mean? It means, first, that the customary manner in which we understand the relationship between order and violence—from the Epic of Gilgamesh to “Game of Thrones”—has to be rethought. On the standard Realpolitik reading of things, order comes about through the violent imposition of strength. And if that order is lost or compromised, it must be restored through answering violence. In Jesus’ time, the great principle of order was the Empire of Rome, which maintained its hold through the exertions of its massive army and through the imposition of harsh punishment on those who opposed its purposes. The most terrible and fearsome of these punishments was, of course, the cross, a particularly brutal mode of torture that was purposely carried out in public so as to have greatest deterrent effect. It was precisely on one of these Roman crosses that Jesus of Nazareth was put to death, having been betrayed and abandoned by his friends and condemned by a corrupt tribunal of collaborators.

When the risen Jesus presented himself alive to his disciples, they were, we are told, afraid. Their fear might not have been simply a function of their seeing something uncanny; it might have been grounded in the assumption that he was back for vengeance. However, after showing his wounds, the risen Jesus said to his friends, “Shalom,” Peace. The teacher who had urged his followers to turn the other cheek and to meet violence with forgiveness exemplified his own teaching in the most vivid way possible. And what he showed, thereby, was that that the divine manner of establishing order has nothing to do with violence, retribution, or eye-for-an-eye retaliation. Instead, it has to do with a love which swallows up hate, with a forgiveness which triumphs over aggression. It is this great resurrection principle which, explicitly or implicitly, undergirded the liberating work of Martin Luther King, Jr. in America, of Gandhi in India, of Bishop Tutu in South Africa, and of John Paul II in Poland. Those great practitioners of non-violent resistance were able to stand athwart the received wisdom only because they had some sense that in opting for the way of love they were going with the deepest grain of reality, operating in concert with the purposes of God.

Secondly, the resurrection means that God has not given up on his creation. According to the well-known account in the book of Genesis, God made the whole array of finite things—sun, moon, planets, stars, animals, plants, things that creep and crawl on the earth—and found it all good, even very good. There is not a hint of dualism or Manichaeism in the Biblical vision, no setting of the spiritual over and against the material. All that God has made reflects some aspect of his goodness, and all created things together constitute a beautiful and tightly-woven tapestry. As the Old Testament lays out the story, human sin made a wreck of

God’s creation, turning the garden into a desert. But the faithful God kept sending rescue operation after rescue operation: Noah’s Ark, the prophets, the Law and the Temple, the people Israel itself. Finally, he sent his only Son, the perfect icon or incarnation of his love. In raising that Son from the dead, God definitively saved and ratified his creation, very much including the material dimension of it (which is why it matters that Jesus was raised bodily from death). Over and again, we have said no to what God has made, but God stubbornly says yes. Inspired by this divine yes, we always have a reason to hope.

Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He is also the host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary about the Catholic Faith, which aired on PBS.

This Sunday is the final day of the Easter Octave, named Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope John Paul II in 2000, is a “hermeneutical crown” of the eight-day-long celebration of that Eighth and final Day of creation.

Hermeneutical? The word simply means “interpretive,” or the science of discovering meaning. Hence, I mean that this feast of Mercy really gets to the core of Easter’s true meaning.

Eleison?
Mercy, as I intend it here, is love encountering evil and overcoming it, healing it, redeeming it and raising out of its ruins surpassing goods that could never have been apart from these evils. Though God never positively wills an evil, He permits evil only in view of the greater goods He might draw from them. And it is mercy that sustains the mysterious logic of the felix culpa, the “happy fault” of Adam that we sing of in the Exultet at the Easter Vigil.

The whole economy of God’s work in Jesus is at heart a work of mercy, with the Passion being the inner core of that heart. In the Resurrection, God the Father accepted his Son’s sacrifice as a new and eternal mode of God’s being God: in the heart of the eternal Trinity is forever the risen Body of Jesus ever-marked with the signs of the Passion. God now, only and for all ages, relates to creation through the open wounds of the Risen Christ.

To me, this is utterly astonishing to ponder: God’s mode of being- God — etched in His flesh — is forged by mercy’s response to human hatred and cruelty. This is the message embedded in the icon of Divine Mercy revealed to St. Faustina Kowalska.

Eucharistic Chaplet
It’s also the meaning of the “Chaplet of Mercy” that St. Faustina received from God in a vision. The Chaplet is an offering of the Slain-Risen Lord to the Father — by His priestly people — asking the Father to be who he has shown himself to be in Christ: Mercy. As such, the Chaplet is an extension of the liturgicalsacramental offering of the same Slain-Risen Lord that is the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

To see this, one need only reflect on the words of Eucharistic Prayer I that follow the Consecration: “…we, your servants and your holy people, offer to your glorious majesty, from the gifts that you have given us, this pure victim, this holy victim, this spotless victim, the holy Bread of eternal life and the Chalice of everlasting salvation…”

In this sense, I have always found the Chaplet to be a superb way to prepare for, and extend forward the celebration of the holy Eucharist into life. It shapes in me a deeper awareness of my sharing in Christ’s royal priesthood through Baptism. This priesthood calls me to — at every moment — offer both my own life as a living sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1) for the life of the world, and to offer the living sacrifice of Christ Himself.

A number of years ago, this insight — like lightning — flashed in my mind during the per ipsum at Mass. The per ipsum is the moment, at the end of the long Eucharistic prayer after the Consecration, when the priest lifts up the Host and Chalice toward the Father and prays,

 Through him, and with him, and in him,
O God, almighty Father,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
all glory and honor is yours,
for ever and ever.

On behalf of all and for all, the priest offers up God to God, the Son to the Father, and the faithful, united to the Son in His selfoffering, seal their co-offering by a solemn and oath-making “great Amen.” As we were singing thrice the great Amen, I understood with what seemed like absolute clarity this Amen was our co-pronouncing with Christ His tetelestai, consummatum est, “It is finished” (John 19:30). I also saw in that moment that our “Amen” was also our consenting “we are able”:

 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” And they said to him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized…”

That “cup” and “baptism” are, of course, references to his Passion. Amen.

Offerimus
The Chaplet, as a para-liturgical devotion, sustains the moment of our liturgical “great Amen.” It affirms the staggering truth that in Christ we have the authority to — at any moment we choose — apply the infinite treasury of God’s mercy to the world. And the sobering truth that we are willing to join Jesus in His self-offering. Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.

It causes me to tremble. May He who is Risen to forever intercede for us before His Father sustain us daily in fidelity by His grace.

 Dr. Tom Neal presently serves as Academic Dean and Professor of Spiritual Theology at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana. Tom received a Masters in Systematic Theology from Mount St. Mary’s University and a PhD in Religion at Florida State University.

It is now the quiet time… The Triduum services are completed. The Easter Vigil (the “mother” of all vigils) has been concluded for another year — to varying degrees of l i turgical success in each individual parish, I am sure. The crowds that seem to magically appear and arrive for Easter Sunday Mass have come and gone. Candidates and catechumens have been received into the Church. Easter egg hunts are wrapped up as well as family Easter gatherings. Now what?

Is Easter Sunday to now be shelved away as a nice memory testified to by photos posted on Facebook? An opportunity for people to dress up and have good family time? Does the message of Easter end with the last Easter Sunday Mass? Liturgically, the Church says “no.” We have the Easter Season — a needed time to reflect on the truth of the resurrection and to look to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. “Liturgical” here is important and it does certainly influence who we are but here I am specifically wondering about our day-to-day life outside the parish walls. Does Easter affect and shape who we are or does it remain a beautiful annual ritual that is left behind in the crowded Easter Sunday church parking lot? Do we take Easter with us into the streets of our lives and of our world or do we keep it hidden away behind locked doors — doors of a private faith, spirituality and morality, doors of our resignations and sense of hopelessness in the face of the pain of our world, doors of our fear to offend the accepted norm?

 Easter cannot stay hidden away. Easter demands that we go into the streets – no matter how uncomfortable it makes us or others.

In Matthew’s account of the resurrection there is an interesting instruction that is given to the women who came to the tomb early that morning by the angel sitting on top of the rolled-away, heavy stone that had been used to seal the tomb. “…go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.” (Mt. 28:7)

The resurrected Lord does not fear the world and its violence and sad resignation because he has overcome all the sin of the world through the love of the Father. The resurrected Lord goes before you to Galilee. He goes into the streets of the world and the expectation and instruction given by the angel of the resurrection is that the followers of Christ do the same!

Easter, if it is to be authentic and be more than a nice memory, cannot stay hidden behind any locked door and neither will it allow us to remain hidden.

There is a culture of fear that continually whispers to us that nothing can change, that we cannot really do anything in the face of the injustice of our world, that we should look upon ourselves and our world with hopeless eyes. The culture of fear is arrogant in its pride and thinks that it alone has words to speak. The culture of fear lies. The culture of fear would convince us that we are its children.

We are not children of the culture of fear. We are children of the resurrection! We are sons and daughters of God! We have nothing to fear and we have words, new words to speak to our world and to one another! The angel announces that the risen Lord is going to Galilee and that there the disciples will see him. The implication is more than apparent, the disciples are meant to go and meet the Lord who goes ahead of them. (The Lord always goes ahead of us.) They are meant to go out into the street and carry the truth of the resurrection into the world!

It is not enough to stay behind locked doors, no matter how pretty and gilded those doors may be and no matter how many other people may also be content to remain there also. If we do so then the culture of fear wins and our lives become exceedingly small, constrained and lifedenying. Joy is found only in following the risen Lord to wherever he might lead.

 One further thought: there is no time to waste.

The angel instructs the women: go quickly. We are each allotted only a certain number of Easters in our lives here on earth. There is no time to lose, both for the work needing to be done in our own hearts as well as the work needing to be done in our world. In the light of the resurrection we must make use of every moment given to us. When all is said and done, we will each have to give an accounting of how we have lived the Easters we have been given in our lifetime.

We are sons and daughters of the resurrection of our Lord! The Easter mystery is placed in our hearts and entrusted to us and it cannot remain behind locked doors, it demands to be taken out to the streets of our world!

 Fr. Michael Cummins is a priest of the Diocese of Knoxville, TN. Ordained in 1995, he has served in a variety of roles within his diocese. Fr. Cummins holds a Masters of Divinity and Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the University of St. Mary of the Lake (Mundelein Seminary) in Chicago.

What a couple of days it must have been. It all started with a quick betrayal and a speedy trial. The crowds that yelled “Hosanna” w e r e r e p l a c e d b y a mo b screaming “crucify him!” His friends were gone. His disciples were scattered. Apart from a few who loved him and followed at a distance, he was alone and void of comfort and consolation. He was given a reed for a scepter and thorns for a crown. Draped in what would likely have been a rough purple cloak on his raw skin torn by scourging, he was commanded to ascend the throne of the cross and condemned to die the death of a sinner, all sinners, though he himself did not know sin, all this to fulfill the words of the Prophet Isaiah: he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins; upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; but the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all.

I wonder what that small group who remained was thinking as they looked upon that bare cross, his lifeless body now cradled in his mother’s arms:

 “I don’t understand. How could this happen? Everything is lost.”

How distant the past must have felt for Mary and the others in that moment: the angel, the shepherds and the Magi, finding him in the Temple, the voice of the Father at the Jordan, feeding the multitudes, healing the sick, the blind & the lame, raising the dead, the teachings, the love and the mercy. In the midst of their grief and the rush to bury his body before the setting of the sun, I believe that his mother, possibly the only one, remained resolute in faith, that God’s will be done…. that God’s will was not done, yet. I wonder if anyone came that Passover day, that Saturday, to sit in silence; to wonder, to mourn, or to wait.

I wonder what those holy women were feeling early in the morning, on the first day of the week, as the Scriptures teach us, when Mary Magdalene and the others came to the tomb only to find it void of the one whom they sought, when in their amazement they were told: Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Those holy women were the first to receive the good news that has forever changed the course of human history and the meaning of our shared human experience.

On this Easter day, the mystery of the cross and the empty tomb looms large. The two truly form one mystery because their meanings are not fully realized alone. Without the empty tomb, the cross stands only as a monument to brutality; without the cross, the joy of the empty tomb is lacking. It is the same for us in our lives.

 We carry the burden of the crosses of our lives, but faith teaches us that these crosses are not ends in themselves when we unite them with the Cross of the Lord Jesus; no cross comes without the promise of resurrection.

The resurrection moments of our lives are made all the sweater because of the sacrifices and hardships that have preceded them. In the end, having borne the trials of this life and having persevered in faith, the joy of everlasting life will be unlike anything that we can imagine now. Until then, the empty tomb stands as the Lord’s promise to us and all who live and die in his friendship.

May the Lord bless you and yours this Easter with the fullness of his grace and the joy that comes from him alone. In every cross may you know that it is not an end. In moments of sacrifice and desolation may you know that you are not alone or forsaken. May you always be mindful that Easter teaches us that God always gets the last word: life; and not just any life, a share in his own divine life.

 All honor, praise, and glory to the risen Christ, who, by his death and resurrection, has gained for us the rewards of everlasting life! Happy Easter!

 Father Christopher House is the Rector-Pastor of the Cathedral and serves in various leadership roles within the diocesan curia, specifically Chancellor and Vicar Judicial.

Jesus told us “whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me.” Every day we are presented opportunities to help someone. Every day we have the opportunity to see the face of Jesus in others and be the face of Jesus to others. Planting the seed of discipleship starts within ourselves, but requires us to also plant it in others.

I had someone ask why we were sharing daily Stewardship posts on Facebook during Lent? I wasn’t really sure where this question was going or the intent behind it…did they like the posts or not like the posts? Either way, I answered that the primary reason we are promoting stewardship thoughts during Lent is to recognize that stewardship is a conversion process, a spiritual practice, a call to act as disciples, which is Lent, all in. Stewardship is a great spiritual practice to take on during Lent. Each post has shared a quick thought or Scripture that relates back to time, talent, or treasure.

There is another reason why we are sharing the posts. Many Catholics don’t understand stewardship, as it relates to their faith. We have a tendency in the Catholic church to define stewardship as fundraising. It is not fundraising at all. In fact, I have a tagline, “If you want to raise your bottom line do a fundraiser, if you want to raise disciples, do stewardship.”

To be fair, the majority of us did not grow up with the word. Despite it becoming popular during the last 20 years, many parishes focused on the treasure component compared to time and talent. Stewardship extends to each of us and opportunity to get involved.

Anyone can be a steward. My four-year-old is a steward, from attending Mass, praying regularly, sharing her talents (which as a four-year*-old, we focus on being nice to others), and each week she puts something in the basket from her piggy bank. It doesn’t matter your age, your familiarity with stewardship, or where you are on the faith journey, we can all respond with our time, talent, and treasure.

Nothing we have will ever repay what God has given to us. At the end of the road, we too will leave all our possessions behind. What will seem to be most important is the relationship we nurtured with Jesus. The relationship which sustains us, nourishes us during the challenges and obstacles, celebrates with us, keeps us on a pathway that leads toward His Kingdom. All this leads to a stewardship way of life, a response to Jesus’ call to us. A bold and courageous “Yes!”

Katie Price is the Parish Stewardship Coordinator for Cathedral. She has worked in Stewardship ministry for 10 years, from the Parish level to the Archdiocese of Chicago. She can be reached at [email protected].

In one of the most shocking passages of the Gospels, Matthew 5:20-26, Jesus describes the righteousness one needs in order to reach the kingdom of heaven, noting that it must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees. He discusses the relationship one should have with one’s brother, saying that there is much more to it than simply observing the Old Testament commandment not to kill. It is wrong even to be angry with one’s brother or to call him a fool. Furthermore, Jesus advises us that if we are not at peace with our brother, we should make peace with him before offering gifts to God.

In this teaching, Christ describes both justice and the interior dispositions that go even further in making one righteous. The cardinal virtue of justice, as St. Thomas Aquinas defines it, is the

 “habit whereby a man renders to each one his due by a constant and perpetual will.”

From this, we can draw out two of the chief characteristics of justice. The first is that it is concerned with other persons. It’s about giving to one distinct from oneself what he or she deserves. Secondly, justice is objective. It is primarily about the thing that is owed. It is not about what the other wants to receive or what you want to give. The commandment “Thou shalt not kill” regards justice, then, in its most proper form. It is a matter of showing due respect for the life God has given to the other man. Jesus gives other examples of unjust behavior to avoid. One owes respect not just to the life of the other but to his dignity as man as well, and so one ought not to disdain him by slandering or committing detraction against him. Christ goes even further than justice properly speaking (i.e., our outward actions) and addresses what can be called justice analogously. That is, he describes how to “be right” with oneself, and this is by overcoming one’s passions, such as anger.

 If this Gospel passage talks about establishing a just relation with our brother, what about our relationship with God?

We might be tempted to think that Lent is about merely establishing a just relationship between ourselves and him. Perhaps, for example, we think of the penances we undertake simply as a way of “repaying” God for dying on the Cross for us. It does indeed fall within the scope of justice to offer prayers and sacrifices to God, since we owe all we have and even our very existence to him. We can never really repay God fully, though, either for that existence or for the redemption he worked for us. So we can never have a truly just relationship with him in that sense.

Lent is not about evening things out with God. Since our prayers and sacrifices add nothing to God’s greatness or happiness, they are not primarily for his benefit, but rather for our own. Lent helps us recognize what we owe God, but even beyond that, it is about preparing for the celebration of Christ’s supreme act of charity in suffering his Passion and death for our salvation. The prayer and penances are a means to our growth in charity, which is achieved when obstacles between ourselves and God are removed. As Jesus notes in the Gospel, one of those obstacles often is a lack of peace with our brother.

 For “he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).

This Lent, may the charity of the Just Man fill us with longing for the kingdom of heaven and inspire us to imitate him.

 This article was written by Br. Joachim Kenney, O.P., who entered the Order of Preachers in 2010 and was found at the Word on Fire blog, used with permission. He is a graduate of the University of Louisville.