Have you seen this picture around the web? It has been shared thousands of times on social media, major news outlets, and newspapers. The story is of a little girl with her family, when they were praying the Stations of the Cross. When she saw that Jesus had fallen she said, “Oh no, Jesus needs help.” So, she proceeded to go over to the cross and with all her might, muster up the strength to help Him. Of course, she probably grew frustrated quickly with how hard that task became.

And, it is a hard task. Would we have run to Jesus to help Him with the Cross?

Without hesitation, the child saw Jesus in need. I would imagine if the child saw anyone else with that cross she would run to help them, as well. Jesus dying for us and resurrecting to new life is not the only lesson here. We should step up, without hesitation, to help the face of Jesus around us. When one of us is in need, we help. When one of us needs prayers, we pray. When one of us needs a collection, we give. Everyone is carrying a different cross. The Easter message challenges us to jump in and help pick up the Cross. Will you do it?

Stewardship provides us a great framework for this challenge. This may be a silly story, but my five year old daughter and I discussed tithing last week because of the show, “American Idol.” She was really fond of one particular artist named, Kai. The young singer had a beautiful voice, but she also had a story of homelessness. One could see that she had a very heavy cross. She had to make an appeal to her Church to take up a collection for her to be able to afford “Hollywood Week,” which was the next stop in her American Idol journey. On the show you see a scene of church- goers generously donating to this fund and all of them coming together around their fellow member. My daughter saw the money in a golden offering plate and said, “I do that too! Does our church send people to American Idol?” I couldn’t help but laugh, and of course explain to her that no, not necessarily. It isn’t an obligation for us to give, it is a blessing to be able too. It is a life lesson that when one of us needs help, we all are here to pitch in. Some day we may need to “withdraw” from the basket ourselves. We may need sacramental help, spiritual direction, help with a family funeral, fellowship or formation. Contributing to the basket isn’t about the money, but the Mission. Challenge yourself in the Easter season to consider three things every-time the offertory goes around: how can I pray more, give more, and serve more in order to help carry the Cross?

The Easter message for us is one of joy, excitement, and action. How will we respond to the message of the resurrection? What will you do next, now that the tomb is empty?

Katie Price is the Coordinator for Discipleship and Stewardship at the Cathedral.

When I returned to the Church in my late twenties, one of the things that became very important to me was fully investing in the liturgical year. As a child, any day at church was just the same as another, and though Christmas and Easter had extra trappings, my adolescent apathy didn’t allow for much conviction or interior renewal. So, when I came back I wanted to learn, appreciate and enjoy all the unique aspects of living life according to the liturgical calendar. And there was no time where that commitment to commitment became as significant as during Holy Week.

Holy Week is the apex of our liturgical year. The entire week is one of continued heightening, building and expanding of our faith in and love for Christ, culminating with the celebration of the Resurrection on Easter. There’s so much to do during the week, and the ups and downs of the scriptural events throughout can seem rather chaotic. I’ll admit my first few Holy Weeks upon my return to Catholicism had me feeling frazzled and overwhelmed, because I wanted to have the full-on, no holds barred Holy Week experience. Instead, I wound up finding myself burnt out and exhausted by the time Easter came around. This is a rather common experience amongst the faithful, so I offer some gentle guidance and things to focus on during the week in order to make for a rich and rejuvenating encounter with God.

Palm Sunday

To make things simpler, it might help to look at Holy Week as a journey, one that moves from the interior to the exterior. We begin in an interior space on Palm Sunday — the traditional start of Holy Week — allowing ourselves the opportunity for both anticipation and reflection. In the account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, read during the blessing of the palms at the beginning of Mass, we anticipate the events of the week to come, but in the Gospel reading later, we encounter Christ in his Passion and death.

Palm Sunday holds in tension the suffering and death of Jesus, and the promise of the Resurrection. We hear of the crowds waving palm branches — a symbol of victory — as they greet Jesus entering Jerusalem, riding on the back of a donkey — a symbol of peace — and yet we know that “the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected” (Luke 9:22) as well.

We can look to Palm Sunday as the impetus for the week; it is the invitation by Jesus to accompany him on his most important mission. Jesus is inviting us to be with him in a more intentional way this week, and we might take this time — from Palm Sunday onward — as an opportunity to go back to the scriptural accounts of his entry into Jerusalem, as well as his Passion and death, and reflect on their meaning, for both ourselves individually and humanity on a larger scale. We might want to take the time to sit with these scriptural passages, placing ourselves in the scene, going deeper and strengthening our relationship with Jesus. This time should be one spent primarily within, as we consider the significance of the events that are about to take place, but also consider their necessity. What is it about the world we live in that called for a Savior?

Holy Thursday

Entering into the Triduum — which begins with Holy Thursday and the Feast of the Lord’s Supper — we begin to move from the interior to the exterior, as we commemorate the Last Supper both in the Eucharist and in the ritual washing of the feet. As we partake in and witness the ritual washing amidst our own faith community, it is important for us to heed the instructions Jesus gave his apostles that fateful night: “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

As the Body of Christ, we are called to emulate Jesus, our head, and go out into the world and be a servant for all. Our faith is a communal faith, and having spent the previous few days in reflection and quiet, we are now being awakened and called out of ourselves to serve and sacrifice as Jesus did. When the Feast concludes, and the Eucharist has been brought to the Chapel, we are given the opportunity to reflect on Jesus’ time in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus: alone, abandoned and afraid, in his full humanity, cannot escape the reality of suffering and sorrow, a reality that we all must live with. Holy Thursday is a time to be with Jesus in his frailty, while simultaneously recognizing our own.

Good Friday

We leave the Garden, and enter into Good Friday, a time of solemnity and silence, as we listen to the proclamation of Jesus’ Passion and Death according to the Gospel of John. While we’ve been sitting with the crucifixion throughout the week, it now takes center stage, and with it comes the realization of our own sinfulness in the wake of Jesus’ suffering and death on the Cross.

Most parishes offer the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a matter of course, but it is also a good time to consider the evil occurring in the world on a broader scale, and — remembering Jesus’ instruction from the ritual washing of the feet — perhaps take the opportunity to fill part of this day of fasting with spiritual nourishment, through service of some kind. While the day is (and should be) tinged in sorrow, it is also important to remember to never give up hope, to never forget the end of the story.

Easter Vigil

The Exsultet, sung after the lighting of the Paschal candle at the beginning of the Easter Vigil, is the climax of the week, an outpouring of joy and praise for the reality that is our Salvation. The entire week has been moving toward this moment, just as the history of the faithful, as recounted in the nine passages read during the Vigil, had been awaiting the Resurrection.

Now is the moment to celebrate Christ’s victory over death and his invitation to us to join him in new life. All the sorrow we’ve encountered throughout our journey with him is to be forgotten and the time has come to rejoice, through him, with him and in him. It is also the time to remember that with the Resurrection comes our responsibility to proclaim it, in both word and deed. Easter does not end Monday morning. It never ends, and it is our duty to always live in the hope and joy of the Resurrection and bring that hope and joy to all whom we encounter.

Fr. Jake Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, comedian and writer. He is pursuing a Licentiate in Sacred Theology at Heythrop College in London.

Jesus warns us in the Gospel of Matthew, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” It is an invitation to a way of life, and a plan that leads to holiness. But make no mistake, it is a warning as well. The cross is a sign of victory, but only in light of the Resurrection. Alone, it is a symbol of ultimate sacrifice: the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for a fallen world, and the sacrifice we are called to make to truly follow him.

 The power of this symbol has been diminished in popular culture. It is often used in fashion and simple wall art and on bumper stickers and T-shirts, sometimes with Christian clichés and sometimes not. But the cross is something so much more. It is a reminder of the pain, suffering, and death of one who loved us so much that he would give his very life for us. It is our God on that cross. It is God who cries out in despair, feeling the ultimate depth of human emotion. And there lies the key for us in trying to live this life of carrying our crosses.

 For those who suffer the death of a loved one, the Father lost his Son. For those who suffer the ravages of disease, his body was broken, beaten, and pierced. For those who feel they have no way out – whether due to prisons that are physical or prisons that are of the mind – he hung on a cross and cried out, “Why?” For those who feel alone and abandoned, he hung on a tree where no one could comfort him, not even his own mother. He has walked in all our shoes, and now we are called to walk in his. In the cross, we find solidarity with the human condition. In an empty tomb, we find our hope.

Tracy Earl Welliver, MTS is in charge of Stewardship Direction for Parishes at Liturgical Publications, Inc.

One of the most striking occurrences for me in Luke’s Passion is early on at the Last Supper, when Jesus speaks to Peter telling him that the devil had demanded to sift Peter like wheat but that Jesus had prayed for Peter’s faith. Peter quickly responds that he will never falter in his faith, in fact that he is prepared to go to prison for the Lord and to even die for him. Yet, in that same moment, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times. Later that evening, the Lord’s prophecy comes to pass, just as he is being mocked by the Temple guards who tell Jesus to prophesy. When Peter denies Jesus, Luke tells us that Peter catches the Lord glancing through the crowd at him in that moment.

 What a moment; in fact the thought of that scene always gives me chills. After that moment, realizing what has happened, Peter goes out and weeps bitterly for his betrayal. I have often thought about that glance of Christ towards Peter. What did it look like? I can imagine it being mixed with heart-break and pain but also with love and mercy; in no way do I imagine that glance being one of condemnation. So, what about in our lives, in those moments when we fail the Lord through our sinfulness and human weakness? How is the Lord looking at us? I imagine its quite the same. A look of pain but also one that invites us back, to know again the love that the Lord always has for us. His glance is one that does not illicit fear but that invites us to the fullness of mercy.

The Passion narratives of Matthew, Mark, and Luke rotate on a three-year cycle for Palm Sunday and this year the Church is presented with Luke’s narrative. Throughout Ordinary Time this year we have been presented with Gospel selections from Luke and that will continue after Pentecost but this Lucan year also continues in the upcoming Easter season as Acts of the Apostles is traditionally understood as being authored by Luke too. Luke’s Gospel is divided into four parts: in the garden, before the Sanhedrin, before Pilate and Herod, and finally Jesus’s crucifixion, death and burial. While Mark and Matthew present us with a Jesus surrounded by darkness and impending doom, and John portrays a triumphant Christ, Luke offers us a gentle and merciful healer who has given himself over to the Father’s will and continues his mission to the end.

Just as the Lord’s prophecy of Peter’s denial came to pass so did his prayer that Peter would not fail because Peter ultimately turns back to him. Peter humbles himself in contrition and therefore is able to receive the grace and the strength that the Lord wanted him to have. Sinners though we are, the Lord Jesus continues to intercede for us as he did for Peter. Mindful of our sinfulness in these sacred days of Holy Week, and always, let us turn to the Lord with humble and contrite hearts that we might know the fullness of his mercy, the power of his grace, and ultimately share in his victory as St. Peter did.

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

There are two kinds of Catholic  parishes in the US these days.  Maintenance parishes and mission  parishes. Maintenance parishes are  primarily concerned with maintaining  the status quo, keeping current  parishioners happy and involved, and  believing that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix  it”. Parishes driven by a culture of mission, on the other hand,  seek to help all people, parishioners and non-parishioners,  encounter and fall in love with Jesus so that their lives only make  sense when fully committed to Christ. Mission parishes seek to  grow disciples who understand their call to make Christ known in  the world and transform the culture. Maintenance parishes are  shrinking and dying Mission parishes are growing and thriving.  Cathedral is a mission-focused parish.

During the past nine months our staff and clergy have combined  to offer a dozen short- and long-term adult faith formation  courses open to all in the Springfield area. Equipping disciples  with an understanding of the faith is essential to living that faith in  a world that is frequently hostile to Christianity. But we have also  focused on providing opportunities for the un-churched or  disengaged to find encouragement and hope. Over 100 guests  and team members have renewed their relationship with Jesus  through our parish Alpha courses. We are reviving a pro-life  ministry that will keep our parish focused on caring for our most  vulnerable, and we are seeking to understand how trauma keeps  people from realizing their full potential so that we can be part of  a healing process.

This is a very exciting time for the Church and for the Cathedral  community. The Holy Spirit is moving powerfully in our parish and  in the lives of parishioners and guests. Christianity is no longer a  spectator sport; indeed, it was never meant to be. Here are three  things you can do to be part of the mission focus at the  Cathedral.

Smile and make room in the pew.

Next weekend is Easter. There may be many people in the pews  who don’t often attend Mass. Instead of secretly resenting them  for taking “your” pew or making it difficult to find a parking place,  extend to them the love and mercy God has for you and all His  children by sitting in the middle of the pew so you are ready to  welcome and smile at those who will share it with you.

Attend Alpha and/or invite a friend to attend.

The next Alpha course is starting on June 10. Postcards are  available to help you extend an invitation. Alpha can help you  connect in a more intimate way with Christ and with the Christian  community. And Alpha is an essential tool for a mission-focused  parish. But it is only successful if parishioners become an  invitational engine.

Pray for help in discovering your own mission.

Your task as a missionary disciple is to proclaim and witness  Jesus Christ, and he has given you unique gifts to carry out that  mission. If you have not yet discovered how God has equipped  you, ask the Holy Spirit for enlightenment, understanding and  wisdom.

Cathedral will continue to offer ways for individuals to meet Jesus  and experience conversion. We are committed to growing  disciples and are interested in your ideas for how we can better  facilitate that. Please join us in asking for the Holy Spirit to inspire  us that we may discern and follow God’s glorious plan for our  parish.

 Vicki Compton is the Coordinator for Faith Formation and Mission  at the Cathedral. She can be reached at  [email protected].

This Sunday marks a turn in our Lenten journey; with the coming of the Fifth Sunday of Lent we now enter into the second part of this penitential season known as Passiontide. This time is marked by our use of the custom of veiling images in the Church, which not only mark a liturgical shift but also invites us to sharpen our focus.

The covering of these images, this “deprivation” of our sense of sight is meant to heighten our listening to the Word of God which will not focus on our Lord’s impending passion, death, and resurrection.

Even though we are making this liturgical shift into Passiontide this does not mean that we jettison the initial theme of Lent, the call to repentance and conversion, that has been guiding our journey since Ash Wednesday. This theme is manifested wonderfully in our Gospel this weekend with the story of the woman caught in adultery.

The Scribes and the Pharisees think they have finally caught the Lord. They bring a woman to him who has been caught in adultery (oddly, we hear nothing about the man even though adultery takes two people).

The Mosaic Law stated that such a crime was to be punished by stoning. If Jesus tells the crowd to let her go, then the authorities will say that he is subverting the law. If he tells them to follow the law and stone her, then the religious authorities can turn Jesus over to the civil authorities for inciting the crowd since the Jews could not inflict capital punishment on anyone themselves for any crime.

Next there is a rather dramatic pause, one that has baffled scholars as to what Jesus was writing on the ground. One theory, one which I very much like, says that the Lord was writing the sins of the woman’s would-be executioners on the ground in front of them. This theory is set forth because the normal Greek verb for “to write” is graphein; here, the Greek verb used is katagraphein which can mean “to write a charge against.” Whatever the Lord was doing in that moment is ultimately inconsequential because then he eloquently turns the tables on his would-be trappers. Reminding the crowd that the one who seeks to pass judgment is also liable to judgment, one by one they drop their stones and walk away.

The Gospel then leaves us with only the Lord and the woman, but to only focus on the Lord’s dispersing of the crowd and to not pay attention to the exchange that follows between the two would be a mistake. It would also be a mistake to underplay what the Lord says to her. The Lord Jesus extends his mercy to the woman, stating that he does not condemn her, but he also calls her to conversion: Go, and from now on do not sin anymore. Here we see the beautiful interplay between justice and mercy. Mercy is extended to this woman, but, with it, her conversion is commanded in justice. It is the same for us as well.

God does not dismiss our sins. He forgives us our sins with the understanding that we are to change our lives and avoid sin in the future.

Interestingly, this section of John’s Gospel was edited out for a time in the first few centuries of the Church’s life. St. Augustine states that this was done by certain Scripture scribes because it was a scandal to some in the early Church; a scandal that Jesus might seem to be “too light” on a sin as grievous as adultery. To the contrary of that ancient view of some, this story should be well-known to us because it reminds us first that, no matter how great our sinfulness may be, God’s love and mercy is greater. Second, as gracious as God’s forgiveness is, we should never be presumptuous of it, but accept it with humble gratitude and a firm resolve to change our lives. Finally, we must remember that ultimately there is one judge and no of us is he, and, in the end, we will all be in need of his mercy.

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

Like the dark smudge on your forehead, Lent is something that has already disappeared for many in today’s stressful world. However, observing Lent can alter our perceptions and how we view the world can be greatly transformed. So, while there’s still time during this holy season, all is not lost.

We can take a page from a Jewish rabbi on this. On Yom Kippur he gave out to each member of his congregation a small piece of paper. On one side of it was written: “It’s later than you think!” On the other side, it said, “It’s never too late!” What he was speaking about is a sense of mindful prayerfulness — being in the now with our eyes wide open to the presence of God in so many different and wondrous ways. And, fortunately, this Lent, we still have time if we take it now. So, why not reflect on the following four ways Lent can change you?

1. Remember the ashes

The message of “from dust to dust we shall return” is not really a downer — it is reality. When we remember that we are mortal, impermanence can help us appreciate our lives even more. The ashes teach us to be more grateful for the people and things in our lives that are already there. Even though the ashes are physically gone, remember what they symbolize and you will live differently knowing this day can be your last.

2. Recognize that sacrifice is truly an act of beneficial simplicity

When we give things or activities up during Lent, it is not simply an act of self-denial, although it is good to postpone gratification at times. Instead, through the simplicity practiced in Lent, making our needs and consumption smaller, we can gain a greater appreciation of what is in our lives. Secular society would have us think we need more, but when we have it, we need even more. It also would have us think we need different but once we have it, it is the same. And, secular society would have us think we need perfect but there is no such thing or person but God. Lent helps us make our world smaller so our perception of all that is so good in it now becomes keener.

3. Lent gives us the opportunity to be compassionate in new ways

Almsgiving, which is one of the hallmarks of Lent, doesn’t involve simply giving money — although, once again, that is good too. It is giving of ourselves to others in our family, circle of friends, and at our workplace in a very different way. Namely, with a true sense of mitzvah, expecting nothing in return — not a smile, not a thank you, not an iota of appreciation. Learning this type of complete gift-giving of ourselves has a true platform in Lent under the banner of “almsgiving.”

4. Prayer gets a fresh start

By putting ourselves in the presence of God in the morning as we reflect on these four ways, we can allow Lent to be a time of change for us. The prayer life we always promised ourselves we would start or strengthen comes to life — maybe for the first time in a long while. We know that, along with fasting and almsgiving, prayer is the third and most important part of a Lenten practice, but after Ash Wednesday it usually falls by the wayside until we are abruptly awakened to the need for it during Holy Week. If we take a couple of minutes in the morning (remember, regularity rather than length of prayer is what’s important) to quiet ourselves before we get out of bed, maybe in the shower, or during our ride to work, we can begin a new prayer life regimen.

When God’s will and our will intersect, we become free, more whole, and life changes for the better — no matter what darkness we may be facing at the moment. And so, while some of Lent is still before us, let’s remember that “it’s later than you think” and “it’s never too late” if we turn to God now with a sense of spiritual intrigue as to how God is walking with us through life.

Dr. Robert J. Wicks is a clinical psychologist on the faculty of Loyola University Maryland. He has authored more than 50 books, the latest of which is Perspective: The Calm within the Storm.

In our efforts to evangelize and proclaim the Gospel, it is good to keep our focus and prayer on the goal of our work—that others will come to faith in Christ and enjoy a personal relationship with him. This intrinsic connection between faith born from evangelization begins with Jesus himself in Mark’s Gospel where his first words are: “The time has come and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the Good News!” (1:15). For St. John in his Gospel, his entire life of preaching and writing about Christ has been at the service of faith in him: “These things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that through your faith in him you may have life” (20:30). So what then does this faith look like? What kind of faith do we hope to be born from our efforts to evangelize?

A Faith Born from Above.

In the fourth Gospel, Jesus reminds us that “no one can come to me unless the Father draws them” (John 6:44). Faith then is a gift from God born of hearing his Word and seeing it in action (cf. Rom. 10:17). Faith is not our own opinion or achievement. We cannot come to it by our own efforts. Faith does not arrive to us through one single argument or even a series of converging signs. Even when these signs are in place, it takes the gift of the Holy Spirit for us to finally “get it” and to assent to faith with our whole being. This is because the love of God engages the entire human being with all of his or her physical, psychological, and spiritual powers. This is what happened in the case of Lee Strobel as he tells his story in The Case for Christ in the movie based on the book of the same name. He set out to debunk his wife’s faith and gathered all the evidence he could find to prove his case. But while the evidence moved him in the direction of faith, it was the love of his wife and her prayers that finally clinched his assent.

A Faith that Grows. We often think of faith as something we have or we don’t have. I believe or I don’t believe and those are the only two possibilities. We also can think of faith as something that remains static and doesn’t grow. The truth is that faith can be born or reborn in us at any time, just like it was in the people who encountered Christ in the Gospels. For those who believe, there is an organic quality to faith that we recognize over time. Faith lives and grows. In the Gospels, Jesus often likens the gift of faith to a mustard seed (cf. Matt. 17:20). It begins small but can grow to such a degree that others benefit from it, like birds in the branches of a tree that began its life as a seed. Our faith in Christ is something alive and active. It prompts us to think in new ways, to act differently, and to understand God in bigger terms, beyond the image of him we already have. Faith also takes us beyond our comfort zones, moves us closer to those on the margins, and grounds our faith in the service of truth and charity.

This demands a necessary openness on our part to allow our faith to grow, to be affirmed and to be challenged when necessary. So when it comes to the big questions of our time, we should not be afraid to engage our faith with the confidence that the Holy Spirit gives us. The Gospel message entrusted to us bears within itself the truth that sets humanity free and sets us on course for a better life.

While this task of engaging with the big questions of the world can be difficult and even dangerous, it affords us the opportunity for our faith to be tested and to grow. It is like a muscle of our bodies that grows stronger when it is used and made to work. So far from being something static, our faith is something that progressively changes us to become more Christ-like and sends us on mission in his name. There is a dynamism in faith that invites us to a meta-noia or “going beyond the mind we have.” It opens us to new horizons and to see all things with new eyes.

A Faith that Draws Us into Relationship.

Faith is often exclusively associated with religion. So we might hear someone say: “Yes, I have faith, I believe in God”; or, “No, I don’t have faith, I am an atheist.” This is inaccurate because it assumes that only religious people have faith while nonreligious people don’t. The truth is that faith is much more part of everyday life than we realize. As Bishop Barron has often pointed out, if a young man is in a relationship with a girl, he can collect all the data he wants about her, but until she speaks to him, the relationship can never get off the ground. Only when the two parties speak to one another can the trust begin to grow. And if the relationship grows to the point of them wanting to marry, then their decision is still based on faith and trust. By getting married, both put their faith in one another and nourish that trust afterwards as husband and wife.

So it is with God. God has spoken first through his creation and through the history of a people he loved. In the words of St. John: “God loved us first” (1 John 4:19). As Christians we see this love offered to us through the person of Jesus Christ who came to reveal God to us. Faith then is our “Yes” that accepts the truth of what God has spoken and the love for us that he has revealed. Faith is a “Yes” to a “Yes.” It is our “Yes” to God’s “Yes” that comes first. This is the basis of a relationship that unites us to God.

A Faith in Christ Jesus Our Lord.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus reveals a God who desires a personal relationship with each of us. Through faith and trust we are invited to know him and be known by him, to be loved by him and to love him in return.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus invites us to faith in him: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still and trust in me” (John 14:1); “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). What an extraordinary claim for anyone to make! There are only two possible responses to this invitation to faith by Jesus. One is to reject him out of hand as a narcissistic madman, and the other is to do exactly what he asks us to do and come to believe in him and who he claims to be. There is no middle ground.

The more we contemplate the life of Christ—his goodness, truth, and beauty—the easier it is to believe in him. First, his goodness —his mercy, his compassion, his patience, his understanding, and his love. He spent his whole life doing good for everyone, and his love gave birth to faith in him. His truth—before Pilate he said that he had come for this, was born for this, to bear witness to the truth, and all who are on the side of truth listen to his voice. Without truth, humanity caves in on itself in deception and fear. His beauty—the life of Jesus was beautiful and radiant with light as revealed at his Transfiguration. And all who are united with him in Spirit radiate that same light and exude the fragrance of his charity. This is why he asks us to be light to the world (Matt. 5:14) and carry the light of his presence to all we meet.

A Faith to Be Shared.

The gift of faith is not given for ourselves. It is given to be shared. The joy of the Gospel leads us to be people of mission in all kinds of ways. We want others to know God and we desire to lead others to faith in him. We want his kingdom of peace and justice to flourish, and so pray for it and work for it. In this spirit, Pope Francis urges us to “go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ” (The Joy of the Gospel, 49). Our act of believing must allow the joy of faith to shine through in lives that are centered on the Lord and united to others in community. And it is with others in the family of the Church that our faith is nourished and strengthened to carry it forth to all in Jesus’ name.

For us dedicated to evangelization, the haunting words of Jesus are never far from our hearts: “When the Son of Man returns, will he find any faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). Evangelization is not an end in itself but is at the service of faith. This article has described five features of that faith: that it is a gift from God that grows, that draws us into relationship, that centers on Jesus Christ, and that leads us to give ourselves away in loving service and mission. May the quality of our own faith be marked by these features so that we can share it confidently and effectively with a skeptical world.

Fr. Billy Swan is a priest of the Diocese of Ferns, Ireland. He holds a degree in chemistry and worked for a number of years for a pharmaceutical company before entering seminary. Ordained in 1998, he served for four years as an associate pastor before further studies in Rome where he was awarded a Licentiate and Doctorate in Systematic Theology from the Gregorian University. He served for four years as the Director of Seminary Formation at the Pontifical Irish College, Rome. He is currently based at St Aidan’s Cathedral, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.

Right after our last child, I was recovering from the cesarean surgery and started to notice that my foot was sore. My husband is in orthopedics, so one morning over breakfast, I told him that it was hurting a bit. He promised to keep an eye on it, and we went about the day. Two days later the pain had grown worse, and by the end of the day it was swollen. We tried to treat it medicinally until I couldn’t walk on it at all. It was a Friday, and he told me to come in for an x-ray. I didn’t go. It was tough to get all the kids taken care of and make time for all of that. So the weekend came and it got progressively worse. I finally went in that Monday and got the x-ray.

The x-ray tech set me up and went over to hit the button to take the picture. Then, she kind of chuckled, I think.

“So, what have you been doing?” she asked. “What do you mean?” “Have you been hiking? Or on a boat or something?” “What? No. These questions are pretty random.”

It turns out that there was an old piece of metal in my foot. I had to have it removed that week, and the diagnosis was that I had stepped on it when I was a child. After my pregnancies and other bodily changes, it festered and resurfaced. (Yes, this is all totally true. This is literally my x-ray.)

It had finally festered and needed to be removed. That resonates deeply, especially during Lent.

How many unhealed wounds do we walk around with? What will it take to finally let go and allow healing?

Two illustrations of operating in woundedness come to mind: turning off the light and broken bones.

If you are in a well-lit room (maybe wherever you are reading this) and turn off the light, the darkness is shocking at first. But, if you wait a moment, your eyes adjust. You can probably make out the outlines of the furniture around you. You could get up and walk around without stubbing your toe. You might even be able to pour a drink amidst that darkness. If there are people in the room, you could still find them, commune with them, speak with them.

But the Lord does not intend for you to live “just getting by.” To be fully alive requires illumination. With the light of the divine, everything can be seen. You can pour the drink, but now you can see the color of the liquid. You can speak to your friends, but now you can see the outlines of their smile lines when they laugh and the pain in their eyes if they are heavy hearted. Illumination is required for a joyful life, fully entrusted to God. Now, the broken bones. I asked my husband about his knowledge of field medicine after reading about St. Ignatius of Loyola’s horrific run-in with a loose cannonball. I realize that many of us walk around on broken bones, set on the front lines of battle.

When my mother died, to get through the funeral and all of the planning of laying her to rest, I slapped a band-aid on my broken heart. But to live my life in pursuit of God, I had to revisit my broken heart, rip the band-aid off, and allow real healing to take place.

The broken arm that’s set and wrapped in the ER can heal in that position. The person can probably use their arm though not fully. They can “just get by” until the deficiency becomes too hard to bear. They return to the doctor, and here’s the kicker: in order for the arm to be healed correctly, it has to be re-broken.

When I think of Lent, I think of an invitation for authentic healing. That usually takes place in the desert. It usually can only happen if we allow our old wounds and our broken bones to be re-broken and band-aids to be completely ripped off. Let the wind of the Holy Spirit and the hands of the Divine Physician put everything as it should be. Let him take our hearts of stone and turn them into flesh.

Where in your life are you just getting by?
Where is the wound that you have tried to hide but continues to fester?
Where does real healing need to take place?

Think of the person with chronic knee pain that finally has the time and money to get it fixed. You’ll hear them say, “I feel like a new person.” Or, “I had no idea life could be like this.” Usually, living with such chronic pain or woundedness makes us numb to the possibility of life without it. We live without hope and aren’t even aware of it.
When we become aware of the piece of metal that we were wounded with when we were children or maybe even when we are adults, we have to endure the suffering of reopening a wound to really allow for the removal of that which has broken our hearts.

In Co-Workers of the Truth, Joseph Ratzinger wrote the following: It is only by enduring himself, by freeing himself through suffering from the tyranny of egoism, that man finds himself, that he finds his truth, his joy, his happiness…The crisis of our age is made very real by the fact that we would like to flee from it; that people mislead us into thinking that one can be human without overcoming oneself, without the suffering of renunciation and the hardship of self-control; that people mislead us by claiming that here is no need for the difficulty of remaining true to what one has undertaken and the patient endurance of the tension between what one ought to be and what one actually is….There is, in fact, no other way in which one can be saved than by the cross.

Christ constantly invites us into union with his suffering. In her wisdom, the Church turns up the volume on this invitation during the season of Lent. When all is stripped away, we can hear his cries even greater: “Return to me with your whole heart.” And as you revisit these wounds and make yourself vulnerable to healing, may you also hear the quiet whisper of Love Himself. My child, these wounds do not define you. Love Himself descends into humanity, drawing you into his divine life with an ever-ending refrain that he whispered over all of creation. You. Are. Good. This wound, this sin, is not the definition of who you are. You are good. Be made whole this Lent.

Rachel Bulman is a wife, mother of 4, speaker, and blogger. She enjoys seeking truth, finding beauty, rediscovering the goodness in all things; and answering the call to holiness through her life as a beloved daughter of God. Find more of her work at RachelBulman.com.

In a conversation with my five-year old daughter the other day, I asked where she wanted to grab breakfast on Saturday. I said, “Do you want pancakes or donuts, buddy?” Her response, “Mom, duh, I can’t have donuts because I gave them up for Lent! Did you forget already?” I did. I wouldn’t say I “forgot” it was Lent, but rather being present and mindful to daily sacrifices or Lenten activities haven’t been top of mind. Yes, I humbly admit, this has been a difficult Lent for me. With much going on at work and two more little ones in the family (5 month old twins), my distraction level is high.

A sacrifice is a challenge that is meaningful and intentional. Giving something up and offering it as a sacrifice shouldn’t be easy, rather an act of intentional discipleship. During Lent, we are preparing ourselves to witness the ultimate act of sacrifice and unconditional love. Jesus sacrificed everything. Easy and meaningless are not in the description.

Many of us need to recommit midway through Lent. Here we are closer to the end of Lent, rather than the beginning. Those early Lenten promises we made may have been put on the backburner or forgotten. Maybe we have found ourselves slipping in an extra meal when we are fasting, forgetting it is meatless Friday, or taking in a quick sweet we were supposed to be giving up. I get it. Life gets in the way, or we feel like it does. It is hard to adjust one’s routine or behaviors. It is hard when we fail. We fall, we drop the cross, we are incomplete. However, we shouldn’t be discouraged. We need to realize in those moments of weakness that we can find strength to get back up through Jesus. We can be forgiven and we can try again.

Think about Jesus as the model. Jesus was met with challenges and struggles. He was tempted in the dessert, distraught in the garden, burdened by the cross and ultimately sacrificed His life for us on the cross. It is through this Lenten journey we are walking alongside Him- step-by-step, fall-byfall, but with his help we get up again. We are lifted through prayer, humbled through fasting, and gratefully generous through almsgiving. We know Jesus’ unconditional mercy and love for us abound. The journey of the cross enables us to receive the grace to courageously go out and live the Gospel, despite our failings or worries.

So, how do we begin again? One day at a time. One intentional act after another. Making a choice to put Jesus first, then again, and again. Before you know it, you won’t find yourself in the Dunkin Donuts line, but rather in the pews, before Jesus. Right where we are supposed to be.

 Katie Price is the Coordinator for Stewardship at the Cathedral and works in Discipleship and Stewardship at the Diocese.