Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus asks his disciples to go into Jerusalem and prepare a Passover supper.Video reflection by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
At the heart of the Passover meal was the eating of a lamb, which had been sacrificed, in remembrance of the lambs of the original Passover, whose blood had been smeared on the doorposts of the Israelites in Egypt. Making his Last Supper a Passover meal, Jesus was signaling the fulfillment of John the Baptist’s prophecy that he, Jesus, would be the Lamb of God and the definitive sacrifice.
This sacrifice is made sacramentally present at every Mass—not for the sake of God, who has no need of it, but for our sake. In the Mass, we participate in the act by which divinity and humanity are reconciled, and we eat the sacrificed body and drink the poured-out blood of the Lamb of God.
Reflect: Bishop Barron has said, "In a world gone wrong, there is no communion without sacrifice." Reflect on Christ’s sacrifice and the communion it accomplished. What sacrifices have you made to restore communion in one or more of your relationships?
"As Christians we should offer our memories to the Lord. Thinking about the past will not alter the reality of your sufferings or disappointments, but it can change the way you look at them."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, feast day: 22 October)
"Be not afraid… He is here at hand. He is watching."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"Let us prepare ourselves for death; we have not a minute to lose: it will come upon us at the moment when we least expect it…."
—St. John Vianney (1786-1859, feast day: 4 August)
Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus foretells the denial of Peter, which is fulfilled in the account of the Passion. Peter later denies Jesus three times before the cock crows and, remembering Jesus’ prediction, breaks down and weeps.Video reflection by Father Greg Friedman, O.F.M.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
After the Resurrection, Peter and the other disciples returned to Galilee to work as fishermen again, and there spotted Jesus on the far shore. As Jesus draws Peter back into his circle of intimacy, we witness a beautiful act of spiritual direction. Three times the Lord asks Peter whether he loves him, and three times Peter affirms it: "Lord, you know that I love you."
St. Augustine was the first to comment that the threefold statement of love was meant to counteract the threefold denial. Peter emerges as the archetype of the forgiven and commissioned Church, for after each of his reaffirmations, Peter hears the command to tend the sheep. Once we are brought back into friendship with Jesus, we are called to love those whom he loves.
Reflect: What does the story of Peter’s denial and Jesus’ response teach us about forgiveness? What does is teach us about grace?
"The Church reaffirms the religious & supernatural values of penitence. She invites everyone to accompany the inner conversion of the spirit with the voluntary exercise of external acts of penitence."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. Paul VI (1897-1978, feast day: 26 September)
"Yes, all is well when we seek only the will of Jesus."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"Death, which deprives humanity of all their rights, is unable to do anything against the rights of God."
—St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556, feast day: 31 July)
Friends, in today’s Gospel Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus for his death and burial. By this act, she anticipates the visit of three women to the tomb of Jesus. Early on the morning of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome will bring spices to anoint the body of Jesus.Video reflection by Monsignor James Vlaun: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
They will look in and see a young man—and be frightened out of their wits. Can you imagine? You walk into a tomb, fully expecting to see a dead body, and you see instead someone alive and well—someone different than the man who was buried there! But that will not be the end of their surprise. The man will announce that the Jesus whom they seek is not there, that he has been raised up and will go ahead of them into Galilee.
From this grave of Jesus we will learn that everything we took to be the case is not the case. God is the enemy of death, and he has shown us his power over death in the most unambiguous way; our lives no longer need to be dominated by the fear of death, and we see the proof of this in the most vivid way imaginable.
Keep all of that in mind as we read this beautiful story of Mary of Bethany anointing the feet of Jesus.
Reflect: How does today’s Gospel story prefigure the events of the morning of Jesus’ resurrection?
"May prayers give wings to work, purify intentions, & be a defense against the longings of materialism. And may work in its turn lead to the refreshing encounter with God in which humanity rediscovers its primordial vocation & the true meaning of its existence."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, feast day: 22 October)
"Let us lift ourselves above all things that pass, & hold ourselves far from the earth!"Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"Live well, & you will not fear death, or if you fear it, it will be with a sweet & tranquil fear: relying on the merits of the passion of Our Lord."
—St. Francis de Sales, Doctor of the Church (1567-1622, feast day: 24 January)
Friends, how dark are the readings for Palm Sunday! We read through Luke’s Passion narrative, leaving out the good news of the Resurrection. To get to the bottom of this emphasis on suffering, to decipher its religious meaning, is to uncover the theological significance of this day.Video reflection by Father Greg Friedman, O.F.M.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Do you remember the first time that life really knocked you around? It might have been an extraordinary failure; it might have been the first time you confronted real violence or real hatred; it might have been a massive disappointment; it might have been the death of someone that you loved. If you want concrete examples, look at some really dysfunctional families; look at the West Side of Chicago or anywhere in the Middle East. This mess, this problem, bedevils all of us.
The biblical approach is clear: God sets about a rescue operation—the formation of a holy people Israel who would follow his commands, worship him aright, and thereby become a magnet to the world. They would teach and show the way out of the dilemma.
He would form a people ready to receive him; he would gradually effect a unity between divinity and humanity; and one day, a servant of Yahweh would appear, someone despised and reviled by men. And this mysterious figure would solve the problem by bearing away the sins of the world, by carrying them off through his suffering.
Reflect: Do you remember the first time that life really knocked you around? What role did faith play in how you got through it?
In every age, the Church experiences problems & difficulties. Our time is no different. The solution to the problems that plague our lives & the Church is unchanging & singular. The problems are many; the solution is solitary. Personal holiness is the answer to every problem. In every situation in my life, in every problem, in every difficulty, I know that if I allow the values & principles of the Gospel to guide me, it will turn out for the best.†
"We are here to profess with victorious vigor that in Christ is the Way, the Truth, & the Life. The explosion of our faith is so strong today that—as Jesus Himself said—if our voices were to keep silence, even the stones would cry out instead."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. Paul VI (1897-1978, feast day: 26 September)
"I know that Jesus is in me—it is He who does everything in me: I do nothing."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"Our Lord is not primarily a teacher, He is a Savior. That's the meaning of the word 'Jesus:' He will save us from our sins. Suppose we took a chalice as an example of what He did for us. Suppose the chalice were taken from the altar & made into a beer mug & delivered over to unholy uses, its shape & contour completely changed. Then it was found. How could it ever be restored again to the altar? Well first of all, we would have to put it into a furnace, burn off the old shape & form, & hammer it again into the pattern of a chalice. Then we would bless it & restore it to the altar. That is what God did with the human nature. He took this chalice of humanity, threw it into the fires of Calvary, where He was scourged & beaten, and then He was restored to a new shape on Easter & became the new creation. This is what He did with the pattern of human nature."
—Venerable Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979)
"Nine times out of ten,
The times you'd pretend,
Katie, more times than not you're,
You're not my friend.
"So stop pretending while it's ending,
And it's time I start defending,
And protect myself from any more abuse.
The friendship was fictitious,
How could you be so malicious?
You haven't got a good excuse.
You're just a waste of time to me, Katie,
And you're a waste of time and air and space,
And I've been wasting time on you, Katie.
There isn't any time left I can waste…"
Friends, today in our Gospel Jesus confronts those Jewish leaders who want to kill him, telling them that they are hardened in their sin. He says, "Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin."cette claudication mystérieuse, this mysterious limp. It is a deformation, a corruption.
In our tradition, sin is a kind of nonbeing, an illusion, if you will. To live in sin is to live stubbornly in an unreal world. Our mind becomes confused and our will disoriented. This helps explain why the devil is often referred to as the father of lies.
Theologian Henri de Lubac gives voice to this conviction when he refers to sin as
"Pray also for your brothers & sisters & for all the children of the world, especially those who are poor & hungry. Pray for those who do not know Jesus, for those who are alone & sad."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, feast day: 22 October)
"You alone are true joy, my hope & my crown, my gladness & my honor, my Lord!"Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"A good death depends upon a good life."
—St. Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church (1542-1621, feast day: 17 September)
Friends, in today’s Gospel Jesus prophesies his crucifixion and his Father’s role in his coming death. What enabled the first Christians to hold up the cross, to sing its praises, to wear it as a decoration is the fact that God raised up and ratified precisely this crucified Jesus. "You killed him, but God raised him up." Therefore, God was involved in this terrible thing; God was there, working out his salvific purposes.Video reflection by Bishop William Shawn McKnight: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
But what does this mean? There have been numerous attempts throughout the Christian centuries to name the salvific nature of the cross. Let me offer just one take on it. It became clear to the first Christians that somehow, on that terrible cross, sin had been dealt with. The curse of sin had been removed, taken care of. On that terrible cross, Jesus functioned as the "Lamb of God," sacrificed for sin.
Does this mean God the Father is a cruel taskmaster, demanding a bloody sacrifice so that his anger might be appeased? No, Jesus’ crucifixion was the opening up of the divine heart so that we could see that no sin of ours could finally separate us from the love of God.
Reflect: How do this Gospel and reflection help you understand that Jesus’ suffering was the supreme act of love from the Triune God?
Friends, our Gospel today tells about the woman that scribes and Pharisees caught in adultery. Imagine where they were standing when they caught her in the very act. The voyeurism and perversion of these men! Then they comeen masse, in the terrible enthusiasm of a mob, and they present the case to Jesus.
How I wish that when people discovered you or I are Catholic, they could immediately conclude that we are honest, hardworking, generous, loving, joyful, compassionate, temperate, humble, disciplined, prayerful, & generally in love with life. You wouldn't need too many people like this to develop a positive reputation for Catholicism in a local community. I pray that God raises them up. I prayer that God will transform you & me into Catholics of that caliber. All it will take to radically alter the way Catholics are perceived in society today is you for & me to become… honest, hardworking, generous, loving, joyful, compassionate, temperate, humble, disciplined, prayerful, & generally in love with life.
Friends, in today’s Gospel we find the beautiful healing of a paralyzed man who had been ill for thirty-eight years. Jesus sees the man lying on his mat, next to a pool, and asks, "Do you want to be well?" The man answers him, and Jesus replies, "Rise, take up your mat, and walk." Immediately, the man is healed.Video reflection by Father Greg Friedman, O.F.M.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Now at this point, the story really heats up. We notice something that is frequently on display in the Gospels: the resistance to the creative work of God, the attempt to find any excuse, however lame, to deny it, to pretend it’s not there, to condemn it.
One would expect that everyone around the cured man would rejoice, but just the contrary: the Jewish leaders are infuriated and confounded. They see the healed man and their first response is, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat."
Why are they so reactive? Why don’t they want this to be? We sinners don’t like the ways of God. We find them troubling and threatening. Why? Because they undermine the games of oppression and exclusion that we rely upon in order to boost our own egos.
Let this encounter remind us that God’s ways are not our ways, and that there is one even greater than the Sabbath.
Reflect: God created the Sabbath for a particular purpose. What was that purpose and how is the Sabbath honored and kept today?
He was an Italian mendicant friar & the founder of the Roman Catholic Order of Minims. Unlike the majority of founders of men's religious orders, & like his patron saint [& namesake, St. Francis of Assisi (4 November)], Francis was never ordained a priest.'Tis also the commemoration of Saint Aphian, Martyr (circa 287-305, of Caesarea; also spelt Appian, etc.), martyred in the reign of the Roman emperors Galerius & Constantius, a victim of the Great Persecution: Martyr-link & Wikipedia-link; Wikipedia-link Persecution.
"Christian renunciation is an authentic way of Christian life. It implies a hierarchical classification of its goods & it stimulates us to choose the better part. It gives us practice in self-control, & it establishes a mysterious economy of expiation, which makes us participants in Christ's redemption."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. Paul VI (1897-1978, feast day: 26 September)
"I do not regret having offered myself up as a victim to Love."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"At least once daily, cast your mind ahead to the moment of death so that you can consider the events of each day in this light."
—St. Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975, feast day: 26 June)
Friends, today Jesus tells us of the Pharisee and the tax collector—so, a stereotypically righteous person and unrighteous person—who both enter the Temple to pray. But what a world of difference in their manner of praying!Video reflection by Father Bill Quinlivan: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The entire point of religion is to make us humble before God and to open us to the path of love. Everything else is more or less a footnote. Liturgy, prayer, the precepts of the Church, the Commandments, sacraments, sacramentals—all of it—are finally meant to conform us to the way of love. When they instead turn us away from that path, they have been undermined.
Both St. Paul and the Gospel writers—as well as Jesus himself, of course—are intensely aware of this danger. This is precisely why Paul speaks of the dangers of the law. He knew that people often use the law as a weapon of aggression: since I know what is right and wrong in some detail, then I am uniquely positioned to point out your flaws. And when I point out your flaws, I elevate myself. In short, the law, which is a gift from God, has been co-opted for the purposes of the ego.
Reflect: How can pride stand in the way of love? Why does true humility encourage love?
"Above all it is my conviction that all work is a fundamental dimension of human existence on the earth. This is true of all work—from the simplest to the most difficult, from the less paying to the most rewarding."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope St. John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, feast day: 22 October)
"I thirst after Heaven, that blessed abode where our love for Jesus will be without bounds."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"The one who has put on the faith of the Cross despises even what is naturally fearful, & for Christ's sake is not afraid of death."
—St. Athanasius, Doctor of the Church (296-373, feast day: 2 May)
Friends, our Gospel for today features the Word of God himself telling us what stands at the heart of the law. A scribe posed, as a kind of game, the following question: "Which is the first of all the commandments?" There were hundreds of laws in the Jewish system. So it was a favorite exercise of the rabbis to seek out the single rule that somehow clarified the whole of the law.Video reflection by Lucia Luzondo, J.D.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
So Jesus gives his famous answer: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
What does that mean? The law is finally about love, and the love of God and neighbor are inextricably bound to one another. If we love God but hate our neighbors, we’re wasting our time.
Why are the two loves so tightly connected? Because of who Jesus is. Jesus is not just a human being, and he is not just God. He is the God-man, the one in whom divinity and humanity come together. Therefore, it’s impossible to love him as God without loving the humanity that he’s created and embraced.
Reflect: What restrictions, if any, do you put on your love for God or for neighbor?
Friends, in today’s Gospel we learn of a person possessed by a demon. Jesus meets the man and drives out the demon, but then is immediately accused of being in league with Satan. Some of the witnesses said, "By the power of Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he drives out demons."communio, of one bringing things back together.
Jesus’ response is wonderful in its logic and laconicism: "Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste and house will fall against house. And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?"
The demonic power is always one of scattering. It breaks up communion. But Jesus, as always, is the voice of
"The ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us to make a complete gift of self to God."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope Benedict XVI (born 1927, reigned 2005-2013)
"God alone can sound the heart!"Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"As Lent is the time for greater love, listen to Jesus's thirst. He knows your weakness. He wants only your love, wants only the chance to love you."
—St. Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997, feast day: 5 September)
Friends, in our Gospel today, Jesus declares that he would not undermine the law and the prophets but fulfill them. Jesus himself was an observant Jew, and the themes and images of the Holy Scriptures were elemental for him.Video reflection by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D.: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
But what is he going to fulfill? Protestant theologian N.T. Wright has pointed out that the Old Testament is essentially an unfinished symphony, a drama without a climax. It is the articulation of a hope, a dream, a longing—but without a realization of that hope, without a satisfaction of that longing.
Israel knew itself to be the people with the definite mission to become holy and thereby to render the world holy. But instead, Israel fell into greater and greater sins, and instead of being the catalyst for the conversion of the world, the world was continually overwhelming and enslaving Israel.
And then came Jesus, who turned out to be, in the most unexpected way, the fulfillment of the dream. From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus effected the gathering of the tribes of Israel through conversion and the forgiveness of sins.
Reflect: Have you ever asked Jesus to fulfill one of your dreams? Why or why not?
"Lent comes providentially to reawaken us, to shake us from our lethargy."Little Flower Quote o' the Day
—Pope Francis (born 1936, reigning since 2013)
"My life is but an instant, an hour that passes by."Saint Quote o' the Day
—St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Doctor of the Church (1873-1897, feast day: 1 October)
"Have patience with all things, but first of all with yourself."
—St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622, feast day: 24 January)
