A Great Gift from God

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Today the Universal Church, the Diocese of Lansing, and St. Joseph parish receive a great gift: the gift of new members.  This is not a great gift because of two more people who are Catholic, as if we’re in a bean counting operation.  It’s not like the joke about the Northern Irishman who was a member of the Church of England, but who became Catholic in the last weeks of his life.  When asked by his family, who also were members of the Church of England, why he would do such a thing and repudiate a lifetime of devotion to his family church, he said he loved the Church of England so much that he would rather have a Catholic lose a member through death than a member of the Church of England.  It’s not like that.

Today is not a great gift because it proves an ideological point about differences in theology.  Theology is important, and there are important truth claims made by the Catholic Church which are contested by other Christian communities.  Even while we share our faith in Jesus Christ and with most Christian communities recognize the one Sacrament of Baptism, there are very significant differences about how each church and community believe Jesus has revealed His will about faith, morality, and ecclesial governance.  But today’s reception into the Catholic Church is not a bragging occasion for one group over and against the other.  

Today is a great gift because Josh and Lindsey are receiving a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and new experience of God’s grace, which is His very life, in the Sacrament of Confirmation.  Today is a great gift because Josh and Lindsey are receiving our very Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, into themselves in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, and will have, for the first time, the most intimate union with Jesus that they can have on this side of eternity.  These two candidates will profess the Nicene Creed with us and will both say that they believe and profess everything the Catholic Church teaches us as revealed by God through Scripture and the teachings of the Apostles and their successors.  That is a great gift because, by that profession, their union with us, already established in a way through baptism, will be strengthened and solidified, and the promise of Jesus that there will be one flock is closer to being true.

Their witness today reminds us that Jesus is the only means of salvation.  They claimed that salvation when they were baptized.  They died with Christ in the waters of baptism and rose with Him to new life, with the pledge that if they follow the voice of the Good Shepherd, they will receive that promised inheritance of eternal life with God.  Their witness reminds us today that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who looks for His sheep even in other folds, and leads them closer to Him, so that there is only one flock under the leadership of one Shepherd.  

Their witness today as children of God, becoming more like God through reception of these two new Sacraments, is a reminder to us that we are called to be like Jesus, and that He Himself changes us, divinizes us, makes us like God, so that, at the end of our lives, we are prepared to see God as He is.  

There are many wolves who try to attack the fold and divide it, as wolves have in the past.  How many times in the history of the Catholic Church have misunderstandings led to division when a greater love could have kept Christians united in love?  How many times has Satan tried to lead the sheep astray so that they did not follow the Good Shepherd’s voice, but followed the voice of pride, hatred, division, and partisanship?  In the midst of these sad divisions, Jesus today gathers more sheep into His fold, sheep that belonged to Him by baptism, but who today receive the fullness of the graces of initiation in His flock.

Today is also a great day because it should impel us and reinvigorate in us the desire to bring others into this fold and receive those same graces.  The voice of the Good Shepherd does not go silent as we pass out of the doors of this church building.  The voice of the Good Shepherd is meant to lead us in all moments of our life.  And because we are the sheep of Jesus’ fold, our bleats as sheep should draw other sheep to this fold.  Our voices should encourage those who are Catholic but who have not practiced their faith back to an active life in the fold.  Our voices should encourage those who are already baptized but who are not fully one with us in our Catholic faith to learn more about the Catholic Church and listen to hear if the voice of the Good Shepherd is calling them to union with us.  Our voices should encourage those who are not baptized to recognize Jesus, the Good Shepherd, as the only means of salvation, so that they can share in Jesus’ death and resurrection in the Sacrament of Baptism, be strengthened to proclaim Jesus through the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation, and find the most perfect union on earth with Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist.  

Josh and Lindsey: you are a great gift to us and a reminder of the call of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, that we all have heard at one point in our life.  Thank you for responding to that call.  As fellow Catholics with us in just a few moments, we ask you to encourage us to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd as you did, and to help others to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd by the witness of our lives and our words.  Welcome to the flock!

The Puzzle of Salvation

Third Sunday of Easter

When I was in middle school, my best friend at the time, Jeff, had a puzzle for me to figure out.  It was a kind of a guessing game.  He said I had to guess the secret of the green glass door, by asking me if certain things were behind the green glass door.  He started off by giving me a few examples: Jeff was behind the green glass door; Anthony was not.  Neither cats nor dogs were behind the green glass door, but both trees and grass were.  I asked him all sorts of questions about whether certain persons, animals, and things were behind the green glass door, and it took me weeks to figure out the secret of the green glass door.  I won’t tell it to you, but don’t zone out of my homily to think about the green glass door!

St. Peter preaching

Peter in our first reading and Jesus in the Gospel are trying to give people the key to the puzzle of salvation.  Peter in the first reading is addressing the people who are listening to him after he and John had cured a crippled man at the temple.  They are all amazed and puzzled how these two fishermen could do such an amazing thing.  Peter points out that the man is healed by Jesus, who is the fulfillment of “‘what [God] had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets.’”  Peter was explaining that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s plan throughout the entire Old Testament, and that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, even though Jesus suffered and was put to death.  This idea that the Messiah was a suffering servant was in the Scriptures, especially the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, but the Messiah was expected to bring suffering to those who oppressed the Jews, not suffer himself!  So Peter has to tell the Jews that following Jesus is the culmination of what it means to be a Jew, and that the healing of the crippled man bears witness to the power of the Risen Lord.

Peter knew this all too well at this point, because he had no idea throughout the life of Jesus before His crucifixion.  Right after Peter makes his affirmation that Jesus is the Christ (the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah), and right after Jesus tells Peter that the Church will be built upon Peter, the Rock, Jesus announces His passion for the first time, and Peter says, “God forbid!”  Peter doesn’t understand.  And as Jesus prepares His disciples before the crucifixion, they have no idea.  Even after Jesus has been raised, he has to explain to the apostles that this was part of the plan of God.  Jesus says, “‘Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’”  It takes a lot to help the apostles understand that the crucifixion was part of the plan just as the Resurrection was.  

We can often be in the same place as the apostles: confused.  How many times when suffering comes do we immediately go to: why me?  Or: what did I do wrong?  Or: why is God punishing me?  Our vision of what it means to follow Jesus is similar to the apostles and to the early Jews: if we follow God, everything is going to be hunky-dory (that’s a profound theological term, of course).  Sometimes we even hear it from religious leaders (hopefully not Catholic): if you follow Jesus, your life will be easy; if you give 10% of your income to the church, then you will never suffer from hard financial times; if you’re suffering then you must be doing something wrong.  That is, to quote Bishop Mengeling, puke!  

We often need to be reminded that suffering is part of individuals and groups that work against God, just as individuals worked to put Jesus to death.  Jesus Himself warned us that if they treat the Master that way, how else do we think they will treat the servants?  Suffering–and not just the natural suffering of bad weather and calamities–exists because the world is fallen and people can say no to God in radical ways that hurt us.  Suffering is not what God wants for us, but it is often part of His plan for us, not as a punishment or because God enjoys seeing us suffer, but because the cross and all the suffering in our life is the way to the Resurrection.  St. Rose of Lima said it this way: 

Our Lord and Savior lifted up his voice and said with incomparable majesty: “Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation.  Let them know that without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace.  Let them know that the gifts of grace increase as the struggles increase.  Let men take care not to stray and be deceived.  This is the only true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven.”

What beautiful and profound words from one of the first saints from the Americas!

Suffering is not good.  It is not good that Jesus died on the cross for us.  It would have been better if we would have just accepted Him.  But God knew from all eternity that we would reject Him, and so the cross became the means for our salvation, and the way that the new life of the Resurrection was made possible.  Easter doesn’t mean that Good Friday was just a bad dream.  But Easter makes Good Friday bearable because we know that suffering and death are not the end, but that Christ has won for us new life where once there was only death.  Sometimes we need to be reminded of the puzzle of salvation.  But in the times of suffering, let us cling to the faith and hope of the Resurrection, as the fulfillment of God’s plan for His suffering people.  

People of the Empty Tomb

The Resurrection of the Lord—Easter Sunday

There I was, standing in line to go into the aediculum, the structure which is built over the tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.  I don’t know what I was expecting to see, but I know that I was getting more and more excited just to go inside and see whatever it was that was in there.  I had been waiting in line for a while with all the other pilgrims who wanted to see the place where Jesus had been buried.  Finally, it was my turn.  I ducked down to walk inside the structure.  I waited in a very small ante-chamber for the group of four people ahead of me to leave.  And then I went in, and guess what I saw?  Nothing!

Now sure, there were candles and icons, but it was an empty tomb!  Jesus was not there.  I saw almost the same thing that Peter and John saw when they arrived at the tomb: nothing.  They saw Jesus’ burial cloths, but other than that, they saw nothing.  I wasn’t expecting to see Jesus’ Body there, but still I think I did expect to see something amazing.  Instead, it was not very ornate: just a few icons of the Resurrection and a few candles burning.

We should be people who expect to see nothing.  Our faith centers around going to a certain place to see nothing.  As believers in the Resurrection, we are believers in not seeing what we should have seen: a corpse of a 33-year-old Jewish man.  Instead, just as Mary of Magdala told Peter and John, and just as Peter and John told the other apostles and disciples in the Upper Room, there was nothing there.  We are the people who rely on the eyewitness testimony of at least four or five people that the tomb is empty.  We are also the people who rely on the eyewitness testimony of the apostles and disciples who not only saw or heard about an empty tomb, but saw the risen Jesus.  

We are the people about whom St. Peter spoke in the first reading: the people who must rely on the witnesses chosen by God in advance, the witnesses who ate and drank with Jesus after He rose from the dead.  We are the ones who received the good news from our parents, who received it from theirs, who received it from theirs, all the way back to eleven, mostly uneducated, men, who told our ancestors that they saw Jesus risen from dead and that if we want that new life, then we, too, must be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and believe in Jesus and follow Him and His rule of life.

Because Christianity has become so common, we often forget the power of the message that there is new life after death.  We forget what force that proclamation has.  But to the first believers it was incredible–literally unbelievable.  How could a man rise from the dead?  But the story was too consistent.  The uneducated fishermen, tax collector, and rag tag bunch of men had too convincing of arguments.  And they were willing to die for that message.  Certainly if they had made it up, they would have recanted as they were about to be skinned alive, crucified, or beheaded.  But they didn’t.  They were joyful, even feeling unworthy to die in a manner like their Lord, and “love for life did not deter them from death.”  Those who believed the apostles also put up with horrible pain and torture; even though they had never seen Jesus.  They just trusted the words of these men.  They were nailed to posts, doused with oil, and lit on fire to illumine the Roman evening.  They were fed to wild beasts, maimed, tortured, and mocked.  But the power of the testimony of those witnesses was strong enough to give them no fear over those who could harm the body but not the soul.  They believed the story of the empty tomb.  Do we?

To believe in the empty tomb, the empty tomb that I saw with my own two eyes, is to fear nothing but to be separated from God.  To believe in the empty tomb is to be impelled, drawn, summoned to proclaim it to others.  To believe in the empty tomb is not simply to believe in a negative, a lack of something, but to believe that the tomb is empty because Jesus is not dead, but alive, and that when Christ returns to show Himself to those who believed in the words of His witnesses, they, too, “will appear with him in glory.”

When was the last time we lived as if we believed in the empty tomb?  When was the last time we lived not worrying about those who can harm our prosperity, but focusing on the one who saved our soul?  That belief is not meant to eliminate all the suffering in our life, but to help us to realize that suffering is not the end unless we want it to be.  And then it only is the end for us because we would rather have the suffering we know than the heavenly bliss that we have to take on the words of eleven uneducated men.  

Believers in the empty tomb still struggle to make a living; still get sick; still watch their loved ones struggle with pain and even death.  But believers in the empty tomb can at the same time know that for those united to Christ in baptism, they have already died with Him, and should rise with Him, too.  

I have been to the tomb in Jerusalem.  I have seen the candles and the icons.  I have seen the emptiness which means that the Resurrection is real.  I still struggle to live each day as a believer in the empty tomb, giving proof that I do not fear what the world may throw at me because I belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God the Father, and the Father cares for those who are His own.  Maybe you struggle to live that way, too.  But today, let us reaffirm our faith in the empty tomb so that we can live like the eleven whose lives were changed by the Resurrection, and who changed others’ lives by the Resurrection.  Today, as the first of many days, let us live as people of the empty tomb with zeal for the kingdom and confidence that God will take care of us in all circumstances, just as He took care of Jesus, His Beloved Son, in raising Him from the dead.  

Why is This Night Different from All Other Nights?

Easter Vigil 

 

At the first question at the Seder, the meal that celebrates the Passover, the youngest child asks: Ma nishtana ha-laila ha-zeh mi-kol ha-leylot?  The English translation is: Why is this night different from all other nights?  On this night, the Passover in the Book of Exodus, when the angel of death passed over the house of the Chosen People, is fulfilled.  And so it is right for us to ask this same question: why is this night different from all other nights?

Why do we read these four readings from the Old Testament rather than one like we usually do at Mass?  We read these readings that point to the Resurrection all throughout Salvation History.  We begin with the creation of the world, and how God created all things beginning on the first day.  So on this, the eve of the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath, we remember that Jesus Christ began a new creation in Himself, as He conquered sin and death.  We then hear about how Moses and the Chosen People were saved through water as God had them pass through the waters to safety, while He destroyed the evil Egyptians, the symbol of oppression of God’s People, in those same waters.  So, too, our Elect will pass through the water and be saved by it, while Satan’s kingdom will be further destroyed.  We hear from the Prophet Isaiah about being satisfied by the Lord, whose Word will have its effect to make the earth fertile and fruitful.  So God will feed us in the Eucharist and His Eternal Word, Jesus Christ, will continue the work of our baptism to change us to be more like Him.  We hear from the Prophet Ezekiel next as the last Old Testament reading how God, who had allowed His People to undergo the punishment of their infidelity will now save them because of the holiness of His Name, so that all may know that God is truly God and there is no other.  God will sprinkle clean water upon His People and pour out His Spirit upon them.  So we recall that God has now saved us through Christ and sent His Holy Spirit upon us, and especially upon those who will receive the Sacrament of Confirmation tonight.  

Next we sing the Gloria for the first time since Thursday night at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper.  This recalls for us the moment of the birth of Jesus Christ when the angels sang the glorious hymn: Glory to God in the Highest and on earth peace to people of good will.  We light the altar candles as the visible reminder that when Christ was born, a new light shone upon the world, and the light is Christ Himself.  So the candles around the altar, the altar which symbolizes Christ, are lit.  Then we turned to the New Testament, to the Apostle Paul, who reminded us that in baptism we died with Christ so that we could rise with Him to new life.  And that death that we experienced was meant to be a death from all that separated us from God, and all our sinful ways, into the new life in union with (we can also say communion with) God.  

And, in the high point of the Proclamation of God’s Word, we heard the Gospel of the Resurrection proclaimed.  We listened to the account of the holy women who went to the tomb, early on Sunday morning, only to find that the large stone had been rolled back, and Jesus was not there, but an angel, announcing that Jesus has been raised from the dead.  While we will likely not be here until after midnight, very early in the morning, we wait with watchful eyes and ears, in vigil, to solemnly celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  

Tonight we gather because all of time, and especially all of how God revealed Himself through the Old Testament pointed to this moment.  Tonight we gather because from all people, katholicos in Greek, God has desired His children to share in the Paschal Mystery: the suffering, death, Resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.  And tonight that same Paschal Mystery will be entered into by those receiving the Sacraments: the Elect who will receive Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist; the Candidates who will profess their faith in all the Catholic Church teaches, and then be confirmed and receive the Eucharist as well.  They will begin to make the fullness of that Paschal Mystery theirs through life in the Catholic Church.  

Very shortly we will celebrate that Paschal Mystery in sacramental form.  I won’t explain that yet.  As in the early centuries of the Church, I want our Elect and Candidates to experience it for themselves first, and then to understand the mysteries that they celebrated afterwards.  I will let the symbols speak with their own power to communicate, and then, having joined the Church of Christ, they will have a chance to be guided in their understanding of what happened.  

But, whether you will become Catholic tonight or are already Catholic, tonight is different from all other nights because on this night the doors of our hearts were marked with the Blood of the Unblemished Lamb of God who by His death destroyed death and took away the sins of the world.  On this night life was changed forever because death no longer held sway over us.  This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it, alleluia!!

"See, mother, I make all things new"

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

One of the great privileges of a priest’s life is to enter into profound moments in a family’s life.  Though not very well-known to any of you (but becoming more well known each and every day!), you invite me in to some of the most joyous moments of your life: the baptism of a child; First Holy Communion; the marriage of your children; birthdays, anniversaries, and other celebrations.  The same is true for the profound moments in your life that are not joyous but sorrowful: the diagnosis of cancer; the loss of a job; the break-up of a relationship or even a marriage; the death of a loved one.  Those are moments of humility for me, because it’s not really Anthony Strouse that you’re inviting into your lives, homes, and hearts at those moments: it’s Fr. Anthony, the priest, the bridge between God and His People, the living representation of Jesus.  Especially with sorrowful moments, the profundity of being invited into what is altogether personal strikes me often.

That makes today even more powerful.  When we come to venerate the cross, I have no idea what is going through your minds.  But I can tell you what is going through mine.  As you come to genuflect or bow to the cross, or even kiss the cross, I see and feel the crosses you are carrying in your life.  I see and feel the pain and the sorrow that is present in your life and I see you offering it to Jesus, joining it with His perfect sacrifice, and knowing that He gave everything for us so that we could have life, dying in a most humiliating and painful way.  And yet He still wants us to give our crosses to Him.  He does not shrink from our pain but embraces it and receives it from us so that we do not carry it by ourselves.  

I remember that powerful scene from the movie “The Passion of the Christ” where Jesus begins to fall as Mary, His Blessed Mother, watches.  Then, as Jesus is falling to the ground, the scene changes to a flashback from Mary’s memory of Jesus falling to ground as a child when He was playing and Mary running to catch Him and console Him in His pain.  Then the flashback ends and she runs to her bloody, tired son, fallen to the ground.  He looks at her and says, “See, mother, I make all things new.”  

Today we remember in a solemn way how Christ made all things new by His death on the cross.  As we give come to venerate the cross, offer Jesus your crosses and allow Him to make all things new in your life.  And know that as you offer your cross, Mary, our Mother given to us by Jesus at the cross, will run to us, too, to catch us and console us in our pain.  

Peering into Jesus' Last Hours

Mass of the Lord’s Supper

I invite you to close your eyes.  Take a deep breath in.  Breathe out.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Calm your heart, mind, and soul.  Put behind you the busyness of the day and just be with God.  Now, imagine for a second that you were going to die tomorrow, and that you only have a few hours to speak with anyone.  Who would be with you?  Would it be a spouse, your immediate family, or a friend?  What would you say?  What would you do?

We gather tonight, glancing in on Jesus’ last hours with His closest friends, the Apostles.  It almost seems like snooping.  The upper room is likely decorated in a noble, yet simple way, ready for the celebration of Pesach, the Passover.  Unleavened bread is on the table.  There are bitter herbs, charoseth, and wine in ceremonial dishes.  But the Passover, the sacred remembering that is more than just calling a past event to mind, is not supposed to be celebrated on Thursday, but on Friday night.  Still, Jesus knows that He will not be able to celebrate it with them on Friday.  As the Apostles enter the room, Jesus takes off His outer garment to wash their feet–feet crusted with dirt from walking, likely with some small sores from pebbles.  He, the Master, performs the task of the slave, giving the Apostles a command, a command they will not understand for at least three days, that as princes themselves of the New Israel, they are to follow the example of the Master and wash others’ feet.

Having finished washing their feet, Jesus begins the celebration of the Passover.  But before the breaking of bread and before the sharing of the cup, Jesus prophesies that one of the Twelve will betray Him, and Judas leaves.  Having, then, only the Eleven who are faithful, as faithful as they can be, Jesus institutes at the same time the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, as He, the Lord of the Passover, changes the Mosaic Rite and adds His own words.  But even in the midst of His most faithful, Jesus also tells St. Peter that he will deny Him before the cock crows.  And then Jesus begins His High Priestly Prayer, speaking to the Father in words so intimate that the Apostles must have simply sat there and listened and felt they were intruding on something that was profoundly personal.  

In His last hour, Jesus gathers His friends, not even His mother, and gives them a way to be connected throughout all time by establishing a presence through the Eucharist and a  presence through priestly ordination and configuration.  In His last hour, Jesus expresses His love and confidence to the Father, even as the powers of darkness are closing in around Him.  In His last hour, Jesus reassures his Apostles, His friends, and tells them not to let their hearts be troubled, and that while they cannot follow now, they will follow Jesus later, because He is the way and the truth and the life.  He promises them an Advocate who will defend them, even as the world hates them.  And then Jesus goes to pray on the Mount of Olives, exchanging the camaraderie of his chosen band for the utter loneliness of knowing what will happen next, as the Apostles sleep, exhausted from the weight and the power of those moments in the Upper Room.

Tonight we peer into that sacred moment.  We begin the three days that are one, the Triduum, with a Mass that will not be concluded until the dismissal at the Easter Vigil.  We recall, not simply in a retelling, but in an event that seems to take us back in time, the mandatum, the mandate of service in the washing of feet; we are connected to Jesus’ Passion once more in the perfect sacrifice of the Son of God, made present to us by the Eucharist, and offered by the Priest, configured to Christ the Head and Shepherd through Holy Order, to join the offering of the entire People of God to that of Jesus on the cross; we walk with Jesus to a place where we can feel the darkness closing in.  

We do not know when our last hours of life will be.  But if we did, who would we ask to be there with us?  What would we say?  What would we do?  As we enter into the last moments of Jesus’ earthly ministry, He gathers His closest friends, serves them, and establishes two ways that His presence would continue through them.  Tonight Jesus desires to be with us, to serve us, and have union with us through the Eucharist.  Will we watch and pray with Him?

The Pilgrimage of Holy Week

Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

Cathedral of
Santiago de Compostela

When I was a junior in college, I had the great opportunity to study in Rome for 5 months starting in October.  It was a beautiful experience in and of itself.  But before we settled into Rome, most of the seminarians who were also studying in Rome for those five months and I began a pilgrimage in Spain called the Camino de Santiago de Compostela.  It’s one of the oldest pilgrimages in Christianity, and the goal is the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where the mortal remains of St. James the Greater are kept (for non-Spanish speakers, Santiago is James or St. James in Spanish).  We walked 111 km., the minimum to receive the plenary indulgence, but you can take a pilgrim route beginning in most major cities in Europe, and even as far away as the Holy Land.  But even in just those 111 km., I was able to experience a beautiful country, hills, valleys, injuries, friendship, distrust of other travelers, and the final joy of reaching the Cathedral and attending Mass there.  

Pilgrimages are meant to give Christians a microcosm of the life of a disciple: a long distance, beauty, hard times, easy times, injuries, friendship, distrust, and the final joy of reaching the heavenly destination with the eternal worship of God.  While we’re not going anywhere physically today, we do get to go on a spiritual pilgrimage this week, this Holy Week.  We walk with Jesus on His pilgrimage to his suffering and death, and then we will be able to rejoice in the destination of that pilgrimage: the Resurrection.  

We start that pilgrimage today in joy and triumph as the Messiah enters His city, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah that the Messiah would enter upon an ass’s colt.  The beginning of the pilgrimage is filled with the excitement of the crowd that all of God’s promises were about to be fulfilled, though they knew not the horrible way in which that would happen.  We just had a taste of the hills, the tough part of the pilgrimage, as we heard St. Mark’s account of the Passion.  We get a foretaste of what lies ahead of us in the days that will follow.

There is no substitution for walking a pilgrimage.  Of course, to arrive at the starting point, pilgrims these days often have to fly and/or drive.  But then there is walking–walking with Jesus.  We are not a walking people as much anymore.  We have planes, trains, and automobiles to take us wherever we want to go, and trams and subways to take us the shorter distances.  But on this pilgrimage there is no shortcut, no easy way to get there.  To truly experience Jesus’ pilgrimage, we need to walk with Him, day by day, and take in His experience.  To skip immediately past the Last Supper on Holy Thursday, past the crucifixion on Good Friday, to Easter means losing some of the power of the Resurrection, because the sweetness of new life is only accessible to those who have also known suffering and death.  

So I want to invite you this week to as many Masses and liturgies as you can attend.  We will have our usual Mass and adoration on Tuesday beginning at 5:15 p.m.; Mass Wednesday morning at 8 a.m.; the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday at 7 p.m.; the celebration of the Passion on Good Friday at 3 p.m.; the sorrowful prayer of Tenebrae Good Friday at 9 p.m.; and the joy of the Resurrection at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday at 8:30 p.m., or the Easter Sunday Masses at 8 or 10 a.m.  Very few things are more important than the Masses this week.  Very few other things will help you prepare for Easter quite like the Masses will.  Of course, some of you can’t make it to Mass because of work, health, or other issues.  If you can’t attend Mass, at least read the daily readings either from our parish app or at usccb.org/readings.  I especially want to encourage you to attend the Easter Vigil Holy Saturday night.  The symbols of Easter speak quite loudly, and we will be there to support those becoming Catholic–the newest members of our parish.  

Walk with Jesus on His pilgrimage.  Walk the road that He walked for you.  Walk the pilgrimage from suffering, to death, to new life.