Monday, April 23, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
The Sacred Triduum...
We are about to begin the Holiest time of the year, what we Catholics know as the Sacred Triduum - The three sacred days before Easter, also known as Holy Thursday, Good Friday of Our Lord's Passion, and Holy Saturday.
It is a time to enter in...to walk with Christ - by remembering the events of these three days, and more importantly their significance to us. Each one of us, was saved by this Man over 2,000 years ago...because He loved each one of us.
Ask Jesus to take you with Him through Holy Thursday - to the Last Supper that He shared with His friends...watch as He bent to wash their feet, and see the love with which He did it. See Him breaking the bread - His Body, which will institute the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, for us, until the end of the world.
Then to Good Friday, to the scenes of His Passion...in the Garden, betrayed by His friend...with the mocking crowd and the soldiers who scourged Him mercilessly and placed thorns on His head. See Him being condemned, traded for a murderer. Watch as He passes by carrying the heavy cross...and then was brutally nailed upon it. With courage, stay with Him as he hung for you in bitter agony for hours upon that cross...bloodied, spent of everything, until He breathed His last.
Behold Mary's sorrow...as the soldier pierces Jesus's heart with the lance. After which she holds the body of her lifeless Son...and then lays Him in the tomb.
Stay with the apostles as they wait in fear through Holy Saturday. Wondering...waiting....afraid...keeping vigil. See Jesus entering death - and raising up those who where asleep. And then...go with Mary Magdalene to the empty tomb.
I pray that you let Jesus open your heart...to what He wants to reveal to you about His Passion during this holy time. What awaits us is a chance to come closer to the suffering of our Lord. He wants us with Him...especially in these days. Do not be afraid to accompany Him.
*The best way to experience the Sacred Triduum, is in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
**Here is another helpful and good explanation of the Sacred Triduum.
It is a time to enter in...to walk with Christ - by remembering the events of these three days, and more importantly their significance to us. Each one of us, was saved by this Man over 2,000 years ago...because He loved each one of us.
Ask Jesus to take you with Him through Holy Thursday - to the Last Supper that He shared with His friends...watch as He bent to wash their feet, and see the love with which He did it. See Him breaking the bread - His Body, which will institute the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, for us, until the end of the world.Then to Good Friday, to the scenes of His Passion...in the Garden, betrayed by His friend...with the mocking crowd and the soldiers who scourged Him mercilessly and placed thorns on His head. See Him being condemned, traded for a murderer. Watch as He passes by carrying the heavy cross...and then was brutally nailed upon it. With courage, stay with Him as he hung for you in bitter agony for hours upon that cross...bloodied, spent of everything, until He breathed His last.
Behold Mary's sorrow...as the soldier pierces Jesus's heart with the lance. After which she holds the body of her lifeless Son...and then lays Him in the tomb.
Stay with the apostles as they wait in fear through Holy Saturday. Wondering...waiting....afraid...keeping vigil. See Jesus entering death - and raising up those who where asleep. And then...go with Mary Magdalene to the empty tomb.
I pray that you let Jesus open your heart...to what He wants to reveal to you about His Passion during this holy time. What awaits us is a chance to come closer to the suffering of our Lord. He wants us with Him...especially in these days. Do not be afraid to accompany Him.
*The best way to experience the Sacred Triduum, is in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
**Here is another helpful and good explanation of the Sacred Triduum.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Remembering Blessed John Paul II
In honor of Bl. John Paul II who died on this day in 2005.
“Confidently open your most intimate aspirations to the love of Christ who waits for you in the Eucharist. You will receive the answer to all your worries and you will see with joy that the consistency of your life which he asks of you is the door to fulfill the noblest dreams of your youth.”
“I make this personal appeal: I ask you to open your hearts generously to Him; do not delay your response. The Lord will help you to know His Will; He will help you to follow your vocation courageously.”
"Holiness is not perfection according to human criteria; it is not reserved for a small number of exceptional persons. It is for everyone; it is the Lord who brings us to holiness, when we are willing to collaborate in the salvation of the world for the glory of God, despite our sin and our sometimes rebellious temperament."
(at the beatification of St. Damien of Molokai)
"It is unbecoming for a cardinal to ski badly."
"God loves you. If you are loved, what is there to be frightened of?"
"Don't waste your suffering!"
"Is Jesus perhaps repeating to some of you today: "There is one thing you lack"? Is he perhaps asking for even more love, more generosity, more sacrifice? Yes, the love of Christ involves generosity and sacrifice. To follow Christ and to serve the world in His name requires courage and strength. There is no place for selfishness - and no place for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when love requires sacrifice."
"I want to reaffirm strongly the eminently apostolic role of cloistered nuns. To leave th world to devote oneself in solitude to deeper and constant prayer is none other than a special way of being an apostle. It would be an error to consider cloistered nuns as creatures separated from their contemporaries, isolated and seemingly cut off from the world and the Church. Rather, they are present to them, and in a deeper way, with the same tenderness as that of Christ."
"Vocation is, therefore, a mystery that man accepts and lives in the depths of his being. A gift and a grace, it depends on supreme divine freedom and, in its total reality, it escapes our understanding. We cannot demand explanations from the Giver of all goods - "Why have you made me thus?" (Rom 9:20) because He who calls is also "He who is" (cf. Ex 3:14). Therefore, in the presence of a vocation we adore the mystery, we respond lovingly to the initiative of love, we say yes to the call."
"One can say with conviction about Thérèse of Lisieux that the Spirit of God allowed her heart to reveal directly to the people of our time the fundamental mystery, the reality of the Gospel...Her "Little Way" is the way of "holy childhood". There is something unique in this way, the genius of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. At the same time there is the confirmation and renewal of the most basic and most universal truth. What truth of the Godspel message is really more basic and more universal than this: God is our Father and we are His children?"
“May you experience a look like that! May you experience the truth that he, Christ, looks upon you with love!”
(Letter to Young People, No. 7)
"In the countenance of Jesus, the "image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15) and the reflection of the Father's glory (cf. Heb 1:3), we glimpse the depths of an eternal and infinite love which is at the very root of our being. Those who let themselves be seized by this love cannot help abandoning everything to follow Him..."
(Vita Consecrata)
"The experience of this gracious love of God is so deep and so powerful that the person called senses the need to respond by unconditionally dedicating his or her life to God, consecrating to him all things present and future, and placing them in his hands."
(Vita Consecrata)
"[God] has assigned as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman."
“Confidently open your most intimate aspirations to the love of Christ who waits for you in the Eucharist. You will receive the answer to all your worries and you will see with joy that the consistency of your life which he asks of you is the door to fulfill the noblest dreams of your youth.”
“I make this personal appeal: I ask you to open your hearts generously to Him; do not delay your response. The Lord will help you to know His Will; He will help you to follow your vocation courageously.”
"Holiness is not perfection according to human criteria; it is not reserved for a small number of exceptional persons. It is for everyone; it is the Lord who brings us to holiness, when we are willing to collaborate in the salvation of the world for the glory of God, despite our sin and our sometimes rebellious temperament."
(at the beatification of St. Damien of Molokai)
"It is unbecoming for a cardinal to ski badly."
"God loves you. If you are loved, what is there to be frightened of?"
"Don't waste your suffering!"
"Is Jesus perhaps repeating to some of you today: "There is one thing you lack"? Is he perhaps asking for even more love, more generosity, more sacrifice? Yes, the love of Christ involves generosity and sacrifice. To follow Christ and to serve the world in His name requires courage and strength. There is no place for selfishness - and no place for fear! Do not be afraid, then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when love requires sacrifice."
"I want to reaffirm strongly the eminently apostolic role of cloistered nuns. To leave th world to devote oneself in solitude to deeper and constant prayer is none other than a special way of being an apostle. It would be an error to consider cloistered nuns as creatures separated from their contemporaries, isolated and seemingly cut off from the world and the Church. Rather, they are present to them, and in a deeper way, with the same tenderness as that of Christ."
"Vocation is, therefore, a mystery that man accepts and lives in the depths of his being. A gift and a grace, it depends on supreme divine freedom and, in its total reality, it escapes our understanding. We cannot demand explanations from the Giver of all goods - "Why have you made me thus?" (Rom 9:20) because He who calls is also "He who is" (cf. Ex 3:14). Therefore, in the presence of a vocation we adore the mystery, we respond lovingly to the initiative of love, we say yes to the call."
"One can say with conviction about Thérèse of Lisieux that the Spirit of God allowed her heart to reveal directly to the people of our time the fundamental mystery, the reality of the Gospel...Her "Little Way" is the way of "holy childhood". There is something unique in this way, the genius of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. At the same time there is the confirmation and renewal of the most basic and most universal truth. What truth of the Godspel message is really more basic and more universal than this: God is our Father and we are His children?"
“May you experience a look like that! May you experience the truth that he, Christ, looks upon you with love!”
(Letter to Young People, No. 7)
"In the countenance of Jesus, the "image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15) and the reflection of the Father's glory (cf. Heb 1:3), we glimpse the depths of an eternal and infinite love which is at the very root of our being. Those who let themselves be seized by this love cannot help abandoning everything to follow Him..."
(Vita Consecrata)
"The experience of this gracious love of God is so deep and so powerful that the person called senses the need to respond by unconditionally dedicating his or her life to God, consecrating to him all things present and future, and placing them in his hands."
(Vita Consecrata)
"[God] has assigned as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman."
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