Palm Sunday: We have entered Jerusalem!

We have finally entered Jerusalem! We have spent this Lent in the desert, the wilderness, thirsting and pining for God. We have spent this Lent alone with our God.

Now we have joyfully entered Jerusalem waving palm branches in praise and happiness at the entrance of our God, Our King!

This week is Hoy Week. The holiest weeks of the year and nothing remotely compares to it's majesty.

This is the week where we enter Jerusalem waving palm branches in praise of Jesus, but it is also the same week where we will hit his body with reeds and whip him, shredding his flesh.

This is the week where we cry "Hosanna to the Son of David" "This is our King!"But, it is also the week where we will sentence our king to death for being our king! We will mockingly nail "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum" Jesus Christ, King of the Jews, to his cross.

This is the week where we lay down our clothes on the donkey and along the path of His entrance into Jerusalem, but also will strip Him naked in humiliation.

This is the week where we acclaim "Glory, Laud and Honor", but also the week where we shout and abuse HIm to the point of shame and leave Him with little dignity.

We have entered Jerusalem. We are holding palm branches in praise of our king, but we will by the end of the week be holding nails to affix Him to a tree.

We are not just remembering and recalling theses events, they are real and timeless. This is the holiest week of the year and a week that knows no boundaries of time or space. We are present with our Lord, our King, through it all. This week we walk with Him triumphantly into Jerusalem, but also walk with Him carrying His cross to the place of death.

May we fully enter into the liturgy, the prayer, the scripture and the intimacy of this week. May we bring our whole selves to this journey with Christ and come to know the events of this week as real and meaningful to our lives.

5th Sunday of Lent

We can all recall moments in our lives where we did something, tried something or got something new for the first time. We can remember monumental moments in our lives where we experienced something new and we go back to those memories quite often for strength and renewal.

For instance, I was in scouting for many years and set up many tents, but the only experience of that I really recall is the First time I did it. I can still remember the smell of that musty old tent, the coolness of the poles in my hands, the dampness of the ground and the air around me and the darkness of the night. It is that First tent that has and always will stick in my mind.

I also played hockey for a number of years. I spent many many hours on the ice, but the memory that sticks in my mind the most is that First time I stepped on the ice. I can still hear my blades hitting the ice for the first time. I can still smell the cold ice. I can still feel my legs getting their balance and eventually, after getting used it, hearing that crisp sound of the sharp blades slicing the ice. All the senses were engaged and I will always remember that moment.

We can also remember our first car. No matter how nice of car you acquire in the future, that old clinker will always hold a special place in your hearts.

The first time we met our spouse, our first child, our first kiss, our first day of school... Life is peppered with these moments of doing or getting something new or for the first time. These moments anchor us, support us, are a source of meaning, joy and happiness in our lives. These are the moments we go back to when we've lost focus or enjoyment in whatever area of life.

Jeremiah is promising us something New! He is promising that the old law, the old way of life will no longer be the same. For now, God will establish a new covenant with us and we will be closer to Him than we've ever been. The Law will no longer be distant or a foreign object or creed, but will be inscribed on our very hearts - God will be in our hearts and we will be in HIm! No longer will we be alienated by a chasm of sin and darkness for He will forget all our sins and love us evermore.

In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that His Hour has come. His Hour is when everything He came to do will be fulfilled; everything He was will be more real and everything Jeremiah promised will be realized.

It is this Hour that Christ has come to that we will celebrate next week in Holy Week, the holiest week of the entire year. His Hour is where everything that was Old is made New, where everything we did not have, we receive. The Hour is the memory, the moment, where we recall who we truly are as human beings and Catholics! Everything that we are and profess is made real and new in His Hour: Our Church, the sacraments, the priesthood, the Eucharist, salvation, eternal life, forgiveness of sins - Everything! This is where the source and font of all meaning, joy, love and happiness we experience as Catholics.

This is the last week of Lent before we enter into the Hour of Christ. This week should be a time of reflection and preparation to enter it more deeply and wholly. But, we can't just think of it, we need to enter into it. What is one way that is Real is reflecting on our relationship to the Hour - where do we stand in relation to all we profess and believe?

Just as in relationships that have gone cold or are strained for any reason, we go back to those moments of "Firsts" or "New" and remember those moments that truly define the beauty and love of those relationships. We remember those moments that remind us why we're together and what really matters.
The same is true with our relationship to Christ and the Church - our faith. We need to acknowledge and admit where we have doubts, what we don't understand, what we don't want to believe or what we just don't care about. It is good and healthy to acknowledge those realities in our lives. Then bring all that to the Hour of Christ - Holy Week - and encounter and experience those moments and memories of who we really are and Catholics, of what we really believe and of What God has given us.

If we come the Hour of Christ honest and seeking to encounter His passion, then you will have new life, you will see the awesomeness and beauty of all He has given to us and made New. He has promised it and it will be true.

4th Sunday Lent, Year B

With the dawn of digital photography and as photographers perfect the art, we have the ability to create some stunning photography and cinematography. What is amazing to me, and something I find fascinating, is the whole process of colorization to black and white or sepia photography. I’m not a photographer. I am still in the $60 GE point and shoot phase of photography, but I really admire those who do it well. What is so neat about colorization is that you see a deeper reality of the image – you see its true self.

I think many of us have seen digitally re-mastered movies that were either once black and white or antiquated looking and now is bright, bold and crisp. Actors and scenes we only knew through a colorless lens, now takes on a whole new personality and presence. Pictures of people like Abe Lincoln and others who only had their portraits taken before the dawn of color photography now are truly known to us in a whole new context. If you have never seen a color image of Abe Lincoln, look it up online, it really in neat.

What is also a fascinating technique is the contrast of black and white with color. There are black and white images of flowers with one flower in yellow petals. Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this technique is from the movie Schindler’s List where we see a little girl at the concentration camp wearing a red coat walking with her family. It’s a black and white film and the only color we see is that red coat. Sadly in the end, we see the red coat of the girl again, but among the deceased.

The use of color and non-color is powerful to us and can convey greater emotions, truths and realities about the subject. Adding color or partial color to a photograph of film brings it to a new context for us and we see it and experience it in new ways.

“The Light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to Light, because their works were evil”.

John is telling us this weekend that the Light has come into the world to shed its rays in the darkness of our lives and to illumine and bring hope and meaning to the darkness we inhabit. The Light came into the world to save us from our darkness and bring us into the warmth, security and hope of His Light.

But, as Chronicles laments, we kept adding infidelity to infidelity and rejected the Light and remained in the darkness.

What does this mean for us?

The Father sent us His only Son into the world to save the world through the Light of His Love. This Light is to illumine all our sinfulness, our waywardness, our grief and our doubts. His Light is to be the source of knowledge, truth and wisdom. His Light is to bring us hope and joy in the midst of a troubled world. His Light is to bring new meaning and depth to a seamlessly cold and black existence.

The Light came to color our world, to color our lives, to enhance our relationship with our God.

All of us experience ‘black and white” I our lives quite often. In the midst of so many challenges, sorrows and hardships, life appears rather colorless and bleak – anything but hopeful or meaningful.

But what Christ has done for us is come into the world to bring us His Light and all that it entails and means for our lives. His Light was brought into the world precisely so our lives will no longer remain black and white images, but colorful and powerful expressions of the Love of God!

Is it always easy? Certainly not. Will we always see the Light? Probably not. Is the Light always there? Absolutely. It is always there waiting to break through the darkness of our sins, our grief, doubts, despair and hardships.

If there is Light, there must also be darkness. But, we do not have to let the darkness conquer or snuff the Light. It is our challenge in our relationship with God and as pilgrims on the journey to color our hearts and lives with that Light of the Son.

This Lent ought to be a time where we purposefully endure and experience the darkness. We are called to be out in the desert thirsty, hungry and alone so that we can come to know the power and our dependence on the Light. I challenge each of us to let us enter more and more into the Lenten sacrifice so that when Easter comes, we will glory in the Light of the Son!

dust you are and dust you shall return

Lent is that season in the church year where we resolve to give something up. Most of us probably choose  something like sweets or a recreational activity or anything that we can eliminate from our lives for the next 40 days.

There is nothing wrong with this and ought to be encouraged, but I believe that it doesn't get to the heart of Lent and can even leave Lent as a lukewarm experience.

Lent is perhaps the season of the Church year that is most life giving. This may seem paradoxical, and indeed it is meant to be. How is a season where we deprive ourselves and talk about sin and death be a time of life?

We give up these things for Lent because we are supposed to be reminded that we do not need these things to live and survive. We are forced into a period of simplicity and purgation that ought to show us just how blessed we are with what we have and realize how little we need to live a full life.

In the same breath, we are also focusing on our sinfulness and our eventual death. This can seem and feel a little uncomfortable to talk about outside of a "church setting". I know that I am cautious to bring up the topic of death in conversation with family and friends - it is just not something we talk about casually or openly. But, we are called to during these 40 days. We are called to examine our sinfulness and our death.

Remember, it was sin that brought about death. We were created to be eternal and death as we know it was not 'in the original plan'. Adam and Eve first sinned and that sin ruptured our relationship with God and brought about a physical death that we all must go through by nature of our sinfulness. The only human (let's leave Christ out of this for now) that never died was our Blessed Mother...and she never sinned!

This is a reality of our lives and our existence. No one will escape death. Death will take hold of each of us. We can't hide from its presence anymore than we can from God's.

When those we love die, we experience incredible grief, pain and loneliness. We go through those emotions because this was not supposed to be this way. We are separated and we long to be - we were made to be - connected and in communion. This is the ultimate price of love. If you love someone, you will experience pain - throughout your relationship and through death.

This is where life comes in! "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you shall return". When we realize that we are going to die. When we realize that we are sinful. We begin to see what it means to live.
We see that we are meant to live for others and Christ. We cannot take any fame, glory or wealth with us to the grave - the Psalms are peppered with this reminder. We begin to realize that living for others is the ultimate purpose of our lives. We don't love to serve ourselves - we're going to die and not bring any of our 'stuff' with us. We are meant to live for love. We are made to love others and to love God. This is the only thing that lasts and that goes with us through the death's portals.

Remembering that we are all dust frees us to purge our lives of possession, addictions, selfishness and be able to live that Lenten Trifecta of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

Our death also guarantees that we will have eternal life. Only through death does the resurrection come. "You can't have Easter Sunday without Good Friday" as the saying goes.

Yes, death and sin are sobering thoughts and can lead us into some very arid spiritual deserts - this is good and necessary for all of us. The spiritual life is not meant to be cushy and luscious all the time - if it is for you, you may not be challenging yourself to grow. But, when we come out of these deserts, we will know the true value of refreshing water. We will no longer take for granted that faucet of life, but will cherish every satiating drop that flows forth.

Remember, man, dust you are and dust you shall return