It’s Good Friday. Do you know why?

Well, do you?

If you don’t, I suggest a reading of the Passion in all four Gospels.  That might give you a clue.  But beyond that it’s about how Christ conquered death and freed us from sin.  Jesus did something so incredibly fantastic that only God could have done it.  And God did do it. It’s entirely mind-boggling and yet so profoundly simple that for over 2000 years we’ve recognized that fact in the celebration of Christ’s death on Good Friday.  Death may be the end and yet it is only a beginning.  There’s more but I’m not going to spoil the rest of the story.

Catholics remember and celebrate this conquering of death every time at Mass.  We hear about a people waiting for a Savior, he is born, lived, we follow him into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, celebrate the Last Supper with Him and the Apostles, celebrate His death, and then His Resurrection all in an hour on Sunday.  Holy Week affords us the opportunity to slow it all down and meditate and contemplate all these events at a much slower pace.

Yet even the Catholic Church understands that this daily celebration isn’t enough.  We have to spend time meditating on each event individually rather than all together.  We can get lost or even forget why and who we are supposed to be focusing on.  Yet how many of really slow down and truly think about these events?  Think about them outside of Lent and Triduum, outside of Mass?  Do some of use even think of them at all?  For how many of us, is Mass just a chore, something to check off the list with no engagement mental, spiritual, and very basic physical input whatsoever?  Is it even something out of the ordinary or is it just like watching TV or playing a game on the computer?

We live in a world that lets us, hell encourages and orders us to, tune in, turn on, and completely drop out while posting inane information on Facebook and Twitter that makes it look like we are busy when in reality we’re so closed off from reality, from God, from other people.  We’re stuck in our little make-believe worlds and wonder when we temporarily come out of them why things don’t go the way we want and escape back into our digital make-believe worlds.  God, Jesus, people, faith all require actions from us not passive mindlessness that’s found in watching TV and posting on Facebook and Twitter.  We apply our digital make-believe worlds to God and Jesus and faith and religion and get upset when they don’t match.  They aren’t meant to match.  God and make-believe are so vastly different that they shouldn’t even be used in the same sentence.  So we find that we have trouble with conceiving of a God who would take on human flesh, become a baby, live in poverty, gather twelve men one of which would betray him, and die on a cross as criminal and abandoned by all his friends while his mother watched him die.  It’s no wonder that Jesus becomes more myth-like, more a figment of the imagination, than the real flesh and blood human who suffered to save humanity from itself.   We live in a world that doesn’t want truth as absolutes and where God would suffer the indignity and humiliation of being treated like a criminal so he could conquer death and free us to be with him for all eternity.  Sounds nuts, doesn’t it.  Yet that’s exactly what Jesus did 2000 years ago.  And that’s the world we live in.

We live with people who don’t believe in sin while they commit it.  Where people think killing unborn babies because it “inconveniences”  the mother is a good enough excuse for murder.  Where sex is advertised as god and children should be allowed to worship such a god at an early age.  Where vices are considered virtues and virtues are considered vices.  Where anger and hate for God is considered THE religion.  Where children are led to the slaughter by willing parents.  Where common sense is out and propaganda and feel good is is.

Yet that’s exactly why Jesus came and died on a cross.  For sinners.  For ALL OF US, not just a select few.  He wanted to save all of us yet so many reject the gift he gave of himself because they have been seduced by the Devil.  We are the ones that crucified him with our sins and our silence and our shouts of rejection and our support of evil.  He conquered death but we sure don’t want that gift.  That gift is free but it comes with a price.  Yet His yoke is easy and His burden light.  Yet so many would rather crucify him over and over and over again than put down the hammer and nails and accept what he did.

We need what Jesus did 2000 years ago now more than ever.  We need to remember why he did and for whom he did.  We can’t forget or trivialize or push it aside or put it off.  It’s here and it’s now.  It’s GOOD FRIDAY.

1st Sunday of Lent

Well, second attempt.  I forgot tags on the first attempt, went back and edited, and then lost the whole thing.  Great. Lovely. 

I had the intention of writing a reflection on the readings for the 1st Sunday of Lent.  It’s Tuesady.  I think I may not have met that objective.  I’ve been busy dealing with the last few weeks of the quarter at school and have several projects and lengthy essays to write.  Plus, the fact that I have limited computer access and time.

So here it goes, again.

1st Reading: Genesis 2

The Fall.  Here we learn about the entrance of sin and death into our lives.  All sin is caused by disobedience, disobeying God, God’s will.  We also see, through the eyes of those who know the rest of the story, about God’s plan to send His son to save us.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 51

The Miserere. The Penitential Psalm. “Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned.”  How very true.  True in the fact that we are sinners.  True in the fact that God is indeed merciful.  He sent His only Son.  His Son instituted the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  God is just in His Mercy.

2nd Reading: St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans 5

Here we have the history of salvation from Adam to Jesus.  We can also see the beginning and end of Lent in the same passage.   We learn of what Christ did for us on the Cross.

Gospel: Matthew

I love the fact that the 1st Sunday of Lent we always read about Jesus going into the desert to fast and pray.  Two of the three focuses of Lent we see Christ doing Himself before He ever started his ministry.  Even though the Devil tempts Him, Jesus resists. If Jesus, who is both God and Man, prayed, we should surely pray.

The readings for the First Sunday of Lent are a guideline, to Lent and to what Lent is about.  Genesis gives us the reason for a savior along with why sin and death entered the world.  The Psalm reminds us that we are sinners, yet God is indeed Merciful.  The Letter to the Romans summarizes the history of salvation while allowing us to see that Lent does indeed have a point.  And the Gospel reminds us that even Jesus fasted, prayed, and was tempted, all things we can do and have happen to us.

Have a blessed Lent.

Four Things continued

Here are the Catechism references to the post I made last night.

Death: http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a11.htm#II ”Dying in Christ Jesus”  “Death” “The Meaning of Christian Death”

Particular Judgement, Heaven, Hell : http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm

I also suggest reading the preceeding sections since they deal with the Creed.

Have a Blessed Lent.

The Four Final Things

I meant to start this much earlier so as to go into fuller depth but at this point I’ll just post what I intend to blog about and write the depth tomorrow.  Hopefully.

Yesterday morning as I was driving into school, waiting in traffic, and listening to Evanescence, I thought about the Four Final things: Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell.  We as Catholics do not give as much emphasis on these topics as we used to.  Now that is not to say they are never mentioned but rather the depth and consideration they are due have been lacking.

Now we will all die.  That’s a fact of life and cannot change, regardless of those that search after immortality and super long lives.  It ain’t gonna happen folks.  Now death is not something to be feared.  We should always be aware that at any moment we could die.  Everyone dies.  Jesus died and did so for us, to save us from death.  From the consequences of our sin.  To save us from ourselves.  Lent reminds us not only about physical death but about spiritual death caused by sin.  Lent is a season of repentence, penance.  We walk the path that Jesus did: through temptation (1st Sunday of Lent Gospel reading) which leads to sin, His entrance into Jerusalem (Passion/Palm Sunday), to the Institution of the Eucharist (Holy Thursday), His handing over to be crucified (Holy Thursday and Good Friday), His Crucifixion (Good Friday), and His Resurrection (Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday).  His Death broke death’s hold over us.

We are reminded that we are sinners in need of a Savior and that that Savior is Jesus who knew what it was like to be human, who understands our weaknesses.  We are called to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to repair the damage, the death to our souls caused by sin.  Not only that but to repair the “death” in our relationship with Jesus that was caused by our sin.  When we sin, we kill our relationship with Christ.  His grace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation heals that death, that injury to make us whole again, to heal our relationship with Him.  He understands that there are temptations and that by making use of this Sacrament and of Holy Communion along with prayer He will give us the grace and ability to fight these temptations and for us not to choose sin.

Judgement comes when we die.  There is the Particular Judgement which we will face completely on our own and the Final Judgement comes when Jesus returns.  When we die it will not matter if we made millions of dollars or wore the latest fashions or belonged to the best clubs or attended the best schools.  It will come down to how we lived our lives.  Did we follow Jesus’s command to Love God and Love our Neighbors as Ourselves?  Did we clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the imprisoned, care for the sick?  In essence, did we just talk the talk or did we actually walk the walk?

Heaven and Hell are the two possible places we could end up.  We want Heaven, to be in God’s presence for eternity.  But there are those through their own choice who want to go to Hell because they do not want to be in the presence of the Loving God and God will not force His presence on those who do not want it.  We choose are destination through our actions, our desire to love God or our decision to be disobedient and reject God.  We have free will.  I suggest a reading of the Catechism for a better understanding of the Church’s teaching on Heaven and Hell.  We don’t know what Heaven or Hell will be like, only that they exist.  God desires us to be with Him but He won’t force us to love Him or follow Him.

As for Lent and Holy Week, which I briefly touched on earlier, they model many key events in our faith.  I hope to write about them in other posts.

I will clarify and add Catechism references tomorrow, hopefully.

Have a Blessed and Prayer-filled Lent.