Easter Sunday • Year A
Christ has Risen! Alleluia! We are filled with the joy of this Easter Season. But what is it that brings joy? Is it the beautiful flowers? Is it the sweetness that extra candy brings to our diet? Does the joy come from the warmer temperatures and signs of Spring that accompany this time of the year in the northern hemisphere? Certainly, these external realities can bring us a feeling of contentment and happiness. But when we celebrate the Joy of Easter, we know that there is even something more profound.
Palm Sunday • Year A
A donkey does not draw attention to itself, but it draws attention to the one who rides upon – and that is Jesus. We can carry Jesus, like St Christopher – “Carrier of the Christ.” And if we are Christophers, carriers of Christ, then we called to carry our crosses – as we heard and as we will actively remember this week, particularly on Good Friday. Think about that. Jesus doesn’t get on a lion, or a tiger, but a donkey. Humility, humility, humility.
Fifth Sunday of Lent • Year A
In his Confessions, Augustine shares several key details of his life that had kept him in a state of death: the famous incident when he and his friends steal the neighbor’s pears from his tree, his fixation on bodily pleasure and lust, his wayward beliefs during his forays with the Manichees. Augustine found himself in this state of death, with no power of his own to overcome it. It wasn’t until his moment of conversion, when he found himself able to rise from such a state of spiritual death
Fourth Sunday of Lent • Year A
The incident was over quickly but it taught important lessons … lessons that the disciples understood only long after Jesus had left them. The first lesson teaches a matter of fact: all of us humans are blind in our own particular way. It is never easy for any of us to see where we should go or what we should do. We humans are born blind to the eternal reality of our lives and we cannot overcome that blindness without the help of God.
Third Sunday of Lent • Year A
The Samaritan woman has all the water she needs to quench her thirst. Yet, she thirsts for something more in her life. She’s searching for that intangible more that will satisfy her dryness and give meaning to her life. She is like us in so many ways; for aren’t many of us searching for the who or the what that will help give real meaning to our lives?
Second Sunday of Lent • Year A
Every year, on the second Sunday of Lent, we recount the story of the Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountaintop. We hear that Jesus “takes leave of” the busy and demanding activity of his ministry and steps away to devote time to prayer. Accompanied by three disciples, Peter, James, and John (I would suggest they represent dimensions of who we are as followers of Jesus), Jesus is “transfigured” while in the presence of Moses and Elijah.
