Easter

A Blessed Easter week after a very busy Holy Week. The drawback to working at a Church is the holy days are so very busy you hardly get to enjoy them. But the rewards are awesome, especially when I had a front row seat at Easter Vigil as 41 people received the sacraments of initiation. Four Baptisms, four receptions into the church and then numerous First Communions and everyone Confirmed. Praise God!

Fear

of not being good enough
of being hurt again, again, again
of trusting and being let down
of the scab being ripped off and bleeding forever

Wearing it to cover the secrets
Using it to avoid, to justify, to protect

Did Jesus not fear the Crucifixion?
How could he not - he was a man.
He pushed past his fear to his love for all people and his desire to do his Father's will above all else, including self-preservation.

How do I push past the fear?

Casting Crowns - East to West

This was an awesome concert. This song really speaks to me in Lent, especially as we begin Holy Week. It is all through God's mercy and Jesus passion, death, and resurrection that we are able to enter into heaven.

God's Blessings

We need to stop asking God to bless our plans and ask Him first what His plan is for us.

Parish Mission

Well, our parish mission was last week and it was a success. It was very well attended, the team did a great job hosting and the parishioners were pleased and challenged as well. My favorite was the last night, when Matthew spoke on "Is Catholicism still Relevant?" He had seven reasons why it is, starting with Confession and ending with the rosary. In between were Mass, contemplation, spiritual reading, fasting, and the Bible, not in any particular order. You know, priests talk about the need for confession but to hear a lay person to it is always refreshing. Also, the idea of contemplation in our super busy, noisy world is not given enough value. I hope his talks brought people closer to God and moved them into places which need attention in their spiritual lives.

Fourth Sunday of Lent

This week our Gospel is John 9:1-41 in which Jesus restores sight to the man born blind. As usual the Pharisees are not too happy with him, mostly, I think, because of their own blindness. We are all blind in many ways, blind to our strengths, faults, weaknesses; blind to others' strengths, problems, hurts. But how many of us are blind to others' faults or weaknesses? Few of us are blind to the negative in others, but many are blind to the negative in ourselves. If we do not try to root out this tendency to see ourselves as better than others we are Pharisees like those who do not want the blind man cured. If we do not see the negative in ourselves, we cannot see the positive in others because it is a threatening to see others as good. In order to truly see, we must first humble ourselves and then become blind to the faults of others, dwelling on on their light so that as Jesus says to the pharisees, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains." John 9:41

Why does our sin remain? Because we see others' sins, not our own.

Another's Words

So let our hearts be on the defensive no longer, but let hardness be driven out and let these hearts not be stone forever.

St. Catherine of Siena from Magnificat, March 2008