Thoughts of the week…

“I am the resurrection.  If anyone believes in me, even though he dies will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die!”
    --John 11:25

Parish News…

GOOD FRIDAY COLLECTION: A CRY FOR HELP!
From Patricia Tossey, Administrative Assistant to the Bishop
 
In the land where Our Lord Jesus Christ chose to be born, where the ultimate loving sacrifice was made by his dying on the cross, and where his glorious resurrection took place ... a desperate cry for help can be heard.  For many centuries, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem have been charged with the protection of Christians and the care of our holy shrines, including the Tomb of Christ.  On Good Friday, a special collection is taken up worldwide for this very important cause.
 
Please be very generous this Good Friday, as the needs are especially great due to the unrest in the land of Our Lord.  May Our Lady of Palestine bless and embrace you!

The Paschal Triduum
These are the three days – Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday – which commemorate what is called the Passover of the Lord, his passing over from death to life.

Holy Thursday
Over the centuries this day has had various titles: ‘Maundy Thursday’, ‘Thursday of the Lord’s Supper’, ‘Birth of the Chalice’, ‘Birth of the Sacrament’. Holy Thursday is now the most commonly used title. It commemorates the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus at the Last Supper. On this day there is to be only one celebration of the Eucharist in each church, to express our oneness in Christ. It is normally an evening Mass. 

The Eucharist is always associated with the passion and death of Jesus. It is the memoria Passionis – the memorial of the passion. It is one with the rest of the celebrations of the Triduum, not an independent celebration divorced from the liturgies of Good Friday and the Easter Vigil.

The Holy Thursday liturgy also commemorates the commission Jesus gave his disciples – the mandatum –to follow his example, when at the Last Supper he washed their feet. The washing of the feet is a simple act of charity, which the priest does at this Mass in imitation of Jesus, to remind us that this is the kind of charity which should animate us as we participate in the Lord’s Supper. The washing of the feet, the gift of the Eucharist, the passion, death and resurrection are all signs or proofs of God’s love for us. The whole Paschal festival is a celebration of that love.   

At this Mass the hosts for communion on Good Friday are consecrated and placed in what is called the Altar of Repose. At the end of the Eucharistic procession to this altar, the main altar is stripped bare of cloths, candles and any other decorations. The tabernacle is left wide open. Many people continue the tradition of staying after Mass to pray at the Altar of Repose, in an act of ‘watching with the Lord’, who asked his three disciples to watch and pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane, before his arrest on the night of the Last Supper. 

Good Friday
From its earliest years the Church set aside Good Friday as a day for mourning the death of Jesus, and the altar and liturgy reflect that mood: there are no lighted candles, the altar is bare.
While the Church on this day is remembering the suffering and death of the Lord, it is at the same time also celebrating the triumph of the Cross – on the Cross Jesus overcame sin and death, and brought forgiveness and new life to us. The reading from the prophet Isaiah - on the suffering servant - and the Passion narrative set the theme and atmosphere for this day’s remembrance of the death of Jesus. 

The readings and the bidding prayers for various causes are followed by the veneration of the Cross, in which ministers and people make an individual act of reverence of the Cross. The Good Friday liturgy ends with Communion, with the people receiving hosts consecrated at the previous evening’s Eucharist. 

Holy Saturday
Throughout Holy Saturday, up until the Vigil, Christians are, as it were, waiting in anticipation of the Lord’s resurrection and victory over death. The whole of the 40 days of Lent and the ceremonies of Holy Week anticipate the celebration of the Easter event – Christ rising from the dead and overcoming sin and death. It all culminates in the Easter Vigil.

 
Word of Life Bulletin Briefs  (March 2008)         
USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
 
When I saw the embryo [through a microscope at a friend's fertility clinic], I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters. I thought, we can't keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way.

• Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, pioneer in reprogramming adult cells to behave as embryonic stem cells, quoted in the NY Times, Dec. 11,2007 

If human embryonic stem-cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.

• Dr. James A. Thomson, the first to isolate stem cells from human embryos in 1998, who also has found a way to reprogram adult cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, quoted in NY Times, Nov. 22, 2007 

The right to life is the greatest civil rights issue of our time. This is the issue that will determine whether America remains a hospitable society - committed to caring for women in crisis and their unborn children, committed to caring for those with special needs, committed to caring for the elderly and the dying - or whether America betrays our heritage and the truths on which its Founders staked their claim to independence.

• Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, Oct. 1, 2007 Installation Mass, Baltimore, Md.

In addressing these issues of life over the past four decades, the Catholic bishops of the United States have not - repeat, not - made "sectarian arguments." The bishops have made moral arguments that can be known by anyone willing to think through the first principles of justice.  It is worse than a tragedy, it is a scandal, that too many of our fellow-citizens, including our Catholic fellow-citizens, seem not to have grasped these first principles of justice or have turned their backs on them. 

• Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, Oct. 1, 2007 Installation Mass, Baltimore, Md.

• Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, Oct. 1, 2007 Installation Mass, Baltimore, Md.
   

From the pastor’s Desk…

The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation

“Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God’s mercy for the offense committed against him, and are, at the same time, reconciled with the Church which they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by example, and by prayer labors for their conversion.”

What is this Sacrament Called?
It is called the sacrament of conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father from whom one has strayed by sin.

It is called the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner’s personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction.

It is called the sacrament of confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament.  In a profound sense it is also a “confession” – acknowledgement and praise – of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.

It is called the sacrament of forgiveness, since by the priest’s sacramental absolution God grants the penitent  “pardon and peace.”

It is called a sacrament of Reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner the love of God who reconciles: “Be reconciled to God.”  He who lives by God’s merciful love is ready to respond to the Lord’s call: “God first be reconciled to your brother.”