April 28, 2019: 2nd Sunday of Easter/Divine Mercy Sunday

Christ was once dead, but now is alive forever and ever.  He reigns as the Mighty One over all Creation, which He redeems by His blood shed on the Cross.  Now that He lives forever and ever, He imparts to us newness of life, which brings us peace, joy, and healing, so we can be free from all that weighs us down.

And He brings us together as a community of faith, where we make Him present to one another, and then are sent forth, filled with His powerful living presence to make Him known in the world, and share the peace, joy, and healing He grants us.

It is by the power of faith that we continue recognizing His presence, just as I have since that day 28 years ago today when I died to self and rose to new Life in Christ, a newness of Life I have lived in so many ways, which I celebrated today.

April 21, 2019: Easter Sunday of the Lord's Resurrection

The tomb is empty, for Christ had to rise from the dead to fulfill the word of God proclaimed for ages past.

He chose us, His people, to encounter the Risen Presence of Christ and go forth to proclaim this great Good News that He is alive.  For now that Christ our Pascal Lamb has been sacrificed, as St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, we live in sincerity and truth, looking above to Heaven, as he writes in Colossians, where we are headed to attain the fullness of Eternal Life, won for us by the Risen Christ.

On the way, we testify to the reality of the Resurrection so all may know the gifts that flow forth from the Empty Tomb, and the Risen Christ, Whom we encounter day by day as we walk in newness of Life that leads to glorious Life Eternal.

April 20, 2019: Holy Saturday Easter Vigil

Even as God's people awaited the culmination of God's work of salvation, He was at work.  He was pointing His people toward the way of redemption, just as He does today, calling us to seek after Him, to follow His ways, as we embrace the Paschal Mystery by which we die to ourselves and rise into glorious new life.  We were created to be something glorious, and by the Resurrection, we have been recreated into something new and even more glorious.

April 19, 2019: Friday of the Lord's Passion (Good Friday)

Jesus Christ came to Earth to fulfill the purpose of God to die for us.  Even in the midst of great suffering, He stood strong in God's purpose, fully aware of that purpose.  As a result, we have benefitted by being freed from the punishment we deserved for our sins.  We have been made into a people of God, through Him Who testified to the Truth in the midst of lies that abounded because of sin, a light shining in the darkness, even when the darkness seemed to snuff it out.  That is why we honor Him today as our great Savior, because He willingly died for us.

April 18, 2019: Maundy Thursday

Jesus Christ offered His Body and Blood at the Passover meal He celebrated with the Apostles, thereby instituting the Eucharist.  At the same meal, He washed His Apostles' feet as a way of establishing a model for how they should live their lives in giving of themselves in service to others, the way they love as He loves us.

So as we continue to partake of the Eucharist, we necessarily must be compelled to live out the Eucharist by serving others, motivated by the Love God has shown us in Christ.

April 14, 2019: Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion

We join the crowds and hail Christ as our triumphal King as He enters Jerusalem:  He is the One Who came not to seize power for Himself and be a mighty ruler, but because He stepped back from power.  And He humbled Himself to embrace death on a Cross, entrusting Himself to the Father, so that we could be saved from sin.

So as God exalts Him, we shout "Hosanna" because He is the King Who died for us and rose again that we might die to sin and live in newness of Life.  We take our place in following behind Him, entrusting ourselves to God, in the hope that we will enter His Kingdom one day, as He welcomes us in.

April 7, 2019: Fifth Sunday of Lent

Behold, God is doing something new, as the prophet Isaiah proclaims, like a dry desert coming alive with streams of water.

Indeed, God is entering into the deserts of sin within us, bringing life-giving waters through His Son, Who does not condemn us, but showers mercy on us so that, no longer condemned, we embrace the chance to do what is right.  And we open ourselves to extending that same mercy to others, for all are in need of it, and God grants it freely to all, as we focus away from condemning.

Furthermore, we no longer hold dear what is of this earth.  We constantly strive upward to possess the fullness of a relationship with God, as we join with Christ in dying to ourselves and rising to new life, made possible by Christs's Paschal Mystery.