Our wonderful little cat, who we found as an estimated five-week-old
kitten on
May 14th, 2015 turned eleven years old yesterday.We date her birthday from five weeks before adopting
date, which would put it on April 9th.He is still vigorous and outgoing, unlike our
eleven-year-old Rosie.I’ll post on
Rosie’s old age in the near future. For now this is Tiger’s day.He’s still a little devil and the king of
this household.Here are some recent pictures.
He still loves to climb.
He kind of matches our living room décor.Here he is trying to get Rochelle to feed him
early.
I recently found him sitting on my desk chair, looking kittenish
and cute.
Being silly in the bathroom sink.
On occasion he will turn penitent for all his cat sins.
Is there a feline priest to give him absolution? But then again he can reign in his kingdom in the best of
comfort.
For Easter Sunday of any year in the
lectionary, there is a choice in Gospel reading: either the empty tomb passage in
the Gospel of John or the empty tomb passage in the Gospel of that year’s
lectionary.In Year A, as we are in, it’s
the empty tomb passage in the Gospel of Matthew.However, given that the Gospel of John is the
emphasized reading, every year we tend to read Jn 20:1-9.That is what I will include below.
There are commonalities and differences
between the four Gospel Resurrection passages.Fr. Geoffrey Plant’s homily for today, which I will not embed here but you can find here, provides
a nice summary of the similarities and differences.But I want to point out a very important
detail that all four Gospels point out.The Resurrection occurs on “the first day of the week.”Check out Mt 28:1, Mk 16:2, Lk 24:1, and Jn
20:1.Each Gospel goes out of its way to
declare the Resurrection occurred on the first day of the week.Why is this important?We know from Genesis that God created the
world in six days and rested on the seventh day.Christ’s Resurrection starts creation
anew.We are newly created in Christ,
and so the new creation starts on the Eighth Day, “the first day of the week.”All four Gospels want to make this
emphatically clear.From the Catechism
of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2174-5:
2174 Jesus rose from the dead "on the first day of the week."
Because it is the "first day,"
the day of Christ's Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the
"eighth day" following the sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation
ushered in by Christ's Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of
all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord's Day (he kuriake hemera, dies
dominica) Sunday:
We all gather on the day of the sun, for it is the first day [after the
Jewish sabbath, but also the first day] when God, separating matter from
darkness, made the world; and on this same day Jesus Christ our Savior rose
from the dead. [St. Justin, I Apol. 67]
Sunday- fulfillment of the sabbath
2175 Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it
follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremonial observance
replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ's Passover, Sunday fulfills the
spiritual truth of the Jewish sabbath and announces man's eternal rest in God.
For worship under the Law prepared for the mystery of Christ, and what was done
there prefigured some aspects of Christ: [I Cor 10:11]
Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new
hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord's Day, in which our life is
blessed by him and by his death. [St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magn. 9]
So do not think that Sunday is the Sabbath.As Catholics, we don’t really have a Sabbath;
we have a day of worship, which is considered the eighth day or the first day
of the week.
Today’s Gospel:
On the first day of the week,
Mary of Magdala came to the tomb
early in the morning,
while it was still dark,
and saw the stone removed from the
tomb.
So she ran and went to Simon Peter
and to the other disciple whom Jesus
loved, and told them,
“They have taken the Lord from the
tomb,
and we don’t know where they put
him.”
So Peter and the other disciple went
out and came to the tomb.
They both ran, but the other
disciple ran faster than Peter
and arrived at the tomb first;
he bent down and saw the burial
cloths there, but did not go in.
When Simon Peter arrived after him,
he went into the tomb and saw the
burial cloths there,
and the cloth that had covered his
head,
not with the burial cloths but
rolled up in a separate place.
Then the other disciple also went
in,
the one who had arrived at the tomb
first,
and he saw and believed.
For they did not yet understand the
Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.
~Jn:20:1-9
Archbishop Edward Weisenburger takes us through the Lenten to season to culminate
with the real meaning of Easter.
Archbishop Weisenburger:
You see, an Easter
without a Lent, a resurrection without a crucifixion would be empty, empty of
meaning, devoid of grace. In short, the cause of our Easter joy rests in Jesus’
triumph over death, not his escape from it. He was not an ancient Robin Hood
who slipped through their wicked hands and lived to preach another day. No, he
was crushed. He was crucified. But we're made joyful today. A joy that can't be
robbed from us because the very arms stretched out on the cross are now raised to
baptize, to confirm, forgive, embrace, to heal, to lift up, and above all to
feed us with his body and blood. A body and blood shattered and shed on
Golgotha but made whole on Easter Sunday. Brothers and sisters, again, today's
celebration, the real Easter, is not about happy go lucky baskets of colored
eggs or bunnies or being spoiled at grandma's house, pleasant and good as many
of those things may be. But no, in the end, they're not the real Easter. And
for the adultslistening, for those, as
Jesus would say, who have the ears to hear and the eyes tosee, well, you'll never really get Easter until
you first realize again that Jesusdid
not make a journey around betrayal, suffering, and death, but rather a
journeythat overcame betrayal,
suffering, and death, going right through them all the way toa radically new way of life that we call resurrection.
We are certainly joyful today but let us not forget how we came to this.
For a pastoral homily on Easter Sunday, I found Fr. Joseph Mary of the
Capuchin Friars to be superb.
Fr. Joseph Mary:
Why is the Christian
hope founded on the resurrection?Because
Jesus Christ has not simply been reanimated. He's destroyed death itself.He swallowed up the grave in the victory of
Jesus Christ. Suffering sin, loss, grief, and death and no longer have the
final word.There's something waiting
for us beyond the gray rain curtain of this world.There's an unapproachable light waiting for
us that no pain or loss or terror of death can ever diminish.But do we live? Do we live out of the power
of the resurrection? Do we truly live with the freedom of the children of God?Or are we like those little birds living like
slaves, never realizing that we're free?If as St. Augustine said the faith of Christians is the resurrection of
Christ. Then we should have a joy and a peace nothing in this world can rob
from us because every suffering, every sadness, every loss, every injustice and
fear, every struggle with weakness and sin, every conflict, it's all temporary.
The night will end, and we'll see that the darkness was only a passing thing
like a fog blown away by the light of morning.Even death has no power over the Christian.And so as you die and your life slips away,
as you draw near that brilliant light, who will come to meet you? The grandparents
you mourned? Those brothers, sisters, and friends whose loss brought you such
grief. Those children you never had the joy to bear, they'll come to meet you
on the threshold of heaven. And there will be tears, tears of unrestrained joy.
For the old order has passed away,
“For the old order has passed away.”Make sure you listen to all eight minutes and fifty seconds of that
brilliant homily.It is well worth it.
Sunday Meditation: “Then
the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and
he saw and believed."
This is a great Easter hymn, “Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Alleluia.,” performed
by King’s College Choir, Cambridge.
Two years ago I initiated a meditation for the holy three days before
Easter Sunday referred to as the Pascal Tridium.Each year I would highlight one of the three
days.I started with Holy
Thursday, and last year was Good
Friday.This year I will offer a
meditation on Holy Saturday.
There is no Mass celebrated on Holy Saturday, nor as in Good Friday an
opportunity for a recital of the Passion and Adoration of the Wood of the
Cross.There are no readings nor
homilies.
Perhaps the best place to start for Holy Saturday is at the thirteenth
and fourteenth stations of the Stations of the Cross: Jesus taken down from the
cross and placed in a tomb.
This comes from the last paragraph of the nineteenth chapter of John’s
Gospel.
After
this, Joseph of Arimathea,
secretly
a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews,
asked
Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus.
And
Pilate permitted it.
So
he came and took his body.
Nicodemus,
the one who had first come to him at night,
also
came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes
weighing
about one hundred pounds.
They
took the body of Jesus
and
bound it with burial cloths along with the spices,
according
to the Jewish burial custom.
Now
in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden
a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried. So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish
preparation day; for the tomb was close by.
~Jn 19:38-42
We adore you, O
Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the
world.
The distinguishing feature
of Holy Saturday is silence and waiting.There is no liturgy, no celebration, no homilies, no Eucharist.Jesus’s body is motionless, indeed, lifeless
in tomb while His soul travels down to the abode of the dead to raise up all
the righteous dead.
Dominican Fr. Jonah
Teller O.P. reflects on the wait.
Fr.
Teller:
God sleeps the sleep of death but only for a time.Hope in him, hope in Christ. So what do we do
on this day, this strange day when the stone is still rolled in front of the
tomb and we can't see Jesus? What do we do?I think we just wait.We just
wait there close to Jesus. He's still there. And we hope. And hope is for what
you can't see.But the one who has
promised is trustworthy and he will do it. And so whatever it is that we're
waiting for, whatever it is we're hoping for, whatever it is we're suffering,
any stone rolled in front of any tomb in our lives, any death that we fear, any
suffering we experience, we can know confidently that Jesus Christ has already
stepped into the middle of it, taken it upon himself, and conquered it. And we
can hope that he will share the victory over it with us.All we have to do is wait.
Fra Angelico's The Harrowing of Hell
The Office of Readings
of the Liturgy of the Hours has a reading attributed to an ancient unknown
writer but sometimes, though questionably, attributed to St. Melito of Sardis.It is sometimes referred to as “An Ancient
Homily on Holy Saturday.”Whoever wrote
it, it was probably written during the second century.
Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today,
a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King
is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the
flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God
has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.
He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly
desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has
gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the
son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won
him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck
his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: “My Lord be with you all.”
Christ answered him: “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised
him up, saying: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give
you light.”
I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for
you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held
in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who
are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you
to be held a prisoner in hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the
dead. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us
leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one
person and we cannot be separated.
For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form
of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and
beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man
without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I
was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden.
See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the
life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in
order to refashion your warped nature in my image. On my back see the marks of
the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back.
See my hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out
your hand to a tree.
I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side for you who slept in
paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in
yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in hell. The sword that pierced
me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you.
Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly
paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in
heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who
am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves
are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by
cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The bridal chamber is
adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the
treasure houses of all good things lie open. The kingdom of heaven has been
prepared for you from all eternity.
“I order you, O
sleeper, to awake.”“My side has healed
the pain in yours.”I find that
beautiful.You can hear it being read
along with some gorgeous imagery from this video produced by St. Catherine Labouré Church in Wheaton,
Maryland.
Sunday Meditation: "They took the body of Jesus and
bound it with burial cloths along with the spices, according to the Jewish
burial custom.Now in the place where he
had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb…"
Any hymn on such a solemn day must be acapella.Appropriate I think would be “Go to Dark Gethsemane”
here performed by the Lux Choral Society.
I’ve had several posts on Palm Sunday over
the years.The latest from Year A was three
years ago where you could hear Dr. Brant Pitre explain Jesus’ entrance into
Jerusalem and about the two donkeys of Matthew’s version.Or you can hear Fr.
Geoffrey Plant explain Palm Sunday on a Year C Gospel reading.Or you can just search all my “Palm
Sunday” blog posts to pull them all up.
Today I want to focus on Holy Week and the Institution
of the Eucharist.The Passion reading stretches
across the week and includes Matthew’s version of the Institution narrative.But I want also post a summary of the Holy
Week Gospel events.This is a simplified
listing of the salient events.It is not
comprehensive.
Jesus Raises Lazerus
Week Prior to Palm Sunday
Jesus Retreats to Ephriam
Week Prior to Palm Sunday
Jesus Travels Back to Bethany
Week Prior to Palm Sunday
Mary Anoints Jesus
Saturday Before Palm Sunday
Jesus Enters Jerusalem
Palm Sunday
Jesus Cleans the Temple
Holy Monday
Jesus Sermon on the End of
Times
Holy Tuesday
Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus
Holy Wednesday/Spy Wednesday
The Last Supper
Holy Thursday
Jesus’s Anguish in the
Garden of Gethsemane
Holy Thursday Evening
Jesus is Apprehended
Holy Thursday Evening
Jesus’s Trial Before the Sanhedrin
Holy Thursday Evening
Jesus’s Trial Before Pilate
Early Good Friday Morning
Jesus is Scourged, Crucified,
Dies, and Buried
Good Friday
Jesus’s Harrowing of Hell
Holy Saturday
Jesus’s Resurrection
Easter Sunday
Here is the Institution Narrative from
Matthew’s Passion.
While they were eating,
Jesus took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and giving it to his
disciples said,
"Take and eat; this is my
body."
Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and
gave it to them, saying,
"Drink from it, all of you,
for this is my blood of the
covenant,
which will be shed on behalf of many
for the forgiveness of sins.
I tell you, from now on I shall not
drink this fruit of the vine
until the day when I drink it with
you new
in the kingdom of my Father."
Then, after singing a hymn,
they went out to the Mount of
Olives.
~Mt:26:26-29
I will start with a pastoral homily first this Sunday.Fr. Thomas McCarthy of the Order of St.
Augustine—the same Order from which Pope Leo XIV heralds—explains Palm Sunday
and the Institution of the Eucharist.
Fr. Thomas McCarthy:
It was at that meal that
he instituted the priesthood and the Eucharist by taking bread and saying, "This
is my body. Do this in memory of me." By taking the chalice filled with
wine and saying, "This is my blood. Do this in memory of me. As Catholics,
we say those words every time we go to mass. We are doing exactly what Jesus
said. He did not say this is a symbol.He
did not say this is kind of almost/sort of/like/maybe. He said this is my body.
This is my blood. Do it in memory of me. And so that's why as Catholics we
believe in the real presence that the Eucharist is not a symbol. It is not a reenactment.
is not a kind of sort of like almost maybe. And so it all happened at the last
supper. And it was also at that last supper that Jesus humbled himself, took
the form of a slave and washed his disciples feet.
So what are we to do this week?Fr.
Thomas says, “This holy week begins today and I hope that all of us will take
time to truly celebrate and prayerfully be attentive to what's happening this
week. So my friends, how good it is that
we are here. And I just want to encourage us all to really live out this this
week.
To explain Holy Week, I found this new YouTube channel called Catholic
Snack that explains Catholic theology and Catholic news of the day.Here is the video on the Holy Week events.
Catholic Snack:
This is Holy Week.
And if you've never understood what really happened during those eight days,
stay with me because this story will change the way you see everything. Every year, Christians around the world enter
into a sacred season called Holy Week, the final week of Lent leading up to
Easter Sunday. But for many people, sit can feel like a blur of church
services, prayers, and traditions without fully grasping the weight of what
actually happened. Holy Week is not just a religious calendar event. It is the
story of God stepping fully into human suffering, betrayal, abandonment, agony,
death, and then doing something no one expected. It is the greatest story ever
told. And it happened in real time over eight unforgettable days. So, let's
walk through it together, day by day, step by step.
That is pretty good for a “snack.”I wonder why they named themselves that.I have not found any background on this channel.I found this part on Holy Saturday profound.
Catholic Snack:
We live so much of
our lives on Holy Saturday, in the in between, after the loss, before the
answer, in the silence where God seems absent, but is in fact working. The
church's tradition tells us that on this day Christ descended to the dead,
reaching even into the depths to bring light where there had only ever been
darkness.In the silence of Holy
Saturday, God was not absent. He was at work in the places we couldn't see.This is the day of waiting, of darkness
before dawn, of faith without sight. And sit is one of the most important
lessons of Holy Week. Because most of us know this place. Most of us have sat
in this silence. And Holy Saturday tells us, "Hold on. Morning is coming,
Sunday.
I loved this as a conclusion.
Catholic Snack:
Holy Week is not a
story that happened 2,000 years ago and stayed there. It is a story that is
still happening in every person who carries a cross they didn't choose. In every moment of betrayal, grief, and
silence, in every mourning that arrives when you thought the darkness would
never end, Jesus walked through all of it. He didn't observe it from a safe
distance. He entered it fully, flesh, blood, tears, nails, and all so that no
human experience would ever be outside the reach of his presence. When you are
in your Palm, Sunday, joyful, full of hope, he is there. When you are in your
Gethsemane, afraid on your knees, asking God to take the cup away, he is there.
When you are in your Holy Saturday,
silent, waiting, uncertain, he is there. And he is always, always moving toward
Easter. This Holy Week, I invite you not just to observe the liturgy, but to
enter the story, to let it find you where you are, to allow the passion of
Christ to speak to your own.Because
that is what Holy Week is for.Not to
make us spectators, but to make us witnesses.
Sunday Meditation: “I
tell you, from now on I shall not drink this fruit of the vine until the day
when I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father."
This is supposed to be a traditional hymn for Palm Sunday, “All Glory,
Laud, and Honor.”
