In the meantime, here's a quiz you might like to take! :-)
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
| You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.  |
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
4.15.2006
I'm Spiderman :-)
I'll be gone for a week to the NCEA conference in Atlanta, Georgia (no idea what the abbreviation is for the state so I spelled it out :-)
In the meantime, here's a quiz you might like to take! :-)
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
In the meantime, here's a quiz you might like to take! :-)
Your results:
You are Spider-Man
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test
4.14.2006
Happy Feast of the Resurrection of the Body!
Brothers and sisters: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. - Colossians 3:1-4
Jesus disappeared from before our eyes, that we might find him in our hearts. - St. Augustine
The central message of all four gospels in our New Testament is this: Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and died, rose from the dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven. St. Paul even writes that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, we are the most pitiable of creatures, for we have put our faith in something false. But we believe that Jesus did rise from the dead. Our Scriptures tell us of several resurrection appearances. One of them, Jesus’ appearance to Mary of Magdala, bears special mention.
John’s gospel (Ch. 20) tells us that early on the day of the resurrection, while it was still dark, Mary went to the tomb. The stone was rolled away. She went and told the other disciples, who went to investigate. After they had looked into the tomb and found it empty, the disciples left, but Mary stayed. Jesus approached her, but she did not recognize him. They talked for a bit, and then Jesus uttered one word: Mary. In that instant, Mary knew who he was. She recognized her Lord, her Teacher, her Master. She clung to him with a furious strength, hardly daring to believe what her heart and soul told her were true—that the man who had given her new life had in turn received new life as well.
Jesus calls us in the same way. Every Lent and Holy Week we are challenged with the suffering and death of our Lord & Master. That is not too hard to accept, that a man with so radical a message and lifestyle might be tortured and murdered by those in power.
But then, we are challenged with a far greater mystery—that this man was in fact more than his followers could ever imagine—that he was raised from the dead, that he destroyed death and sin, and that he offered the same gifts of liberation and new life to the whole world.
This Easter season, Jesus calls us to himself. He calls us to not just bear, but rejoice in our suffering—physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. He calls us to fully live out our humanity with its joys and struggles. And he tells us that in the midst of our lives, he holds onto us, with a great and furious strength, and an unparalleled depth of love and service.
He calls us each by name . . . and he offers us freedom from our addictions, freedom from the shackles of sin, freedom from death. He offers us new life, life beyond our wildest dreams, life that drenches our thirst for God, for meaning, for wholeness.
St. Augustine said God had made us restless so that we could find our rest in Him. May the God who calls us each by name quiet our wayward hearts this Easter season and lead us back home to Himself.
Blessings & Peace,
Hugo
Hugo
4.11.2006
The Paschal Triduum: Entering into the Mystery
As I write this, we are coming to the end of the Lenten season. Many of us are struggling with our Lenten promises/sacrifices. Many of us may have given up on our Lenten promises & sacrifices. :-) All of us, however, are getting ready. But getting ready for what? Most people would answer “Easter, of course.” And that reply, however true, needs more.
Lent officially ends (as many of you will be happy to hear) Thursday, April 13th at sundown, with the celebration of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Holy Thursday). At that celebration we enter into the Paschal Triduum (“paschal” for “Easter/passage/Passover” – it refers to the life, death & resurrection of Jesus; “triduum” for “three days”).
To mark the beginning of this holiest of times, there is only one Mass celebrated on this day. Because this Mass actually begins a three-day celebration, the entrance procession at many parishes may be longer and more symbol-filled than at other times. It is at this celebration that we encounter John’s account of the last supper (John 13:1-15).
Here we have the story of Jesus washing the feet of his apostles. Accordingly, the liturgy encourages us to enter into that moment by reenacting it during our Mass. This isn’t a play put on for us to watch, though. It’s supposed to remind us of our essential call as followers of Jesus – service. And not just any service, but direct and personal service, the kind where things may get messy and intimate. This day and this liturgy challenge us to do something that is a bit too uncomfortable, a bit too vulnerable – touch others and let them touch us. It’s good to remember that unlike the other gospels, John does not have Jesus saying any words of consecration over the bread – the act of washing & serving are his Eucharist.
In many churches this is a time to remove everything from the altar and in general make our parishes look bare. We also reserve (put away from the church) any consecrated hosts. Finally, we end the liturgy in silence, because in fact this same liturgy continues tomorrow at our celebration of Good Friday. Think of it as a celebration in three parts, broken up over three days.
On Friday, we celebrate our Lord’s Passion. We begin the service in silence, because the celebration has already started the day before. The readings for the day (Isaiah 52 & 53, Psalm 31, and John 18 & 19) all serve to remind us of the great sacrifice that Jesus gave for us. However, this is not a funeral liturgy for Jesus. It is another chance for us to enter into the mystery of God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice, a chance for us to live out our own dying and rising. It is a chance for our Lenten promise & sacrifice to be meaningful in the context of Jesus’ sacrifice. On this day, more so than any other day, we hand ourselves over to God and pray, along with Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Many parishes will hold reenactments of the passion and death of Jesus, stations of the cross, rosaries, and many other forms of communal prayer. They remind us that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are for all of us a people, as a family, not for each of us individually. They give us a chance to reconnect with our faith as a family and as a church.
The Easter Vigil on Saturday night is one of the holiest times of our faith, and also the one most filled with symbols. Fire, water, bread, wine, oil and story all powerfully remind us that God is present everywhere. We celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, and in so doing celebrate our bodily resurrection as well. We rejoice in the triumph of the cross and we are ecstatic at the humbling of death. We enter 50 glorious days of Easter, not just one Sunday of Easter, and we use this time as church to remember that our faith is a living faith because our God is a living God.
May our three-day preparation for the Easter season be a time of renewed faith, a time of renewed hope, and a time of renewed love. May we be able to sing and pray in the words of the psalmist, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!”
Blessings & Peace,
Hugo
Lent officially ends (as many of you will be happy to hear) Thursday, April 13th at sundown, with the celebration of the Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Holy Thursday). At that celebration we enter into the Paschal Triduum (“paschal” for “Easter/passage/Passover” – it refers to the life, death & resurrection of Jesus; “triduum” for “three days”).
To mark the beginning of this holiest of times, there is only one Mass celebrated on this day. Because this Mass actually begins a three-day celebration, the entrance procession at many parishes may be longer and more symbol-filled than at other times. It is at this celebration that we encounter John’s account of the last supper (John 13:1-15).
Here we have the story of Jesus washing the feet of his apostles. Accordingly, the liturgy encourages us to enter into that moment by reenacting it during our Mass. This isn’t a play put on for us to watch, though. It’s supposed to remind us of our essential call as followers of Jesus – service. And not just any service, but direct and personal service, the kind where things may get messy and intimate. This day and this liturgy challenge us to do something that is a bit too uncomfortable, a bit too vulnerable – touch others and let them touch us. It’s good to remember that unlike the other gospels, John does not have Jesus saying any words of consecration over the bread – the act of washing & serving are his Eucharist.
In many churches this is a time to remove everything from the altar and in general make our parishes look bare. We also reserve (put away from the church) any consecrated hosts. Finally, we end the liturgy in silence, because in fact this same liturgy continues tomorrow at our celebration of Good Friday. Think of it as a celebration in three parts, broken up over three days.
On Friday, we celebrate our Lord’s Passion. We begin the service in silence, because the celebration has already started the day before. The readings for the day (Isaiah 52 & 53, Psalm 31, and John 18 & 19) all serve to remind us of the great sacrifice that Jesus gave for us. However, this is not a funeral liturgy for Jesus. It is another chance for us to enter into the mystery of God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice, a chance for us to live out our own dying and rising. It is a chance for our Lenten promise & sacrifice to be meaningful in the context of Jesus’ sacrifice. On this day, more so than any other day, we hand ourselves over to God and pray, along with Jesus, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Many parishes will hold reenactments of the passion and death of Jesus, stations of the cross, rosaries, and many other forms of communal prayer. They remind us that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are for all of us a people, as a family, not for each of us individually. They give us a chance to reconnect with our faith as a family and as a church.
The Easter Vigil on Saturday night is one of the holiest times of our faith, and also the one most filled with symbols. Fire, water, bread, wine, oil and story all powerfully remind us that God is present everywhere. We celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, and in so doing celebrate our bodily resurrection as well. We rejoice in the triumph of the cross and we are ecstatic at the humbling of death. We enter 50 glorious days of Easter, not just one Sunday of Easter, and we use this time as church to remember that our faith is a living faith because our God is a living God.
May our three-day preparation for the Easter season be a time of renewed faith, a time of renewed hope, and a time of renewed love. May we be able to sing and pray in the words of the psalmist, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!”
Blessings & Peace,
Hugo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)