A Welcoming Catholic Church – Russell Ontario
This year, the theme of the National March for Life confronts us with an inescapable scientific fact: “Abortion kills a human being.” How can we remain silent or indifferent? Read more…
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I would like to share with you some Easter comments by Catherine Doherty of Madonna House: “the weeks from Easter to Pentecost are weeks of tremendous Christian joy: the joy of knowing that the Lord is risen to everlasting life, and the incredible joy of sharing his resurrection through baptism. Consider the immense joy of possessing the Eucharist, food from heaven; the joy of living with our minds lifted up to the supernatural world; the deep realization that we have divine life and can live supernaturally; and the joy of being witnesses in this world to the risen Christ.”
But then she adds, “I don’t think we fully realize what it is to live in the resurrected Christ” Then she gives one example: “since Christ is resurrected . . . even a problem impossible to solve, is possible to solve.” All things are possible with God! He raised Christ from the dead!
May the Resurrection of Christ make a difference in our lives and fill us with hope that God can do something new in our lives – tomorrow can be different than today. “Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so too we might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). The risen Christ wants to do something new in our lives, our families, in the Church. Let us rejoice and be glad! In Christ, Fr. Tim
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Year A, April 24th, 2011 – By Father Tim McCauley
There are two resurrections in human life: the first in our baptism into Christ’s death, and the second, when we rise from the dead to be like Jesus in His own Resurrection. We live the first to receive the second. We live our baptism, our personal relationship with Christ, and we look forward with great hope to our future resurrection.
In the Gospel for the Vigil, we don’t hear details of the appearance of the risen Christ. Yet throughout Easter we will re-read all the accounts. On Easter Sunday, we hear the Gospel that includes the meeting between Mary Magdalene and the risen Christ: “she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus” (Jn 20:14). She thought He was the gardener! But then, when He called her name, she recognized Him.
In his new book on Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict expertly explores this mystery of the risen Christ. He writes, “(Christ’s) presence is entirely physical, yet he is not bound by physical laws . . . In this remarkable dialectic of identity and otherness . . . we see the special mysterious nature of the risen Lord’s new existence . . . “ Identity and otherness. Mary first thought He was the gardener (otherness), then recognized Him (identity). The Pope continues, “(it) is presented quite clumsily in the narratives, and it is this that manifests their (truth)” (Jesus of Nazareth, p. 266).
The account of the meeting of Mary Magdalene and Christ is so clumsy and messy that its very strangeness is a proof that it reports a true historical event. Had it been necessary for the Church or Gospel writers to invent the Resurrection, then they would have made up a story in which Mary would have immediately recognized Jesus the moment she saw Him.
The Resurrection of Jesus points to the future of humanity, and our own personal destiny. We too will rise from the dead in a spiritual body like the body of the risen Christ. To those who are skeptical of such a “physical” conception of life after death, Pope Benedict writes, “If there really is a God, is he not able to create a new dimension of human existence, a new dimension of reality altogether? Is not creation actually waiting for this last and highest ‘evolutionary leap’, for the union of the finite with the infinite, for the union of man and God, for the conquest of death?” (247).
This is such a great joy and consolation for all of us. God created us for life, not death. After we die, we will not be dead; we will be more fully alive! Alleluia!
This is the second resurrection that awaits us. We have already experienced the first resurrection in our baptism. On Easter, we renew the promises of our baptism; let us also renew our personal relationship with Christ. Let us go back to the beginning of our faith. Do we have a personal relationship with Christ? When did it begin? When did we first meet?
I was baptized on May 17th many years ago, by my father, an Anglican minister at St. Bartholomew’s Church in White Plains, New York. But I really did not begin to discover the meaning of my baptism more than 20 years later after a long and painful search for the truth and the meaning of life. The search brought me back to the faith of my baptism and a personal encounter with Christ.
How did that happen? In many small ways. Once on a ferry to Greece when I was 23. We need to create a time and space to meet the risen Christ. Mary Magdalene did not busy herself at work on Sunday morning; nor did she stay at home depressed. She went out to meet Christ, out of her routine, out of her self-centeredness.
On the ferry to Greece I had the time and space for God. I didn’t have my iPad with me because they weren’t invited yet. I was reading the life of Jesus in the New Testament, and all of a sudden it dawned on me that my life-long search for love had been a search for God, and that God had been searching for me, this God who has a face and a personal love for me in Jesus Christ . . . There were many other moments that I don’t have time to go into detail now.
Imagine a modern family on a crazy, busy day, perhaps on a Sunday on which people have forgotten how to worship God and rest. Instead, there’s a full agenda: clean the house, rake the lawn, drive the kids to soccer and whatever else, a social engagement in the evening. Parents and children are rushing around the house and beginning to lose patience with each other when suddenly the husband stops in his tracks, walks up to his wife, puts his hands on his her shoulders and says, “I love you. I have always loved you from the first day we met, and I will love you all the days of my life. And all this (the house, the car, the career) is nothing to me apart from you. And the kids – I love them dearly – but you came first and you will always come first. I just wanted you to know that. Now we can get on with our busy day!” Would not that one minute of love energize you for an entire week?
Jesus Christ, here and now, puts his hands on your shoulder to stop you, to catch your attention. He looks at you and says, “I have always loved you from the first day we met (when was that? In baptism?) and I will always love you. And all this is nothing to me apart from you.” You reply, “All this – you mean this Church, Jesus?” “No, I mean the sun . . . the moon and the stars – the universe is nothing to me apart from you . . . when will you understand? I would have created it all just for you . . . I would have died just for you.” (Easter Sunday: Interestingly, last night in Rome for the Easter Vigil, the Pope said the following: “from God’s perspective, the heart of the man who responds to him is greater and more important than the whole immense material cosmos.”)
My brothers and sisters, do you not know that Jesus Christ has been looking for you and looking at you with love for years? And He wants to have a personal meeting with you, as He did alone with Mary Magdalene the day He rose from the dead. If only you would give Him the time and space.
When I returned from Greece and other places many years ago, I thought I could be a Christian on my own, but I failed. I realized that I needed the help of other people who were believers in Christ. So I eventually joined a support group for recovering sinners . . . founded by Jesus . . . called the Catholic Church. And it has been my home, my family, my comfort and strength ever since.
For Christians, attending Church is essential – Mass on Sunday, keeping the Sabbath holy as a sacred time and space for God. But for us to truly live our baptism, the new life Christ has won for us, we need more – we need each other more than ever. The secular world at best slowly erodes our faith, and at worst, it even dismisses, denies or persecutes our faith. We need each other to share, strengthen and increase our faith.
For this reason we have small Christian communities in our parish that are open to everyone. We have two or more small groups starting up in the next week or two that will begin with a Faith study called “Discovery” to discover the basics of our faith and our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. One of our parishioners, Jenna Gernon, will be sharing her testimony and will be available after Mass for anyone with further questions.
When I was in Jerusalem in November of 2009, I had the opportunity to visit the tomb of Jesus, to lay my hand on the stone on which the body of Jesus lay. But the angel said to me, as it were, “He is not here; for he has been raised . . .he is going ahead of you to Galilee” (Mt 28:6-7).
“Galilee” is the daily life of Christians throughout time. Christ is risen! He is alive and present in His Word, the Sacraments, people and events. (Easter Sunday: Last night at the Vigil in Rome, the Pope spoke extensively of the goodness of creation that Christ has restored through His death and Resurrection. A reminder for us to ask the Lord for new eyes, to see his goodness in creation, in ourselves, in all the people around us). But if we are so busy, even on Sundays, and not paying attention, we might pass by the risen Christ, thinking He is only the gardener. If we are not praying and listening, we will not hear him call our name. Christ is risen! Truly He is risen! Let us go out to meet Him.
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Year A, April 22nd, 2011 – By Father Tim McCauley
“The idea of expiation is incomprehensible to the modern mind” (Benedict 119). Thus comments Pope Benedict in his latest book exploring the meaning of Christ’s suffering, death and Resurrection. He means that to the modern mind, it is incomprehensible that Christ had to die for our sins. And yet, it is of the essence of the Christian faith.
On this Good Friday, I recommend that we all take some quiet time while stores are closed and we can’t go shopping, to stop and pray, to look at a crucifix and ask Jesus, “why did you have to die for me, for my sins?” We need to internalize this mystery of our faith.
When John Paul II wrote on Reconciliation and Penance, he cited a famous line from Pope Pius XII who stated that “the sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.” Is this not true of our times? We have lost the sense of sin, which also means we have lost the sense of God.
I would like to briefly note some ways we can honestly acknowledge the reality of sin in our lives, so that we can recover a sense of God and an appreciation of why Christ had to die for our sins. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we regularly encounter the reality of sin in many ways, and I will mention two of them – in our hearts and our relationships.
First, our hearts. St. Paul expressed a universal human experience in Romans 7 when he wrote: “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (Rom 7:19-24).
St. Paul realizes that he is stuck, helpless to save himself from this situation and asks, “miserable one that I am! Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ” who has given us the victory (Rom 7:24-25).
How can we deny the reality of sin if we take even one moment of silence to really observe our own thoughts? How many people here never give in to a single thought of pride or anger or impurity?
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the battlefield between good and evil is in our own hearts, that there is a reality within us drawing us toward evil, and this reality is given the name of sin. I think the real reason for the loss of the sense of sin is simply human pride and dishonesty. We want to claim to be God, to live without God. And yet, without the comfort, support, strength and encouragement of God and His infinite mercy, we will never have the courage to look at and accept the truth about ourselves, the truth about our nothingness, our dependency, our guilt, our sin. Our culture’s rejection of God makes it that much harder for us to acknowledge the truth of our wounded humanity, and our need for mercy.
We also see the reality of sin in relationships. Have you ever witnessed an argument between a married couple or friends that you would call “ugly”? Someone asks you, “How was dinner at so-and-so’s?” “Alright, but they got in a fight. It was ugly.” Right? We know what that means? When people who are supposed to love each other get in a serious fight, it can be ugly. Sin is ugly. It twists our hearts and distorts our relationships.
I was visiting with a family recently (not from this parish) and the husband and wife work so much they rarely see each other. I witnessed their interaction. It was painful because it was clinical and procedural, how to get the kids to tomorrow’s appointment and so on. What happened to love, I thought? Is this not evidence of the reality of sin in human life, that two people who are supposed to love each other and have sworn undying fidelity could allow their love to shrivel, shrink and atrophy to the point of such cold formality?
But we get stuck, don’t we? Stuck in habits, routine, lifestyles. Working all the time for what? So that we can own lots of things but live without love? That’s not life, that’s death. Death that is the bitter fruit of sin. Who will save us from this body of death? Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ who has given us the victory.
We must acknowledge the reality of our sin for which Jesus died on the Cross. Recognize sin as sin and repent. Repent and trust in Christ’s love poured out as blood on the Cross.
Only the power of love can redeem us. Only the power of Christ’s infinite love can free us from death – from eternal death, and the death of living without love. Only the power of love in the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ can purify our hearts and restore our relationships, the power of love present and available in the Sacraments, especially Confession and Holy Communion. I don’t believe that it is possible to purify our hearts, or to restore a marriage or any relationship of love without Confession and Holy Communion, in other words, without the fruit of Christ’s death on the Cross and His living, risen presence through the Holy Spirit and His Body the Church.
When Pope Benedict writes that the idea of expiation is incomprehensible to the modern mind, the idea that Christ had to die for our sins, perhaps something is lacking in the modern mind and the modern heart. Perhaps if we looked a little deeper into our hearts, hearts created good by God and capable of great love, but hearts that are wounded by sin, then we would rediscover the reality of sin and at the same moment, the totally unexpected and unmerited gift of God’s mercy, this love that created us out of nothing and redeemed us on the Cross, this love that sustains and surrounds us, this love in which we live and move and have our being.
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Palm Sunday April 17,
Sat 4:30 pm, Sun 9:00 & 10:45 am.
Holy Thursday April 21 7:00 pm.
(Please note there is no 9:00 am. Mass today)
Good Friday April 22 3:00 pm.
(Please note there is no 9:00 am. Mass today)
Easter Vigil April 23 8:30 pm.
(Please note there is no 4:30 pm. Mass today)
Easter Sunday April 24 9:00 & 10:45 am.
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Christ is risen, truly He is risen! This exclamation of joy from the early Church needs to find an echo today. Easter is the highlight of the whole Church year, when we commemorate Christ’s conquest of death, and our own participation in this mystery through baptism. This reality of eternal life also gives us great hope in facing the challenges of daily life in this world.
How can we make Easter and the Resurrection more real for us? We have some minor liturgical changes to “wake us up” to this different liturgical season: for example, we will be praying the NICENE CREED, and we will be singing the introduction to the Gospel (as Pope Benedict recommends as an option in Verbum Domini).
On a more personal note, I urge all of us to re-discover Sunday as the Lord’s Day, the feast day of the Resurrection – as a day focused on the worship of God, and relaxation with family and friends. In our times, we have practically destroyed Sunday as a day of worship and rest. And yet, if we are to encounter the risen Christ and be transformed by Him, we must strive to create a sacred time and space to meet Him. God Himself gave us the Sabbath for this purpose, but again, in our secular culture, it actually requires an effort to find rest on this day.
Therefore, I invite and urge all of you to recover the sanctity of Sunday! Make it a day of joy in the Lord and in the love of family and friends. Strive as much as possible to avoid all work and shopping. Don’t worry about the future! Live in the present, in the moment of God’s love for us, in the radiance of Christ’s Resurrection! In Christ, Fr. Tim
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Year A, April 21st, 2011 – By Father Tim McCauley
Jesus Christ’s love for us is infinite and so personal, that if we were fully aware of the height and depth of this love and fully open to receive it, I believe that we would be happy all the time, even in the midst of all the sufferings of this life.
We see Christ’s love for us in His Passion, death and Resurrection.
On Holy Thursday, Christ makes this mystery present through the washing
of the feet and the institution of the Eucharist and the priesthood.
In Pope Benedict’s new book on Jesus, focusing on Holy Week and Easter, he writes about the meaning of the washing of the feet:
“Jesus represents the whole of his saving ministry in one symbolic act.
He divests himself of his divine splendor; he, as it were, kneels down before
Us; he washes and dries our soiled feet, in order to make us fit to sit at table
For God’s wedding feast” (57).
“Jesus represents the whole of his saving ministry in one symbolic act.” What does this mean? In the letter to the Philipians, we read that “Christ humbled himself, taking on the form of a slave” (Phil 2:7). In His Incarnation , in taking on human nature, Christ, who is equal in power and divinity to God the Father, took on the form of a slave, a servant who would stoop so low as to wash the feet of His creatures. I wonder if Peter had tears in his eyes when he told Jesus, “you will never wash my feet” (Jn 13:8). It takes humility on our part to accept this infinite, personal love of God for us, a love that we can do nothing to deserve. I wonder why so many men who are asked are reluctant to have their feet washed by the priest, Christ’s representative, during the Holy Thursday Mass?
Some surely have personal reasons, stinky feet and whatnot, but I wonder if the same psychology is at work that we find in Peter. It is so very difficult for us at times to be the recipients of humble service, to be the recipients of unmerited love. My brothers and sisters, this Easter let nothing prevent us from receiving Christ’s love for us! Let yourself be loved by Him!
After washing the feet of the disciples, Jesus gives the disciples a new commandment: “As I have loved you, so you should also love one another” (John 13:34). The Pope comments that one misinterpretation of this passage is “Christianity defined as a form of extreme moral effort” (64). To be a Christian means that we must work very hard to be like Jesus, to love one another as Jesus has loved us. Right? Wrong! Pope Benedict states that this is not the essence of Christianity.
He writes that Christianity “all depends on our ‘I’ being absorbed into his (it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me – Gal 2:20)
. . . We must let ourselves be immersed in the Lord’s mercy” (64). Christianity is much deeper than we may have ever imagined. Beginning with our baptism, it is a transformation in the depths of our being – I no longer live, Christ lives in me!
The new law of love is not a burden imposed from outside; rather, the Pope writes, it “is the grace of the Holy Spirit” (65) and “the new interiority granted by the Spirit of God himself.” To be a Christian is not primarily about morality and hard work; rather it is “a gift, which then unfolds in the dynamic of living and acting in and around the gift” (65). The gift of Christ’s infinite and personal love for us! Only by continual being immersed in this love can we even begin to love others as Christ has loved us.
To this end, Christ has also given us the Eucharist, the institution of which we also celebrate on Holy Thursday. I won’t say much about it tonight, except the Eucharist, like the washing of the feet, also represents the whole of Christ’s saving ministry – it represents and makes present the mystery of His Passion, death and Resurrection. Jesus is the grain of wheat that dies and bears much fruit in His Resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit. In making bread, the grain of wheat “dies” as it were, to make the flour for the bread. Then this bread is “eucharisticized,” “transformed” into the glorious, risen, hidden Body of Christ. The same love with which Christ suffered on the Cross for love of you and me, this same love is made present in the Bread that is His Body, a love that is offered to us in every Holy Communion.
Do I have time to say one brief word about the priesthood? On Holy Thursday, we also celebrate the institution of the priesthood, and at the Chrism Mass at the cathedral on Tuesday night, the priests of the diocese renewed the priestly commitments we made on the day of our ordination. In his homily, the bishop mentioned that the priesthood and the Church are passing through a time of purification – it’s true.
A former priest-mentor of mine, with whom I lived for a year as a seminarian, was on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen last Saturday. Fr. Joe has many great qualities, but he himself admitted that he has a gambling problem. The secular media always seems to time the release of such stories around Holy Week and Easter, almost as if someone is making an effort to distract us from Christ.
As you know, I work with the bishop in promoting vocations. Tales of clerical misbehaviour obviously do not make my job or the bishop’s job any easier. We are supposed to show the world the face of a priesthood that is holy, joyful, united! But how do we do so when at times we feel unsupported and attacked on all sides, while at the same time, people look to priests to love them as Christ loves them?
I think it goes back to my earlier point. Pope Benedict wrote that people can misconceive Christianity, the call to love others as Christ has loved us, as a case of extreme moral effort. Priesthood can also be misinterpreted as a case of extreme moral effort, which is humanly impossible. The current challenges in the priesthood is an invitation to all priests to seek again our first love, and the source of our joy – the deep, personal relationship with Christ. Priests will have nothing to offer the people if we are not immersed in God’s mercy, if we are not drinking deeply from the original source of love, which is the Sacred Heart of Jesus pierced for us on the Cross.
So please continue to pray for me, the priests of Ottawa and an increase in vocations. On Tuesday, in the midst of so much bad news, I received a note from a young man in the diocese who has been thinking of the priesthood and has finally made the commitment to apply for the seminary. God is faithful. He loves and supports His Church. The Catholic Church is always in need of reform AND always being reformed. She needs to be continually cleansed, like the disciples whose feet were washed by Jesus. And as the Holy Father reminds us, “The bath that cleanses us is Jesus’ love to the point of death” (60), the love made present in the Easter mystery and in this Eucharist.
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Palm (Passion) Sunday, Year A, April 17th, 2011 – By Deacon Thomas Stephenson
Although the dates vary from year to year, we know that Lent is always the same length, and yet it seems as though Palm Sunday always takes us by surprise. Here we are, already at the beginning of the most holy and most important week of the whole year. The events we just heard recounted in the Gospel have not only affected the world for almost 2,000 years, they still affect our lives, and our eternal salvation. Today’s Gospel comes from Matthew; on Good Friday, we’ll hear John’s account of Christ’s Passion, and no matter how many times we listen to it, from whichever Gospel, we should be attentive, actually, we should be captivated, in hearing what our Lord and Saviour did for us. For a really good understanding of what happened during that first Holy Week, in addition to reading the Gospels, I highly recommend Pope Benedict’s recent book Jesus of Nazareth – Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection.
We began today’s Mass with Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem amidst rejoicing and praise, the crowd shouting “Hosanna!”, calling Him Son of David, one who comes in the name of the Lord, and a prophet. We’ll repeat some of those words a little later, when we sing “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” At that point in the Mass, it’s as if we are part of that crowd ourselves, lifting our voices in praise and rejoicing.
In the Passion account, we are told of another crowd, the one assembled in the courtyard of Pilate’s Palace. This time, though, there are no cries of “Hosanna”. Rather, the people shout “Let Him be crucified!” Now, one thing to consider is that the two crowds are not likely to have been made up of the same people. In his book, the Pope tells us that the real accusers are the temple authorities, joined by the crowd of Barabbas’ supporters. So, we can reasonably conclude that there was not only one “crowd”, first welcoming Jesus and then condemning Him. They were two very different groups. So, where were Jesus’ followers? Given what has happened, if any of them were even there in the courtyard, they probably remained silent out of fear.
One thing that happens with crowds is that they seem to create uniform behaviour, uniform thinking, within the crowd. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes it’s not so good. Good or bad, it’s up to us to recognize the dynamic at work and act based on our individual, conscious decisions rather than just going along with the crowd because that’s easier than separating from it; easier to agree, or at least keep your mouth shut, than to disagree. At any given time, we may find ourselves in part of one group or another, a group like the one from the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, or a group more like the one in Pilate’s courtyard on Good Friday. The question becomes, what do we do when we find ourselves in one of those groups?
When we are at Mass, we are in a group that is praising Jesus, and supporting each other in our faith. Hopefully, we are still acting on our own initiative, and not just because the rest of the crowd is doing it. But, our worship, our growing in holiness and strengthening our relationship with God are made easier if we know we have the support of other, like-minded believers.
On the other hand, we may find ourselves in situations where the crowd – especially the large crowd of our society – may in some ways resemble the one from Good Friday. Catholics oppose abortion and embryonic stem cell research? Let them be vilified. The Church says that contraception and pre-marital cohabitation are sins? Let them be ridiculed. They think that the Host actually is changed into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus, that a piece of bread becomes God? Let them be mocked. And many of the crowd go along with that, falling into line rather than exploring the reasoning and the truth behind the teachings. When we encounter that, how do we react? Do we strongly defend our faith, or do we try to give an explanation, or are we silent? At different times, based on the circumstances, our reaction may vary. I can say that I have chosen one or another of these ways to deal with certain situations, and not always made the best choice. But we should not just go along with the crowd, from fear of being ostracized, from wanting to fit in. We are called to follow the Lord, not the crowd, and perhaps our defence may even influence the crowd to change their minds – and their hearts.
Pope Benedict writes: “Jesus’ followers are absent from the place of judgement, absent through fear. But they are also absent in the sense that they fail to step forward en masse. Their voice will make itself heard on the day of Pentecost in Peter’s preaching, which cuts to the heart of the very people who had earlier supported Barabbas. In answer to the question ‘Bretheren, what shall we do?’ They receive the answer: ‘Repent’ – renew and transform your thinking, your being. This is the summons which, in view of the Barabbas scene and its many recurrences throughout history, should tear open our hearts and change our lives.”
We will never betray the Lord like Judas. Hopefully, we will never deny the Lord like Peter. Actions such as those should be obvious and relatively easy to avoid. But we must be aware of the danger of falling for the seductive group thinking of the crowd to the detriment of our faith and the endangerment of our souls. The question may not always be apparent, but the choice will arise many times through our lives: who do we follow? The crowd, or the Lord?
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Pastor’s Corner
As we draw near the end of Lent with Passion/Palm Sunday, let us take one look back at our Lenten theme of the Word of God. In his apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini, Pope Benedict writes of the connection between the WORD OF GOD and SILENCE:
“The word, in fact, can only be spoken and heard in silence, outward and inward . . .it is necessary nowadays that the People of God be educated in the value of silence. . .Rediscovering the centrality of God’s word in the life of the Church also means rediscovering a sense of recollection and inner repose.”
At our last parish council meeting, we discussed the need to patiently educate people in the value of silence before, during and after Mass. The Church as God’s house is a house of prayer for all people. Many people seek in the Church what they cannot find in their busy daily lives: a place of peace and prayer, which is inseparable from moments of silence.
We understand people want to socialize at Church, which can be a beautiful sign of Christian love in a vibrant community. But consider this: those who want to socialize have a place reserved for them – the parish hall, where refreshments are served after the Sunday morning Masses. But for those who want to pray before or after Mass, where can they go? The place reserved for them is the Church.
We invite all parishioners to re-discover the value of silence: as individuals in silent prayer at home with the Word of God, and as a community at the Sunday Eucharist, where we listen as God’s people to His Word, and receive the Word made Flesh in Holy Communion.
In Christ, Fr. Tim
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Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A, April 10th, 2011 – By Father Tim McCauley
Today I wanted to talk about politics (with the upcoming election) and today’s Gospel on the raising of Lazarus. But what do such disparate themes have in common? I will explain, but first let’s take a quick look at the Gospel. Imagine what it must have been like for Mary and Martha, the sisters of the dead man Lazarus. Imagine being at a funeral home for a wake, with the dead person in an open casket, and people are gathering around in tears, consoling one another, telling stories. In walks a famous charismatic preacher, someone with a well-known miraculous gift of healing like Fr. Fernando Suarez . He says some prayers, then calls out to the dead person, “Arise!” And right there and then, the dead person sits up in the coffin, opens his/her eyes and says, “Hey everybody, I’m alive!”
Now what would you think of that? That’s impossible, right? Well, Mary and Martha felt the same way. It is impossible to raise someone from the dead. But Jesus did it, in part to prove that He is God and has the power to raise the dead, and in part as a foreshadowing of His own Resurrection. I won’t say much about the Resurrection of Christ, because that’s my theme for Easter Sunday.
Recall at Christmas we pondered the miracle that God became a human being, reminding us how much God cares about the world. God created the world in the beginning, then He came into the world as a man. Easter and the Resurrection reminds us that God created us for a life and purpose beyond this world, but also that through His death and Resurrection He has redeemed and re-created the world, unleashing tremendous energy to change the world.
What does the raising of Lazarus or the Resurrection have to do with politics? The link is the Christian attitude and relationship with the world. To be a Christian is to believe in the Incarnation and the Resurrection. To be a Christian is to care about the world that God has created and redeemed, to be concerned about other people, society and politics. To be baptized into Christ’s death and Resurrection is to have the grace, and dynamism to change the world, to be involved in social justice, in politics, in promoting the common good of society.
In the last election, 40% of Canadians did not bother voting; I think it is fair to say 40% of Catholic Canadians did not bother voting. They say that this election is about nothing and people are apathetic. Commentator Robert Sibley has called this election a “referendum on narcissism,” writing that “this election is the consequence of politicians who cannot tell, or choose to ignore, the difference between their self-interest and the national interest” (Ottawa Citizen April 4th, 2011).
Perhaps some of our leaders are motivated primarily by self-interest instead of the national interest. As Christians, instead of complaining, we can do our little part to change things. A friend of mine just told me that he is launching a website called “Canadians for Democratic Renewal.” That’s one good idea.
We can teach our children the nobility of public service, and that it is possible to be a Christian and a Catholic and a politician. Just look at someone like Pierre Lemieux or Andrew Sheer and many others. And I’m sure that there are even members of the Bloc Quebecois . . . who believe in something . . . some higher power . . . Forgive me, I just gave in to cynicism! See, even priests have to struggle to be Christians, to be filled with hope all the time, hope that people and society can change! I’m reminded of a phrase from Pope Benedict, “Our hope is always essentially hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too” (Spe Salvi #48).
As Christians and Catholics, we always hope; now is also the time for us to rise from the dead and to renew our public voice. For too long now, Christians in Canada have been living like the disciples before the Resurrection, hiding in fear behind closed doors, too afraid to make our faith in Jesus known, too timid to fight for Christian values in schools, in public life, on Parliament Hill. Christian values based on Christian faith in the Incarnation and Resurrection of the Son of God, helped build this country. Only the same faith, hope and values can renew it.
We must rise from the dead and emerge from the catacombs. 40% of Catholics don’t vote. How many Catholics are involved in the pro-life movement, or would attend the March for Life, or give a donation to a pregnancy help center, or would write a letter to an MP on the issue of abortion, and so on? Very few. And how many Catholics tell their unbelieving friends and neighbours about Jesus? Again, very few. It’s part of the same trend – not voting in elections, not being publicly pro-life, not sharing our faith. It’s part of the same apathetic and selfish form of so-called Christianity that must die, so that the spirit of true Christianity can rise again in our times.
Now you may be thinking to yourself, “I just don’t have the time or energy to be involved. I’m just trying to cope with life and take care of myself.” There are times in life when yes, we need to hibernate a bit and take care of ourselves and those who are close to us. But if we always live enclosed upon ourselves then we are not Christians who have met the Risen Christ. Christopher West once said that Christ did not come into the world to give us coping mechanisms. We had those before Christ came. Rather, He came to recreate the world through His death and Resurrection, to unleash a new power to free us from sin, to make us holy, to change our hearts and energize us to transform the world.
This Lent we have been talking at length about the Word of God, based on Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini. Jesus Himself speaks of the Word of God as a seed. It is planted in us through our hearing of the Word, which we have been doing this Lent, taking time in the silence of the “desert” to listen to the Word in reading the Bible; last week I spoke about the method of praying with Scripture called lectio divina.
A tiny seed contains a tremendous potential for growth, ready to explode with life, like a resurrection from a grave. Some of you might have tulips at home. What are they doing now? They do not remain hidden forever in the earth. They are starting to resurrect from the “grave” of winter. If all seeds (and bulbs) know what to do in spring, why have Christians forgotten?
A seed is meant to grow and bear flowers and fruit for others. The Word of God is meant to produce life in our souls, our families, our world. For this reason, the Pope ends his exhortation with a section on the Word of God and mission (to share our faith), and the Word of God and commitment in the world. He specifically mentions the call of the laity to be involved in politics, and our concern for the poor and for social justice (thus the Development and Peace collection today).
If we care only about ourselves, we are not really Christians. If we do not care about other people, about the world and society, politics and government, then we are not Christians. Someone who has been touched by Jesus Christ loves other people of the world. Someone who believes in the Resurrection and has received the Spirit of Pentecost is eager and enthusiastic to do his or her small part to change the world, even if it is only one person at a time, even if it is only one vote.
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