If you suffered through my Ash Wednesday homily, you may recall that I challenged everyone to go the extra mile and do something challenging this Lent.  Something beyond just giving up chocolate. Well, I guess we should be careful what we pray for, because we might just get it!  Who would have ever thought we would have had to “fast” from direct participation in the Mass, receiving the Sacraments, the beautiful and uplifting music, Stations of the Cross, and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament?

This is a Lent we will never forget!  It has been such a challenging time, often frustrating and even painful.  But as one parishioner said, “Steve, any time something bad happens, something good comes from it…you just have to look for it”.  And you know, a lot of good has come from this.  On Palm Sunday, Karen and I were out on the porch “watching” Mass on-line and a parade of cars went through the neighborhood, blowing their horns and holding signs that said, “Glory to God”, “Hosanna in the Highest”, “Jesus loves you”.  It was just so uplifting!  It was well-received with waiving and smiles from everyone who was out and about the neighborhood.  I wondered if the parade of cars would have received the same reception had it not been for the pandemic.  

Many of us who took things for granted, now appreciate the “little things” as well the “big things” in our lives.  Our faith, our families, our homes, food on the table.  Hopefully, our attitudes have changed from being “stuck” in our homes, to being grateful to have a safe home in a safe neighborhood.  Early on, the leadership of the parish came together via phone and Zoom and in no time had over 70 volunteers who stepped up to the plate and contacted our entire parish family by phone (over 1450 calls).  By the way, if you have not done so, please send us your e-mail address because that is the most cost effective way to reach out and keep you informed.  A helpline was also set up to assist those in need.  As a parish family we have a greater awareness of those in our community who suffer year-round due to poor health, poverty, loneliness, and lack of transportation.  In response to the increased need many have donated non-perishable foods to our St Vincent de Paul emergency food bank, and diapers and baby supplies have been donated to our Respect Life ministry.  The lonely are being contacted with love and concern, those without means of transportation are having essentials brought to them, and we are growing as a parish family as we reach out in love to others.  

This Lent was a blessing in disguise to many.  Our prayer lives are better (we have one parishioner who said she prays three rosaries a day for us)!  Most importantly, we are all thirsting for Mass, there is a renewed interest in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and families are taking a greater part in preparing their children to receive their First Holy Communion and Confirmation.  I pray that the pent up demand for the Sacraments will revitalize our parish family.  On the day we celebrate the institution of the Priesthood and the Eucharist, may we reach out to our priests and show them the love and appreciation they deserve.  

In closing, may the Lord’s healing power be with all those who are attending to the suffering and may those who have been exposed to the coronavirus be healed in the name of Jesus.  Be safe and may you and your loved ones grow in the love of Christ as we celebrate the Paschal Triduum! 

Peace,
Deacon Steve
 

                         ‘Knock Down the Lockdown’

Good Friday gives a public and definitive clarification to the mission of the messiah that was misconstrued on palm Sunday ( Jesus’ Triumphant entry into Jerusalem) by the crowd in Jerusalem and further hidden from the minds of the apostles who had just received the eternal gift of the priesthood and the Eucharist on Holy Thursday. The Holy Thursday is a celebration that ushered them into the vocation of sacrifice, service and death to the glory of God. So elusive was the suffering servant’s mission, that the three core disciples sleep on at the point and night of their master Jesus’ arrest. The arrest from the seclusion of the garden through the great transition of the episode that changed the world. Jesus, the great preacher and miracle worker willingly surrenders himself to the soldiers and in subsequent trial and judgement, pronounced guilty and sentenced to death by crucifixion. Yet, love lives on. God’s unmitigated love for humanity always progresses from silence and in privacy. This love would ultimately require a public accent by humanity that is constantly drawn in obedience of faith in going the way of the cross and to salvation.

The self – sacrificing love of Jesus should be the paradigm of the new generation, distinguished from the crowd of Jerusalem and from the apostles on Holy Thursday. A generation who model their lives on the vocation of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who contemplated early enough, the real meaning of “the sword will pierce through your heart” and “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to my side”.     

Today, we are all encountering in various ways additional crosses as a result of the lockdown brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. The cross of Jesus must pull us closer to salvation than the pandemic pulling us away from the essential needs of humanity. I have my personal experience too. The size of the rectory, the church, the school, the gathering space, the cafeteria and the compound of Divine Redeemer Parish have not changed physically. But mentally and emotionally the sizes of these buildings seem to have tripled whenever I need to move into and around these facilities to celebrate private mass and do personal prayers. This is because there is no physical interaction with parishioners, school kids and visitors who use these spaces. The usual communications and flow of life activities have been viciously broken, and distances have been widened. I miss the parish family and the school greatly! However, whenever I celebrate daily mass, the re-enactment of the Triduum, the acts and voice of Jesus become more meaningful and reassuring.

Life can temporarily deprive us of what is intrinsically ours. The creator of the world was mocked and killed by the creatures, the creator of water was thirsty, The Omniscient God had to tolerate Judas Iscariots’ machinations, the all-powerful God and the giver of life, met the worse enemy- death and submitted to it.                                                                                                            My dear friends, this is the irony and the mystery of life where we need to bear with unpleasant circumstances and yet stand strong in grace beneath the cross.       The pain we feel in these circumstances are the same or perhaps aggravated pains of Jesus on the cross for humanity who are separated from salvation and the eternal God. The Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross are words of Jesus’ eternal longing to live in lasting relationship with us, his brothers and sisters, who have either locked down our hearts in partial or full mode and therefore he cannot enter into our lives, though he keeps knocking at the doors of our hearts as he did with Judas Iscariot (cf.Rev.3:20).                                                                                                                                        

The sin of our first parents and hence the sin of humanity, like that of Judas and the rest of the twelve is not that we fall, but that we are unable to ask for forgiveness. God knows and is not surprised that we fall. Nonetheless, the decision to eschew pride, open our hearts in repentance and draw to him is ours and nobody’s.  In His address to the United States in the aftermath of 9/11, George Bush Jr. said, “terrorists attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundations of America”. Yes, death and distancing can interrupt our social bonding, but they cannot deprive us of our faith and constant desire to carry our crosses irrespective of prevailing circumstances. For the cross of Christ, raised against the skies, and visible to all souls, appeals persuasively to us, to knockdown our locked down hearts beyond the church’s physical structures and communal rituals of the liturgy. The cross is the voice, the cross is the key to unlock the lockdown.

Blessings,
Fr. Paul
 

THE EXSULTET

I would like to take this opportunity to explain the Easter Exsultet. It is the rather long “intoned” prayer that is sung at the beginning of the Easter Vigil and is one of the oldest prayers utilized in the modern Church. In texts prior to the early Middle Ages, we already find that the practice of a Deacon intoning a proclamation of praise in the presence of the Easter Light was the standard hymn for the Easter Vigil. In fact, in a Sacramentary compiled in the 9th century, we find the Exsultet essentially identical to the one in our Missal today, except that the older one is about one third longer due to a section devoted to a rich symbolism drawn from the activities of bees. In our present version, this has been reduced to two references to the role of bees in the production of the wax which makes up the sacred candle – language which has been noticeably restored in the new English translation of the Exsultet.

Despite its antiquity, this text still serves brilliantly as a present-day expression of Easter joy and exuberant thanksgiving. The Exsultet provides a preview of the scriptural and theological themes that will ground the rest of the Easter Vigil liturgy. Salvation history, especially God’s deliverance of his Chosen People from Egyptian slavery and exile are prominent both in the Exsultet, and the extended Liturgy of the Word that will follow it. The text poetically recalls the Passover Feast; the candle present before the assembly is likened to the pillar of fire which guided Israel in its desert journey; their miraculous passage through the Red Sea serves as both a sign of deliverance and as a prefiguring of the waters of Baptism, a prominent element of Easter Vigils both ancient and modern. Having recalled key moments of the Old Covenant, the New Covenant between God and humanity is proclaimed eloquently in terms of the brilliant Light of Christ dispelling the darkness of sin and death for all time.

For centuries the Exsultet has served as a liturgical jewel of unsurpassed beauty on this, the “mother of all holy vigils”, as St. Augustine aptly described the Easter Vigil. As the Exsultet exhorts us, “Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her, ablaze with light from her eternal King, let all corners of the earth be glad, knowing an end to gloom and darkness.”

May this venerable Easter Proclamation serve us and our assemblies as a genuine expression of Easter hope and joy, especially as we see Christ as the One that will lead us through this gloom and darkness of the Corona virus. 

May God bless all of you and your families! Stay safe…                                                                                    

Deacon Tom Lopus

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.

I think we can all identify with that phrase from St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians—“your life is hidden.” During this time of pandemic our lives are hidden. No school, for many no traveling to work, no sports, no theaters, no restaurants, not many places to go. We are hidden at home: perhaps with family or maybe even alone. This kind of hiddenness can be tremendously frustrating, stressful, depressing, even frightening. Maybe it feels like we are huddling together, crouched down in a bunker, while we wait for the Angel of Death to pass over. But, maybe this time of hiddenness is also an opportunity; an opportunity to re-evaluate and “seek what is above.”

With so many of the distractions of life removed, we have the opportunity to ask ourselves: what really matters? What is lasting? The most important things, we hopefully discover, are not things that get a lot of attention in our world. In a homily for Easter given as Archbishop Of Munich many years ago, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) spoke of the “things that are above, the hidden things that are the real ones: truth, love, our being children of God.” While we are hidden we have the opportunity to re-discover these things and the value of our faith, our loved ones, and God’s great love for us.

“Your life is hidden with Christ in God.” It is not frantic activity, or endless distractions or the accumulation of things that give meaning to life. It is the fact, that in Christ, we have been called, we have been chosen and we have been raised up to new life. This new life is not visible through the senses; it becomes apparent by the way we live our lives: in patient acceptance of trials (like this one), in compassion for those around us, in forgiveness, selfless love and an inner devotion to God. In a faithful disciple the hidden life of Christ within them becomes apparent in their conduct. It is revealed and it is refined in difficult moments. This time of hiding can help us grow in this life, so that whenever we emerge again, the reality of that life will appear in the ways that we order our lives post-epidemic and in the blessings we have placed in the lives of those we encounter. In another homily, Benedict XVI reminded his listeners that the only earthly thing that lasts is the human soul and our only lasting works are what we put into our souls and the souls of others. May those hidden treasures appear to you this Easter Day, may they be apparent in days to come, and  “when Christ your life appears,” may “you too…appear with Him in glory.”  He is risen! Alleluia!

Easter Blessings,
Fr. Howard