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RELIGION LITURGY AND LIFE

Archive for the month “April, 2026”

25 Apr 2026

4Th Sunday of Easter

This weekend we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday and the annual Day of Prayer for Vocations. We remember our call to follow Christ and the beauty of vocations to the ordained ministry and the consecrated life. As members of His flock, we are entrusted with fostering and supporting new vocations. Let us pray to the Lord of the harvest to send holy and generous laborers into His vineyard shepherds after the heart of the Risen Christ, who gave His life for the sheep. In the 1st reading continuing his address to the crowd near the Upper Room, Peter boldly proclaims that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah, and that salvation comes only through conversion and baptism. in the 2nd Reading Peter describes Jesus’ heroic love as the Good Shepherd, who endured great suffering and even gave His life so that His flock could come to eternal salvation and peace.

In this weekend’s Gospel we hear about Jesus the “Good Shepherd” who tends his sheep and the “Gate” through which they enter eternal life. The idea of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is a lovely thought because it is a well-known fact that the shepherd never leaves his sheep outside the sheepfold. If any are outside the sheepfold the shepherd will seek the lost sheep until they are found.  The wandering figure of the shepherd, anxiously tending his sheep to the point where he is willing to surrender his life for them, is the image Jesus uses about himself in this Gospel Reading. The good shepherd is not an image of religious authority that is involved with its own importance. The authority of the shepherd costs the shepherd, not the sheep. The image of the shepherd cannot be separated from how the shepherd cares for his own sheep. When we see how Jesus behaves as a leader, we see his tenderness and courage.   The parable of the Good Shepherd has many consoling truths and promises for people of every century, including ourselves in 2026.  All of us know people who have wandered away from the Church, who have lost their sense of belonging, who feel they have no faith community to belong to. How will they know they are welcome back if no one tells them? How will they be helped back if no one offers to make the journey with them? 

The good shepherd asks us to make the journey with them as people who have listened to his voice calling us to follow him. Jesus the Good Shepherd is for all of us, and we should listen to his voice amidst the trials of our daily lives. Many of the voices we listen to in so many places in the world claim to speak for the good of everyone, but they lead us astray and disappoint us but our Faith and Hope in Jesus does not disappoint. With Jesus’ life becomes richer and that with him it is easier to find meaning in everything. The Gospel of the Good shepherd is a hope filled call for us to follow Jesus the loving shepherd who seeks out the lost sheep and rejoices when they are found.

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18 Apr 2026

3Rd Sunday of Easter

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Third Sunday of Easter
Third Sunday of Easter
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18 Apr 2026

Third Sunday of Easter

We gather this weekend after the solemn celebration of Easter and Divine Mercy Sundays, we also remember that the celebration of Easter continues until Pentecost Sunday and then Easter Time ends and the paschal candle is placed near the baptismal font.  In the first Reading we are told that Peter’s preaching on Pentecost centered on the firm belief that Jesus was the promised Messiah and had been raised from the dead by God the Father. In this reading, he proclaims these truths as the fulfillment of ancient prophecies. In the second reading from the 1st letter of st Peter the apostle reminds believers of the great price Jesus Christ paid for their redemption, helping us to remember and never forget the depth of the Lord’s love for all of us all the time.

This Sunday’s gospel recounts the Jesus appearance on the evening of Easter to two disciples who were going from Jerusalem to Emmaus, their life with Jesus had ended abruptly as all seemed to be lost after the events of Good Friday.  Jesus, their beloved Leader, friend and Teacher, had been arrested, tried, sentenced, tortured and killed. Now they are feeling that without his presence, his inspiration, his support and encouragement, they simply cannot go on.  They are so disappointed and disillusioned about what has happened that they have even decided to leave the Church, the community of his followers. Slowly but surely, they are walking away from it all. They are putting Jerusalem and the other disciples behind them. They are heading for the village of Emmaus, to start a new and different way of life. And there Jesus was walking along with them they were talking about what had happened in Jerusalem and how they had put Jesus to death. Jesus explained all the passages of scripture that were about himself, but it was only at the breaking of the bread that they recognized him. They then went back to tell the others that they had seen the Lord and told their story and how they recognized him at the breaking of the bread.

The Emmaus story is the story of you and me as the two disciples represent all of us who claim that we are Christians with all our doubts and disagreements our joys and sorrows. We come together in faith each Sunday in answer to a call, often a quiet murmur from the recesses of our hearts which calls out to us saying come to me you who are weary and overburdened and I will give you rest.  All of us are searching just as the companions on the road to Emmaus were and they were weary as a result of all that had happened to them. As we are often weary of the things that happen to us as well as the things we see going on in the world at the present time. The people of God come together for a great and good purpose and that is to seek God and what he wants us to do. All of us work together for God’s kingdom since the kingdom provides meaning and purpose. In the scripture readings we find explanations and understanding of events and relationships which have shaped the faith from the beginning. Our faith is lived out in the real world, the world of family, work, and recreation. We don’t live in two separate worlds, one spiritual and the other secular.  

Those who would have us believe that we can separate our lives into two compartments are mistaken as faith and life go together.  The fellowship we share helps us ask questions of faith.  It is the application of scriptures to the events of our own times that reveal that God is walking with us and maybe even working through us.  But it is in the breaking of bread that we recognize Jesus who is with us on our journey.  The journey on the road to Emmaus is the journey we make as gods people.  We are on this journey in fellowship with one another being led by Jesus who calls out to us to follow him from the Cross of Good Friday as well as from the empty tomb of Easter Sunday. As we grow in faith, we are led to understand those past events as we experience them in our time and place and they are as relevant today as they were when they first took place.   The Risen Lord uses so much gentleness with us! He doesn’t oblige us to ‘believe’ but He offers us the things that enable us to judge based on the measure of our own hearts. As St Augustine extraordinarily wrote in the opening of his Confessions ‘our heart is restless until it rests in you’ May our encounter with the Risen Jesus make us compassionate fellow travelers attentive to the struggles of others, ready to listen, and eager to share our faith in His Resurrection as we move forward in faith.

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11 Apr 2026

Second Sunday of Easter

2nd Sunday of Easter
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11 Apr 2026
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2nd Sunday of Easter

Divine Mercy Sunday

This weekend we celebrate the second Sunday of Easter also known as Divine Mercy Sunday. It is a day to remember that God’s mercy is for all people. The readings tell us about faith, hope, and the joy that comes from meeting the risen lord. They also remind us that believing in Him brings new life. In the First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we see that the early Christian community was devoted to apostolic teachings, fellowship, sharing meals, and prayer. United, they shared resources, sold possessions to support the needy, and worshiped together, growing daily in number and favour. In the Second Reading from the first letter of st peter, we are told that we are reborn into a living hope and an imperishable inheritance through Christ’s resurrection. Our faith, tested by trials, is precious and will bring praise at Christ’s revelation. Unseen, He is loved, believed in, and brings us inexpressible joy.

The Gospel reading tells us that the Apostles are huddled together in fear in the empty room. They weren’t so sure that they could believe the women’s report that Jesus had risen. They weren’t singing for joy! Now, a whole week has gone by. They still felt “rocky” about their future. Thomas wasn’t the only one who had doubts about Jesus, I think so many were doubtful then as so many are doubtful right here and now and we see that throughout the world. The Apostles were pondering the shocking experience of the previous week when all seemed to be lost as Jesus hung on the Cross. However, all was not lost and here we are in 2026 thinking about how they felt and how we feel after the events of Holy Week. Jesus had come to assure them that he was alive and then his message must have troubled them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  as the Apostles were sent out, we are sent out to bring the good news of salvation to other people wherever we are. We are asked on this Divine Mercy Sunday to bring the mercy of God to all those out there who need his healing merciful love.  We remember the joys the hope, and the anxieties of the people in our time and we bring all of to God in faith filled prayer.  Our world is hurting so much because of the many evil things that are happening within it, especially these days. There are so many people out there who are scared to stand up for what they believe in to speak honestly and openly about their convictions. It is difficult for those who have suffered much or have seen much evil and distress to accept things that can change for the better and they can.

All this becomes possible when we meet the risen Lord where we are and then like Thomas, we acknowledge him as our lord and God as we say with Thomas My Lord and My God.  Jesus has the scars of his wounds but yet he is still our glorious Lord who has risen from the dead and brings us his light and his love. Today the Gospel assures us that the Easter season is not about sustaining emotional excitement, instead it’s about recognizing the steady presence of the risen Lord who is with us in Word, Sacrament and community life. one week after Easter, the message we receive is simple Christ comes to be with us, speaks words of peace, and sends us out into our world. May all of us be the witnesses to the Gospel bringing the caring face of God and his merciful love to the people in our own local faith communities.

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04 Apr 2026

EASTER SUNDAY

The Forty Days of Lent are over.  We have celebrated the beginning of the priesthood and the Eucharist on Holy Thursday. We have also celebrated The Passion and Death of the Lamb of God and the tomb is now empty as we wait on the joyful call that Christ has  risen from the dead.  The darkness of good Friday is gone and the flowers in our churches symbolize the New Life that has come into the world. Jesus Christ lives! He has Risen as he said he would and his light lights up our world.  During the Easter Vigil we lit the Easter fire and from that fire we have lit the Paschal Candle that will be used over the next year.

Our Gospel story for the vigil tells us that we should not look for Jesus among the dead for he has risen and the light of Christ lights up the darkness of our lives and our world. The Easter celebration is an invitation to come out of darkness into the light of the risen Christ. In that light we see him and recognise each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord. It is that light which summons us to leave the darkness of our lives behind and all of us have some of those dark places.  As a result of Jesus conquering death on the cross nobody can be written off as a lost cause ever again. Year after year when we celebrate Easter, we hold as holy the memory of God’s great love for us when he raised Jesus from the dead.  We believe that God’s graciousness will be extended to ourselves and that our own death will not be the final word. Our faith tells us that we will participate in Jesus resurrection on the last day. But a question raises itself: is our faith in the resurrection limited to remembering Jesus’ resurrection and hoping for our own on the last day? Hopefully it will mean more to us than that.

The resurrection of Jesus is a proclamation that this outcast from Galilee is the beloved Son of God who cannot be held in the darkness of death because someone else acts. Jesus did not raise himself; he was raised by God his father. All of us believe that God’s work continues not least because we believe Jesus’ words: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Our celebration of the Easter Season begins with our celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday with the Vigil on Holy Saturday evening during which we welcome and baptize adult converts to the faith Then on Easter morning  we celebrate our Easter masses as we renew our baptismal promises and don’t forget that the feast of Easter continues for 50 days until Pentecost.  So full of gratitude for Christ’s passion, with joy in his resurrection and, strengthened by the Spirit, we continue our Christian journey this Easter time.

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04 Apr 2026

Holy Saturday

The cross is empty now Jesus lies in the tomb and everything around us is still.’ The heavens and the earth cry out with longing for the sinless one who is not to be found, if we stop to think for a moment we remember that Jesus died and rose again on the third day. We wait, as mourners beside a grave, unsettled, ill at ease, almost not knowing what to do with ourselves. The Church has only one thing to do today: to pray through the emptiness of Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday then is the day when we experience watching and waiting at the tomb as we await the celebration of the Resurrection which we celebrate in the Easter Vigil and then the season of Easter that lasts until Pentecost Sunday. The Jewish people have been celebrating Passover annually for thousands of years, commemorating the night in which God brought them out of slavery in Egypt to begin the journey to the promised land. At the Last Supper, Jesus also celebrated the Passover but gave ita new meaning. No longer a remembrance of passing from slavery to freedom, but through his own passion, death and resurrection we too pass from death to life with him. Until the fourth century, Easter was the only feast of the Church’s year, and to this day it remains the most important. As the Catechism says: “Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the ‘Feast of feasts’, the ‘Solemnity of solemnities’.” Every Sunday Eucharist echoes the Sunday of the Resurrection and Easter.

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03 Apr 2026

Good Friday

Today in the liturgy, we read St. Johns account of the passion, we pray for the needs of the Church and the world, we venerate the Cross and we receive the blessed Eucharist. As we reflect on the events of Good Friday we are invited to examine our own lives and attitudes.  When we think of the death of Jesus on the cross, we realise that his death was a result of the courage of his convictions. He lived his life with a message of compassion, and love, Jesus was often critical of those who lorded it over those who were less well off or who had little or even nothing at all. The cross of Good Friday is a sign and a symbol that all of us recognise, it is a sign of the completeness of the love that God has for each one of us faults and failings included.

We need to show the love of God to all those whose lives are loveless to all who have nobody to care for them we must show them that ours is an all loving and caring God. In reaching out to others, especially those who feel isolated or abandoned, we embody the spirit of Christ and become instruments of his love in the world. Today when we go up to venerate the cross, we should allow the cross to move us to be better people. Consoling, and comforting the people we meet with the values of Jesus and the Cross.

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01 Apr 2026

HOLY THURSDAY

 

On this day we celebrate the Sacraments of Priesthood and Eucharist. In every diocese the priests who have given their lives in generous service of the people of God gather with the Bishop for the Chrism Mass and then in front of their brothers and sisters they renew their commitment to priestly service. Also, at this Mass the oils of Chrism, Catechumens and the Oil of the Sick are blessed by the bishop, these holy oils will be used in the Baptisms, Confirmations and anointing of the sick in the local parishes over the next 12 months. The theme running throughout this day is one of service, service to God and his people. The theme running throughout this day is one of service, service to God and one another.

The Evening Mass on Holy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper it has as its theme, service and sacrifice which are aspects of the same mystery. In the washing of the feet in this mass  we see Jesus as one who serves, who gives himself. Just as he freely gives himself in washing the feet of his disciples, so too he gives himself in the bread and wine he takes, blesses and hands to them as he does through the priests down through the generations to us, And in the same way he will give himself on the cross tomorrow.  All these acts of self-giving are the same act – that of the Son of Man who came ‘not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’The gospel of the evening mass clearly indicates a life of love, serving the community and helping out those who are in any need. On Holy Thursday we commemorate the first Eucharist when Jesus gave us the gift of himself to be with us in the here and now of today and for all time.

The action of the Church is our action  as the body of Christ on this night we also witness the Church’s respect for Christ’s Body present in the consecrated Host in the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, carried in solemn procession to the  Altar of Repose. No Mass will be celebrated again in the Church throughout the world until the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening proclaims the Resurrection that is the light of Christ.

As people who are Christians that is followers of Christ We should embrace all those who are in need of any kind as Christ did. We should be leading lives of generous service to all those who need our help wherever they are and there are many people around who may need our help and care. Each of us is called to show that we are a caring people showing the love of God to all those whose lives are loveless to all who have nobody to care for them we have to show them that ours is an all loving and caring God.  When we serve our brothers and sisters in whatever way we are called showing them that our God is an all-loving and caring father in heaven then the Eucharist whenever we partake of this great sacrament will bring us joy and peace. In the words of the liturgy let us go forth to meet the Lord in peace and thanksgiving as we celebrate the three days of the Easter Triduum

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