Fullerton T

Holy Saturday

Today is Holy Saturday a day to pause and take stock , all is quiet as we wait watching by the tomb, after the great liturgies of the last few days and the fasting of the forty days of Lent we are Quiet in a reflective mood that is part of Holy Saturday. Today gives us  a chance to think about all that we are and what we should be as Christians while we wait and watch for the resurrection. While  we  wait we think about the  betrayal, suffering and death of Jesus as we look forward to the Easter Vigil and his resurrection. The Easter Vigil is the most distinctive liturgy of the Christian year, In several very special ways we celebrate our life in the risen Christ during the Vigil. In the expanded readings we recount the history of God’s saving actions in the lives of his people. We add new members to the Body of Christ in the sacrament of Baptism and we renew our own baptismal vows. Then in the Eucharist, we celebrate our membership of the Church, the Body of the Risen Christ. On Good Friday we celebrated Jesus life giving death on the Cross but today we stop and reflect on our own personal faith journeys in the light of the Cross of Christ as we await the great call that Christ the light in our darkness has Risen.

GOOD FRIDAY

I never could understand why this day was called Good Friday because at first glance it seems that there was nothing good about it but here we are over two thousand years after the event talking about and celebrating the Passion and death of Jesus. The events of Good Friday celebrate the life giving death of Jesus who died upon the cross giving his life as a ransom for many. The main liturgy of this day is extremely simple. The focus is on the Cross. All other decorations have been removed from the church. The liturgy consists of readings, including the Passion from John’s Gospel, and solemn prayers of intercession for the church and the world. The central liturgical action is the veneration of the cross by all present. We venerate the one Cross in a variety of ways: by a genuflection or bow, by kissing or touching the cross, by a simple pause. The Eucharist is not celebrated on this day, but Communion is made through the Eucharist reserved from the Holy Thursday liturgy.

5TH SUNDAY OF LENT

Well here we are at the 5^th Sunday of lent as we look towards Palm Sunday and Holy Week. In this weekend’s gospel reading we listen to the story of Lazarus and we hear about the compassion that Jesus had towards him and his sisters Martha and Mary. This story is also about faith, the faith that Martha and Mary had in Jesus when they sent the message to them that Lazarus was sick indeed he had died and was in the tomb for four days when Jesus arrived and called him to come out from the tomb. When Lazarus was called from the tomb, it was the last sign, worked by the Lord before his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, everything seems to flow to that ‘new reality’ inaugurated by Emmanuel, God with us. Sharing our existence, Jesus loves us with a supreme passion right up to sacrificing Himself for us on the cross of Good Friday. He was moved by those who were linked to him by ties of the most profound friendship who understood that it could not be anything but God’s presence amongst them.

John’s message for us is that Jesus raises us to new life. This raising to new life does not mean that we no longer suffer. As a matter of fact, this new life leads through pain and suffering before it reaches fullness of resurrection. Jesus demonstrates this to us as it leads to his painful death on the Cross on Good Friday. But the new life we live leads to a new creation, a new way of living. The proof of this is the Resurrected Christ of Easter Sunday. He appears after his resurrection to those at the beginning of their new life. We ask the Lord for the courage to walk towards the voice that is saying, Lazarus, Come out! Jesus is calling us. He is calling us to come out of the darkness, and come into his Light. Lent may be winding down as next Sunday is Palm Sunday, but there is still time for us to do our spiritual spring cleaning. There is still time for us to be at peace with ourselves and with the Lord in the light of the presence of Jesus who is God with us.

4th SUNDAY OF LENT

This Sunday our gospel is the story of the blind man, in this story we have another example of God’s choice, one which confuses the religious leaders of the day. John’s beautifully crafted story tells how a blind man comes to see the light in Jesus, both physically and spiritually. When Jesus’ disciples first see the blind man they presume that his affliction is a result of sin. But Jesus sees in the blind man something else: this roadside beggar who has always inhabited a world of darkness will be the one to display the work of God and point to who Jesus really is. If we are to really see clearly, we need to let Jesus heal us of our blindness  and open our eyes as He did the man born blind in this weekend’s Gospel.  This is a challenging gospel story for all of us even today because so many people are spiritually blind. It is possible that the places and things we think we are seeing clearly are not as clear as they should be. Remember that the ones, who were 100% sure they knew what was going on, the Pharisees, were blind to God. They were religious experts, like many other experts they missed the truth staring them in the face. The one who is turning their world upside down was the Son of God who was trying to open their eyes and send them along the right road. There are many things that raise questions and upset our routines these may be the very places God is trying to open our eyes and give us the vision to set things right for our lives. The story of the blind man getting his  sight gives us an opportunity to pause and ask ourselves:  How well do I see? Do I see what is really going on in my life? Has the road I have taken made me lose my way? Are things happening to me that make me trip up and stumble like a person walking and groping in the dark? We need to ask ourselves: what is blurring our spiritual vision these days?

What’s dulling our appreciation of life and gods place within it? As we remember the Blind spots in our own lives we also remember that faith always remains a choice we make that helps us to see with great clarity of vision. When we choose to trust in God and believe in what he reveals to us, we exercise our freedom to believe. Our minds and wills freely cooperate with God’s grace. Faith is not and can never be an act coerced by God or others. Faith in God and each other is a journey which takes along many roads and the road we are called to follow during Lent is the road that leads us to Jesus the light of the world at Easter. The question we should ask ourselves this weekend is this: will we continue to be blind or will we let our faith in God heal the blindness of our lives and our world?