A Good Friday of hope

It was called the Place of the Skull, a small hill just outside of Jerusalem. Golgotha to some or the Hill of Calvary to others, and there on that hill hung two thieves roped to their cross.  And from their vantage point they could see another man, dragging a cross, some distance away, being whipped as he struggled up the hill trying to reach the top.

There was a great deal of space between their crosses and they knew where his Cross would be planted. Yes, right there between the two of them was a place where this next man would hang.

Yes, two thieves waited for Jesus that Friday, but for one thief, his heart was full of compassion, for he knew this man was innocent, and had the power to do remarkable things. He even knew, by the grace of God, Jesus was going to his Kingdom that day. For that man, that criminal, the seed of hope was taking root.

Jesus made it to the top of the hill of Calvary. Then his executioners crucified his tortured body, stretching out his arms and nailing them to the wood. Then his feet placing a small platform to the cross to support his feet.  They raised him up and mounted him in the middle of the two thieves. Three crosses of shame, raised high on a hill for all to see.

We begin to hear the last words of Jesus, as well as the deathbed conversations of these dying men. From one cross comes insults, another there is hope and from the third lives mercy.

“Save us and yourself”, one thief shouts, but the other, the man on the cross of hope is defending Jesus and says, “Have you no fear”. Words from these two directed to the man in the middle, the man of forgiveness and mercy.

But then in the very quiet of death, the silence is broken with contrition and repentance, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The man is crying in hope, his final words, his last breath.

And in the Heart of Jesus there is mercy for he finds the strength to respond with calm assurance: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise”. Hope! There is the hope! There is hope because there is mercy. There is hope because of the Cross and His Resurrection.

No one is denied a share in the victory of that Cross.  No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ.  The prayer of mercy, the prayer of hope, the prayer that brought forgiveness to the Good Thief, brings forgiveness to us. The prayer from the one crucified who forgives us of our sins.

It was a Friday like no other. Our Savior was crucified and the gates of heaven and hell were shortly opened. It was a day illustrating Jesus’ mercy to his last breath on earth and then beyond.

Today, is a Good Friday like we have never experienced before. But regardless of where or how we pray today, we must know that it is never too late to turn to Christ.  As long as a heart beats, the invitation of Christ and his mercy still stands.  So long as there is life there is hope.

With a leap of faith, the Good Thief took a step closer to heaven, a step that was born through hope and trust

 And Jesus, mercy personified, with eyes full of promise said: “Truly, I say to you.” The man’s hope was rewarded.  “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”

This criminal died in the peace of our Lord and entered the promised paradise, the gates of heaven, with Jesus at His side. Isn’t that the way we want to live? Isn’t that the way we want to die? Isn’t that the way we want to live again?

As sinners, we hope for forgiveness and beg for Jesus’ mercy. Every new day brings that hope, another beginning. If we recognize each day as another gift from God, we can live each day with hope in what is to come.  

As we leave the scene on this Hill of Calvary, three crosses remain. To most of the crowd they are still the three crosses of shame, criminals deserving punishment. But what really remains? Yes, three crosses are still there, but we see there is really only one cross of shame, and there is one cross of hope, and there is the Cross of the Glory of Jesus, that Cross of Mercy.

And the Cross of Mercy brings the cross of Hope into his Kingdom.  “Today, you will be with me in Paradise”.  In these days of uncertainty, we don’t know what the future will bring, but we do know we must be prepared. And to be prepared we carry with us the hope of God’s mercy. Oh! There is hope. Amen!

He is the King

What a lent, to say the least! We are on the last leg of this journey and our solemn walk with Jesus begins today, and how appropriate to begin Mass with the reading of the Holy Gospel for Palm Sunday. Yes, it’s Palm Sunday, the King of Glory is entering into Jerusalem, the great prophet to the people is making his victorious entrance on a colt.

A royal welcome with song and praise, with people shouting “Hosanna in the highest”. With spirits lifted high, it is a true celebration for the crowd. But an entrance to death, a crucifixion for Jesus.

These very same joyful people will be there on Friday, watching Jesus suffer and die. But Jesus’ thoughts are elsewhere and not with the crowd. Riding on that colt, he sees his scourging, the thorns, the cross of splinters, his crucifixion. Today, he hears the crowd, but his mind is on the ninth hour reflecting on those bitter words of “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me”. He enters this city for one reason only, in order to suffer and die for, “thy will be done”.

Today, they are joyful, carpeting the road that he walks, bowing to their king.  But as Jesus looks, he knows that among this crowd are those not cheering, no in there are those who are hiding having different intentions. They are the enemy. Today, as the crowd shouts out hosanna, on Friday, they will change that to “crucify him”.

Jesus has a bitter and painful week ahead, but it is the week that the Father asked him to come into the world. It is the week that the world is forgiven, we are redeemed. It takes the bitter to bring the healing.

For us, we too have a bitter week ahead. Probably the worse week of our lives for many of us. It is a lent we will never forget, not knowing when it will truly end.  “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me”, we may be saying. We feel the pain, we see a crippled world, and reflect on an uncertain future. Our own enemy, the killer, is hiding among the crowds.

So many people are praying to end this madness, probably, more than ever. Regardless of how well we kept our Lenten commitments amidst this crisis, let this Holy Week provide us with the unique opportunity to give our all to the one who loves us. A week to completely deny ourselves, for the love of God and our neighbor. This could be the medicine.

Yes, this will be a bitter week, and no physical Church to turn to for relief. Even so, make it a week like no other, a true Holy Week, reflecting on our own life with the courage to see our own faults. Make this a week of contrition. Make this a sorrowful week that leads us weeping to the foot of Jesus’ Cross on Calvary, comforting Our Mother Mary.

Deny ourselves and go wherever Christ empties himself for our sake, and believe his words, “I am with you always”. He is with us, among us, and in us. He hears our cries and our prayers. I just wonder if we hear his plea to the world, my people, my people, why have you abandoned me. “He is a forgiving God, always ready to forgive”

Have a Holy Week and one that is most pleasing to our Lord. Stay safe

Blazing Fire herself

I always wondered as a child what these words meant, “Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven”. They come from the Book of the Prophet Malachi and they are words expressing God’s anger by coming like a blazing fire.

I supposed what always confused me was the Blazing fire reference. Because that was the nick-name we gave a nun in grade school, blazing fire, I can tell you her left hand was a blazing weapon.  

She was my teacher in fourth grade in the days when we had those many air raid drills where we had to hide under our desks when the sirens were heard. I remember it well, “Shades down and under the desk” preparing for the real thing.

Yes, only a drill, but they were important drills, preparing for the worse, yet, hoping for the best, in case of some type of an enemy attack.  Drills preformed with perfection prevent the real thing from being unfamiliar to us. We’ll be ready. Today, our drill, our lockdown, is for real and should and must be practiced with perfection. If so, we will survive.

One day in fourth grade I was being disciplined by blazing fire herself, for something I’m sure I didn’t do, and then she punished me by walking me by the ear, into the long narrow cloakroom and closed the door. There I was all alone.

Suddenly, the air raid sirens started to blare and I could hear through the walls the scampering about of the kids sliding under their desks, pulling down the shades and Blazing fire herself, barking out her orders. But they forgot about me.

But, in that closet they also kept the pretzel bag, full of freshly baked salted pretzels that would be sold that day at recess. And they smelled so good.

Temptation got the best of me and I pulled up a strip of ten pretzels from inside the bag and tried to break one off, just one little pretzel, but, it slipped and a strip of 10 pretzels fell on the dirty hardwood floor exactly right next to the closed door that led into the classroom.

Thank God, the siren muffled the sound, but I knew that plenty of loose salt fell all over the filthy floor and if I didn’t clean that up, big trouble, the wrath of a nun called blazing fire would be upon me.

I threw the pretzels back into the bag, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything to sweep up all that salt. So, I was on all fours, pushing the salt in every direction away from the door.

The air raid sirens stopped and the cloak room door opened and there, Blazing fire herself came in, and there I was on hands and knees almost kissing the floor, blowing away the remains of any salt. Talk about trembling fear. But, something strange happened.

She reached down and helped me up, and apologized for leaving me all alone in the closet, and then commented, “but how good and obedient you were, down on your hands and knees, praying during the air raid drill.

But she said some powerful words that I live by, “Always be prepared, for some day when you least expect it, it will be the real deal”.

Those words are like the real meaning of life.  We don’t know when God will call us. And every day is a drill and someday a drill will be the real deal.  Thank you blazing fire.

“Lo, the day is coming, blazing like an oven”. Of course, Jesus will come in all his glory, but God also tells us before all of this, there will be persecutions.  We’re told, persecution will not merely be an occasional episode, rather, it will be an “indisputable reality” for the Church and for individual Christians. We know not the day, but we know to be prepared.

There is that old expression that says, “You know the drill”.  Make every day a drill for Jesus’ coming, be prepared, because one day, when we least expect it, it will be the real deal.

But for all of us in the midst of this terrible nightmare, we know the drill. We must stay safe by adhering to the words of Blazing Fire, “always be prepared”, by staying inside.  

We must also pray for every person and ask for God’s healing.  And when this is all said and done it will echo a Scripture verse in Jeremiah,  

“I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort and give them gladness of heart. I will lavish choice portions upon the priests, and my people shall be filled with my blessings, says the Lord”. God Bless!

If I were a rich man

Yesterday, Jesus brought his good friend Lazarus back to life. A miracle of love and compassion and a demonstration of God’s almighty power and authority. Today I want to talk about another Lazarus, a beggar whose body was covered with sores. A man who was so helpless that he couldn’t even chase away the street dogs pestering him by licking his sores.  Tired, helpless and giving up on life.

He had no food and he was hungry not knowing when his next meal would come. His prayer was that he could just catch the crumbs dropped on the floor from the rich man’s table. In those days, there were no knives, forks and manners were somewhat different by today’s standards.

Food was eaten with the hands and, in very wealthy houses, the hands were cleansed by wiping them on chunks of bread and many times the dirty bread was just thrown to the ground.

And there was Lazarus, a poor man with no strength, just waiting at the rich man’s doorpost for a small piece of bread. It never came. And the rich man showed no mercy, no love, no compassion. And meal after meal, the rich man satisfied his appetite, while the beggar got nothing. Yes, every day God gave this rich man a Lazarus to feed, and every day, the rich man looked the other way.

The beggar died and the angels carried him to heaven. God does take care of the poor. “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” 

Every day, but today more than ever, God gives us some type of a Lazarus. Someone or a situation to show our love for the least among us. Day after day he puts a Lazarus in our life, the homebound, the unemployed, the sick, the tireless worker, those keeping food on our shelves and those aiding the dying.

Yes, there is a Lazarus somewhere in our life and there may be many in what we are experiencing today. Just as God gave the rich man the opportunity to show mercy to Lazarus, God is given us that same opportunity. A willingness out of love to share our good will, not to horde our goods; to be considerate of our neighbor and to make someone feel somewhat human again. That’s how we will be judged.

What sin did the rich man actually commit? What did he do wrong that gave him eternal hell? It was what he didn’t do, he didn’t notice Lazarus. No, he was so engrossed in his own comfort, his own pleasures, satisfying his own appetites. We see that today. For many it is a “for me only world”.

There are, and will be Lazarus’ today, who also have choices, and he chose to bear his condition with patience and trust in God, and for that he was rewarded. Yes, Lazarus was the Rich man’s ticket into heaven and day after day he refused to help with his pain and so entered eternity in misery. And as the story goes, that rich man became the beggar from hell, while Lazarus entered into heaven with the Lord.

We must always remember what Jesus has said, “whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me”. Check in on someone today. Remember, some of our closest friends can be so proud, and yet need us.

Bound and waddled

Well, this isn’t the first time in my life that I’ve been part of a quarantine. Many years ago, as a small child, I came down with a contagious disease called scarlet fever, and the city’s Board of Health plastered a huge “quarantine” sign on the front door and our entire family was in isolation.  Back then we had deliveries and the milkman was so frightened he left the milk bottles about twenty feet from the house, and probably didn’t take a breath either hurrying back to his truck.

 Friends and relatives would leave food and necessities at the front door, knock and run away. Finally, a few weeks later, the doctor gave us the all clear sign and life returned to normal, and the quarantine message removed.

Many of us are not living in complete isolation, although we may be experiencing cabin fever. But life is definitely different. We just want to “come out” of this tomb we are living in.

And yes, that brings me to today’s Gospel, to the tomb of Lazarus; to the incredible story of Jesus and his friend and the power of his divine nature.

Yes, Lazarus his friend was dead and the pain that must have been in the human heart of Jesus was recorded for us, “Jesus wept”. The shortest verse in all of Scripture showing the human side and compassion of Jesus. “Lazarus, come out”.

Sometimes I think of the lighter side of this and can only imagine Lazarus, like a mummy, tied at the hands and the feet and a veil wrapped around his face. Suddenly, he hears his voice being called, “Lazarus come out”. He can barely walk, probably taking small waddling baby steps and blinded by the veil, attempting to make his way to the light at entrance of the tomb. Maybe, too, wondering what that stench is in that room.

But then I begin to reflect and think of how much Lazarus is like some people we may know - Dead to God and bound by sin. And yet, Like Lazarus, each of us is loved by Jesus, in ways we can’t imagine.

It is no different for us, and those we may know, as Jesus wept over Lazarus, he weeps over our sufferings and calls us by name to come out of our own tombs of darkness and unbelief. “Untie him and let him go”. He weeps until we are free and back in his flock.

Yes, there was power that day, a miracle in the tomb. And we know Jesus cried, became troubled and he was extremely upset.  He prayed to our Heavenly Father, and the dead man came out. The crowd was in awe. “Untie him”. Untie this man bound in sin. Lazarus, our very image, is free to live his life, grateful he came back from the dead. 

There were no words exchanged between Jesus and Lazarus, but I can imagine there was much said between the hearts of these two friends. They both went into their inner room, and their souls joined as they stood there both reflecting on that moment.

We are in a quarantine, some in isolation. We may be bound, or overburdened with hardships and sufferings. It is a time when we can go deep into our own inner room and converse with God. Praying to be untied, unwrapped from what is keeping us from truly experiencing God.  

Yes, Jesus weeps for every soul who struggles, for every person who battles the forces of this world. And he protects those who seek his help, “God’s faithfulness is a protecting shield”. Be closer to him than ever before, for “All who call upon me I will answer”. He is the light and wants our veil removed to see his true light. So he calls us by name and tells us, “Come out”.

A Lent we will never forget

As time came closer for his Passion, Jesus told the Pharisees that he is going away. He will be leaving them. He even insinuated that when he does leave them, at some point, they will realize what they have missed.  It is then, too, they will realize something great slipped through their hands.

In our own lives, we know God certainly does work in mysterious ways. God provides us so many opportunities, sends us signs, talks to our hearts, and we ignore them and they don’t return. 

That for God, there is no time. As Peter said, “that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day”. But, for us on this earth, life and time are limited.  We only have so much time on this earth to make our decision to follow Jesus and none of us know how limited that time may be.

For every opportunity God sends our way, we must seize the moment. Every day, God askes us to draw closer to him, to renew our promises, to strengthen our determination. It is on these very opportunities that we ignore, we will be judged.  We didn’t seize the moment to renew our relationship with God, to die to self, and place our trust in him.

And it is through prayer that we fortify our faith, opening our ears to the voice of God. It is through prayer that we exercise our God given gift of our free will and worship him and give his thanks

It is lent, and a lent we will never forget. For many of us, it may truly be that opportunity God is sending our way, an opportunity not to ignore. It is a lent to listen to the voice of God. To put our soul in order, to straighten out our path. It is a time to reflect on where we want our spiritual life to lead us.

Don’t let this opportunity, something great, slip through your hands and when it is too late, realize what you have missed.

Bring it to the shores

“Follow Me”! Gentle, yet powerful words from Jesus. Gentle, but so strong are these two words that maybe they were even a command. At the very least, an invitation, “Follow Me”.

When I was in the service in Ft. Benning Ga, there was a very moving and inspiring statue on the grounds of Ft. Benning simply known as the “Follow Me” statue, a Memorial, depicting an infantry soldier charging forward and gesturing for others to follow.

“I am the Infantry!  Follow me”, it says. A motto instilled in the mind of every soldier.  And to follow takes courage, and those who have ever been in or prepared for combat have an appreciation of the meaning of courage.

To follow into the unknown, into any battle takes courage, and our journey in life to heaven places us in a battlefield every day of our lives. For many, today is a war.
The physical suffering we experience in life, the mental torture, and the spiritual combat of fighting for our life against satan and the forces of evil. These are our crosses, these are our battles, and, in spite of all these hardships, Jesus tells us to “take up your cross and follow me.”

“Follow Me”, Jesus said. It is not a suggestion, no, it is a command to follow Jesus into life’s battles and there we will find our strength, for he assures us, “I am with you always, even to the end of time”.
Yes, it takes courage to follow, soldiers have lost their lives on the battlefields; shed their blood for you and me.
“Follow me”, a motto for every Christian, is our key to heaven.  “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me”. He will never leave us alone

With courage, and through the power and grace of God, we become like that statue, charging forward, reaching out and gesturing for others to follow.
Our world may be in turmoil, and our lives being tossed on the rough seas of life. But there is an invitation to leave that world behind and to come to the shore for refuge.  It is at that shoreline we are rescued.
And when they brought their boats to shore, the apostles left everything and they followed him.