Easter Sunday Thoughts - 03/27/2016

Daily Thoughts: "The Lord is risen, Alleluia! Happy Easter everyone! Once again I have chosen the words of Pope Francis gives us some food for thought as we celebrate this Easter morning – “If we think that things are not going to change, we need to recall that Jesus Christ has triumphed over sin and death and is now almighty. Jesus Christ truly lives…. Christ, risen and glorified, is the wellspring of our hope, and he will not deprive us of the help we need to carry out the mission which he has entrusted to us.

Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force. Often it seems that God does not exist: all around us we see persistent injustice, evil, indifference and cruelty. But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit. On razed land life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly. However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history. Values always tend to reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time from situations that seemed doomed. Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power.” (Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel)

These words of resurrection today from Pope Francis remind us of what Easter is all about. He challenges us to believe in the empty tomb and like Mary of Magdala and disciple whom Jesus loved to believe and proclaim that belief to all we meet. There is goodness and newness of life today do we believe?  The Messiah is among us, the Messiah is one of us. Are we willing to bring the risen Christ to the world?

I heard an interesting thought on today's Gospel. The question was posed as to why when Peter and the other disciple (John) get to the tomb, Peter goes in and John goes in but it is only John who believes? The answer was that after three years of traveling with Jesus, seeing him day in and day out when John saw how the cloths where left he knew that Jesus had risen because Jesus folded his bed lines in just the same way every day.

It is an interesting theory, one that is only speculation; however, it does lead to an important aspect of our faith journey. Believing, having faith is much easier if we have a relationship with Jesus, with God. If we spend time with God, if we share ourselves, if we allow God to share himself with us, it is much easier to have faith, to believe.

The mystery of Easter is about relationship it is about friendship with God so that when we encounter the empty tomb we too will believe!

Easter Sunday blessings to all!

Daily Prayer: Loving God, you gift us today with Easter hope. We thank you for the journey that you made from Bethlehem to Calvary. We thank you for all that you have shared with us, taught us and lived for us. Grace us now with an Easter faith that looks into an empty tomb and believes. Enliven our heart to be on fire with the hope that your love is everlasting. May the Easter mystery make us proclaimers of your Word and carriers of your Light. May we truly be joy filled Easter people today and always! Amen!

A Runner's Thoughts: “Endurance comes to those who put in the time, the effort, and the heart.” (Kristin Armstrong) So to in the spiritual life…faith comes to those who put in the time, the effort and the heart when it come to a relationship with God. Happy Easter to all runners, rest, relax and enjoy family and friends and believe!

Daily Blessings: Happy Easter everyone! I hope this finds you enjoying a beautiful Easter Sunday morning. It looks to be a cloudy perhaps even rainy morning here in Pelham. In a little while I am going to head to the gym to get in my daily run and workout. Then this afternoon I will be going to brunch with some friends.

I thank all of you for your prayers and good thoughts during my Lenten journeys they certainly helped to keep me focused and spirit filled. But I need to ask you to work overtime this year as my ministry on the work will continue into April, May and June. I will home from time to time but the next three months will also be busy with missions and retreats so I ask you to continue your prayers for the Preacher on the Run!

My prayer of blessing today is that all of us will be touch by the joy of Easter and the joy of God’s mercy and love.  On this most holy feast of Easter, having journeyed with Jesus through his Passion, Death to this day of Resurrection may our Good and Gracious God bless us and protect us from the struggles and perils of life. May the God who so loves us that he gave us his only Son touch us with that love today and always. And through the joyous mercy and grace of Christ may God lead us to the banquet of lasting joy. Amen – Alleluia!

Enjoy your day and I hope you will get to celebrate today with family and friends! Peace in Christ's Passion - Joy in the Risen Lord...Fr. Paul

Daily Thoughts - 03/26/2016

Daily Thoughts: Once again Pope Francis offers us these words to help us on our journey through Holy Saturday – “There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter. I realize of course that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty. Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved. I understand the grief of people who have to endure great suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress: “My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is… But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness… It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lam 3:17, 21-23, 26).” (Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel)

I offer you these words from Pope Francis because I think they reflect what Holy Saturday is about. We sit and wait. Will there be an Easter? Yes, we know that there will be but those disciples and friends of Jesus who lived through this day many centuries ago did not. They lived this day in their grief but they also lived this day in hope. It was a time when they remember the story, it was a time when they hoped, it was a time when joy was conceived in their hearts. Today we live in the hope that once again joy might be conceived in our hearts!

The word that I always use for Holy Saturday is hope. After a long Lent, after the gift of Love which we call Good Friday we wait in Hope on Holy Saturday. The elements of the Easter Vigil which we will celebrate later today all point toward the virtue of Hope.

We retell the story of creation, our creation, of how God so loved us, of how we are created in the image and likeness of God. We retell the story of our release from slavery; How God with a mighty arm brought us from slavery to freedom. We hear how God provides for all those who are thirsty, who are hunger. The rich table, the rich food God provides for us.

On Holy Saturday night we light a new fire. We bless new water. We welcome people, through baptism, confirmation, Holy Eucharist into the community of faith. It is a night of hope for us, for our church, for the world.

I read not too long ago that the most common one-liner in the scriptures is, "Do not be afraid." Someone counted, and it occurs 365 times. In one of the Gospel readings for the Easter this one-liner appears twice. First the angel who meets the women at the tomb just after the earthquake tells them, “Do not be afraid.” Then as they go running from the tomb they run right into Jesus who also tells them, “Do not be afraid.” Fear can be a crippling emotion. It can sometimes hold us back from seeing, experiencing and proclaiming the Good News.  The world can throw many experiences, situations and encounters at us that can cause to live our life in fear. The message of our Easter celebration is to not be afraid, have to have hope!

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings a tune without the words and never stops at all!” (Emily Dickinson) We wait in faith today, we wait in love, and we wait to hear the tune of hope that perches in our soul singing a tune of love that never stops. Yes, today we wait...in hope!

Have a blessed Holy Saturday!

Daily Prayer: Loving God as we wait today make ready our hearts that they may be inflamed with your presence. Enkindle in them the fire of your love. Grace our souls with the song of your hope, a song, and a tune that will never stop. Strengthen us with patience, strengthen us with energy, gift us with wisdom and enliven us with joy. We make this prayer as your faith filled people embraced by your love and dancing to the rhythm of the song of hope! Amen!

A Runner's Thoughts: As runners in faith we always need to persevere. Perseverance requires faith that the path you have chosen is the right path. Wherever it takes us we will grow in the presence of God if we are willing to persevere.

Daily Blessing: Holy Saturday greetings and blessings to all! I hope you had a blessed and holy Good Friday. I hope you got to spend a little time in prayer. The liturgy of Good Friday is so simple it is one of my favorite days to just sit in a church or a chapel and be. I had the great privilege of preaching at the service yesterday and I have to say that being a Passionist there is no greater gift than to proclaim the Good Word on Good Friday!

This evening I will once again be preaching at OLPH Parish here is Pelham Manor. It will be a wonderful way to celebrate the Easter Vigil. The pastor told me the other day that there will be ten people coming into the Church in one way of another tonight which is always a wonderful thing to experience.

But for now it is a time of waiting. My prayer of blessing today is that your Holy Saturday may be rich in the warmth of the sun, that it may be a day when you can hope for all the goodness that Easter is. And may you be blessed with the new life of joy that will enliven the journey of your life in new and faith filled ways! Enjoy your Holy Saturday everyone and please know you are in my prayers throughout this day and always! Peace in Christ's Passion...Fr. Paul

A Good Friday Prayer

At the close of this Good Friday night's annual Way of the Cross at the Colosseum the Pope kept his custom of offering a self-written prayer.

Please take a moment to pray with and for Pope Francis...

  

    O Cross of Christ, symbol of divine love and of human injustice, icon of the supreme sacrifice for love and of boundless selfishness even unto madness, instrument of death and the way of resurrection, sign of obedience and emblem of betrayal, the gallows of persecution and the banner of victory.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you raised up in our sisters and brothers killed, burned alive, throats slit and decapitated by barbarous blades amid cowardly silence.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the faces of children, of women and people, worn out and fearful, who flee from war and violence and who often only find death and many Pilates who wash their hands.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in those filled with knowledge and not with the spirit, scholars of death and not of life, who instead of teaching mercy and life, threaten with punishment and death, and who condemn the just.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in unfaithful ministers who, instead of stripping themselves of their own vain ambitions, divest even the innocent of their dignity.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the hardened hearts of those who easily judge others, with hearts ready to condemn even to the point of stoning, without ever recognizing their own sins and faults.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in expressions of fundamentalism and in terrorist acts committed by followers of some religions which profane the name of God and which use the holy name to justify their unprecedented violence.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in those who wish to remove you from public places and exclude you from public life, in the name of a pagan laicism ["secularism"] or that equality you yourself taught us.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the powerful and in arms dealers who feed the cauldron of war with the innocent blood of our brothers and sisters.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in traitors who, for thirty pieces of silver, would consign anyone to death.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in thieves and corrupt officials who, instead of safeguarding the common good and morals, sell themselves in the despicable market-place of immorality.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the foolish who build warehouses to store up treasures that perish, leaving Lazarus to die of hunger at their doorsteps.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the destroyers of our “common home”, who by their selfishness ruin the future of coming generations.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the elderly who have been abandoned by their families, in the disabled and in children starving and cast-off by our egotistical and hypocritical society.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas which have become insatiable cemeteries, reflections of our indifferent and anesthetized conscience.

    O Cross of Christ, image of love without end and way of the Resurrection, today too we see you in noble and upright persons who do good without seeking praise or admiration from others.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in ministers who are faithful and humble, who illuminate the darkness of our lives like candles that burn freely in order to brighten the lives of the least among us.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the faces of consecrated women and men – good Samaritans – who have left everything to bind up, in evangelical silence, the wounds of poverty and injustice.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the merciful who have found in mercy the greatest expression of justice and faith.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in simple men and women who live their faith joyfully day in and day out, in filial observance of your commandments.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the contrite, who in the depths of the misery of their sins, are able to cry out: Lord, remember me in your kingdom!

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in the blessed and the saints who know how to cross the dark night of faith without ever losing trust in you and without claiming to understand your mysterious silence.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in families that live their vocation of married life in fidelity and fruitfulness.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in volunteers who generously assist those in need and the downtrodden.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in those persecuted for their faith who, amid their suffering, continue to offer an authentic witness to Jesus and the Gospel.

    O Cross of Christ, today too we see you in those who dream, those with the heart of a child, who work to make the world a better place, ever more human and just.

    In you, Holy Cross, we see God who loves even to the end, and we see the hatred of those who want to dominate, that hatred which blinds the minds and hearts of those who prefer darkness to light.

    O Cross of Christ, Arc of Noah that saved humanity from the flood of sin, save us from evil and from the Evil One. O Throne of David and seal of the divine and eternal Covenant, awaken us from the seduction of vanity! O cry of love, inspire in us a desire for God, for goodness and for light.

    O Cross of Christ, teach us that the rising of the sun is more powerful than the darkness of night. O Cross of Christ, teach us that the apparent victory of evil vanishes before the empty tomb and before the certainty of the Resurrection and the love of God which nothing can defeat, obscure or weaken. Amen!

(Prayer Written by Pope Francis – Good Friday March 25, 2016)