Low Sunday – April 12, 2015

From the Pastor /

The apostle was a complex and unique personality. That uniqueness may explain why Jesus chose him in the first place. It is probably that our Lord was determined to use personality for our education. Who knows? Perhaps Mr. Edison learned in the course of his long life the wisdom of RB Graham. “It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in God.” There are but 3 informative references to Thomas in the New Testament. Perhaps John the Eagle concluded that the neglect of Thomas in earlier accounts did a serious injustice to Thomas himself and to Catholics at large. Thomas is pessimistic, stubborn as that famous mule, and subject to the all too common line that teaches seeing is believing. Someone has noted Thomas had a question mark for a mind. This complicated psyche is graphically illustrated in the 16th century Caravaggio painting of Thomas placing his finger into Christ’s wound. We know the Gospel story and especially its happy ending. Thomas would never forget that searing line of his resurrected Leader, “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe!” The doubting Thomas had received a lecture on faith that he would never forget. It is a message which Edison never learned. Thomas the apostle had told his fellows that seeing is believing. Christ thought the apostle that believing is seeing.

The Gospels tells us Thomas had a twin. Who is his twin? It is you and I. William Bausch tells us that we are all a mixture of doubt and certainty, pessimism and trust, unbelief and belief. On those days, when doubt, pessimism, and unbelief hold the cards, we must hold onto Thomas’ cloak and not let go for dear life. As we leave this Liturgy, we should say a prayer in gratitude for such a person as the apostle Thomas. But in addition each one of us will want to reflect on the aphorism that teaches that it is not sufficient for Catholics to believe their faith. They must tell others about it. “Our lives end the day,” said Martin Luther King Jr., “that we become silent about things that matter.”

Low Sunday – April 12, 2015 Read More »

Resurrection Sunday – April 5, 2015

From the Pastor /

Mary Magdalene believed that she had lost everything when Jesus died. John’s Gospel tells us that, when Jesus died on Calvary, Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of the cross with Mary, the mother of Jesus and John, the beloved disciple, as the dying Jesus entrusted His mother and John to each other. She witnessed at first hand the brutal death on the cross of one that she loved so much. We don’t know why it was that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb alone on Easter Sunday morning. Was it that she and the other women had agreed to meet there? Did she, perhaps, want to spare Jesus’ mother the agony of seeing her son’s body before it was completely prepared for burial? On the day of His death, those preparations had been interrupted by the onset of the sabbath. Mary’s journey was solitary also risky. Guards protected the tomb lest any of Jesus’ disciples tried to remove His body. They were rough men; and she was a solitary woman. In those days, as now, in so many places, a woman had little status. Mary Magdalene was the first witness of the resurrection. Yet her unexpected news, so beyond the imagining of any of the apostles, had less credibility in the society of her day precisely because it was reported by a woman. Peter and John wanted to verify her story for themselves. It was only when they entered the tomb of Jesus that they realized the truth of the resurrection.

Resurrection Sunday – April 5, 2015 Read More »

Holy Saturday – April 4, 2015

From the Pastor /

From an ancient homily of Holy Saturday:

Something strange is happening – there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. He whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear. He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sleep. Greatly desired to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, He who is both God and the son of Eve. (…)

For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. (…) See on My face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. On My back see the marks of scourging I endured the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See My hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree. I slept on the cross and a sword pierced My side for you who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. (…)

Rise, let us leave this place. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. The kingdom of heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity.

Holy Saturday – April 4, 2015 Read More »

Good Friday – April 3, 2015

From the Pastor /

St. John’s account of the final events leading to Jesus’ death begins in the garden where Jesus is arrested. It is a place where Jesus often gathered with His disciples. From a setting of peace and tranquility it becomes a place of betrayal, confusion and violence. The narrative ends in another garden, now one of sadness, where the dead body of Jesus is laid in a new tomb.

At the beginning of his Gospel, St. John repeats the opening words of Genesis, “in the beginning.” It is as if, in painting these gardens into the canvas of his picture of Jesus’ betrayal, suffering and death, he takes us back to the origins of sin. Whereas the first man and woman in the garden of Eden chose to do what they knew was wrong and thereby lost control of their God-given gift of free will, Jesus gave himself totally to the will of His Father and remained steadfast to the end.

Good Friday – April 3, 2015 Read More »

Holy Thursday – April 2, 2015

From the Pastor /

Jesus Christ takes all elements of our human nature and raises them up to communicate His divine life to us. At the foot-washing, the apostles immediately see that Jesus is taking on the role of a servant. There is also something very intimate about washing the feet of someone else. But as well as that meaning, is there a deeper meaning that Peter doesn’t see? It seems so, as Jesus says, “At the moment you do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand.” Jesus as the great, eternal high priest, is about to enter into the liturgy of His own passion and death. This is the ultimate and eternal sacrifice. He wishes to initiate His apostles into this great high-priestly action.

Of course, all of us are washed by Christ in the sacrament of baptism. By that washing we receive the Holy Spirit and the gifts of faith, hope and charity. We also receive a share, a part, in the offices of Christ as priest, prophet and king. Other Gospels concentrate on the gift of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, and John’s Gospel complements their accounts with this emphasis on the ritual preparation of the apostles, by Jesus using a gesture from the religious ritual of the time. So these two great sacraments, the Eucharist and Holy Orders, are celebrated tonight. As we meditate upon these two great gifts to the Church on this holy night, we can be full of gratitude to God. We can see how close God is to us, and how, in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, Jesus again hands himself over to sinful humanity.

Holy Thursday – April 2, 2015 Read More »

Palm Sunday – “B” – March 29, 2015

From the Pastor /

As we read the account of the passion of Jesus from St. Mark’s Gospel today, we move with Jesus through the events of that first Holy Week. Against the background of plotting betrayal, Jesus accepts the loving tenderness of one who prophetically anoints Him in preparation for His burial. He shares His last Passover meal with the disciples, again prophetically acting out His approaching death in the sacrament of His body and blood, and, in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus goes through an agony of anticipation, freely accepting the will of His Father, which lead to His arrest and condemnation.

How can we effectively take part in the commemoration of the passion and death of the Lord this week? If we truly to experience the transforming power of the resurrection when we celebrate Easter next Sunday, we’re called to take part as fully as we can in the liturgical actions of this week, reminding ourselves that we are all called to be disciples, to take up our cross and follow Jesus.

Palm Sunday – “B” – March 29, 2015 Read More »

Passion Sunday – “B” – March 22, 2015

From the Pastor /

Today’s passage from Jeremiah begins, “See, the days are coming…” The second reading, from the letter to the Hebrews, speaks of Christ looking beyond His life on earth. In the Gospel, Jesus says that “the hour has come.” We still live in that “hour;” it is still unfolding in our lives.

Our lives are full of small deaths, and small resurrections. When we confess our sins, when we join with Christ in His Eucharist, when we make sacrifices and take risks for His sake, then something in us dies and something new is born again. We can live many years without allowing this death and resurrection to take place in our lives. We may not choose to change, but sometimes it is outside circumstances that force a change on us. This can be the grace of God for us, but only if we have faith and hope. If we lived our lives in a perpetual winter, and all living memory had forgotten the spring, how shocked we would be when a new spring finally came. We would call it the death of winter, unable to imagine that this was not death but a newness of life. St. Paul tells us that we are to walk in that newness of life. Christ walked into the greatest darkness possible, the rejection of salvation itself, yet He entered into that darkness and faced up to it with His human emotions, showing that fear is to be overcome by hope and love.

The art of travel is knowing what to pack, but the experienced traveler will also know what to pack. We will gain more from Lent if we see it as not just a temporary giving up of things but rather training in letting go of everything that holds us up on the journey to the kingdom. Jesus teaches us to travel lightly. In Lent we can learn something about how demanding the journey to eternal happiness can be. It may not be material things that we’re called to let go of. We may need to let go of attitudes, emotional blinds, compulsions, automatic responses to situations; in short, the false sense of self that hides the true self which is being created in Christ. Now in these last two weeks of Lent, we can consider the magnitude of the journey Christ has asked us to pursue. Yet it is not a journey we make on our own; if we look ahead, He is there, and we follow.

Passion Sunday – “B” – March 22, 2015 Read More »

IV Sunday of Lent – “B” – March 15, 2015

From the Pastor /

Becoming God’s works of art means handing ourselves over to be recreated in Christ, shaped by the Father’s love and given a new life in the Holy Spirit. This happens most profoundly when we give up on our own efforts. When we find ourselves finally exiled, lost, at the dead end of our own plans and weaknesses we then realize that what we have driven out is Christ, then we can look on Him and His love and be healed.

Thinking about this in Lent is especially important. We are encouraged by the Church to observe Lent through deepened prayer, more frequent fasting and a greater sharing of what we have. At this stage in Lent many of us will be feeling pleased at what a “successful” Lent we’re having; we’ve stuck to our disciplines and are beginning to feel pretty pleased with our spiritual progress! So let’s be happy in our Lenten journey, and share that smile of God’s love for us a bit more this week. Next time we know we are getting in a mess, instead of simply making bigger efforts of our own, let’s call on Jesus first, and allow ourselves to know the joy of His help in all attempts to love better.

IV Sunday of Lent – “B” – March 15, 2015 Read More »

Institution of the PNCC – March 8, 2015

From the Pastor, PNCC /

The PNCC in ONE, because like Christ, the head of the Church, is one, thus there is also one body in which Christ is head and the faithful as members are united. Although there are many members in the Church, the body of Christ, yet they all are one body and they are united in an inseparable unity.

The PNCC is HOLY, because Christ, her head, is holy. The fact that PNCC members do sin doesn’t destroy the holiness of the Church.

The PNCC is CATHOLIC, because Christ is the Lord of the universe. The PNCC is Catholic as she remains in the original tradition of the Apostles and continues “That which has been believed everywhere, always, by all”. Our holy orders are recognized by both the RC and Orthodox Churches. We are rooted in Scripture, grounded in Sacred Tradition and accept the Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church.

The PNCC is APOSTOLIC, because her divine founder was the first “apostle”. The apostolic teaching guarded by the Church constitutes the essence of her apostolicity. The uninterrupted sequence and succession of the shepherds and teachers of the Church which begins by the Apostles, guarantees the truth of the Church.

The PNCC is a CONSTITUTIONAL Church. The source of sovereignty rests in each democratically organized parish, which owns, controls and administers all parish property. Ultimate and virtually complete authority is given to the Church’s legislative body, the General Synod. Between synods, the executive body known as the Supreme Council of the Church is the highest governing body.

The PNCC is a BIBLE-BELIEVING Church. A Catholic Church that believes the Holy Bible to be the divinely inspired Word of God.

The PNCC is a DEMOCRATIC Church. The poorest lay person has a voice in the parish. The laity and clergy work together, with separate spheres of responsibility in parochial affairs, and they work together, often after long heated debate, in the seniorate and in the diocesan and general synods.
Our laity is kept well informed of all that is going on in the Church. We are not perfect. We are human. But we know that our Church will, through the sacraments, make possible our growth in grace and our entrance into heaven!

Institution of the PNCC – March 8, 2015 Read More »