Weekly Reflection

Holy Saturday – March 31, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Lighting the paschal candle from the Easter fire is always a tricky business. It might rain. A strong wind may blow it out. The wick may burn quickly but not melt the wax. The heat of the fire will make it difficult. There is always relief when the lighted candle is carried into the safety and protection of the church.

This most wonderful night celebrates newness, transformation and the growth of the Church. From the setting of the sun in the Pacific Islands, across Australia, to China, Korea and then the Indian subcontinent, through Africa and Europe towards the Americas, this light has spread and the hope of Christ’s resurrection has dispelled fear. Christians persecuted in many countries are renewed and strengthened by the victory of Christ over suffering, death and evil. The light of each candle offers God’s holy people the hope that good will triumph over evil, hope over despair, justice over oppression and peace over division. As we celebrate the baptism of new Christians into the Church and receive other Christians into full communion, we are reminded of the adventure of being follower of Jesus Christ and the promise that God loved the world so much that He sent His Son so that those who believe in Him will inherit the promise of eternal life. Jesus as the fragile light is carried into the Church, so it is a reminder that we are called to nurture those people whose faith is faltering and reach out to those who have wandered away from the practice of the faith. We are called to reach out to those in need.

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Good Friday – March 30, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

During Lent the Stations of the Cross are a favorite devotion in which we ponder on the mysteries of Christ’s passion, suffering and death. We reflect on the 5th station: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry the cross. The German artist Sieger Koeder presents a fascinating image of this scene. He places Simon next to Jesus. They stand shoulder to shoulder and both look out of the picture towards us. The yoke of the cross sits across their shoulders so that equally they bear its load. In fact, it is difficult to know which is Jesus and which is Simon. This image reminds us of two things: Jesus helps each one of us to carry the cross; and we are each invited to help others to carry their crosses. He helps me carry my cross; I am called to help others carry theirs. These acts, however small, however great, are generous acts of love.

“We adore you, o Christ, and we praise You, because…” These familiar words sum up the meaning of Christ’s passion, suffering and death. God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son. Through Christ’s death and resurrection we become the adopted children of God. Christ stretches His arms outwards from the cross so that God’s mercy can embrace each one of us in love. The weight of His body stretched His arms to their limits and made breathing heavy and difficult. When He breathes His last breath and dies, Mary and John experience the deep pain of grief, but at the same time the hope of His words, which promise eternal life, resonates in their hearts. Christ is lifted up as the high priest who offers His life out of love for His people. This is the promise of the reconciliation and adoption that Christ has gained for us.

As we come with reverence to venerate the cross, with a kiss or a loving touch, we carry with us our own aches and pains as well as hidden tears in the heart. Like Simon of Cyrene, we bear the crosses of others whom we love. We offer these lives to Christ who alone can satisfy the longings of the heart and who offers His prayer to the merciful Father. We can carry with us those Christians who are suffering for their faith and enduring persecution even to death. We bear the names of our loved ones and family who are sick. May Mary, the Mother of Mercies, intercede for them so that they may receive the gift of health.

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Holy Thursday – March 29, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Tonight there is no usual end to the Mass. The priest and those serving will process to a side chapel or altar and leave the Blessed Sacrament instead returning it to the tabernacle. The liturgy will end in silence, without the priest giving a blessing. Tomorrow he will come in in silence and prostrate himself in the sanctuary and then he will begin the liturgy without the usual… At the end, without the priest giving a blessing, we will leave in silence. On Saturday, again, the Mass is not celebrated anywhere in the world. Over the next 3 days we are called to walk the whole awfulness of the story with Jesus, reacting in similar ways to the disciples and Mary. On this holy night the Church invites us to be present and close to Jesus for this one service that will last three days.

The liturgy this evening is full of symbols. The Lord has many messages for us, His disciples, as Jesus gets up from the table and washes the feet of those He calls friends. Jesus is trying to teach us, how to truly be Christian. He has given us an example so that we may copy what He has done for us.

As Jesus gave us this command to wash feet, how we are nowadays to interpret this? We are called to build the God’s kingdom through acts of generosity, kindness, simplicity. As we go to the altar of repose this evening, let us spend some time in prayer considering how we can best serve our neighbor, how can we show our love and concern, not only for our family members and friends, but more widely as Jesus.

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Palm Sunday (“B”) – March 25, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

The Gospel story, told by St. Mark, tells us the story of Jesus, the just man, of His life journey and its culmination in arrest, unjust condemnation and death on a cross. Today we hear that story told again and we witness the injustice of it, the unfairness of it and the cruelty of it. The man who lived in the daylight is arrested in the dark. The man who spoke openly sees His words twisted and used against Him. The man who honored every person He met is brutally treated and taken out to die.

We tell this story and continue to tell is because it is the story of every person in this world. It is the story of the just person who seeks to live an honorable life, who meets with suffering and with cruelty, with injustice and with flawed societies. It is the story of how the just person perseveres in goodness despite all setbacks and opposition, and seeks the face of God. This is how life is in a fallen world. The forces of darkness are very real. The darkened sky over Calvary, where Jesus died, tells us to prepare ourselves for

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Passion Sunday (“B”) – March 18, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

As Jeremiah describes it, the Lord will plant His Law deep within us, writing it on our hearts. It is seen as God’s response to our failure to keep the covenant. Instead of punishment God forgives our iniquity and never calls our sin to mind, giving us an image of God that will be taken up by the person of Jesus. In the synoptic Gospels Jesus faces His death with the agony in the garden, where He is described as struggling with what is being asked of Him by God His Father. Today from St. John’s Gospel we see Jesus troubled in similar fashion. The difference is that in St. John’s vision this testing is seen in itself to be the hour in which the Son of Man is glorified, a view that is underlined by the voice from heaven, like a clap of thunder, declaring, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The symbol Jesus offers us is that of the wheat grain that falls on the ground and dies. It is only by falling on the ground and dying that the grain can yield a rich harvest.

Most of us will not be asked to take extreme steps in our lives. We will, however, be asked to take such steps in many little ways every day of our lives. How do we develop the ability to take such decisions? How do we create a framework in our lives that will help us respond with the same generosity that we see in Jesus and His followers? We find Jesus in dialogue with others and with himself. And we know that before any major decision He retired to be by himself or with a few special disciples to pray. These too create the framework for our own decision-making. We don’t get on the right track out of the blue. It is through prayer, open discussion and the sacraments that we prepare ourselves constantly for whatever decisions will be asked of us, especially the decisions that will demand generosity and self-sacrifice on our part. There is the vision too of the wider cause we serve, the world in all its variety that always awaits the healing touch of Christ.

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III Sunday of Lent (“B”) – March 4, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Some 30 years before St. John wrote today’s Gospel, the huge Temple in Jerusalem had been completely destroyed by the Roman army. Once it had been among the wonders of the ancient world, the most sacred place on earth for the Jews, the place where God dwelt among God’s people. Not it was little more than ruins. For John it was so much more than an ancient site. He had seen it is its glory days. Now he was old, but as a young man he had actually visited it with Jesus. It was Passover time and John had witnessed the huge influx of Jews, coming fro all parts of the Mediterranean world; he had seen the Temple courts being turned into a kind of bazaar, with the transactions of money changers… John could see that Jesus was distressed; more than that – He was angry. The next moment, He was clearing them out of the Temple – men and beasts and birds; He was tipping over the tables of the money changers, so that the coins went jangling across the stone pavement. “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market,” He cried. The Jewish authorities were not amused. Who did this young rabbi from Nazareth think he was? What sign could He offer to show what it all meant? John admits that it was only after Jesus’ death and resurrection that He realized what Jesus was getting at.

Within few weeks we shall be celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus; in the risen Christ we have the new, indestructible temple of God. This temple is made not of stones, but of the glorified flesh of the victorious Christ; this is where God is to be found and where God is worship in spirit and truth. This temple is build of living stones, and they are you and me. Together with Christ our head, we make one body, one temple to the glory of God.

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II Sunday of Lent (“B”) – February 25, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

The voice figures prominently in today’s reading. In the first reading, the voice of God seems to be asking if not the impossible, then the inhuman. Isaac – was the child God promised so that Abraham could become the founding father of “a great nation.” With relief, we discover that in fact the point of the story is the very opposite to what it appears to be on the surface: whereas human sacrifice was commonplace in the ancient Near East, what is revealed is that God does not want human sacrifice. The voice of God takes center stage at the transfiguration that Jesus’ identity as God’s own beloved Son – a truth that literally makes Jesus glow. As Jesus descends the mountain, He starts to help His disciples to understand the meaning of His sonship: that He will be faithful and obedient to His Father, even to the point of having to give up His life.

As Christians, we believe that the transfiguration is not merely a past event but an ongoing reality. God’s voice continues to be at work in our world today, and in our lives. We need to learn how to listen and perceive at more than just a superficial level. That takes time and practice and commitment. When we do listen in prayer – when we are able to step outside our own expectations and preconceptions and focus – we find that God’s voice continues to be creative and transformative. By making time each day quietly to open ourselves to the presence of God, we make room for God to affirm our dignity as God’s beloved sons and daughters. Being children of the loving Father is something that shines out from our lives – because we have learn to listen to the voice.

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I Sunday of Lent (“B”) – February 18, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

St. Mark begins his Gospel with a flurry of witnesses to the truth of Jesus and His mission among us. In his account there are no details of the individual temptations Jesus undergoes. There is a sense of urgency and power. The Spirit, who has descended on Him in the form of a dove at His baptism, immediately drives Him into the wilderness. This desert is not just a place of individual testing. It is where the battle takes place between the powers of good and evil. Throughout His public life of preaching and healing, Jesus will appear as a strong and active person, very much in charge of His destiny. As He begins His public career, we gain a hint of this possibility, as He begins His proclamation at the very point His precursor John, another witness, has been arrested. Jesus now becomes his own witness. The time has come for all the prophecies to be fulfilled.

We live out the battle between good and evil against the wider landscape of our world and society. We also fight the same battle within ourselves. In solitude we learn to identify the true sources of evil both in ourselves and in our world. As we become more significant we become more free to focus directly on what needs changing, again either in ourselves or in our outer world. The journey into the wilderness with its experience of solitude begins our Lenten journey. It equips us to repent and believe the Good News and to proclaim the kingdom of God in our own lives. Fasting, almsgiving and prayer are the three practices we are advised to use as we attempt this mixture of purification and growth in ourselves. They are not ends in themselves but the means whereby we become more open to the life of the Spirit working in and through us.

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Quinquagesima Sunday (“B”) – February 11, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus was surrounded by disciples and healed many sick people. When He tried to find space on His own, Jesus’ disciples tracked Him down. As today’s passage opens, Jesus is alone, in an unidentified town. Under the law, a leper was forbidden to approach anyone, but this one approaches Jesus. Perhaps he thinks he has nothing to lose: he’s already as good as dead. Hoe comes up to Jesus, drops to his knees and says, “If you want to, cure me.” St. Mark says Jesus felt sorry for him. Many things happen in this story. First, the man to be declared free from leprosy, tells him to go and show himself to the priest, making the offering prescribed by Moses as evidence of his recovery. Jesus tells this man to say nothing about this to anyone, but jest as the visible testimony of his cure was evident so now is his verbal acknowledgment of Jesus’ power testimony of God’s work. Jesus, however, now has to stay outside the town, where there are no others. The one who cleansed the leper takes the place of the one he cleansed.

This miracle is about one person, but it has universal application. Jesus takes on the isolated condition of the former leper who is restored to fuller humanity. On the cross, full role reversal takes place. Jesus pays the penalty for all sin: He exchanges places with us by dying for us. We become more fully human by Jesus’ death because He has destroyed what makes us less human. Here’s the question this story poses for us: if the totally innocent Jesus took on the entire burden of our sin in His outreach to us, can we ever excuse failing to reach out to a brother or sister who is dehumanized by exclusion, persecution, marginalization? We can’t. Who are the equivalent of lepers in our community? How might we reach out to them?

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Sexagesima Sunday (“B”) – February 4, 2018

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Job, in today’s first reading, doesn’t seem able to pray with hope. He is feeling the misery of the world. He is pessimistic about life. And when we turn to the Gospel we see how the crowds who suffer like Job are drawn out of their despair by the healing touch of Jesus. Our Savior has announced the kingdom of healing sick people and casting out devils from those who are possessed. He has come to preach a message of hope to a suffering world. Much of St. Mark’s Gospel is taken up with Jesus’ miracles of healing because this is what a wounded world demands. But Jesus does not want to be seen just as a wonder-worker. His healing goes deeper. He forgives sin and heals spiritual sickness.

In a society which highly values those who are young, healthy and rich, the acknowledgment of sickness and even death is not always welcome. The Bible tells us that we are mortal and gives us permission to lament our suffering just as Job did. Jesus confronts the misery of the world head-on. He makes the healing of sick people central to His ministry. Optimism is a feeling that things will get better, but Christian hope is rooted in a person who has triumphed over death. In the light of that hope we can pray to God for healing in many ways… And today we are fed with the bread of life in Holy Communion. But we are also healed, by care in our homes through the loving concern of our fellow Christians.

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