News - April 2017 RSS Feed

“He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him” (Matthew 28:7). During his Holy Saturday homily in 2014, Pope Francis reflected on this passage by saying, “Galilee is the place where they were first called, where everything began.

Every year around this time we stop and contemplate the meaning of Good Friday and how it makes sense to us today. As a son of Alphonsus, I use this day to reexamine the vows I’ve made to the Redemptorists and to reflect upon how I can make myself more accessible to the underprivileged around me.

On this Holy Thursday, the words of Jesus echo down through the centuries to us today: “Do this in remembrance of me.” What indeed is the meaning of this? For many it would be to continue to celebrate what Jesus instituted that night—the Holy Eucharist.

Today’s Gospel focuses on Judas. At the moment of betrayal in the garden, Jesus calls Judas by the affectionate title friend, saying to him, “why have you come?” Perhaps it was a final effort to save Judas.

The Old Testament readings yesterday, today, and tomorrow come from Isaiah’s prophesy of Jesus, the Suffering Servant. The Gospels depict three meals in which Judas, the betrayer, is present. In the Gospel today, Jesus said, “I tell you solemnly, one of you will betray me.” Peter asked John to find out who it was.

In the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament, we never find Jesus asking anything for himself. Whether entering the synagogue or a person’s home, he never says, “I deserve the place of honor.” Never from his lips do we hear him saying to his apostles, his disciples, or the great crowds that came to him: “What are you going to do for me?

There is no more important week in the life of all Christians than Holy Week. It begins on Palm Sunday, with the Lord entering Jerusalem on a donkey. Many people proclaim him king and Lord. It is a day of celebration that won’t last long.

Our first reading today points out how God has a plan for his people that includes bringing them together and having an abiding presence with them: “My dwelling shall be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Ezekiel 37:27).

Like millions of other Christians, I have made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In Jerusalem I touched the rock traditionally reverenced in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus died for our salvation.

Someone once said that in the first three Gospels Jesus’ preaching emphasizes what the kingdom of God is, or as Dominican theologian Father Albert Nolan prefers to call it, the family of God. And in St. John’s Gospel, Jesus emphasizes who the Father of this family is.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus refers to Jews who believe in him, but he later accuses them of trying to kill him. Who are these Jews who believed in Jesus? From the Acts of the Apostles we learn that “Some from the party of the Pharisees who had become believers stood up and said, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them’” (Acts 15:5).

The Chosen People in today’s reading have wandered the desert and received the Ten Commandments and now in God’s providence are preparing to enter the Promised Land. You would think they would be grateful.

When we reflect on the story of the woman caught in adultery, usually we focus on the woman and the Lord Jesus. But for a moment, think about the crowd that had come to demand the stoning of an adulteress.

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Both Martha and Mary, sisters of the dead Lazarus, say this to Jesus on meeting him. Indeed. It could never have happened if Jesus had been there!