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Jesus opened their minds: Luke 24:35-48

16/4/2021

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The Gospel for this Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Easter, Year B, comes from the almost the last verses in the Gospel of St Luke (Chapter 24) and contains an account of Jesus appearing to His disciples on the evening of the Resurrection.

Jesus shows up while everyone is chatting about His encounter with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus.

Even after the accounts of the holy women and the Emmaus disciples, their first reaction to the presence of Jesus is alarm and fright.

It takes some considerable time and patience on Jesus’ behalf before they calm down enough for them to be able to listen to Him.

We see a similar pattern of gradual revelation here as we saw last week with St John’s account.

First He is present, then He speaks to them, then He invites them to inspect His body, and then to touch Him. Jesus then uncovers His hands and feet for them. Then He shows them that He is still capable of eating.

Despite their zombie-like reactions, this is a crucially important encounter. They are seeing their Jesus for the first time as the Crucified and Risen One. It is to this reality that they are to become witnesses to the whole world.

Again, just like in St John, Jesus shows His resurrection before He reveals the evidence of His crucifixion. We know ourselves how much easier it is to talk about Jesus as the Risen One compared to talking about Him as the Crucified One. We all want to partake in His resurrection; we are definitely not so keen on sharing His path of suffering, agony and death. Yet until we know Him both ways, we cannot be effective witnesses.

Once the disciples have calmed down enough for their higher brain functions to kick back in, Jesus comes to the second part of His purpose for this visitation.

It is only now that they have encountered Him as Crucified and Risen that Jesus can unfold the whole wonderful plan of God to them. It is through Jesus, Crucified and Risen, that all of salvation history makes sense. Without this lens we cannot understand the fullness of God’s eternal purpose.

How Jesus does this with the disciples is very different to how He did it with the Emmaus disciples. He deliberately and miraculously opens their minds to fully understand the Scriptures. Can you see that it is important that they receive this revelation directly from Jesus, and not indirectly from the Emmaus disciples, so that we can have confidence that our faith is founded on the power of God and not on human reasoning?

Yet the Emmaus disciples are still a gift to the other disciples, because with all this knowledge to crunch through and make sense of, having them as memory keepers of the best scriptural starting points for understanding these mysteries is a very big blessing.

Jesus tells them to look for all the times in the Law of Moses, in the writings of the Prophets and in the Psalms that prefigured and prophesied about Him, to be amazed at how the Crucified and Risen plan of God permeates the Scriptures, and to see the ultimate reason: inviting people back into full relationship with God through repentance.

We know the Church has taken these words and actions of Jesus seriously because Sunday by Sunday the readings and the psalms are chosen to shed light on each other, with the Old Testament prefiguring the New, and the New fulfilling the Old.

This means that we cannot know Jesus fully unless we know Him Crucified and Risen, AND we also know Him through all of the Scriptures.

This also means that there are levels of understanding the scriptures that can only be opened up to us by the power of God. We should diligently ask for these graces.

We can also see that Jesus knew that it would take the disciples time to unpack and digest all the infused knowledge He gave them. That is the purpose of that first season of Easter weeks. It was a vital preparation for Pentecost. Without this process they could never have preached effectively and authoritatively. We know it worked, because on Pentecost morning Peter gets up and quotes from Joel, 2 Samuel, Isaiah, and Psalms 16, 110 and 132 with great confidence.

Let’s pray.
​
Dear Heavenly Father, where we do not know Your Son Jesus in His resurrection, crucifixion, and Holy Scripture to the extent that You want for us, please grant to us that precious revelation. It doesn’t matter to us whether You use the Emmaus method, the Upper Room method, or a combination of both; only that we come to know Jesus in the fullness that You want for us. Please make that happen so that we can become more effective witnesses to You and to Your wonderfully grand plan of salvation. Amen.  
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Introducing the Resurrection: John 20:19-31

9/4/2021

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​The Gospel for this Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday, Year B, comes from the last part of St John Chapter 20 and contains the first and second appearances of the Risen Jesus to His disciples.

It seems to be God’s modus operandi to want a deep heartfelt commitment from us, and this requires that we come to that point of our own free will and at our own pace. It is a process that takes time. If you remember the parable of the sower, God isn’t interested in those who show lots of initial promise and then fade quickly away. He is interested in those willing to go through the full maturation process and then produce outstanding harvests.

If Jesus had burst upon the disciples with His full brilliance, there would have been immediate response, but responses that were unsustainable over the long term.

We see Jesus reveal His risen Self in stages.

Firstly He comes among them as they are standing together reciting evening prayer. He waits patiently until they realise that He is with them.

Only then does He speak to them. He waits patiently until they have all processed what He said.

Only then does He uncover His hands and side to them, so that they may gaze upon His wounds and begin to understand His passion and death.

Only when they have all seen His wounds does He commission them and begin the activity of the Holy Spirit within them.

We also see that it took the disciples time to process what Jesus showed them of His resurrection, and what it meant.

If they had processed it quickly, Thomas would have seen evidence in their changed behaviour and consequently believed what they told him of the resurrection. But eight days later, the doors are still closed/shut/locked.

We don’t really see any profound change until several weeks have passed and the Holy Spirit comes in power. All of these Easter weeks were needed for Jesus to teach them the many things He couldn’t teach them prior to the resurrection, and for them to begin to get their heads around it.

If Jesus treats them with such patience and merciful kindness, we should do the same for each other.

Have you noticed that people who love to quote Pope Francis about sour faced Christians not being Christians at all are usually naturally cheerful and positive people? It is a stick they like to brow beat the rest of us with at this time of year.

However the truth is that we are all in process; and some might be closer in that process to comprehending the impact of the resurrection than others, but it doesn’t give us the right to denigrate anyone else’s progress or lack thereof.

You could also look upon this process as stages in spiritual growth:

Most of us first get a sense of Jesus when we are gathered together in corporate prayer. For some this will take the form of prayer groups, or worship groups, or liturgical prayer, or the Mass.

When that awareness grows, then we begin to receive communications from Him. That could be the bible verse that jumps off the page, or a deep sense of the rightness of a particular decision, or even the interior voice He sometimes uses.

Only when we have got to know Him to a certain level, does He then take us to the level of understanding Him through His wounds and His Passion. 

Only then when we have begun to understand the sufferings and redemption He won for us, only then can we be sent out as witnesses, and only after the Holy Spirit has had His full way with us.

And a big part of that mission is reconciling relationships into unity through forgiveness. We cannot draw closer to God unless we draw closer to each other as well.

Let us remember that the first disciples actually saw the risen Jesus, and yet they still struggled to comprehend what it meant, and this process took significant time for them too.
​
May the risen Jesus grant us a share in His patience and merciful kindness, so that we might be a lot gentler to ourselves and to each other on our shared journey to comprehend the fullness of the resurrection. Amen.
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Evening Mass on Easter Sunday

6/4/2021

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This Easter I came across a very strange phenomenon – Evening Masses on Easter Sunday being scrapped. Sometimes they were replaced with late morning Masses, but sometimes they were just scrapped.

This is Wrong!

Biblically Wrong! 

And it is time the Liturgy was updated too!

John 20:19-31 contains the answer.
It is the Gospel for every Mass held on the 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday).

But curiously it contains two stories: what happened on the first ever Easter Sunday evening, AND what happened a week later.

Other big solemnities have different readings for vigil and for Mass during the day (eg Pentecost). Christmas has different readings for vigil, during the night (a.k.a. Midnight), dawn and during the day.

Easter already has vigil and during the day, why not also have special readings and prayers for Easter evening?

You see, Easter Sunday evening should be celebrated with special gusto for two important biblical reasons.
1. It is the time that Jesus first showed His risen Self to His disciples.
2. It is when He initiated the sacrament of Penance.

That’s when Jesus showed up to be with His apostles and disciples.
Shouldn’t we be there to meet Him?
Shouldn’t we be celebrating both things ‘at the time it happened’, like all the other events of the Paschal Triduum?

Wouldn’t it be dreadful if Jesus showed up in our churches at that time with bucket loads of graces to give away – and there was no one there to receive Him, nor His gifts?

The liturgical gurus tell us that the Paschal Triduum does not end until vespers (evening prayer) on Easter Sunday, and there are in some liturgical rites quite a bit of pomp and circumstance attached to Easter Sunday vespers.

There’s no reason why we can’t have the Gospel for Easter Evening as John 20:19-23, and still have John 20:19-31 on Divine Mercy Sunday.

Surely it is time that we gave God proper thanks and praise for the institution of the sacrament of penance!

And then give Him due thanks and praise for His whole grand plan of unfathomable Mercy on the second Sunday of Easter.

It isn’t ‘double handling’.
Both are truly worthy of liturgical veneration.

It is time this ‘missing link’ in the Paschal Triduum was no longer missing.
​
Can I get an Amen, please?
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All I want for Easter

4/4/2021

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A strange thing happened on Good Friday; an email asking if I’d like to pen 600 words of an inspiring nature about my 2021 Paschal Triduum experiences. At that point the Holy Thursday ceremonies had been sub-par and disappointment was beginning to creep in. With this unusual time in history and the unusual confluence of Passover coinciding with Easter, I had dared to hope for some of the more dynamic manifestations of the Holy Spirit during these holy days.

Rants I could provide.
Inspiration – not so much.

But the consideration did clarify some of what I wanted to see during these holy days:

I'm never going to be happy until I see signs of God's supernatural action during the Triduum.

That means:
*Homilies that are beyond human wisdom and convict and uplift the heart at the same time.
*Pandemonium because people have come back from Holy Communion and have found themselves healed.
*People sitting in the pews long after the ceremonies are over because they have been caught up in God.
 
Things like that.
 
But I haven't seen it yet, so I remain disappointed, because that's how Easter is supposed to be.
 
The Triduum liturgy has the structure and the capacity to hold and channel Resurrection power.

I don’t know about you, but I believe in an Almighty God who can do far more than give me uplifting emotions, and I want far more than that. Emotions come and go. Action changes the status quo. I want action, not only for me and my loved ones, but for everyone present and their loved ones.

I want the newspapers filled with testimonies about what happened during the Triduum.

But I know we can’t get there if the homilies are lacking the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

“Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved. But they will not ask His help unless they believe in Him, and they will not believe in Him unless they have heard of Him, and they will not hear of Him unless they get a preacher…. Faith comes from what is preached, and what is preached comes from the Word of Christ.” Rom 10:13-15a,17

The first homily spoke primarily of the gifts of the eucharist and the priesthood, and didn’t speak much about the Giver, on His night of nights.

The second homily was long, but began to improve mid-way, touching many of the right notes but without any power riding on or through them.

The third homily didn’t mention any of the banquet of scripture readings, and could have been a replay of similar homilies given in different locations; did say all the expected things, but didn’t have Jesus as the primary focus.

When a homily is as it is supposed to be, it makes Jesus present, and enables us to encounter Him.

But that takes not only study, and time, but assiduous prayer and more than ordinary levels of holiness, and it also requires responding to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit (no matter how ‘out there’ they might feel) both in the preparation phase and in the delivery phase.

We also can’t get there without intercessory preparation, i.e. a parish army praying daily all through Lent for those who will attend the Triduum (in whole or in part), that their hearts and souls will be good soil for the Gospel, and further, for the Holy Spirit to act upon them to convict, save, heal, direct and commission those attendees according to His holy will.

Truly inspired parish armies will also pray afterwards that the good seed sown in hearts and souls will come to full harvest under the action of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, God can act sovereignly without these levels of human co-operation, but generally His modus operandi is to work with us rather than without us – as long as we take all our cues from Him.

In all honesty we can’t expect Him to show up and take our plans from good to great without seeking His input in the planning – even though planning without seeking His input (but, perhaps, for a brief 30 second prayer at the beginning of a planning meeting) appears to be our normal modus operandi.
​It takes more intentional effort than that!
​
Please God, may He make us so dissatisfied with our Triduum experiences that we put Him first, front and centre next time, and ever after. Amen.
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Dawn on the Sabbath: Mark 16:1-7

2/4/2021

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The Gospel for the Easter Vigil, Year B, comes from the first part of St Mark Chapter 16 and contains the discovery of the empty tomb of Jesus.

Three things stood out to me from this Gospel passage, and they speak of God’s providence, His knowledge and His mercy.

In their hurry to get to the tomb of Jesus as early as possible, and therefore to attract as little attention as possible from passers-by, the women fixated on getting the spices ready and on transporting them successfully have forgotten to bring any man-power with them. The stone covering the entrance to the tomb is extremely large, and not something that the combined might of three women could budge. This worrying thought only dawns on them after they have set out for the tomb, and then consumes their thoughts for the rest of the journey. But God in His providence has already solved this problem for them, and before they even remembered that they needed help. The women don’t have to work out who is going to stay and guard the spices and who is going to go back and get help, they can proceed with their plan.

Only there’s no one to embalm with spices.

However there’s a young man dressed in a long white robe like the upper classes wear, someone of significance, sitting on the tomb ledge.

So much for not being discovered! The women experience a range of emotions that gets translated as alarmed, terrified, greatly astonished, awe struck, struck with amazement. The young man tells them ‘do not be ….’ and he uses the exact same base word for those range of emotions. Telling us that God knows exactly what we are going through, and exactly what we are feeling, and can calm us down.

Since a messenger must have a message to give; explanations for why the tomb is empty of Jesus and the details of a new mission for the women follow.

‘You must go and tell His disciples and Peter.’

If you remember the Passion narrative from St Mark, Peter well and truly blotted his copybook with Jesus; multiple
denials, emphasized with cursing, and with oaths.
Thus this message is important.

It also has at least two layers of meaning. The first layer is ‘go and tell My disciples and take special care that you make sure Peter gets the message’. The second layer is ‘go and tell My disciples, and also go and tell Peter that if he wants to become a disciple again, that the door is open for him to return’. Both layers of meaning are an invitation for Peter to receive the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus. It is quite possible that Peter might have never found the courage to return to the disciples without this merciful message.

So let us rededicate ourselves to the risen Lord Jesus, remembering that His providence anticipates our needs, remembering that He knows us better than we know ourselves, and remembering that He is willing to be reconciled with us no matter how badly we have stuffed things up.

May He help us remember, and may He enable us to increase our trust and confidence in Him. Amen.
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Holy Wounds of Jesus

22/5/2015

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At each Easter Vigil, while the Church gathers around the new fire some prayers are said during the preparation of the paschal candle before it is lit. Because these prayers are so short you could easily miss them, but they are packed full of power.

The first one proclaims that all time belongs to the risen Lord: 'Christ yesterday and today, the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega. All time belongs to Him; and all the ages. To Him be glory and power through every age and for ever. Amen.' As this prayer is said, we focus on the iconography of the candle. In the middle is a cross representing Jesus Christ. Above it is an Alpha, below it is an Omega. This visually shows the power of the Cross spanning all time from the first moment until the last one. Then in the four quadrants of the Cross are the four numerals of the year (2, 0, 1, 5), visually proclaiming that this year, too, is under the Lordship of Jesus.

Whenever we look upon a paschal candle then, we are visually reminded that God is in control, that He has the ultimate victory, and consequently we can increase our trust in Him.

The second short prayer is no less powerful: 'By His holy and glorious wounds, may Christ the Lord guard us and protect us. Amen.' While this prayer is prayed five grains of incense (usually covered in red wax) are pressed into the centre and outer edges of the Cross to represent the nail wounds in the two hands, two feet and heart of Jesus.

Whenever we look upon a paschal candle then, we are visually reminded of these five great and glorious wounds of Jesus through which our salvation was accomplished.

If Holy Mother Church has drawn our attention to these Holy Wounds so vividly at the solemn beginning of the Easter Vigil, then they must be extraordinarily important for our lives as Christians.

So when was the last time you deliberately thought about the Wounds of Jesus? And what are we missing if we don't ponder them regularly?

When we pray the Chaplet of Mercy we generally think more about the sorrows of Jesus. When we pray the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary we more frequently ponder the broad sweep of action going on than the minor details. Some other chaplets start with the Sign of the Cross five times in honour of the five great and glorious wounds Jesus received for us on the wood of the Cross. But by and large pondering His Wounds isn't the regular part of our prayer lives that it should be.

Especially when driving, as I am praying the Chaplet of Mercy to mentally keep count of each decade I will either use the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary or the 5 Holy Wounds.

Sometimes if in Confession I am given a penance of 2 Hail Marys or 2 Our Fathers, I will multiply them by 3 and do one each in honour of the Crowning with Thorns and the 5 Holy Wounds.

Let us ponder the Wounds of Jesus and see what treasures we find:

The Agony in the Garden: We know that 'In His anguish Jesus prayed more earnestly, and His sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.' Luke 22:44. Blood only comes from wounds, and these wounds were at skin cell size, incredibly small and yet extraordinarily numerous. Can you see in them redemption and reparation for all of our everyday sins that we try to convince ourselves don't matter? The angry word; the slammed door; the white lie; the stolen coin; the cold shoulder; the swear word; the taunt; the salacious joke. Each and every one of those small failures to love, Jesus paid for.

The Scourging at the Pillar: These wounds were many and received under official orders with many complicit bystanders. Each lash was on vulnerable uncovered skin, and like the paw swipe of an enraged lion. Can you see in them redemption and reparation for the brutality of those in power towards those who have none, of the crimes of domestic violence, the atrocities committed in war time, the acts of revenge of one person against another, the violence meted out to those in protective custody? And then the majority of those wounds get covered up and hidden under the regular clothes of Jesus. How would we cope if we experienced just one lash from the scourge? And yet Jesus endured this multiple times for us.

The Crowning with Thorns: These wounds didn't have official sanction, and were received in a more private setting where a gang mistreated a single victim. These wounds were smaller than the scourges, but sometimes deeper. From another angle they are wounds that went beyond the bounds of official orders, and were completely unjustified. Because they are wounds upon the head, they are attacks against the mind and the ability to reason. Can you see in them redemption and reparation for bullying, extortion, works of terror, propaganda, rebellion and mockery of the truth? Unlike the scourges which are inflicted multiple times over a longer period and systematically, the thorns are inflicted quickly but with ongoing consequences when the gang is no longer around. Jesus understands our pain, our fear and out terror, that's one of the things these thorn-caused wounds teach us.

The Carrying of the Cross: The wound we usually focus on here is the shoulder (or shoulders) of Jesus upon which the Cross was carried. But there are additional wounds to think of because each fall under the Cross would have added wounds to His knees, hips, hands and face. Any fall results in grazes and torn skin, especially if the fall is onto a rough surface. At public executions like this, projectiles like small stones and garbage would have been thrown as well. Some of them would have hit Jesus and drawn blood. They represent the sharp words and weapons we hurl at each other. The wound in the shoulder reminds us of those wounds that only get bigger over time. Jesus suffered it to redeem and reparate for the ways we destroy our souls through increasing jealousy, resentment, rage, bitterness, and self-pity until the original cause of our hurt is indecipherable.

The Stripping of His Garments: Any wound is bad, but a re-opened wound is worse. A wound received in private is one thing, but the humiliation of a wound exposed to hostile public gaze is more painful. These are like the wounds of a victim that has to relive his or her ordeal before a courtroom, and have all credibility called into question. Jesus went through this stripping of his garments for us, to redeem and reparate our sins. He went through this re-opening of his wounds especially for all those sins committed when we are unclothed; for the multiplicity of sexual sins as well as the sins we tempt others too when we are immodestly dressed.

The Nailing of Jesus to the Cross: These wounds in the hands and feet of Jesus caused by the nails redeem and repair for all the sins we commit with our hands and our feet. Stealing is an obvious one, as is desertion of duty. These wounds also obtain forgiveness for our failures, our failures to help those in need, our failures to visit the sick and suffering. When we look at these wounds, we are amazed that Jesus would permit His hands and feet to be pierced through in order to permanently remind us of His love for us. We ask the age old question, 'Lord, is my soul worth this much?' And these wounds of His answer, 'Yes!' every time.

The Piercing of His Heart: 'Any wound rather than a wound of the heart!' Ecclesiasticus 25:13. Physical wounds heal with time, but wounds of the heart linger. Betrayals, infidelities, adultery, rejection; how they hurt more sharply than any lance. How difficult they are to forgive! But with God such forgiveness and freedom from the burden of hurt is possible. Of all His Wounds, this one is the most eloquent. All of us are guilty of lack of love towards the God who with infinite love created us, redeemed us through the Cross and wants to sanctify us. This wound in His Sacred Heart makes visible the ardent desire with which He wants all sin removed from our lives so that we can enjoy the fullness of His love. However much we have wounded His Heart with our sins, He is willing to forgive us and to renew our relationship with Him. The best way to seek that forgiveness and renewal is in the sacrament of penance (a.k.a. confession to a priest).

Pondering the Holy Wounds of Jesus a) dispels the loneliness of our own sufferings because He has already experienced the same sufferings, b) weans us from our attachment to sin, c) allows us to hope for mercy and d) increases our love and appreciation for Jesus.

Let us ponder His Holy Wounds more often and more regularly.

You may find these PDFs about the Chaplet of the Holy Wounds helpful. The first is a single A4 sheet that folds into a ¼ size booklet. The second single A4 sheet has three panels.

holywoundsfoldpdf.pdf
File Size: 49 kb
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holywounds2w7pdf.pdf
File Size: 36 kb
File Type: pdf
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St Francis of Assisi, St Padre Pio, St Gemma Galgani, St Gertrude the Great and all Saints who had special devotion to the Holy Wounds of Jesus, pray for us that we may come to love them as much as you did. Amen.

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Report Card : As Parishes we could do so much better

9/4/2015

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This Easter was an unusual one for me. Normally I stay in the same place to celebrate Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, because I consider it is a complete journey that you should go through with the same cohort of people. But this Easter I was celebrating it in four different parishes on the four different days.

It was an unusual one for me in another sense as well, because due to Proclaim 2014 I was more conscious of how someone who comes to Church only for Christmas and Easter might perceive what is going on.

And the analysis? All of the parishes scored the same report. Good liturgy, good homilies, reasonable music, soul-stirring stuff, and absolutely no follow-up opportunities for anyone whose soul had been stirred. Where it really counts we could be doing so much better.

If the powerful Good Friday liturgy stirred your soul and you wanted to talk to someone about the existence of God, or what to do about the spiritual experience you had, or about what you could do to take the next step in deepening your relationship with God there was easily found method of doing so. Even parish bulletins don't appear until Sunday. 

It seems at the times we as a parish could do the greatest good for others that we are at our weakest ebb. At regular Sunday Masses we have full complements of wardens, welcomers, extraordinary ministers of holy communion, etc. But at Christmas and Easter at least half of them go away on holidays at the very time that we need double of them. This means at the very least we should be training lots of people to fulfill those roles.

It could do so much good if parishes had an A6 sized prayer card that could be handed out as people arrived, or left on the pews for people to find. Prayer cards with good artwork, a short Gospel quotation or two (appropriate for the liturgical season), information about regular weekend Mass times and sacrament of penance times, telephone and email contact information for the parish office, and a further set of telephone and email contact information for those who want to ask faith based questions. For the latter a separate gmail address could be set up which the RCIA team could access and find answers for.

But we also need to do something about striking while the iron is hot and before it begins to cool. Parishes could have a team that conducts a question and answer session after each of those four major Easter ceremonies. Certainly such sessions would need to be announced by the priest at homily time, and it would require stamina on the part of everyone because the Easter ceremonies are much longer than regular weekend Masses. Else you could make a question and answer session follow on from Morning Prayer on Good Friday and Holy Saturday and after Morning Mass on Easter Monday.

There is also something to be said for daytime and evening question and answer sessions on Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday before the holiday makers go home. 

As a whole we do the preparation parts well with Lent and Advent discussion groups, but we don't have a follow-up culture of Eastertide and Christmastide discussion groups. That needs to change so that we can all ground the special spiritual experiences and insights that the Easter ceremonies bring to each of us, and let them begin to bear the spiritual fruit God intended them to produce.

As parishes we could do so much better.

Do you have any other ideas for how we could begin to develop a parish culture of follow-up after major liturgical events?

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us
St Peter, and all the holy Apostles, pray for us.
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Stations of the Resurrection : Via Lucis

3/4/2015

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On Good Friday many of us pray the 14 (or 15) Stations of the Cross that follow the journey of Jesus from His condemnation to death to His burial in the tomb. This devotion has helped us understand what Jesus has done for us as well as how to deal with the moments of suffering that punctuate our lives.

In recent decades there has been an option to do something similar to help us meditate upon the resurrection of Jesus. Like the well known Way of the Cross, they too have 14 stations. Sometimes they are called the Via Lucis or Way of Light. Starting from the proclamation of the resurrection by the angel to the women in the empty tomb and going through all the recorded appearances of the risen Jesus in the Gospel it ends with the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Having prayed through several versions of the Stations of the Resurrection over the years, I can attest that they are very helpful spiritually. For when our hearts and minds become convinced that Jesus is risen, our lives receive new hope and vitality. And it certainly takes time for that conviction to seep in.

Below is a version of the Stations of the Resurrection that was prepared with an ecumenical audience in mind. Each Station has a scripture reading, a reflection and a prayer. The first PDF contains 16 pages, with print at a size to be comfortable reading out loud from a microphone. The second PDF is for personal use and takes 9 pages. 
stationsoftheresurrectionlarge2pdf.pdf
File Size: 230 kb
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stationsoftheresurrectionpdf.pdf
File Size: 169 kb
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Praying these Stations of the Resurrection should take about 30 minutes in a group setting, and a bit less if prayed on your own. They were written with the residents of an aged care facility in mind, but they would work just as well with a prayer group or youth group.

May all of those holy ones to whom Jesus showed His risen glory, His Mother, St Peter, St Thomas, St Mary of Magdala, the holy women, the other Apostles and the rest of the faithful disciples always intercede for you when you pray these Stations of the Resurrection.

Happy Easter! 
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