Homily – April 5, 2009 – Palm Sunday

We are now entering the most holy week of the Church's calendar year. Perhaps we can quickly review how we got here during the preparatory season of Lent.

• First Sunday of Lent – we considered the "temptation of Jesus in the desert" and we saw how Jesus was not deterred at the beginning of his public life by temptations of Satan to forego the Cross that he knew awaited him at the end of his ministry. Jesus said: GO AWAY SATAN! I CHOOSE THE CROSS! I SHALL NOT BE DETERRED! BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN AND WOMEN GAIN FORGIVENESS OF THEIR SINS AND EVERLASTING LIFE IN HEAVEN! GO AWAY!
  
• Second Sunday of Lent – we read the account of the Transfiguration of Jesus on the Mountain. Jesus became a brilliant, brilliant, white light! This reminds us that after the events of Good Friday would come the Event of Glorious Light: the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It also reminds us that by our baptism we too become LIGHT with Jesus living in us. We said how important it was for us consciously and deliberately and voluntarily to BE THAT LIGHT OF CHRIST as a COURAGEOUS, COMMITTED, CONCERNED, CATHOLIC in the world today!
  
• Third Sunday of Lent – we saw that OBJECTIVE STANDARDS DO EXIST! They are the WORDS AND ACTIONS OF JESUS! What would Jesus say and do?: exactly! That is what we
  ought
  to say and do always – freely choosing it - we need to put our belief into noticeable Christ-centered action – or what good is our belief! Our concerned Catholic voice in this day and age is extremely important. Bishop Murphy of Rockville Center recently said that the bishops cannot do it alone – make a moral stand against those attacking LIFE in various ways – the bishops are relying very much on the good and faithful people of their flocks to be the intelligent, sensitive and forthright Catholics that they are called to be – and to speak out!
  
• Fourth Sunday of Lent – we celebrated Jesus' power over sickness – with the administration of the Sacrament of the Sick at Mass. It was a powerful and real encounter with Jesus who loves to heal his people!
  
• Fifth Sunday of Lent – last week – we celebrated the power of Jesus over sin – with our joint Communal Penance Service held at St. Mary's Church in Bath. It too was a very powerful celebration of God's love and never-ending offer of mercy and forgiveness for those who choose to "come to their senses," to "repent" and who want to "return to their Father," who is just watching and waiting eagerly for their return so he can restore them to their full and rightful place in family life – and then to throw a welcome home party for them. (After Mass today, a party!).
  

  
   

Today we begin the celebration of the events that made all of these things possible: Jesus' ability and power to make our daily lives different; Jesus' ability and power to heal our wounds, our sicknesses, our diseases; Jesus' ability and power to really and truly forgive our sins; Jesus' ability and power to open the gates of heaven wide for us so that we can enter one day – if we choose to live a life close to the one he prescribed: simply a life of giving God glory and self-sacrificial loving service to all our brothers and sisters in the human family: we begin the celebration of Holy Week!

I invite you all – as many as possible - to come celebrate the Holiest Days of the Year [not because you have to: 2 of 3 oddly enough are NOT Holy Days of Obligation; but come because you want to: to demonstrate how appreciative to God you really are for all that he did and still does for you] :

Holy Thursday Mass (6PM) (The Commemoration of the Last Supper that Jesus ate with his disciples – which commemorates the Institution of the Eucharist as our Amazing Spiritual Food for Spiritual Action: loving service, for all time; and also the Institution of the Priesthood which allows for the real Eucharist to be present until the end of time);

Good Friday
Service (6PM) (The Commemoration of Jesus' most awe-inspiring agony and death on the Cross for us and for our salvation – this is the most dramatic event of all time – nothing speaks love, mercy, forgiveness, life more than the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross); and of course, then, next Sunday

Easter Sunday when Jesus' entire incarnation; his entire coming to earth – and everything he said and did - is validated and confirmed
by his magnificent and glorious resurrection from the dead!

Sacramentally and prayerfully, we are so privileged to be able to actually "be there," in a very real spiritual sense, while these events are actually happening! So "be here," so that "you can 'be there,'" and participate wholeheartedly in these amazing mysteries!

Today, if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your hearts!