After Mass the Servers, Ministers, and newly Baptized and Confirmed with their sponsors.
What Recompense can I give to the Lord?
Ordination to the Diaconate
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Blessed Food
An old Polish tradition, these baskets of food were bless to be eaten on the Feast of Easter
Good Friday Homily
It's hard to believe Good Friday is here already,
That the long season of penance has finally come to its end
to the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we consider the cross and its implications.
Many of you have heard me say
that the Cross is really at the center of our Christian Faith.
Over the centuries there has been a debate in the Church
between the Latin west and the Greek eastern Church
over the relative importance of:
the Cross and death of our Lord,
which we Latin Catholics have always focused on,
and the incarnation of our Lord,
which has always been the emphasis for Greek Catholics.
Latin Catholics say Jesus saved mankind on the Cross
Greeks insist that it was by the very act of becoming incarnate,
becoming truly man that God saved man.
One way or the other if we realize what we are saying
when we say GOD became man or
when we say GOD died to save us from our sins
We realize the awesomeness of this mystery.
The fact of the matter is that in becoming man
God, the Son, accepted the totality of the human condition
As Gregory the Theologian noted:
what ever He did not assume He did not save.
Jesus took on our human nature, and with it human emotions, human intelligence, a human will,
and the one thing that was most foreign to God
--the human ability to suffer and die.
He also took on a Vocation, a calling from God.
God the Son, became humble
and accepted in freedom His Father's plan for Him
a plan that always ended in death.
Thus the Passion is not just made possible by the incarnation
it is integral to it--when the Son chose to become Man
He chose to accept the whole plan God had prepared
including the Cross.
The Cross is so important to our faith
because the Cross is a symbol of contradiction.
St. Paul tells us that the Cross is foolishness for the Greeks,
who were known for their philosophy and wisdom.
and a stumbling block to the Jews,
know to be God's chosen people.
But to us who are being saved The Cross is the Power of God.
The Cross is a symbol of shame, of punishment, and of death
that's why they nailed Jesus to it, but Jesus, trusting in the Father
Trusting in the goodness of God, changed all that!
The Cross is at the center of our faith
because it is the symbol of our destiny.
All of us are going to suffer,
all of us are going to feel alone and abandoned at some point,
All of us at some point in our life are going to die.
However, what God shows us on the Cross,
is that if we are able to accept this,
to accept the just punishment for the World's sins
and not just accept it, but embrace it like our Lord did,
offering our sufferings out of Love to God for others
then God, who is all good,
will change the symbol of death into the bridge of life.
Those who Crucified our Lord gave Him the cross to carry
because they hated and despised Him
Jesus accepted it because He Loved them
The Cross was a symbol of weakness and shame
Jesus made it the symbol of true strength and glory
The Cross was an instrument of executing a man
Jesus transformed it into the tool for saving mankind
Made of two beams one horizontal one vertical
The cross was meant as a road sign pointing toward eternal death
Instead Jesus show us how the horizontal of our life
Could be connected each day to the Vertical,
to daily communion with God.
St. Paul says, I glory only in the Cross of Jesus Christ,
we must make this sentiment our own, so that we can live for eternal life.
That the long season of penance has finally come to its end
to the Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we consider the cross and its implications.
Many of you have heard me say
that the Cross is really at the center of our Christian Faith.
Over the centuries there has been a debate in the Church
between the Latin west and the Greek eastern Church
over the relative importance of:
the Cross and death of our Lord,
which we Latin Catholics have always focused on,
and the incarnation of our Lord,
which has always been the emphasis for Greek Catholics.
Latin Catholics say Jesus saved mankind on the Cross
Greeks insist that it was by the very act of becoming incarnate,
becoming truly man that God saved man.
One way or the other if we realize what we are saying
when we say GOD became man or
when we say GOD died to save us from our sins
We realize the awesomeness of this mystery.
The fact of the matter is that in becoming man
God, the Son, accepted the totality of the human condition
As Gregory the Theologian noted:
what ever He did not assume He did not save.
Jesus took on our human nature, and with it human emotions, human intelligence, a human will,
and the one thing that was most foreign to God
--the human ability to suffer and die.
He also took on a Vocation, a calling from God.
God the Son, became humble
and accepted in freedom His Father's plan for Him
a plan that always ended in death.
Thus the Passion is not just made possible by the incarnation
it is integral to it--when the Son chose to become Man
He chose to accept the whole plan God had prepared
including the Cross.
The Cross is so important to our faith
because the Cross is a symbol of contradiction.
St. Paul tells us that the Cross is foolishness for the Greeks,
who were known for their philosophy and wisdom.
and a stumbling block to the Jews,
know to be God's chosen people.
But to us who are being saved The Cross is the Power of God.
The Cross is a symbol of shame, of punishment, and of death
that's why they nailed Jesus to it, but Jesus, trusting in the Father
Trusting in the goodness of God, changed all that!
The Cross is at the center of our faith
because it is the symbol of our destiny.
All of us are going to suffer,
all of us are going to feel alone and abandoned at some point,
All of us at some point in our life are going to die.
However, what God shows us on the Cross,
is that if we are able to accept this,
to accept the just punishment for the World's sins
and not just accept it, but embrace it like our Lord did,
offering our sufferings out of Love to God for others
then God, who is all good,
will change the symbol of death into the bridge of life.
Those who Crucified our Lord gave Him the cross to carry
because they hated and despised Him
Jesus accepted it because He Loved them
The Cross was a symbol of weakness and shame
Jesus made it the symbol of true strength and glory
The Cross was an instrument of executing a man
Jesus transformed it into the tool for saving mankind
Made of two beams one horizontal one vertical
The cross was meant as a road sign pointing toward eternal death
Instead Jesus show us how the horizontal of our life
Could be connected each day to the Vertical,
to daily communion with God.
St. Paul says, I glory only in the Cross of Jesus Christ,
we must make this sentiment our own, so that we can live for eternal life.
Palm Sunday
With my Polish Braided Palm and my Anniversary Red "Holy Apostles" Vestment I leave the Altar on Palm Sunday
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