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All liturgical celebrations, not just Sunday Mass, have one theme. That one theme is the death and resurrection of the Lord, or what we theologically call the “Paschal Mystery.” You may have also heard the paschal mystery referred as the “Easter Mystery” or the “Christ-event.” When we celebrate a baptism, we are celebrating the paschal mystery. The candidate enters the baptismal font (the tomb) and joins with Christ in his death but also emerges from those same waters and so joins Christ in his resurrection. When we ...

Every Holy Week, the “Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ” is proclaimed twice — once on Passion/Palm Sunday to begin Holy Week and again, on Good Friday.  This year, had we been able to gather, we would have heard the passion readings of gospel writers Matthew (Passion Sunday) and John (Good Friday).  However, in the midst of these trying times, there is a line, found only in Luke’s passion reading, that really speaks to me.

The context is this: Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane just ...

We are living in unsettling times, dangerous times, and paradoxical times. Every day we hear from health officials or politicians something to this effect: “keep apart but remain together.”  That sound like a paradox to me—keep apart, but remain together. How do you hold the paradox, the contradiction together? The keeping apart is a physical keeping apart; the remaining together is non-physical. We find living this paradox difficult because we are social beings and we were never meant to live apart.

Jesus, by washing his apostles’ feet, ...

It is still hard for me to believe that we will not be assembling for Holy Week, the holiest week of the liturgical year for us Christians. Holy Week begins with the blessing of the palms on Passion/Palm Sunday, but it is the last three days, the Triduum, the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord that is the liturgical and spiritual pinnacle for believers.

The Triduum begins at sunset on Holy Thursday, the day we commemorate the Last Supper and, consequently, the First Eucharist. ...

Before you read any further, take out your Bible and read John 11:1-45. (The Bible is that thick book covered in dust that you may be using as a coaster!). Read it? Good. It is this Sunday’s gospel reading of the raising of Lazarus. One question arising from that story that still prompts much debate is: Was Lazarus resuscitated or resurrected by Jesus?

Some say he was clearly resuscitated, not resurrected. His physical life was restored, but he would die again just like everyone else. Jesus, on ...