Jesus wants us to know who he is: the Good Shepherd who protects and cares for the people of God just as a shepherd does his sheep. Shepherds always want their sheep to be healthy and happy.

They want them to have the best grass, fresh water, and safety, so that they can grow and multiply as much as possible. A sheep has no greater friend than a good shepherd, and we have no greater friend than Christ. He invented life, he gave us life, and he came so that, in him, we might learn to live it "more abundantly."

He does not claim to be one good shepherd among many good shepherds, but the only one: "All others who have come are thieves and robbers." Some religious leaders and philosophers throughout history - and even in our own day - have claimed to be saviours, to have all the answers, but they were really consumed by pride, greed, or lust.

Others have sincerely sought to better this world, but simply have insufficient wisdom or power to provide the human family with the kind of hope we long for and need. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, not only wants to lead us to a more abundant life, but he can. Omniscient, omnipotent, and eternal, he combines utter goodness with infinite wisdom and unlimited power.

And so, with his flock, the problem is not the shepherd's limitations or ignorance, but the sheep's lack of docility; we stray from the flock and trap ourselves in thistles and swamps of self-centeredness, self-indulgence, and stubborn disobedience.

As Christians, we actually don't have just a good shepherd, but the perfect shepherd. All we need is to be sensible sheep and listen to the voice of the One we know.

Two Images from Shepherds' Lore

Israel had long been a shepherding people. None of the eloquent details of the comparison would have been lost on Jesus' listeners. Most of us have seen the image of a shepherd carrying a little lamb around his shoulders - one of the favourite images for Christ in early Christian art, with a surprising meaning.

When a lamb is fearful or overconfident, it constantly wanders away from the shepherd, putting itself in danger. When that keeps happening, a shepherd will sometimes purposely break one of its legs.

He then puts the lamb around his neck and carries it to and from pasture for the couple of weeks while the leg heals. By that time, the little lamb has become attached to the shepherd, and never again strays far from its master's protection and guidance. The image of the shepherd as the gate of the sheepfold (the corral) is even more suggestive.

A flock of sheep needs both protection and nourishment. The sheepfold provides the protection, and the fields provide the nourishment. In Palestine shepherds often sleep in the opening of the sheepfold, which is made from a large circle of thick, high shrubbery.

This way, wolves smell the shepherd's presence and fear to make midnight raids, while the sheep keep together inside, comforted by the presence of their protector and guide. When day finally dawns, the shepherd rises to lead his sheep out to pasture. Thus, the opening, the gate, symbolizes both protection and nourishment.

And so, when Christ calls himself the "gate for the sheep," he is telling us what he wants to be for each of us: everything. Through Church teaching, he provides a thick hedge of truth protecting us from false, seductive doctrines. Through the sacraments, he provides rich pasture to strengthen our needy souls.

And Jesus alone, the Good Shepherd, gives the Church her wisdom and the sacraments their power. 

Jesus' teaching is summarized in one word - "love" (Matthew 22:36-40; Luke 10:25-28). Saint John Paul II affirmed that love "is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being" (Familiaris Consortio, 11). This common vocation of love can be manifested in various ways, among them in married life and the priesthood. Today, as we celebrate Vocation Sunday, I would like to invite you to know more religious life.

Those in whom God's grace awakens a hunger for a more demanding life are called to share with Christ a willingness to give up much that the world offers so that they might cling to God in a richer freedom. This invitation to close discipleship endures in the Church in a special way in the religious life. Those who enter this state bind themselves, as the Second Vatican Council teaches, "either by vows or by other sacred bonds which are like vows, in their purpose" (Lumen Gentium, 44) to an observance of the evangelical counsels of perfection – that is, the Gospel counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience.

All religious profess the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience (called the evangelical counsels) according to the example and recommendation of Jesus. These vows help the religious to dedicate themselves in love to God alone, and to free themselves for service to the Church. The apostolic exhortation of Saint John Paul II explains the purpose of each of the evangelical counsels:

"The chastity of celibates and virgins, as a manifestation of dedication to God with an undivided heart (cf. 1 Cor 7:32-34), is a reflection of the infinite love which links the three Divine Persons in the mysterious depths of the life of the Trinity, the love to which the Incarnate Word bears witness even to the point of giving his life, the love 'poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit' (Rom 5:5), which evokes a response of total love for God and the brethren.

Poverty proclaims that God is man's only real treasure. When poverty is lived according to the example of Christ who, 'though he was rich … became poor' (2 Cor 8:9), it becomes an expression of that total gift of self which the three Divine Persons make to one another. This gift overflows into creation and is fully revealed in the Incarnation of the Word and in his redemptive death.

Obedience, practiced in imitation of Christ, whose food was to do the Father's will (cf. Jn 4:34), shows the liberating beauty of a dependence which is not servile but filial, marked by a deep sense of responsibility and animated by mutual trust, which is a reflection in history of the loving harmony between the three Divine Persons" (par 21).

Religious Life comes in many different forms. Some communities are active, meaning they have an apostolate among people to aid or assist them with physical or spiritual necessities (teaching, missionary work, care for the poor, etc.) Some are contemplative, meaning their primary apostolate is prayer for the Church and the world. Many communities mix aspects of both active and contemplative life.

The lives of religious are full and richly rewarding, though this may seem contradictory to a worldy understanding of what makes people happy. While religious do not have their own spouses and children, they take the whole Church as their families, and are free to be present in all lives in a unique way. While they do not collect many possessions, they possess true joy and purity of heart, and have more than material possessions can give with the love of God. And while they have bound themselves in obedience, the freedom of trusting entirely in Divine Providence brings allows profound peace and happiness.

Today, as we give thanks for the many men and women from our diocese and throughout the universal Church who have responded to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to be a consecrated person. Let us pray that more and more young people will dare to respond to the call of God's Love and let us also pray that they may experience the support of our spiritual family as they continue their growth in holiness. 

My dear brothers and sisters, this third Sunday of Easter, we read/listen to the Gospel of Luke which tells a story about two disciples of Jesus who walk back to Emmaus. These two disciples gave up on Christ because of the cross.

They were walking away from the community of apostles and Christ's followers - leaving the Church. It wasn't because they were big sinners. It was just that the Cross, the tragedy of Good Friday, had scared them away. "We were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel," they say to the stranger as they walk back to their old lifestyles, sad and disappointed.

They simply can't understand how salvation can come out of the Cross, victory out of defeat. So, they give up. But Jesus comes to their rescue. He walks along with them, talking to them about the Scriptures, the promises and revelations found in God's Word.

And their hearts "burn within them." Their hope is stirred into flame. Their spiritual strength and their faith return. Suddenly, they can recognize Christ's saving power and love even in the darkness of the shadow of the Cross.

We too face the temptation of fear and discouragement when crosses come into our lives. In fact, we all know Catholics who have left the Church, just as these two disciples were leaving Jerusalem, because the Cross crushed their hope, and they became cynical, angry.

What will prevent us from abandoning our Lord and our hope when we feel the weight of the Cross? The same thing that rescued these two sad disciples: conversation with Christ - prayer.

Prayer is the source of light and strength for the Christian. When we take time to unburden our minds to the Lord, and to read and reflect on the Scriptures, maybe with the help of spiritual books, we give Jesus a chance to explain things to our hearts.

The Example of Jesus and the Words of Some Saints

Jesus himself told us this when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane with his Apostles. The shadow of the Cross was beginning to fall, and he said to the Apostles, "Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation." And Jesus followed his own advice. How did he resist the onslaughts of the devil during his agony in the Garden, which made him feel anguish, fear, and sorrow? By praying - he threw himself onto the ground and prayed. Prayer was his strength.

St Teresa of Avila put it very bluntly when she explained the importance of daily, personal prayer: "He who neglects mental prayer needs not a devil to carry him to hell, but he brings himself there with his own hands."

We all remember the scene from Luke Chapter 10, where Jesus goes to visit Martha and Mary. Martha is busy in the kitchen, and she complains to Jesus about her sister Mary, who is just sitting there conversing with Jesus - praying. Jesus tells Martha that Mary chose the better part.

Here's how St Augustine interprets that scene: "From the top of a hill the rain flows down to the valley. Just as more water collects at the bottom of the hill, so Mary, sitting in a low place at the feet of Jesus, listening to His words, receives more than Martha, standing and serving the temporal needs of her Master."

The Catechism teaches us that prayer is a "vital necessity" (2744). As St John Chrysostom taught: "Nothing is equal to prayer; for what is impossible, it makes possible, what is difficult, easy... For it is impossible, utterly impossible, for the man who prays eagerly and invokes God ceaselessly ever to sin."

And St Alphonsus Liguori put it even more concisely: "Those who pray are certainly saved; those who do not pray are certainly damned."

Jump-Starting Our Prayer Life

Being men and women of prayer is not the same thing as simply saying prayers. It is always a temptation for us to reduce prayer to just reciting prayers. But prayer is meant to be much more than just reciting empty formulas.

Prayer is a relationship, it's an ongoing conversation with Christ our Lord, in which we talk about what's important to us and what's important to Him, just like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The Catechism defines prayer as that relationship. It tells us: "Christian prayer is a covenant relationship between God and man in Christ... a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God" (2564, 2558).

Because it is a relationship, we can always grow in our prayer lives. Jesus wants to pour into our hearts His own strength and light, wisdom and endurance, patience, and joy. When we grow in our prayer life, we give Him a chance to do that. And the only way to really grow in our prayer life is to spend more time in prayer.

Every Christian, every one of us, should spend ten or fifteen minutes a day, preferably in the morning, in personal prayer. Reading a passage from the Bible, reflecting on it, and responding to it in our own words, in the quiet of our hearts. Read, reflect, respond. This is a simple formula to help jumpstart our prayer lives.

Let's not wait till tomorrow. Let's begin right now, with the rest of this Mass - living it not passively, not just going through the motions, but actively, in conversation with the Lord who loves us and wants to come to our rescue. 

This familiar post-Resurrection narrative in which Christ relates to these disciples through Scripture and the breaking of the bread serves as an appropriate background for reflecting on how Christ continues to communicate himself to us as Word and as Eucharist.

This statement of Paul VI reminds us that when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, Christ is already present with us. He gives us his Spirit that empowers us to come to the Eucharist and to identify ourselves with this worshiping community. We don't come to this celebration to find Christ. He is always with us. We come to be open to his unique sacramental presence and communication to us as the Word of God and the Bread of Life. This encounter with Christ enables us to be more conscious of Christ's presence in the rest of our lives.

In this article we reflect on Christ's unique presence in the Liturgy of the Word and in the Eucharist, the relationship of both of these presences to each other, and some of the applications that flow from this.

Christ's Presence in the Liturgy of the Word

The first belief we bring to the Eucharist is that Christ is the Word of God. The prologue in John's Gospel gives clear testimony to this article of faith: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:1, 14).

We come to the Liturgy of the Word not just to hear words about Christ but to open ourselves to the Real Presence of Christ who speaks to us now through the reading of the Scriptures (Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 7). We allow Christ, the Word of God, to encounter us and to transform us by his Word. He stands at the door knocking. To anyone who hears his voice and opens the door he promises, "'I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me'" (Revelation 3:20).

The connection between receiving the Word of God and eating is also brought out elsewhere in the Scriptures. When God sent the prophet Ezekiel to speak to the people, a written scroll "covered with writing front and back" is unrolled before him (Ezekiel 2:9-10). God then said to Ezekiel, "Son of man, eat what is before you; eat this scroll, then go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he gave me the scroll to eat" (3:1-2).

At the Liturgy of the Word we are called not just to hear God's Word but to eat it, drink it in, let it enter into our minds, our hearts, our souls; to integrate it into the depths of our being so that it transforms us and becomes the inspiration for the way we live and relate to God and to others. This is of vital necessity for all of us Christians. Like Ezekiel, we must absorb the Word of God into our being in order to be enlightened and empowered to communicate effectively this Word to others.

Christ's Presence in the Liturgy of the Eucharist

Our ultimate liturgical response to the Liturgy of the Word is the Liturgy of the Eucharist. In the words of Consecration Christ, through the priest, proclaims the gift of himself to us as he did at the Last Supper and enacted on the cross: "Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you…Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven." As these words are proclaimed, we acknowledge in mind and heart Christ's unique presence and self-offering. "Lord, by your cross and resurrection you have set us free. You are the Savior of the world."

At Communion, we express our desire and our openness to Christ, the Incarnate Word, the crucified and risen One, to enter ever further into the depths of our being to transform our minds, our hearts, our souls into his image. We eat this Eucharistic bread and drink this Eucharistic wine as the most explicit way we have of symbolizing our need and our yearning for Christ to be in us and with us.

Christ came as the Word of God incarnate. He continues to proclaim his Word to us especially in the Liturgy of the Word. He is present to us most sacramentally in the giving of himself in Eucharist. We who listen to his Word and receive him in Eucharist are sent forth to be for others the Body of Christ, the One who comes to serve, not to be served. 

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, why is the second Sunday of Easter is called the Divine Mercy Sunday? We have to go back to the time when Pope John Paul II, on April 30, 2000, canonized the Polish nun who had received from Christ the amazing revelations of the Divine Mercy in the early years of the twentieth century, Saint Mary Faustina Kowalska.

During that ceremony, the pope fulfilled one of the requests that Christ had made through those revelations: that the entire Church reserve the Second Sunday of the Easter Season to honor and commemorate God's infinite mercy.

Where do we see this mercy revealed in today's Readings? First of all, we see it in the reaction Christ shows to those men, his chosen Apostles, who had abandoned him just two nights before.

The Apostles had abandoned Jesus in his most difficult hour, but Jesus wasn't going to abandon them. Jesus passes through the locked doors, passes through their fears, regret, and guilt, and appears to them. He hasn't given up on them. He brings them his peace. And he reaffirms his confidence in them by reaffirming their mission: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

We also see God's mercy in Christ's reaction to the men who had crucified him. Does he crush them in revenge? No. Instead, he sends out his Apostles to tell them - and to tell the whole sinful world, the world that had crucified its God - that they can be redeemed, that God has not condemned them: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."

And then, just to make sure that the Church is fully armed to communicate this message, Jesus gives the ultimate revelation of God's mercy - he delegates to his Apostles his divine power to forgive sins: "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained."

This is the explicit institution of the sacrament of Confession, the sacrament in which the limitless ocean of God's mercy overwhelms the puny ocean of our misery. It was the ultimate revelation of the Divine Mercy.

The Doubts of Thomas

Of all the Apostles, perhaps Doubting Thomas experienced this mercy most dramatically. Thomas was mad that Jesus had failed. He was brooding over it, nursing his anger and sorrow in solitude. So, when he finally heard the news of the Resurrection, he wouldn't accept it: "Unless I see the mark of the nails... I will not believe."

A week later, on the second Sunday after the Resurrection, Divine Mercy Sunday, Thomas is with the other Apostles, still locked inside their fears and doubts. Jesus comes through those locked doors once again and wishes them peace.

And then what does he do? Right after he greets the whole group, his very next words are for Thomas: Touch my wounds, Thomas; believe in me! What look do you think was in Jesus' eyes at that point? I think he was smiling. He was glad to oblige Thomas' stubborn request.

He wasn't offended by the Apostle's hesitation and resistance; he was just eager to get his faith back. And Thomas sees this, and he sees that Christ humbly lowers himself to Thomas' level, letting him touch him, letting him feel Christ's real, physical presence...

And Thomas falls on his knees and is the first Apostle to proclaim his faith in Christ's divinity, calling him "My Lord and my God", the very titles given to God throughout the whole Old Testament.

We are all Doubting Thomases. We all resist God's action in our lives in one way or another, get mad at him, don't trust him, rebel against him.

And it is precisely in those moments and those corners of our lives where Jesus wants to show off his boundless mercy, come down to our level, and win back our faith.

Spreading that Mercy

We are all children of this God whose mercy, goodness, and power are boundless, persistent, and untiring. And children should be like their parents. We have had the grace to experience God's mercy - through the sacraments, through prayer, through being taught the Good News about Jesus Christ.

But there are many people around us who haven't had that grace or have forgotten about it. I can think of nothing that would please God more than if we all made the commitment to spread that mercy this week, even just a little bit.

We all have relationships that are not exactly marked by mercy. We all know of relationships that marred by indifference and envy and resentment.

This week, why not take the first step towards reconciliation, with prayer, words, or actions? Why not follow in the footsteps of Christ, not waiting for others to take the firs step, but doing so ourselves, just like Christ, showing them by our courage and humility the face of Christ, our merciful Lord?

In his conversations with St Faustina, Jesus promised to unleash on the world a flood of mercy. He has been doing so, and he wants to continue too so. The flood hasn't yet reached every heart. This week let's be conscious channels for that flood, clear pipelines for that mercy to refresh someone's shriveled and dried up heart.

If in today's Mass we put ourselves at Christ's service for this purpose, I am sure he will give each one of us plenty of opportunities to carry it out. All we need to do is keep ever on our lips that prayer that he himself taught to St Faustina: Jesus, I trust in you. 

In a private revelation received by Saint Faustina, Jesus said: "I want there to be a Feast Day of Mercy. I want My image to be venerated with devotion and love on the first Sunday after Easter. This Sunday must be the Feast Day of Mercy." This request was made by Jesus to St. Faustina of Poland at His apparition on February 22, 1931. This request of Jesus was only realized in 2000, when the Holy Father John Paul II declared the Sunday after Easter Sunday as Divine Mercy Sunday. Since then the universal Church has officially celebrated the Feast Day of Divine Mercy.

The world needs Divine Mercy

Pope John Paul II, often called the Pope of Mercy, stated in a homily on August 17, 2002 that the world today urgently needs Divine Mercy. The world is suffering from prolonged conflicts, death of innocent people, hatred and revenge are rampant, human dignity is not respected, the culture of death is undermining the influence of the culture of life. All these cannot be separated from the sinfulness of the human race. When the power of sin has so firmly gripped mankind, there is only suffering for the sake of suffering. Divine mercy is needed to help victims of the violent power of sin in the hearts of many. But more than that, divine mercy is needed to change people's minds and hearts, redirect their lives to build peace and love in normal life. In other words, divine mercy is truly needed to transform the atmosphere of destruction into an atmosphere of reconciliation and love. Divine mercy is needed even more so for people who create an atmosphere of sinfulness. When humanity is no longer able to help itself from the chaos of a life filled with sin, divine mercy becomes a much-needed grace.

What does Divine Mercy mean?

The biblical meaning of "Mercy": Latin - misericordia; Greek: heleos; English: mercy. In Hebrew: divine mercy is referred to as rahamim and khesed, which are two expressions used to refer to God's loving nature. The word "rahamim" is related to the word "rehem" which means "womb or conception". Thus, rahamim (translated: mercy) is God's loving nature that is similar to that of a mother's womb. Just as the womb "protects, cares for, warms, nourishes, fertilizes, nurtures, unconditionally accepts, and conceives", so too is God's love for mankind. With His mercy, God protects, nourishes, warms, gives growth, guards, unconditionally accepts, and is carried everywhere. Just as a fetus cannot live and develop without the mother's womb, so too mankind cannot live without God's merciful love. Another word for mercy is "compassion."

The feast of divine mercy wants to make people aware of God's infinite mercy. God's mercy is taken into account in the midst of man's moral and spiritual collapse. It is as if there is nothing in our lives that we can rely on to obtain forgiveness, salvation, and life renewal from God. St Paul described the status and condition of man as painful darkness. Man is in an unsaved condition because he is a victim of the tyranny of the power of sin, the tyranny of death, and the tyranny of the Law that only relies on salvation from human strength. These tyrannies exist and haunt man since his birth into the world. This is indeed the case, even people who are very moral must have committed mistakes or sins. Sinfulness over time can become a habit and the death of the conscience and human morality slowly becomes a necessity. In the face of God's holiness, which is unblemished and uncompromising, every person with fragile moral-spiritual qualities is essentially dead. In his letter to the Romans, St Paul emphasized that all human beings live under the divine justice of God's wrath.

God's mercy invites us to participate

It is in this hopeless condition that God's mercy is absolutely necessary for man to be considered worthy of the gift of salvation. God's mercy does not despise our status or kill our potential. God's love does not have the effect of paralyzing our moral-spiritual fighting power. On the contrary, God loves us so very much and wants us to be His image. God's mercy, which was demonstrated completely in the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, does not kill man's spiritual power but rather awakens it. Christ's sacrifice on the Cross awakens the divine power bestowed upon each of us. The blood of Christ shed on the Cross cleanses each of us who are steeped in sin to become holy children of God. Thus, the redemptive work of Christ not only improves the objective conditions of the human world, but also transforms man as the subject of salvation. Christ's redemptive work invites people to engage in His work of saving the world.

Therefore, the devotion to Divine Mercy invites all the faithful to live the ABC's of Mercy, namely:

- A - Ask for His Mercy: God wants us to come to Him in prayer constantly, regretting our sins and asking Him to pour out His mercy on us and on the world.

- B - Be Merciful = Be Merciful to Others. God wants us to receive His mercy and let that divine mercy flow through us to others. God wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others as He does to us.

- C - Completely Trust Him: God wants us to know that His merciful graces depend on the extent of our trust. The more we trust Him, the more abundant the grace we will receive. 

My dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter 2023.

Today we consider the mystery at the heart of our faith. It is simple but extraordinary and powerful. It was so mind-blowing that even the disciples and the apostles Jesus told it would happen didn't believe it until they saw him. It shattered all their concepts of life.

In the whole history of humanity death was the greatest fear, the curse to wish or inflict on your worst enemies. It was conquered. "Christ is Risen," says it all. We can no longer live the same way now that death has been defeated in Christ.

In the Easter Sunday First Reading, St. Peter reminds us that the Risen Christ only revealed himself to those who believed in him. Only those who believed in him were then blessed by meeting and eating and drinking with the Risen Lord.

He reminds us that "everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name." On the day of our Baptism, we had an encounter with the Risen Lord that transformed us into children pleasing to Our Heavenly Father, and he continues to reveal himself to those who believe in him. An encounter with the Risen Christ in faith is always a salvific and transforming experience.

Then, in the Second Reading, St. Paul reminds us that an outlook of faith keeps our eyes fixed on the things of above. When we gaze above in faith, we know the Risen Christ stands at the right hand of His Father and intercedes for us. If we don't see him, it is because our faith is not strong enough and we need to beg for more.

Pope Francis describes a certain class of Christians in Evangelii Gaudium who seem to live a permanent Lent: they have not had an experience of the Lord and his love and; therefore, the Gospel brings them no joy. The Resurrection banishes vanity from our lives and changes our perspective.

Finally, the Gospel gave us the whole story. We see that the Resurrection didn't sink in for the disciples until they witnessed the results themselves. It leaves us in hopeful suspense because death no longer had the last word.

The disciples had all the facts. Christ could raise the dead. Martha saw his brother Lazarus raised after three days in the tomb. The mourners of the dead little girl's daughter mocked Jesus when he said she was sleeping, and then he "woke" her up.

Even Mary thought today that the body had been stolen. The disciples walking to Emmaus had all the facts. After the Transfiguration, he told Peter not to tell anyone until he was raised from the dead and kept repeating that he would be raised from the dead on the third day.

The disciples were clueless. We can't blame them. Even today there are a lot of disciples of Christ who are clueless. All the facts are at hand, but they lack faith, and so they live as if eternal life is a fairy tale.

We have many more signs than they did. The Church has testified to the Resurrection for over two thousand years, and many of her children have gone to the grave believing that someday they would rise, just as Our Lord did.

Like John in today's Gospel, let's look at the signs of Jesus' resurrection–an empty tomb, a suspiciously well-folded head wrapping–and simply believe.

The Eastern Way to Say "Happy Easter"

When members of the Eastern Church (including the Orthodox) wish someone a Happy Easter they do it with an affirmation of faith: "Christ is Risen." The customary response is "He is Truly."

One day an Orthodox bishop in the Soviet Union was asked to present the Christian position in a debate on religion. After letting the fervent Communist opposing him have the first word, a long discourse explaining that God didn't exist, much less the Son of God, and extolling the virtues of Communism, it was the bishop's turn to head to the podium.

The bishop simply said, "Christ is Risen."

The audience, some out of faith, many out of habit, responded: "He is Truly Risen."

"Thank you," replied the patriarch, and returned to his seat.

Nothing more needed to be said.

Pray for an Experience of the Risen Christ

The Risen Lord didn't appear to those who tortured him, imprisoned him, or executed him; he appeared to those who believed in him. The Risen Lord can be the brightest light in our lives, if only we open our eyes in faith.

Christ is not only Risen. He is alive, right now. Forever. We spent Lent praying at the foot of the Cross; now, like Mary Magdalene, we can pray at his empty tomb. He will reveal himself, just as he did to Mary, in his time, but we have to believe in him, even when we don't understand. 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is also important because it validates who Jesus claimed to be, namely, the Son of God and Messiah. According to Jesus, His resurrection was the "sign from heaven" that authenticated His ministry (Matthew 16:1–4). The resurrection of Jesus Christ, attested to by hundreds of eyewitnesses (1 Corinthians 15:3–8), provides irrefutable proof that He is the Savior of the world.

Another reason the resurrection of Jesus Christ is important is that it proves His sinless character and divine nature. The Scriptures said God's "Holy One" would never see corruption (Psalm 16:10), and Jesus never saw corruption, even after He died (see Acts 13:32–37). It was on the basis of the resurrection of Christ that Paul preached, "Through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin" (Acts 13:38–39).

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not only the supreme validation of His deity; it also validates the Old Testament prophecies that foretold of Jesus' suffering and resurrection (see Acts 17:2–3). Christ's resurrection also authenticated His own claims that He would be raised on the third day (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). If Jesus Christ is not resurrected, then we have no hope that we will be, either. In fact, apart from Christ's resurrection, we have no Savior, no salvation, and no hope of eternal life. As Paul said, our faith would be "useless," the gospel would be altogether powerless, and our sins would remain unforgiven (1 Corinthians 15:14–19).

Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25), and in that statement claimed to be the source of both. There is no resurrection apart from Christ, no eternal life. Jesus does more than give life; He is life, and that's why death has no power over Him. Jesus confers His life on those who trust in Him, so that we can share His triumph over death (1 John 5:11–12). We who believe in Jesus Christ will personally experience resurrection because, having the life Jesus gives, we have overcome death. It is impossible for death to win (1 Corinthians 15:53–57).

Jesus is "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). In other words, Jesus led the way in life after death. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is important as a testimony to the resurrection of human beings, which is a basic tenet of the Christian faith. Unlike other religions, Christianity possesses a Founder who transcends death and promises that His followers will do the same. Every other religion was founded by men or prophets whose end was the grave. As Christians, we know that God became man, died for our sins, and was resurrected the third day. The grave could not hold Him. He lives, and He sits today at the right hand of the Father in heaven (Hebrews 10:12).

The Word of God guarantees the believer's resurrection at the coming of Jesus Christ for His church at the rapture. Such assurance results in a great song of triumph as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:55, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (cf. Hosea 13:14).

The importance of the resurrection of Christ has an impact on our service to the Lord now. Paul ends his discourse on resurrection with these words: "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58). Because we know we will be resurrected to new life, we can endure persecution and danger for Christ's sake (verses 30–32), just as our Lord did. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, thousands of Christian martyrs through history have willingly traded their earthly lives for everlasting life and the promise of resurrection.

The resurrection is the triumphant and glorious victory for every believer. Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). And He is coming again! The dead in Christ will be raised up, and those who are alive at His coming will be changed and receive new, glorified bodies (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18). Why is the resurrection of Jesus Christ important? It proves who Jesus is. It demonstrates that God accepted Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf. It shows that God has the power to raise us from the dead. It guarantees that the bodies of those who believe in Christ will not remain dead but will be resurrected unto eternal 

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Today all Catholics throughout the world turn their hearts and minds once again to the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.

That suffering won for all mankind the definitive victory over sin and hopelessness - a victory we declare and celebrate with these palm branches, the ancient world's symbol of triumph. But let's dig deeper into this mystery of our salvation. Let's not be satisfied with the symbols.

God is all-powerful. He could have chosen to save us from sin in many other ways. Why did he choose to do it by suffering? What is the meaning of the Passion? The Passion tells us with perfect clarity the message we most need to hear. The Passion of Our Lord says to us: God is faithful; you can trust him.

Trusting God is the most important thing for us, but it's also the hardest, because our trust has been violated. We have all been wounded because people we trusted let us down, in little things and big things. As a result, we have all built up walls around our hearts, to protect ourselves from being let down again. But those walls also keep out God.

God knows that unless we let him into our hearts, we can never experience the happiness we long for. So, he came up with a way to win back our trust: the Passion of Christ.The Passion is God saying to us: "No matter what you do, I will keep on loving you. I will never let you down." If we reject him, scourge him, crown him with thorns, betray him, even if we crucify him, he continues to love us: "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

God's love and faithfulness doesn't depend on us being perfect, and it doesn't depend on his whims. He will never take it back. We can trust him - completely. That's the message of the Passion. And it's the message that each of us, wounded and sinful as we are, most needs to hear. We have to learn to trust God more and more in order to be transformed by him into the kind of person we know we should be.

A Parable about a Princess

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a king who ruled a vast and beautiful kingdom.

This king had a young daughter, whom he loved and treasured more than anyone or anything else. But one day the king and his knights had to leave the safety of his castle and travel to a distant land to protect the kingdom.

The king wanted desperately to take his daughter along with him, but he knew it was far too dangerous. This grieved the king greatly and when he told his daughter, she was also distressed. But he promised her that he would return in time.

This heartened the girl, and she kissed her father goodbye and watched him from her window until he disappeared over the horizon.

Time went by, and the king did not return. He was gone so long, in fact, that evil men came and took over the castle, imprisoning the king's daughter, and enslaving all the people.

Every day, with tears in her eyes, the girl would look out into the dark clouds and wish for her father to come back; but he never came. One day the sun disappeared entirely, and the whole kingdom was dark for three days...

...Until at last, one small light could be seen on the horizon, and it grew and it grew until it lit up the entire kingdom. And there upon the castle steps the king himself appeared.

He was tired and gaunt; his clothes were torn and his armor was damaged from the many battles he had fought; his hands and feet were wounded and scarred, but his face was bright with a brilliant smile of love.

His daughter came running down the steps into his arms and cried joyful tears while he held her in his arms. The King said to his beloved daughter, "There is no need to be afraid anymore. I will never have to go away again. Our enemies are conquered and we are safe forever."

And that day, a voice from heaven was heard all across the land: "Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your king has come." The king in the story kept his promise, and our King, Jesus, does too.

Share the Good News

Today and throughout this week we have a chance to renew our trust in this God who went to such great lengths to prove that he is trustworthy. This is a chance to let this truth heal the wounds of our hearts and renew our lives.

But we shouldn't think only of ourselves. Many people have been wounded and have erected walls around their hearts, and they have never heard the message of the Passion.

There are two ways that each one of us can make this Holy Week truly holy, not only for ourselves, but for those around us, can be a living image of Christ's Passion to those around us: by words and by deeds.

By our words. We should not be afraid to speak of Christ and the meaning of his Passion. We are his messengers. He wants to reach out to others through us. Who needs to hear the message? Maybe we can think of someone right away. Maybe we just need to be ready and willing, so that the Holy Spirit can work through us. zAnd by our deeds. This week, we can image Christ's Passion by doing what he did, by sharing our neighbor's burdens, by taking upon ourselves the crosses of others.

Dear brothers and sisters, in this world we cannot escape suffering, falls, wounds, rejection, punishment, death, burial, and resurrection. Today we gather here together to reflect on the passion of our Lord, Jesus Christ who suffered until his death on the cross. By reflecting on the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, we hope to we can really understand and realize how much God loves us. After this spiritual pilgrimage, we hope we can each grow closer and have a sincere love for our Lord Jesus Christ and also for our neighbors.

Mary: The Strong Mother

St. Anselmus had a question for Our Lady, "Are you sure that you are able to bear to see Him, who is your own life, hanging on the cross?" We all know Our Lady as a mother and as a woman who is so strong, so steadfast, and so obedient to the will of God, able to endure whatever situation she is faced with. All of that was especially obvious when she remained faithful with Jesus all the way to the cross.

If we were in Mary's position, what would we feel when we see your own child whom we carried and raised having to suffer so much? Of course, our feelings would be shattered, and so would Mary's. It took such great courage and strength to be able to stand until the end, not only to see her son go through physical and mental torture -injured, insulted, spitted on, abandoned- until he died on the cross.

This was all experienced by Mary. With her courageous heart, Mother Mary followed Jesus' footsteps, which had been shedding blood, to the Mount of Calvary. St. Bernardinus himself once expressed: "If all the sufferings of the world were put together, it would still not compare to the sorrow of the glorious Virgin Mary".

What if we were in Our Lady's situation? What if there is such an important part of our lives that we have been protecting, nurturing, even fighting for in life, had suddenly been "taken away"? That the life had suddenly been lost, destroyed, damaged, suffered, sick, and experienced other painful things? Are we able to endure through it faithfully, never taking our eyes off Jesus, and surrendering everything to Him? Or do we run away from it all and blame Jesus?

Each of us has our own and different crucifix to carry. But it is our response in carrying that cross that will determine how our journey will be. Let us all learn from Our Lady. Our Lady remained obedient in her suffering when she had to see Jesus, who was her very life, hanging on the cross. She did not run away from it all, but she remained obedient to the end and keeping her eyes fixed lovingly on Jesus.

Indeed, sometimes as humans, we are so attached to what we have and have strived for, without realizing that they are all gifts and grace from God. That doesn't mean we shouldn't feel sad when we lose something precious, but let us not consume so much of our time focusing on our material loss, so much so that it causes us to take our eyes off Jesus. When we feel weak and helpless in carrying our cross, let us look at the crucified Jesus. We stand for a moment at the foot of His cross with Our Lady. We want to draw strength there to keep it going until the end. 

My dear brothers and sisters, St John points out that "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." And yet, in spite of his love, Jesus doesn't rush back to Jerusalem to heal Lazarus. Nor does he heal him from a distance, as he did with the Centurion's servant.

Jesus loves these friends, and yet he lets them suffer. He lets them experience their helplessness and weakness, the painful separation of death and the loss of a loved one.

Did he do it to punish them? Did he do it because he had no power to remedy the evil? No, he let them suffer precisely because he loved them. If God protected us from all suffering, we would make the mistake of thinking that earth is heaven, that we could make ourselves truly happy just by our own efforts.

But we live in a fallen world, a world in which suffering is inevitable. And God allows us to experience that suffering as a way to remind us that life on earth is a journey towards heaven - it's the path, not the goal. The goal is heaven, and the resurrection of Lazarus is an appetizer of heaven.

What matters in life is not being perfectly comfortable: what matters in life is knowing, loving, and following Jesus Christ. Jesus uses our sufferings to help us to do that more and more. Our sufferings remind us that we are not God; they make us turn to God. He uses them as opportunities to act in our lives in new ways, revealing himself to us more completely, just as he did with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

In this way, he shows that his Providence is more powerful than even life's greatest tragedies. Nothing is out of reach for Christ's redemption.

Christ Bends Over Backwards to Prove That He Can Bring Good out of Evil

Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days, and Jesus Christ calls his name, orders him to come out, and he does.

Death itself obeys Christ the Lord. The crowd must have been stupefied, wide-eyed with disbelief, awe, and wonder that silenced them as Lazarus stepped out from the tomb, and then burst forth in a storm of joy and celebration.

Martha and Mary must have been so awestruck and ecstatic that they didn't know who to embrace first, their brother or their Lord. Lazarus, as soon as the cloths were removed, surely gazed into his Lord's shining eyes with the deepest love and most determined, courageous loyalty that he had ever experienced.

It is no coincidence that the Church presents this scene to us towards the end of the Lenten liturgical crescendo: two weeks ago Christ told the woman at the well that he was the Messiah; last week he cured a man born blind, something no one had ever done before; and now he tops everything by raising Lazarus from the dead.

Jesus knows that in order to fulfill the Father's plan of salvation he will soon have to suffer humiliation, torture, and death. As that moment draws near, he performs miracle after miracle to bolster his disciples' faith, so that it will survive the horrors of Calvary.

And he is doing it to bolster our faith too, so that we can continue to hope and even in the midst of our crosses, which are nothing less than pieces of his Cross, which in turn was the undeniable proof that his Providence can bring good out of evil, just as it is going to bring Easter Sunday out of Good Friday.

Trusting Christ in the Midst of Troubles

To say that God's Providence includes tragedies does not turn tragedies into comedies. Lazarus being raised from the dead didn't erase the experience of pain and loss that Martha and Mary went through during his sickness and after his death. Jesus rising from the dead on Easter Sunday didn't erase the indescribable pain and sorrow of Good Friday.

Just so, our sufferings and struggles really are sufferings and struggles. And we must never think that our faith in Jesus will make them go away. We will always have to suffer and struggle in this life.

But Jesus has given purpose to our sufferings and struggles. We know that he allows them for a reason, just as a good coach pushes his players beyond their comfort zone, no matter how much they complain. When we accept Christ's cross in our lives, even through our tears, we grow in wisdom and spiritual maturity - just like Martha in today's Gospel passage.

Having purpose in our suffering also makes it possible for us to have peace in our sufferings. Christ has proven that he will bring great things out of the greatest tragedies. And so, when storms of evil rock our boats, even while we struggle to keep afloat, in our hearts we can be at peace. Jesus wants us to have confidence in him, to trust him no matter what.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us a basic definition of almsgiving: to provide for the material needs of the Church according to their ability (CCC 2041-2043). Giving money to the poor is one of the most concrete acts of charity to our brothers and sisters. But just as with fasting, almsgiving is more than just giving money.

Almsgiving is an act of justice that pleases the heart of God when we care for our neighbor in need, whomever it is or whatever the situation is. The hope when we give alms is that we will learn to be generous and more dependent on God to meet our needs, rather than providing for ourselves while forgetting the needs of others less fortunate than us.

Charitable giving is a very ancient practice; almsgiving was normative long before the time of Jesus. The Lenten call to almsgiving means making the needs of other people our own. One of the central lessons of the cross is compassion; the heavy burdens we carry help us to appreciate the suffering in others. Sharing our material goods is often just the beginning of real Christian giving. We are also called to share our time tending to people in need.

What is the definition of almsgiving?

The Catholic Church considers almsgiving "a witness to fraternal charity" and "a work of justice pleasing to God" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2462).

Almsgiving is the act of donating money or goods to the poor or performing other acts of charity. However, when defining almsgiving, it helps to understand the meaning behind the word itself.

The roots of the word "alms" can be found in ancient Latin and Greek words meaning mercy and pity. Similarly, the root of the word "charity" comes from the Latin "caritas," meaning love.

Charity, or almsgiving, is an outward sign of Christian love for others. Generally, it involves some type of sacrifice on behalf of the giver in order to provide for the needs of the other. In doing this, bonds of community are formed.

But almsgiving only happens during Lent, right?

While almsgiving is most closely associated with Lent, the practice of giving alms can, and should, be a year-round spiritual exercise for all Catholics and Christians. Giving alms is essential to fostering a deep spiritual life because it allows us to step outside of ourselves and focus on the needs of others.

More than simply giving money, almsgiving is an act of love that can deepen our prayer life and bring a greater sense of meaning to fasting.

Almsgiving incorporates the spiritual practices of prayer and fasting in a way that manifests itself by caring for our neighbors in need. It can deepen our prayer as we are brought into contact with our brothers and sisters who live in poverty and give us a greater understanding of what it means to go without while fasting.

It can also prompt important questions: Do I really need this? Am I consuming too much? Almsgiving provides us with a human connection and the opportunity to see the impact that works of charity can have on others

The importance of almsgiving

My dear brothers and sisters. Jesus gave this blind man two priceless gifts. First, Jesus gave him the joy of physical sight. For the first time in his life, he could see. All the things that he had known just by words, sound, and touch suddenly came alive.

Color flooded his mind and filled him with wonder; the visual symphony of the sky and the landscape; the subtle beauty of expressions on people's faces emphasizing the meanings of their words; the look of love and tenderness from his mother, which he had never seen.

Jesus had opened to this man a new, glorious, awe-inspiring world of human experience. Joy, amazement, and gratitude filled the man's mind and heart. He experienced a hitherto undreamed-of intensity of life.

But Jesus also gave him the gift of spiritual sight - the gift of faith. He enabled the blind man to recognize and see God in Jesus. He enabled him to encounter his Creator knowingly, face to face.

And the man was overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude and awe - so much so that he fell down at Christ's feet and worshipped him, right there in the middle of the crowded Temple.

Which gift did the man value more? His actions give us the answer.

He stood up to the powerful Pharisees, defending Christ's lordship, even at the risk of being expelled from the synagogue - making him into a social outcast. This man did not let the gifts of God blind him to the goodness of God.

We have also received two priceless gifts from God: our natural lives, with all that that entails, and our supernatural life, our knowledge of, faith in, and friendship with Christ. Which do we value more?

The Sacred Heart Is Not Indifferent to Our Love

Sometimes it is hard for us to admit that we don't follow Christ as closely as we should. But we really need to be humble. Only the truth will set us free to live an abundant life. When we prefer the lesser gifts to the greater gifts, putting our faith in second place, it pains Christ and wounds our souls.

Jesus made this especially clear in his famous revelations to St Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun who furthered the devotion to the Sacred Heart in the 1600s.

While she was in prayer, our Lord appeared to her, with his five wounds shining like five brilliant suns and his Sacred Heart burning like a furnace of fire. He told her how much he loves every single man, woman, and child, and how deeply he feels the ingratitude they show him by rejecting or belittling his friendship.

He appeared to her two more times. On the last time, he showed his heart on a throne of flames, wrapped tightly with a crown of thorns, and topped with a cross. He told her, "Behold this heart that has loved men so much that it has spared nothing to testify to them its love. And in return I receive from most of them only ingratitude by their irreverence and their sacrileges and by the coldness and contempt they have for me in the sacrament of love."

He then explained to her that he was speaking not only of great criminals and violent sinners, but most especially of those who claimed to be his followers but who had fallen into routine and empty ritualism.

It sounds harsh, but it is only because his love is so deep that our ingratitude is so painful to him. His love, his friendship, our faith, the sacraments - these are the gifts we should value most.

How to Grow in Our Faith

It's hard for us to keep our priorities straight. The pleasures of our natural life can be so vivid that we let them upstage our supernatural life.

We want to be popular, so we join in with the gossiping or the vulgar, locker-room talk. We want to be successful, so we condone the dishonesty and deception being used by everyone else to climb the ladder. We want to enjoy ourselves, so we make excuses when our conscience reminds us that there is more to life than just having a good time.

All of us here today are making an effort to follow Christ, to keep our priorities right, and yet, we still have our falls and failures. Only by strengthening our faith can we really progress on this path of authentic Christianity. We can do two things to strengthen our faith.

First, we can ask God to strengthen it for us. Just as the blind man asked Jesus to show him the Messiah, so that he could believe in him, we can ask God to show us more clearly his presence, truth, and love. How could he ever deny such a request?

Second, we can boldly defend our faith. When the blind man was interrogated, he bore witness to Christ. The more they tried to intimidate him, the more courageously he bore witness. Through that process, the eyes of his soul were gradually opened until he recognized in Jesus not just a man of God, not just a prophet, but the Messiah himself.

This week, God will give each one of us a chance to boldly bear witness to him. Let's make up our minds now to act courageously and faithfully then, so that our lives and the lives of others can be filled more and more with the saving light of faith. 

Lent is penitential in character. This means that Lent is a time prescribed by the Church to engage in acts of penance and mortification in atonement for the sins we have committed. It is recognized that an integral part of repentance, defined as turning away from sin and back toward God, includes penance both as an expression of sorrow for having offended God and others and as a means of helping to redress the wrongs we have committed.

Fasting has long been recognized as an excellent means of penance, with many spiritual benefits. In the post-modern world, however, the practice of fasting as a means of spiritual benefit has fallen into disuse. The focus is more often on the physical advantages of fasting while its spiritual benefits are disregarded. The Christian recognizes the primary importance of remaining spiritually healthy in view of eternal life, as opposed to a myopic, pagan view in which the material and temporal are given all the emphasis.

What are some of the spiritual benefits of fasting? To explore that question, let's look at the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas teaches that fasting is practiced for a threefold purpose: 1) we fast "in order to bridle the lusts of the flesh"; 2) we fast "in order that the mind may arise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things," noting that Daniel received a revelation from God after fasting for three weeks (Dan 10:2 ff); and 3) we fast "in order to satisfy for sins," as it is written in Joel 2:12: "Be converted to Me with all your heart, in fasting and in weeping and in mourning" (ST, II-II, q. 147, a. 1).

St. Thomas is pointing to some well understood truths in the Catholic spiritual tradition in terms of the spiritual benefits of fasting. First, he notes that fasting helps to bring the body or the flesh under the soul's control. When we fast, we force the body into compliance, which builds self-control and self-mastery, two important virtues in the Christian life. St. Paul speaks about how the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and vice-versa (Gal 5:17). Fasting helps to rectify that disorder, bringing the flesh under the spirit's control, as it should be.

Second, St. Thomas points out that fasting tends to raise the mind and heart to heavenly things, toward the contemplation of God. Fasting empowers us in prayer. It focuses the intellect on seeking to know God and the will on obtaining God as the greatest good. It helps to purify the desires and aspirations of the soul toward the divine beauty and truth of God. Christians who have walked the path of spiritual perfection for some time often report having powerful experiences of the presence of God while fasting. God finds our acts of voluntary suffering for the love of him irresistible.

Third, St. Thomas notes that fasting is a means of atoning for our sins, something we've mentioned already. Fasting is a means of taking responsibility for our sins; it helps us make amends before God for those times we have offended him, others, and his holy Church. This is not to say that fasting confers forgiveness for the guilt of sins. We obtain forgiveness for our sins from God by virtue of the merits of Christ's saving death and resurrection. We are forgiven the eternal guilt of sin through repentance and the sacrament of confession (see John 20:22-23). Nevertheless, we can make restitution before God for our sins through acts of penance like fasting.

Because we are sinners, the Church teaches that Christians are required to do penance. In other words, repentance and penance go hand-in-hand. An example of this is found in the sacrament of Penance. After receiving absolution in the sacrament, penitents are always given some type of penance by the priest who acts as the minister of Christ's forgiveness. Penance, then, is a universal requirement for Christians who commit personal sin.

My dear brothers and sisters, we all experience two kinds of thirst in life, and unless we understand the difference between them, we will always be frustrated.

The first kind of thirst is horizontal thirst. We thirst for, we desire, the good things of this earth: food, drink, companionship, fun, entertainment, a nice house, a good income, success at work or school. It's part of our nature to desire these things; there's nothing wrong with them.

But we also have another kind of thirst - vertical thirst. This is a deeper thirst, a deeper desire. It's a desire for meaning and purpose. This desire is also built into our nature. There is nothing we can do to destroy it, just as there is nothing, we can do to destroy our natural desires for food and water.

But unlike horizontal thirst, our vertical thirst cannot be satisfied by our own efforts. Only God himself can satisfy it. And he created us like that on purpose. It's as if he put a homing device in the very core of our being, and it constantly draws us towards him, towards intimate, personal contact with his eternal, transcendent love.

This is why even when all of our horizontal thirsts are satisfied, when we have money, success, and pleasure, we are still restless. Our deeper, vertical thirst can't be satisfied by things of this world. As the Catechism puts it: "Man is made to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness" (#45).

The meaning and purpose which alone will give us true happiness comes from friendship with God in Christ, not from worldly success, pleasures, and human relationships. When we forget that, when we try to satisfy our vertical thirst with horizontal stuff, we put ourselves on the road to frustration, tragedy, and disappointment.

Jesus Gives a Drink

That's what the Samaritan woman had spent her life experiencing. She had had five husbands, the Gospel tells us, and now she was living with another man, and hadn't even bothered to marry him this time.

She was coming to the town well in the middle of the day, the Gospel tell us, the hottest time of the day, when none of the other women in the town would be coming to the well. She wanted to avoid them.

Here is a woman with great spiritual sensitivity, and yet, she is living a life of frustration and alienation, of loneliness and inner turmoil. She has been trying to slake her vertical thirst, which only God can satisfy, with horizontal stuff: human love, comfort, earthly pleasures.

She has learned the hard way that that formula doesn't work. She has learned that she needs a Saviour. She needs to find the "spring of water welling up to eternal life." She needs to find "the gift of God." She needs to discover Christ. And she does – Jesus reveals himself to her, and her life turns around, one-hundred-and-eighty degrees.

She runs back to the village announcing the good news to anyone she can find. And we know from the Gospel that Jesus and his disciples ended up spending three days there, and the whole town came to believe in him.

She and the people of her town had been wandering through a spiritual desert, their souls slowly dying the death of frustration, boredom, and meaninglessness, even while they enjoyed material pleasures and prosperity. But Christ changed all that.

We need look no further for the secret to happiness; Christ himself is the rock and the water flowing in the spiritual desert of this fallen world. 

One of the questions people often ask is, why do we need to fast? Is it required? And what's the history of fasting in the Church?

What does it mean to fast in terms of Lent? To fast is to abstain from food. St. Thomas Aquinas notes that fasting consists of taking only one meal a day (ST, II-II, q. 147, a. 6). This definition has been refined recently by the Church in terms of what's allowed during Lent.

We can also make a distinction between fasting and abstinence in reference to the Lenten precept of the Church to observe the days of fasting and abstinence (CCC 2043). When abstinence is used in reference to Lent, we are speaking about regulating the quality of the food that is taken. For example, on Ash Wednesday, Friday of the Lord's Passion, and all other Fridays during Lent, Latin Rite Catholics are obliged to abstain from eating flesh meat. On Ash Wednesday and Friday of the Lord's passion, Catholics both fast and abstain from flesh meat.

What about the origin and history of fasting in the Church? There's an ancient practice of fasting in sorrow and repentance for sins found in the Old Testament. Fasting also accompanied fervent prayer to God. The idea was that fasting made one's prayer more acceptable to God. It was a way of demonstrating one's level of commitment before the Lord. These ideas remain valid today. God desires that we prove our love for him. As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.

In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus does not seem to emphasize fasting while his disciples are with him. When questioned about this by John's disciples, Jesus insists that fasting is inappropriate in times of joy. (Matt 9:14 ff; Mark 2:18 ff; Luke 5:33 ff). In other words, while Jesus and his disciples are together, it is a time of joy like a wedding feast, not a time for fasting. Jesus notes that when the bridegroom is taken away, then there will be fasting, which seems to imply fasting as a sign of mourning the loss of the bridegroom and also in anticipation of and preparation for his return.

In the early Church, we find that the apostles were familiar with fasting and did so prior to making important decisions to gain divine assistance (Acts 13:2 ff; 14:23).

In the concepts of anticipation and preparation for the Lord Jesus we find a connection to the practice of fasting and abstinence during Lent. Lent is a time of penance and atonement for sin in preparation for the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord. Fasting and abstinence are integral to that preparation for several reasons, such as building virtue, self-mastery, and helping to avoid sinful tendencies that may ultimately lead to spiritual death in the case of mortal sin.

The practice of fasting during Lent finds its genesis in our Lord's journey into the desert where he fasted and prayed for forty days and nights in preparation to begin his public ministry (Matt 4:1-2; Luke 4:1-3). The forty days of Lent are in imitation of Christ's time in the desert. During Lent, the Christian walks into the desert with Christ and fasts so as to have the strength to avoid temptation with the help of God's grace. Lent is also a penitential season in which we strive to atone for our sins and purify our lives in preparation for the celebration of Christ's glorious rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday.

In ancient times, however, the forty-day period of Lent sometimes involved extended and more austere fasts, as some Catholics practice today. For example, some Catholics fasted each of the forty days (except for Sunday and sometimes Saturdays) up to the ninth hour or 3:00 p.m., which is the hour that Christ gave up his spirit on the cross (Matt 27:50). The intent was to unite one's suffering through fasting to the passion of Christ. Since our Lord's suffering ended at the ninth hour, so too was the fast ended at that hour. St. Athanasius recommended in his Festal Letter (AD 331) that Christians engage in a forty-day fast prior to a stricter fast during Holy Week.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in St Matthew's Gospel, God the Father speaks from heaven only twice. First in this passage of the Transfiguration, and the second in the passage when Jesus is baptized.

Both times he says essentially the same thing. Which is just to emphasize how important it is. He says that Jesus is his beloved Son, and we should listen to him.

Listening to Christ means getting to know him and following his lead. When parents instruct their children to listen, they want the kids both to hear and to heed what they are saying. God the Father does the same thing.

Jesus Christ is God's own Son, sent by the Father to be our guide to fulfilment, to the meaning and happiness we all long for. Christ alone is the answer, the secret to a life lived to the full.

He is not just one great philosopher in our history. He is not just a wise teacher. Jesus is the fulfilment of the long history of salvation that God traced throughout the Old Testament, represented in the Transfiguration by the appearance of Moses and Elijah.

He is God made man, whose glory is way beyond anything we can imagine. Peter, James, and John got a glimpse of it, and it terrified them, and they were no strangers to miraculous occurrences. Jesus' face shone like the sun - try to imagine that! His clothes became as white as light - picture that!

Jesus is our glorious Saviour - he came to change our lives, to "save us and call us to a holy life," as St. Paul wrote in the Second Reading. All we need to do is "listen to him," to turn our gaze to him, to follow him, and we too will be transfigured.

Abraham and Paul Escape Their Comfort Zones

My dear brothers and sisters, we must be realistic. Listening to Jesus, hearing, and heeding his voice in our life, is not always comfortable. Abraham discovered this, as we heard in the First Reading.

He was living happily and prosperously in the fertile land of Mesopotamia when God spoke to his heart. God invited him to leave behind his extended family, his business, his homeland, his security, his financial stability, his friends - everything, in fact. And he didn't even tell him where he was going. He just said, "Go to a land I will show you." But God had a plan for his life, a plan that would bring blessings to Abraham himself, and bring blessings to others through him.

Abraham listened. He didn't write off God's call to his heart, and he didn't ignore it. He stepped out of his comfort zone and put his trust in God. We can only imagine the turbulence it caused at first between him and his wife, and how awkward he must have felt trying to explain his decision to friends and colleagues.

St. Paul had a similar experience. He was on the fast track to success in the Jewish establishment when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and invited him to take a different path. And it was not an easy path.

That's why he writes to Timothy in the Second Reading, "Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God." Paul's share of hardship included multiple shipwrecks, imprisonments, calumnies, beatings, whippings, and, finally, martyrdom by having his head cut off.

Listening to Jesus, hearing and heeding his call, means accepting our share of hardship for the gospel. But it's well worth it. Otherwise, why would the Father have told us to do it?

"Taking Up" Something for Lent

Pope John Paul II said, in commenting on this Gospel passage, "Life changes when the heart has been 'conquered' by Christ" (JPII, Angelus, 24 February 2002).

We all love Christ, that's why we are here. But we are also here because we feel a need for our lives to change - we know we have not reached the spiritual maturity and peace of heart that we were created for. Our hearts need to be more fully conquered by Christ. But Christ is too respectful to conquer our hearts against our will.

Today the Father is inviting us to let ourselves be conquered anew by Jesus Christ. How? By spending more time in heartfelt prayer, by delving into the marvelous teachings of the Church, by steeping ourselves in the living waters of the Gospels and the rest of Holy Scripture, by accompanying Christ himself truly present in the Eucharist, by serving Christ in our needy neighbours, and most of all, by doing his will each day with faith, hope, and love, no matter the cost.

Most of us have probably given up something for Lent. That's good - it reminds us that we must govern our natural inclinations if we want to root sin out of our lives and become spiritually mature.

But maybe we also need to take up something for Lent. It is good to weed a garden, but it is equally necessary to water and fertilize, if we want the plants to grow. We still have most of Lent ahead of us. Let's take up something that will help us listen better to Jesus.

Christ is going to give himself to us again today in this Mass. Let's not leave without giving him something in return - a specific promise to become better listeners.