Only three more days left in Lent.  For those of us quarantined in our homes, time “doesn’t fly,” to paraphrase the familiar quote. But in reality, what is time really?  During Holy Week, we are not simply recalling some historic events which happened a long time ago in Jerusalem.  Nor, under normal circumstances, do we re-enact a pageant with no meaning.  The liturgical ceremonies which we would normally observe this week make us more aware of another world, an eternal kingdom of heaven, an unseen world of mystery where all things are being made new, and where we might be even more at home than we are in this world.

If Holy Week teaches us anything, it’s that we have little or no control over events, both inwardly and outwardly, which affect us in the most serious ways. Well, hopefully, we’ve learned that by now over the past three weeks.  However, the Good News is that we have a God who through the person of Jesus, was also subjected to the same constraints and forces beyond His control, and who has shown us how to live in the midst of them.  Easter begins this Sunday.  Even though we can’t worship together in person, we can make our “spiritual communion” by watching the mass provided on our website and Facebook page.

• View – Good Friday service & Easter Sunday mass – a video will be posted on the church’s website, Facebook via our YouTube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe free so that we will in the future be able to retain our site.
• Urgent Message – Please continue to pray for an end to the COVID-19 virus and its victims and thank you for your continued financial support (check, automated bank transfers or electronic donations via myeoffering.com )to the life and witness our congregation in this community.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, Physician of the body and soul, You restored sight to the blind, healed the lame and cured those with leprosy. Grant, we beseech You, the necessary knowledge and perseverance to all who are working on a vaccine to quickly end the spread of COVID-19. Have mercy on those who have died, and grant comfort to all who are affected in any way and those who are living in apprehension. Give us the grace each day to trust in You and Your loving mercy. We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Good Friday 4/10/20

Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Psalm 22

Hebrews 10:16-25

John 18:1-19:42

 

The Veneration of the Cross

In the seventh century, the Church in Rome adopted the practice of Adoration of the Cross from the Church in Jerusalem, where a fragment of wood believed to be the Lord’s cross had been venerated every year on Good Friday since the fourth century.  According to tradition, a part of the Holy Cross was discovered by the mother of the emperor Constantine, Saint Helen, on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 326.  A fifth century account describes this service in Jerusalem.  A coffer of gold-plated silver containing the wood of the cross was brought forward.  The bishop place the relic on the table in the chapel of the Crucifixion and the faithful approached it, as the priest said, “Behold, the Wood of the Cross.”  Adoration of an image of Christ’s cross does not mean that we are actually adoring the material image, but what it represents.  In kneeling before the crucifix we are paying the highest honor to our Lord’s cross as the instrument of our salvation.  In reverencing His Cross we are, in effect, adoring Christ.  Thus we affirm:  “We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee because of Thy Holy Cross Thou has Redeemed the World.”

 

The Reproaches

The Reproaches are often chanted by a priest during the Good Friday service as the people are venerating the Cross.  In this haunting and poignant poem-like chant of very ancient origin, Christ himself “reproaches” us, making us more deeply aware of how our sinfulness and hardness of heart caused such agony for our sinless and loving Savior.  The text comes from the Lamentation of Jeremiah, written at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.

 

The Stations of the Cross visiting its sacred sites, the faithful made a custom of making simple replicas of those sacred sites in during the late Middle Ages, when the Turkish occupation of the Holy Land prevented pilgrims from Europe, where they could come to pray.  Medieval Christians sought more details about the Passion of the Lord, beyond what was provided by the succinct stories of the gospels.  They turned to the writings of the mystics and the apocryphal gospels for more information about the last hours of Jesus.  From these sources came the meeting of Jesus and his Mother, the story of Veronica, and the various falls of Jesus, which became part of the Stations of the Cross.  One of the most popular of these “pilgrimages at home” was to pray the Stations of the Cross, which were erected in imitation of the stations (or stopping places of prayer) on the street in Jerusalem that led from the judgment hall of Pilate to Calvary.  By the end of the sixteenth century the present fourteen stations became the standard for this devotion.

I’ve never lived in an enemy occupied territory.  There are people still alive today who might have lived in Nazi occupied Europe, or in politically suppressed parts of Africa or Asia.  In a spiritual sense, we currently live in enemy occupied territory, like the residents in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles, that mythical place of talking animals and dwarfs, waiting for the return of Aslan, the great lion.  Sounds something like The French resistance:  a loosely organized coalition of farmers and shopkeepers working to subvert the Nazi Occupation through military outposts during WWII operating behind enemy lines in Western Europe.  Maybe we feel like we’re living in a Post-Christian world, outnumbered, like the “old Narnians” who lived in exile among the woods, under the Witch’s spell, where it was “Always winter, but never Christmas.”

What if the atheists and the hate mongers get the upper hand? What if the Church is ridiculed and marginalized? Would Jesus be caught off guard? He’d probably say, “Business as usual. Now get back to work!”  Maybe these current times under the oppression of COVID 19 makes us feel like an oppressed people, without any geographical or age boundaries.  The prophet Isaiah writes, “You, O Israel will be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will return.”  What a wonderful vision of the Church on earth; an unlikely fellowship of heroes who overcome their enemy – not as a conquering army of the elect, but a few stubborn survivors straggling back to claim their rightful inheritance.  An inheritance granted by our baptism and won for us by the blood of the Lamb.

How many of you have ever experienced a lot of pain to get what you want? How many of you ever had a baby?  How many of you have ever had a baby without an epidural? Passed a kidney stone?  Been immobilized by back pain?  Now multiply that pain by ten and you’ll begin to get an idea of what Jesus suffered on the way to his death.  Or maybe the worst pain you’ve ever had was emotional pain.  I suspect that Jesus went through that on Good Friday as well.  Jesus, the “Ultimate Blood Donor” – His pain was our gain.

This Sunday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week when we recall those final days of Jesus’ earthly life, beginning with his trial before Pilate and culminating in his death and burial. He was accused of accepting claims about being a King.  He wasn’t simply “King of the Jews;” but King of the Romans, Greeks, and everyone else who has ever lived.  So is Christ king of our life? Who’s our King?  If our King is Lord of the world, the flesh, and the devil, maybe we should be spending more time each day reading the Bible and worshiping Jesus. Are we building a life on a solid foundation; not one of sand which easily erodes when the storms of life overtake us?

They say that history is written by the victors. It’s curious that the Gospel writers and editors don’t omit the gory details of Jesus’ last hours on earth.  Why would they leave in the unflattering events of his last days?  Precisely because God wants us to know that in a world of pain and sorrow, he suffered too!  Jesus told his disciples to take up their Cross daily, not once, or only occasionally, but daily.  You see, we are fighting a spiritual battle, but a battle that involves flesh and blood.  Do we allow others to help us carry our cross?  Most of the disciples hid in secret, but the beloved disciple St. John, and the Blessed Mother stood by at the end.  “Keep, O keep us, Savior dear, ever constant by thy side; that with thee we may appear at the eternal Eastertide.”  (Hymn 150, vs 5)

NOTICES for this week

• Palms – blessed palms will be available for you on Saturday, April 4^that 5:00 p.m. as a drive-by in the church parking lot until 5:30 p.m. Thereafter a receptacle of palms will be available for you. Limit one per household please.
• View Palm Sunday Mass – a video will be posted on the church’s website, Facebook via our YouTube channel. Don’t forget to subscribe free so that we will in the future be able to retain our site.
• Urgent Message – Please continue to pray for an end to the COVID-19 virus and its victims and thank you for your continued financial support (check, automated bank transfers or electronic donations via comor Facebook donate button or PayPal) to the life and witness our congregation in this community.
• In case of a pastoral emergency, you can leave a message on our voice mail, and we will respond as quickly as possible. Please continue to pray for an end to the COVID-19 virus, for its victims, and for those who are working on preventative measures.

Please Pray – For the sick: Sandy, Kim, Joe, Steve, Bob, Linda, Francine, Timone, Donna, Ashlyn, Robin. For birthday celebrations: Walter Dzubiak, Mara Walter, Emma Erickson, Martha L’Abbe. For those celebrating a wedding anniversary: Charles & Margie Sandell, Maria & Matthew Hogan. For the faithful departed, and for our expectant mothers: Dani and Andrea. For the faithful departed: George Pinnock, Jr.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, Physician of the body and soul, You restored sight to the blind, healed the lame and cured those with leprosy. Grant, we beseech You, the necessary knowledge and perseverance to all who are working on a vaccine to quickly end the spread of COVID-19. Have mercy on those who have died, and grant comfort to all who are affected in any way and those who are living in apprehension. Give us the grace each day to trust in You and Your living mercy. We ask this in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Today, March 25 is the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrating the announcement of Jesus’ conception in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (Luke 1:26-38.)  Now how do you think Mary must have felt at the annunciation?  An angel, Gabriel, had come to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you!” Was it a dream? Was she hallucinating? Was she crazy?  Maybe she wasn’t fully sure.

So what do you find most impressive in the story?  Maybe it’s Christ’s birth to a virgin. That is impressive, but, for the God who created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, that’s a minor miracle in God’s bag of surprises.  OK! So you haven’t had a vision of an angel lately.  However, how do we respond to those daily annunciations, those decisions we must face every day either to do the right thing, or the wrong thing?  Here’s what the Mother of Jesus did.  Mary teaches us how to practice “spiritual availability.”  Her  yes to God is an example of how we too can provide space where God enters in.

Mary’s response challenges us to ask of ourselves: When God makes a loving overture into our lives, do we try to avoid the encounter?  Do we demand full knowledge before responding, or can we trust without complete knowledge or understanding?  Do we let God be in control of  my life,  my plans,  my future?  Do we ask of God what cannot be answered, do we dare to say “Yes” that will change us forever?

The greatest gift is not our skills, abilities and possessions. The magi had their gold, frankincense and myrrh.  Mary had only space, love, and faith to offer.  What part of us prevents Christ from being evident in our lives and presenting Him to the world?  Our time, talent, and treasure?  What about the gifts and talents of art, writing, scholarship, and social justice?  These are all gifts worth having and sharing. But leaders lose their charisma, scholarship can grow pedantic, social justice alone does not suffice.  In the end, when all other gifts have lost their luster, the virgin who is boldly in love with God, and who makes a sanctuary of life in us, is the one who delivers Jesus Christ, who then delivers us from sin and death.

This is a perfect feast for Lent; these days of waiting for God’s will to be revealed, our hearts open to God’s presence.  In these anxious times the most fearful thing is the loss of God’s presence.  But, we have nothing to fear, God is with us, and we have been called by God to bring his Son into our own world and in our own time.  God gives us these days to sort it all out, to make sense of it, so that we can say with Mary, “Let it be to me according to your will.”

Maybe there is some decision you’re having trouble saying “Yes” to.  What stumbling block needs to be removed before we say  Yes to God and trust in him?  God will not compel us to say  yes. Grace makes us sons and daughters, not slaves; lovers, not clients. God had to be born in Mary’s heart before he could be born in her womb; as someone once said, “In Mary, God fell in love with humanity.”

So, only nine months until Christmas. Isn’t this really the mystery we celebrate not just at Christmas; but every day of the year? Christ is born in us. God is here  in us. If we truly grasp this mystery, think how much we can spread the  joy and the  hope of Christmas all year round to a world which painfully needs some good news these days.  Perhaps, like Mary, be a womb of welcome, a sacred place made holy by the God who dwells within.  It’s no surprise that she who bore the Son of God, was the channel by which “The myth has become reality, the heavenly becoming earthly, the Word, flesh, God, man.”

Lord, let it be done to me as you say.  Blessed are you Mary among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Son of God, Son of Mary.

Urgent Message – Please continue to pray for an end to the COVID-19 virus and its victims and thank you for your continued financial support (check, automated bank transfers or electronic donations via www.myeoffering.com or Facebook donate button or PayPal) to the life and witness our congregation in this community.