Now Begin The Glorious Forty Days.

He is Risen, These were the words of the angel who appeared to the women who went to the tomb of the Lord. The greatest event since the fall of Adam and Eve. Death is not the winner anymore, it does not have the last say. He who is Life itself, and who came to die for us, rises from the depths of death to a new living dimension never seen before. The forty days that followed were the most unique in the history of humanity. Imagine those simple men who were chosen to be His disciples. They saw Him many times, He invited them to touch His wounds, to eat with Him, to sit and listen to Him as He taught them about their upcoming mission to go and preach the Gospel, and to baptize. No one else in history had such a magnificent experience happen to them. How they must have finally understood what God really planned for us, that we would live forever without the limitations of our sin laden bodies, prone to suffering and illness, and death. How they must have rejoiced as they went to their beds to sleep, having discovered the great glory God has in store for us. No wonder Thomas's response when he saw the Lord was " My Lord and my God." It is the cry of a man who has crossed the threshold of doubt into full understanding of the new reality.
Easter is a time to rejoice, it is a time of celebration of the victory of humanity gained through its one and only Savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us be still and rejoice, for now we know that through Him we can only win. "I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and have revealed them to mere infants." ( Luke 10:21.)  May Your Name be blessed forever.
The great writer G. K Chesterton once said that "Peace and joy constitute the greatest secret of Christianity." A true Christian is a person full of hope and joy, knowing that eternal glory is his reward. I can imagine the angels singing to the Blessed Virgin the "Regina Caeli".

Queen of heaven rejoice, alleluia,
for the Son whom you merited to bear, alleluia,
has risen as He said alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
For the Lord has truly risen, Alleluia.

This is the meaning of Happy Easter.
 

Blood On The Door Posts.

Dear friend in Christ.

On this Holy morning of Good Friday, the day God died for us, my heart is filled  with the desire to share with you this awesome mystery that paid for our sins and  brought us back to life. Yesterday, at the Mass of the last Supper, the Church celebrated the institution of the Holy Eucharist.  " Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed took a loaf of bread and when He had given thanks He broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." (1 Cor. 11. 23-26).
On this night we encounter again the command about eating which God gave to our first parents in the Garden. Only the command is now inverted. In Genesis we read. "You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." (Gen.2:17). But tonight, only a few hours before His death on the cross, He commands us to eat this bread which is His body, and drink this cup which is the cup of His blood. " Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you." (John 6:53.).
In today's Office of Reading, there is a reading from the letter to the Hebrews ( Heb 9:11-28.) explaining how God prepared His people in the old testament by commanding them to sacrifice an unblemished lamb and eat it, and also to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on their door posts to keep the angel of death away. St. John Chrysostom continues ( in the second reading.) by saying that the blood sprinkled on the door posts is a prefigurement of the blood of Christ smeared on our lips when we drink of the cup of His blood. Our lips being the doors of the temple of Christ.
Here we can understand what the Eucharistic St. Paul means when he says. " if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Rom 10:9). This is the true confession of faith, the saying of Amen at the moment of receiving the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord. A mystery hidden from unbelievers, but revealed to those who are being saved.

"How deep are the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How inscrutable His judgements, how unsearchable His ways."  Now, through His passion and death we can participate in the command to eat, so as to repair the damage done be the disobedient eating in the Garden.
As we celebrate God' gift of Himself on this Friday, let us meditate on the last moments of Our Lord on the cross, when He shed His blood to the last drop, and try to begin to understand how much He loves us.

God, The Great Investor.

My brother,
On this Holy Week, I write to you that I may share with you some thoughts about our loving God, "Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for the benefit of us all." ( Rom. 8:32)
During these days, the Church Liturgy calls us to remember and meditate on the events that led to the last days of our Lord's life on earth.
The first five weeks of Lent have been preparing us for this very moment. The Son of Man willingly surrenders Himself to the Enemy, that the great drama of the redemption of humanity from the tyranny of death might unfold.
Through prayer and penance, we open our hearts that the Heavenly Father might give us the grace to comprehend what Jesus and His Mother went through in these final days on the way to the cross.
It is sad to think that God's greatest gift of love had to be mingled with sinful humanity's vilest acts. After a long period of machinations and plotting to destroy the Lord of Life, He is betrayed by a close friend, denied and abandoned by those who had promised Him loyalty, lied about, and made victim of the most shameful piece of lobbying in the history of humanity, condemned by a cowardly politician, even though he knew he was condemning an innocent man. He was jeered, scourged, crucified, and humiliated, then killed by violent men gone wild, who manifested what lies hidden in our sinful hearts.
This, the greatest event, reveals to us the unimaginable love God has for us. He was willing to invest this most precious gift of Himself, that He might, in the future, reap a harvest of love. For love can only be repaid by love.
Now, my brother, consider that God is not sadistic, Scripture tells us "He does not grieve or afflict anyone willingly." ( 3:33.) All that Jesus suffered He sufferred because it had to be suffered. If God had to make His Son suffer so much. How ugly must sin be that it needs so much to repair for it?
God, the Great Investor, "out of the very love He has for us, even when we were dead through our transgressions, brought us alive together with Christ." ( Eph. 2:4.).  He chose the Cross as the instrument of His investment, and thus turned the world's suffering brought on by sin, into a precious jewel made perfect in the dimension of the cross sanctified by Christ.

Is it a wonder then, my brother, that great friends of God teach us to treasure suffering? St. John of the Cross advices us that when something unpleasant happens to us, we ought to look at Jesus crucified and be silent. And, he asks, "What does anyone know who does not know how to suffer for Christ?" As we go through the mystery of our Savior's death on the cross, we rejoice in the knowledge that it leads to His Resurrection and victory over death. And, if the All Knowing God turned the hideous cross into a priceless investment instrument, how much ought we to treasure it and learn to see all the events of our lives as steps toward this now precious cross that will lead us to life?

I used to think of life
a chain of hits and misses.
But now I make of it
a garland of God's kisses.

I used to gauge each act
a change for gain or loss,
But now I know that all
combine to make the cross.

For God has said to me,
through grace.
My thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor your ways, my ways.