Bulletins by St. Clare Parish (Page 17)
April 10th – Palm Sunday
As we enter this week that we consider the holiest of all, we try to
unite ourselves with the Passion of the Lord, so also to share His
Resurrection. We might ask ourselves where we can begin our
personal and communal journeys this week. Perhaps, we can take as
our starting point this Sunday’s second reading from Saint Paul to the
Philippians, where we find this:
“Your attitude must be that of Christ Jesus,
Who, though he was in the form of God. . .
emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.”
May our participation in the mysteries of the Lord’s Cross and
Resurrection help us – one and all – to serve in love, even as He did.
April 3rd – Fifth Sunday of Lent
The “water in the desert and rivers in the wasteland” that God
promised through the prophet Isaiah was referring to forgiving the
forsaken, the lost, and the hopeless. This is borne out in Jesus’
treatment of the woman caught in adultery, whom the scribes and
Pharisees wanted to stone to death: “Has no one condemned you?. . .
Neither do I condemn you.”
In rejecting the penalty prescribed by the Law, Jesus chooses mercy. . .
for the woman and for each of us. If we had been in the crowd that
day, could any of us claim to be sinless, to be able to cast the first
stone? Only in recognizing our own sins and failings can we also
recognize God’s limitless forgiveness. . .and become that same forgiveness for one another.
This coming Saturday afternoon, we will celebrate our Lenten
Reconciliation Liturgy. During the pandemic – and for a good
number of years previous to it – many have neglected celebration
of the sacrament. As we heard on Ash Wednesday, “Now is the
acceptable time. . .Now is the day of salvation.” Join us next
Saturday at 3:00 pm, in the Church. We will have a number of
visiting priests to serve as confessors.
March 27th – Fourth Sunday of Lent
The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke is filled with stories
of God’s relentless love. This is most particularly true of the gospel
story we hear this Sunday. “The Prodigal Son” tells of the richness
of God’s mercy, forgiveness and love. In fact, it may be more
correctly titled as “The Parable of the Loving Father.”
Some of us may mistakenly think that “prodigal” refers the repentant
son when he decides to return to his father; however, “prodigal”
actually describes the way the young man squandered his father’s
wealth.
The elder son could only focus on his brother’s misdeeds and had no
room for forgiveness in his heart. His bitterness seems never to have
gone away and he remains alienated from his brother and his father, in
spite of his father’s pleading, “My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost
and has been found.”
On this Fourth Sunday of Lent, may each of us not only experience a
love that is like that of the father in this parable, but let us also extend
that forgiving love to one another.
March 20th – Third Sunday of Lent
The readings this Third Sunday of Lent cover much ground in the
history of salvation. In the story of Moses and the burning bush, we
hear of God’s love for the people of Israel: “I have witnessed the
affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint
against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering.”
Psalm 103 declares that “The Lord is kind and merciful,” yet the
reading from the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians warns
against the kind of infidelity that Israel practiced in the desert with the
caution that “anyone who thinks to be standing secure should take
care not to fall.”
Jesus warns of the need to repent, otherwise, “You will all perish,”
telling the parable of the fig tree that had not borne fruit: “‘For three
years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have
found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He [the
gardner] said to him [the owner of the orchard] in reply, ‘Sir, leave it
for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and
fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’”
Even for our kind and merciful God, revealed most fully in Jesus,
there comes the day of reckoning. So let us hear the call of Ash
Wednesday, and of all of Lent, to “repent and believe” and live in the
Lord.
March 13th – Second Sunday of Lent
“Master, it is good for us to be here.” Peter did not understand the
meaning of the Transfiguration; he wanted to prolong the moment of
Jesus’ glory: “Let us erect three tents.” But Jesus was on His way to
the Cross, and the purpose of the Transfiguration was to offer
hope of what was to come and consolation in the midst of challenges
– then and now. Later, when the apostles understood its significance,
they found encouragement along the path that led most of them, also,
to suffering and martyrdom.
For us, on this Second Sunday of Lent, we can reflect upon
“transfiguring” events in our lives: such powerful experiences that,
although fleeting, affect us at the deepest levels. Although we cannot
extend the time of such moments (such as the birth of a child, a
couple’s marriage, etc.), those events have within them the power to
transform the rest of our lives, even to give our lives added
dimensions of meaning.
God appears to us in the little things, the ordinary happenings of our
lives. As we reflect upon them, may we all draw nearer to the Lord.
March 6th – First Sunday of Lent
This First Sunday of Lent transports us to the desert where Jesus was
tested by “every temptation.” In the course of His forty days in the
desert, Jesus remained faithful to the Father. Our Lenten journey
serves to strengthen us, also, to be faithful to the Baptism we share.
During Lent, the traditional practices of prayer, penance and care for
the poor are the means by which we strive to mature in Christian
living. It is also a time of special prayer for those who will approach
the waters of Baptism at Easter. May our efforts, under the guidance
of the Holy Spirit, encourage them on their way to union with Christ
and the Church.
In keeping with the Church’s traditional practice, the Fridays of Lent
(except for March 25, the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord)
and Good Friday are days of abstinence from all meat and Good
Friday is also a day of fasting, as was Ash Wednesday, for those
between 18 and 59 years old.
February 27th – Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The gospel reading this weekend is contains a number of sayings of
Jesus, primarily about vision (“Can a blind person guide a blind
person? . . . Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but
do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? You hypocrite!
Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see
clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye”).
For Christians, vision/sight refers to the vision of faith, insight.
“Walking by faith, and not by sight,” we seek to walk in the light, in
the way of the Lord. Doing so allows us to guide others, since we are
then children of the light, not of darkness.
As we move toward Lent, which begins this Wednesday, we have the
luxury of six weeks to give extra attention to walking in the way of
the Lord. During Lent, we will be called to works of prayer, penance
and care for the poor.
I invite you and your families to be with us for our celebration of Ash
Wednesday. Together let us hear the words of the Lord who calls us
to the fullness of life.
February 20th – Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
During the last decade (2015-2016), the Church celebrated the Jubilee
Year of Mercy, proclaimed by Pope Francis, who teaches that “Mercy
is the face of God.”
The scriptural readings this weekend speak to us of this same mercy,
as a constitutive part of the life of a Christian. Just as “The Lord is
kind and merciful” (Psalm 103), we are instructed by Jesus: “Be
merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will
not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you;
a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will
be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will
in return be measured out to you” (Luke 6:36-37).
Mercy is love in action; it should be the way of our lives. And if it is
difficult, it is even more a gift for the person to whom we show mercy.
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