It’s time to get real. Us Catholics can easily become far too reserved and complacent when it comes to dealing with this world, attempting to catechise and bring all that is secular in line with the values of Christianity. We can fail to be advocates for what is right, and in doing so allow that which is wrong to fester and continue to spread like a disease throughout society.

I get it – sometimes it can be incredibly daunting to go out into the world and evangelize it. When the weight of the world is crashing against you, it can feel incredibly overwhelming. Every attempt to make a change can feel like a huge task, an uphill battle that you’re not sure you can even come close to winning.

But that’s just it. It’s not about winning. It’s not about being hugely successful. It’s not even about changing the entire world.

It’s about bringing about change one small step at a time. It’s about having a series of little wins, small successes, along the way, that can all accumulate into creating a greater change down the track.

Just look at Jesus. When Christ was on Earth, He did not change the world overnight with His teachings. Some people understood what He was saying, and yet many did not. The Bread of Life discourse in John 6 is a good example of how even those who had been following Him deserted Him, struggling with what He was teaching them.

While Jesus did change the world through the great sacrificial offering He made of Himself on the Cross, there were still many – especially those who had pushed for His crucifixion – who did not believe in Him or His teachings.

I mean, just consider this – even after Jesus rose from the dead in His glorified Body, there were still many who did not believe. 

The world is never going to listen completely. But we can bring about change and help to improve the morality of this world over time, even if it is going to present challenges and challenge us.

When Jesus began His public ministry He called Twelve individuals, Twelve ordinary men who would become His Twelve Apostles – Twelve of the most famous individuals in the history of the Church. These men were not just called to follow Jesus. They were also called to bear witness to the Truth, and to share what had been taught them and bestowed upon them by the Lord, their Master, Teacher, and Friend.

See, Jesus could not remain here on Earth in human form forever. His ministry is one that transcends. It is not a solo ministry. It is one that requires others – it is a shared ministry, first entrusted to the Twelve, then, through them, to us. The Lord needed to ensure this ministry that He began Himself would continue after He had ascended back to the Kingdom to take his rightful place at the right hand of God the Father. The men He chose were given a great gift and an immense responsibility all at once. And they would ultimately give their lives for the sake of carrying out that responsibility.

But they were not left to do it alone. Not only did they have each other and those who they themselves would teach and form into their successors, but the Lord sent another gift upon them following His earthly departure – the Holy Spirit. With the Spirit descending upon them, they were filled with all that they needed to carry out the mission begun by their Teacher.

We can see how, immediately following the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them, the Apostles (the Eleven given Judas was no longer with them) went out and began preaching the Word of God to all who were around them. Much of this is accounted for in Acts, which details the ministry of the Apostles following the Lord’s Ascension. The Church reads through these accounts during the Easter season. We hear of the boldness of Peter and the Apostles as they preach to the people of Jerusalem, fearlessly defying the Sanhedrin. Where before they would have possibly cowered from doing such a thing, they now act as changed men – transformed, renewed and restored by the power of the Spirit.

Like the Apostles, we are called to carry on the mission of Christ in the world. It is all well and good to just be a Catholic who goes to Mass each week and prays every so often. But there is a world out there that is becoming increasingly secular, and those with the loudest voices are those who do not believe. Those who do not have the faith, and even those who are lukewarm in their faith, are incredibly vulnerable to the deceitful works, ideas, and narratives spread throughout the world by the prince of evil. They desperately need to hear the Word of God, to have the message of Christ brought to them.

We cannot just be complacent. We must rise to the occasion like the first Apostles of Christ. We must go out into the world and, each in our own way, using our own gifts given to us by the Lord, share the teachings of Christ with others. Each of us who have been baptised have been baptised priest, prophet, and king. We have each been filled with the Holy Spirit. We each possess the capacity to evangelise, to connect with others and help them to see the Truth.

There are great evils that abound in the world today. We face significant social issues and ideas that are at odds with the very nature of humanity and Creation. The world promotes ideologies that are the antithesis of life itself. It promises riches and glory that are nothing compared to the spiritual riches and eternal glory we can attain in the Kingdom of Heaven.

While we live in the world, we must not become corrupted by the evils that exist within it. Rather, we must make an effort to combat these evils – evils like abortion and euthanasia, the promotion of transgenderism, sexual sin. The promotion of many of these things are spreading faster and further in the age of social media. And given children are being introduced to technology at such a young age now, it is far easier for these evils to corrupt their minds and their souls.

It is so important for us all to be advocates of the Lord, advocates for our faith. We must harness every avenue, including social media, and turn it into a force for good. We must go out into the world like the Apostles did after receiving the Spirit and preach fearlessly in the name of Jesus Christ. We must preach the truth – that life is precious and sacred, that every human being is created lovingly and perfectly by God, that our sexuality was created for a purpose and points towards something far greater than can be imagined here on earth, that all that has been created in this world has been created for the glory of God.

But this will not always be easy. There will inevitably be times when we find it difficult to preach these truths in the face of an uncaring and morally bankrupt society. There may even be times when we are persecuted, even in small ways, for our faith and our witness to it. Yet in these moments we must not become discouraged, but take delight in suffering for Our Lord, just as the Apostles did after they were imprisoned and flogged by the members of the Sanhedrin for healing and preaching in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

It is important, to aid in our carrying out of this great mission, that we continue to devote ourselves to prayer and engage regularly with the Sacraments. If we are to be preachers of Truth, we must live that Truth. It is essential that we are regularly attending and actively participating in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. There is great power in the Eucharist. This gift of Christ Himself is one which we are all incredibly privileged to receive. It will no doubt aid us in our mission and help us to live out the life of a disciple. But we should also ensure that we have prepared ourselves adequately to receive this wondrous and precious gift so that we may attain all the graces that come with it and flow from it into our hearts, minds, and souls. Therefore, we must not fail to regularly seek out the healing Sacrament of Reconciliation, that Sacrament, another gracious gift of Our Lord, in which we receive the great and all-loving mercy and forgiveness of God.

Without prayer and the Sacraments, we can easily fall into discouragement and despair when our efforts do not seem to be enough, when we are challenged and face trials and persecutions in bearing witness to Christ and His teachings. 

If we are to be advocates for Christ, if we are to fulfill the mission that has been bestowed upon us, to truly share in His ministry, we must remain close to Our Lord. We must allow Him to work through us and in us. For we cannot do anything without Christ. And through Him we can do all things.

And we must always remember those immortal words that Christ spoke to His disciples in sending them out to change the world:

“As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.”

Catholics, let’s go out and restore the world.

After the great festivities of Holy Week and the eight-day Solemnity of the Easter Octave, you’d be forgiven for being a little spiritually fatigued. But the celebrations get extended out one more day (although Easter does continue on for fifty days in total so we still have plenty of time for celebrating), with the great Feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord, the day on which we recall, reflect upon, and give thanks and glory to God for the great Fiat of Our Blessed Mother, the glorious Virgin Mary.

Now a little disclaimer – this Feast actually falls on the 25^th of March, nine months before Christmas. However, given the movable dates of Holy Week and Easter, this year the Annunciation had to be moved to the Monday after the Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday). This is because no Solemnities can be celebrated in Holy Week – just as no ritual Masses (eg. Weddings and funerals) are permitted during this time. The more you know, right?

Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand.

The Annunciation is probably one of the greatest Feasts we have in the Catholic Church. It is a beautiful reminder of the beginning of the earthly life of Jesus Christ – the time of His Conception, which only took place after our beautiful Blessed Mother, visited by the Angel Gabriel, gave her fiat, her ‘yes’ to God, speaking those immortal and immaculate words:

“Let it be done to me according to your word.”

It’s quite incredible to think about Jesus Christ as one of us, going through the same developmental stages of growth within His Mother’s womb. He was not just an embryo. He was a human being, and even more – the Word made flesh – dwelling in the womb of the Virgin Mother. This reminds us of how sacred and precious human life is, not just from the moment of birth, but from the very moment of conception when that life is brought into existence in its most delicate form.

But I think what the Annunciation highlights most significantly is the glory in doing the Will of God.

This is something that challenges a lot, if not all, of us. We all wish doing the Will of God was easy. We all wish we could just say ‘ok God, you do what you want with me and I’ll follow along.’ But it’s never that simple. Our human nature often precludes us from making that perfect resignation to God’s Will that we might seek to enact.

Sure, we might reach a point where we are actively doing all we can to surrender our will to the Will of the Father, but we often struggle to maintain that act of surrender, that act of giving over our will to His. It is all to easy to falter, to not completely trust, to want to retain even just an inkling of control, just to make us feel like we have a little bit of power over our future and its outcomes. That control, however small a degree it may be, provides us with a little bit of comfort. It is something we crave, something we struggle to part with. Why? Because giving over full control can bring with it a feeling of discomfort, particularly in not knowing what may eventuate. That discomfort can be difficult to contend with. It can make us squirm a little. We may begin to wrestle with God for control.

But without that discomfort, without that suffering that we may endure, there is no glory. Because we know that the Will of God is always greater than our own will. We know that God brings about great things through His Divine Will. We know this because we have this great Feast of the Annunciation. That is truly was this Feast is all about – God’s Will being done.

When Mary, a humble and lowly handmaiden, gave her fiat, when she ceded her human will to the Divine Will of God, she allowed God to enact His great plan of salvation, a plan that had been in the works for thousands of years, since the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. She gave herself over completely to God. She trusted completely in His Will, His Will not only for her, but for all of humanity.

And God’s Will is good. We know this because the Will of God for all our lives, for all of mankind, is for our good. He Wills the good of humanity. That does not mean it’s going to be easy all the time. It doesn’t mean that everything is always going to be sunshine and rainbows. We all must face our trials. It is through those trials that God purifies us, that He provides us with opportunities to trust in Him, to lean on Him, to draw closer to Him. It is important to recognise that these times of trial are not designed to hurt us, they are not allowed to exist as a means of bringing evil into our lives. They are designed or permitted for our good – to orient us towards a more glorious purpose, a purpose that God has for each of us.

It can be terrifying to give ourselves over to the Lord. Surrendering our will to His and saying ‘yes’ to solely doing His Will can induce anxiety within us. But I think that is where the Annunciation and the fiat of the Blessed Mother becomes a beautiful example for each of us. While it may be scary and difficult to give our own fiat, to place our entire trust in the Will of God, just look at what He did for the Blessed Mother, look at what He brought about through her fiat.

If God can bring about the salvation of the world through the surrender and fiat of one woman, just imagine what He can do if you follow her lead.

We don’t have to be perfect. None of us ever will be until we hopefully, one day, reach the Kingdom of Heaven. But we can certainly strive to be as perfect as we possibly can, to “be perfect just like my Father in Heaven is perfect.” And part of that striving for perfection consists in following the example of the Blessed Virgin Mary and giving our fiat – telling God we are ready to do His Will for us and giving ourselves over to Him completely, just as the Blessed Mother did over 2000 years ago.

That great fiat led to freedom. That selflessness led to salvation.

But we must do more than just imitate that selflessness of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. We must do more than imitate Our Blessed Mother. We must give our entire selves as a gift to God. We must entrust ourselves entirely to Him and His Holy Will. We will do the same when we realise our vocation in life, be it marriage, priesthood, religious life or any other. At that time, when that vocation comes to full fruition, we must make a gift of ourselves, our entire selves, either to the person we are becoming one with in the Sacrament of marriage or, if we are entering into religious life, to God and the Church. 

Yet while we remain in the single life, we should give ourselves over to God, trusting in His Will for us. It may be difficult at times, but we should know that, no matter what, we can always lean on Him. We can always bring our anxieties, worries, doubts, fears, everything to Him. 

Just pause and consider for a moment how Mary would have felt when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her to tell her she would bear the Son of God. Keep in mind that the Blessed Mother had just as much free will as we do. She knew the Scriptures – she was well versed in them – and so she would have known what this immense responsibility entailed. She could have become overwhelmed with the thoughts of what she would have to endure. She could have said ‘no.’  Yet, in all her humility, she said ‘yes’ and demonstrated for all of us for all time the greatest act of faith, hope, and trust in God.

What Mary was given in being chosen to be the Mother of God was not just a gift, but a sacrifice. She would endure many trials, with her fiat ultimately leading her to the Cross alongside her glorious Son. She would endure the pain and suffering that He endured in her own heart.

And yet Mary dedicated her life to bringing into the world, nurturing, and supporting our salvation. She was given a gift and a sacrifice. And that gift she was given by God was a gift she bore to the world. That gift, Jesus Christ Himself, ultimately gave Himself as a the ultimate gift and sacrifice.

Only in submitting ourselves to the Will of God can we even hope to come close to imitating that immaculate and all-consuming faith and trust that Our Blessed Mother had. And while that submission is not easy, it can bring about beautiful and wondrous moments in our lives that we will recognise as coming from God.

It’s not easy. But then again, nothing worth doing is ever that easy. There’s always effort that needs to be put in to reap the rewards. And submitting ourselves to God’s Will, trusting entirely in Him, can be incredibly rewarding.

And remember, if you struggle, that’s normal. If you fail to surrender, to submit your will to His Will, try again. If it’s too difficult to surrender your entire self to God, maybe start by trying to surrender just a a part of yourself. It could be just one aspect of your life that you’re trying to control too much. Cede that control to the Lord and allow Him to take over the reins.

And when you do, ask Our Blessed Mother to grant you the graces to allow the Lord to take care of it. Draw close to her, for she is the greatest model of faith, hope, and trust in God. For while the Annunciation was the heralding of our salvation, while Mary’s great fiat was the birth of our great hope, it was through these glorious moments of love and humility that the Blessed Mother began a journey of faith that would ultimately lead her through suffering and salvation to the Queenship of Heaven and Earth.

The Annunciation of the Lord is a celebration of love, faith, trust, and surrender to God. With one ‘yes’, Mary changed the course of human history.

Just remember, if God can do all that for Mary, imagine what He is waiting to do for you if you would only give your own fiat, submit yourself to His Will, and allow it to be done in your life.

Sometimes as Christians we are asked how we know that God is really there, that He even exists. Honestly, it’s a valid question. There are times in the life of every Christian when we wonder if there is actually someone on the other end of all those prayers. Sometimes we can even venture into territory where we wonder if it’s even worth it at all.

Prayer can be a complicated subject. Sometimes we wonder if we are praying enough. Or we question if we are praying the right way. Are those prayers too self-centred? Is it wrong to pray the same thing over and over? Is it ok to pray for a certain outcome? Will praying for a certain outcome result in that outcome being taken off the table because we are too attached to it? Are we really praying well if we are just repeating the same routine-like set of prayers each day?

Once you really begin to pray and take prayer seriously, many of these questions and probably a whole lot more will begin to seek your attention. To be perfectly honest, it’s hard not to contemplate them. I wish I had solid answers for each one of them, but I don’t. I’m still learning and navigating these very questions myself.

Sometimes we pray the same thing over and over and we wonder if it’s even being heard. I think it is quite challenging to discern the voice of God in our prayer lives. Is it really God putting that thought into our mind, or is it just something we’ve thought up in response to our own question, our own prayer?

One day He gives us a moment, even if it is fleeting, that enriches us and nourishes us spiritually and mentally. He provides something of an answer to prayer in a small way, just enough to make us grateful for that small moment, a moment that brings us a happiness, a little joy. It’s a small mercy, I guess.

And while we are grateful for that beautiful little moment, the next day we are back to wondering if our prayer is going to be answered. We seek out the voice of God but don’t seem to hear anything.

It’s like a spiritual rollercoaster that never seems to end.

God is truly a mystery in the way He works. Sometimes He will surprise us. Other times, He’ll make us wait (for good reason, I’m sure). I think for many of us it can just be difficult to understand why at times. 

Why are our prayers not being answered? Maybe they are, just not in the way we hoped. This can be difficult to contend with, given we often hope for certain outcomes, for certain events to take place. And, when they don’t come to pass as we expected, we can become incredibly dejected.

Why are we being made to wait? Maybe it’s because God has something in store for us that He needs to perfect us for first. Maybe we are not yet at the point where we can take on what He has waiting for us.

Why can’t we seem to hear God’s voice? That’s a question I’m not really sure how to answer. Maybe God wants us to just sit in the silence and contemplate what is on our heart. Maybe He’s making us wait. I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure this one out.

I think it’s only natural that each of us should ask ‘why?’ within the context of the spiritual life. I’ve done it many times myself. Often God is working, we just are not yet able to see it. And yet we have to trust that He is. But that is not always easy to do. Sometimes it can be especially difficult to trust. 

I think sometimes we can pray every prayer under the sun and still wonder if we’re being heard. Sometimes we can even begin to think that if we don’t pray a certain prayer that we might usually pray as part of our ‘routine’ that those prayers won’t be heard or that our prayers won’t be answered as we are hoping they might be. 

Sometimes we go into a place of prayer, be it the church or an Adoration Chapel, we kneel there with the intention of praying, but then we don’t even feel like praying. Or we can’t seem to find the words to pray. 

Sometimes you just go into the Chapel, look at Jesus, and become filled or even overwhelmed with raw emotion.

And sometimes you just sit there in front of the Blessed Sacrament and look at Him in silence. All you can do is just look. Thoughts swirl in your mind and you just look at Him.

Sometimes you just want to sit there for hours. Sometimes you never want to leave. Because for that moment, that time that seems so short, you can just be there in the presence of God and put everything else aside.

I think when it comes to prayer, the best we can do is to be authentic. We have been gifted with many prayers and devotions from the Church and the Saints, and it’s still good to pray these prayers. They wouldn’t be there for us if they weren’t good.

But I think it’s so important to just be upfront and honest with God about whatever is on our hearts. Sure, He knows us, and He already knows what we are going through. But He can’t take our hearts from us. We need to bring them to Him freely. Whatever is on our hearts, that should be our prayer. Prayer should come from our hearts and our hearts should be our prayer.

If you’re struggling with something, just talk to God about it. If you’re dealing with uncertainty, talk to God about it. Bring all your anxieties, worries, fears and concerns to Him. Talk to Him about your hopes and dreams. Even if you can’t hear His voice, just talk to Him. Pour your heart out to Him.

To end this little reflection on prayer, I’d like to share a piece of Scripture that it close to my heart:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

Well, we’ve made it through another season of Lent. Emerging from Holy Week, we now celebrate the glorious Easter Octave and, following this, the remainder of the Easter season, which lasts fifty days. But I think it is important to reflect on what we have learnt throughout the season of penance and sacrifice that we have all just endured. So consider this a little reflective piece on some of the lessons from the Lent that was.

Now I’m not sure how Lent was for everyone else. For some of us, it may have been a breeze. But, for most of us, I think it would be a pretty good guess to say that it was challenging. This penitential season is intended to be challenging. It is supposed to cause some discomfort, to bring to the surface those things which we have been struggling with that we might have been pushing down so that we don’t have to address them. If this did not occur then we would not be able to overcome them and be purified. That is truly what Lent is about – the purification of our souls. And purification of souls does not happen without some discomfort and struggle.

I think something that really took centre-stage this Lent, at least for me, was surrender. Throughout the Lenten season, I followed along with Hallow’s Pray40 challenge which centred on the theme of surrender. Each day for these 40 days, I placed myself in the presence of God and tried to surrender to Him all that I had, all that was on my heart, everything I was struggling or trying to contend with.

But this surrender is not easy. At times, I would question whether I was truly surrendering everything to the Lord. I wondered if I was going against the surrender in certain ways. To be completely honest, I’m not really certain that I did truly surrender all to Him. I think that, when it came to particular aspects of my life, I was really wrestling with God – attempting to surrender them but at the same time attempting to seek a particular outcome. 

I think we all struggle to give over complete control to God. Being human, we instinctively want to control everything, because it means things are less unpredictable, thereby providing a greater sense of comfort. But we need to be able to step away from comfort, to be challenged. If we aren’t, we will only remain in a place of deep complacency and our lives will likely become stagnant. We cannot possibly grow closer to God and deepen our relationship with Him if we remain in such a place.

We can look to the disciples of Christ to see how this works. Each one of these men would have been perfectly fine continuing to live as they were without following Jesus when He called them. Each one easily could have remained in the comfort of the place they were in. But each one chose to follow our Lord, each one wanted to go deeper. And in choosing to follow Our Lord, each one committed to facing challenges and being tested, to enduring hardships and placing their trust entirely in God. This culminates in Holy Week when the disciples face their greatest challenge of all – the Passion and death of their Master, Teacher, and Friend. 

And I think we see the struggle with surrender most poignantly in Peter’s denial of Christ. Peter told the Lord he would follow Him even to death, essentially saying he would surrender his own life for Jesus. But when he was challenged, he gave in to human instincts and went back on that surrender. And yet there is great consolation in knowing that Jesus gave Peter the opportunity to make up for his denial. Each of us is given that opportunity to try again, to make another attempt to surrender everything, including our heart and our will, to God. Everything in creation belongs to God, but our hearts are the one thing that He does not possess. We have a choice to freely give them to Him. He cannot take them from us. They are a gift only each of us can present to Him with great love and trust.

The power of prayer and fasting is also something to behold. As I mentioned in my Lenten reflection at the beginning of the penitential season, prayer and fasting help us to bring God into focus and strengthen our will so that we can better resist temptation. For me personally, this was the first time I really took this seriously. And while I fasted from the food of this world, I found myself craving and becoming more enriched by the spiritual food of the Holy Eucharist and Sacred Scripture.

The penitential season of Lent also draws our focus to certain prayers that we may not have considered at other times throughout the year. Each Friday, there were beautiful opportunities to focus on the Stations of the Cross and journey with Christ through His Passion, suffering and death on the Cross. The Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary became more poignant, especially during Holy Week as we drew closer to the commemoration of the events of Christ’s Passion and death. And the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady provided a beautiful way of connecting more deeply with Our Blessed Mother and drawing closer to her in her grief and anguish of watching her Son endure His suffering.

I think the one other thing that we learn from the season of Lent, and probably the most important, is the value of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. As we make sacrifices, focus on fasting, and spend more time in prayer, we spend a significantly greater deal of time in self-reflection, examining ourselves and drawing our focus to sins we are struggling with and what we could be doing better to prevent ourselves from falling into sin. In engaging in such self-reflection, we understand that we need to seek the loving mercy and forgiveness of our Heavenly Father, and, in engaging with the beautiful Sacrament of Reconciliation, we develop a greater appreciation for this wonderful Sacrament that God has given us.

Yes, we realise just how sinful we are. But there is no need to despair. For despair darkens our souls and leads us into greater sin, just as it did to Judas. It is in this great Sacrament of Reconciliation that we find healing. And it is in the great Paschal Mystery, that great sacrifice on the Cross, where Jesus stretched out His arms wide and took on all our sin, that we find the greatest healing love of all. 

Lent may have been difficult. It may have presented some challenges that tested your limits. But we must all remember that there is no Easter Sunday without a Good Friday. While there was pain and anguish on that first Good Friday when Our Lord was put to death, there was consolation and hope in His glorious Resurrection. As the Easter Sequence says: ‘Life’s own Champion slain, yet lives to reign.’

Without suffering there is no salvation.

And so, having endured and come to the conclusion of Lent, we can now celebrate with great jubilation knowing that Christ is Risen and reigns victorious over sin and death.

May the Risen Christ bless you all abundantly this Easter Season.

Viva Cristo Rey!

This week, the Church will celebrate the most significant week in the liturgical year. Catholics will venture through the events of Holy Week, recalling the week of Passover almost 2000 years ago when Jesus Christ entered into the final few days of His Earthly life and accomplished the mission bestowed on Him by the Father, the salvation of the world.

Many of us can often take this week and its events for granted. We think we know all there is to know about Holy Week and the Sacred Paschal Triduum, and so we just attend the celebrations because it’s part of our Easter routine. Some of us might even just think about how long we’re going to be in Church for this week, knowing that the liturgies will be lengthier than usual.

But there is so much more to the events that we commemorate during Holy Week. I hope that some of the details to follow will help to enrich your experience of this incredible week of Jesus’ life, suffering, death, and Resurrection. 

Emerging from our 40 days in the desert, we enter straight into Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Before Christ enters his hometown, the place that has turned against Him – “a prophet is not welcome in his own home” – He tells His disciples to go into the town and retrieve a donkey that is tied up. This donkey, which Christ enters the city upon, has not been ridden upon, alluding to Christ’s kingship. In this way, He also demonstrates that He is the true Son of David, but also shows His humility, riding in on a donkey rather than a horse or the like. Zechariah 9:9 prophesies this kingly entrance:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey.

And again, Jesus’ choice of entrance hearkens back to Jacob’s blessing to Judah:

Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. (Genesis 49:11)

And in another way, Christ’s entrance on the unridden donkey alludes all the way back to Genesis, to the Creation of the world. Just as Adam, when he was created by God, was given dominion over all the wild animals, so too does Jesus now have dominion over the wild animals (in the form of the unridden colt).

As Jesus enters Jerusalem, a crowd is gathered around Him, laying down their clothes and palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna.” This word literally means, “save us now.” The people shouting this phrase clearly understand that Jesus is the Messiah, the One who has come to save them (albeit they do not realise that in order to accomplish this mission of salvation the Messiah will have to die a horrible death). 

The waving of palm branches also alludes back to the Old Testament. In Leviticus, Moses instructs the people of Israel on the celebration of the Festival of Booths:

And you shall take on the first day the fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days. (Leviticus 23:40)

Again, in the first book of Maccabees, palm branches are used when Simon Maccabeus liberates the citadel during the Maccabean Revolt:

On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the one hundred and seventy-first year, the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs, because a great enemy had been crushed and removed from Israel. (1 Maccabees 13:51)

The procession of Jesus into Jerusalem is also similar to the procession that would take place for the dedication of a Temple in the Old Testament. In this case, the procession of Christ is for the dedication of the New Temple, Christ Himself.

I think it is quite common among Catholics to question why these people who celebrated as Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday would, just a few days later, condemn the very same man at whose arrival they were overjoyed. This is something I have even questioned, especially in more recent years.

It is thereby important to note that the crowd that celebrates Jesus’ arrival and the crowd that calls for Jesus to die are not the same crowd. Those who were present at the entrance on Palm Sunday consisted of Jesus’ disciples and all those who had been following Him after He visited their towns and cities. Those who called for His execution were scared of Jesus and His teachings, incited by the religious leaders – the Pharisees, High Priests, and Scribes.

Following this, Jesus is anointed by an unnamed woman at Simon the leper’s home, essentially in preparation for death. Over the next couple of days He curses the fig tree and then cleanses the Temple, driving out the money-changers. It is in His reasoning for doing so, in which He begins to refer to Himself as something more than just a man, that the Pharisees see an issue with the Lord and decide to undertake a plot to kill Him. 

It is here that Judas enters the picture. Judas makes the deal with the religious authorities to betray and hand over Jesus the day before the Last Supper. When asked about the preparation for the Passover, Jesus, knowing all and likely knowing that Judas had already struck a bargain with the Temple authorities, tells only a couple of His disciples to go find a man carrying a jar of water. He does not tell Judas, as Judas, if having prior knowledge of where Christ would be celebrating the Passover meal, would have likely betrayed Him sooner and prevented the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, the New Passover, from taking place. 

When Jesus tells the disciples to look for the man carrying a jar of water, He is not sending them on a wild goose chase. In the context of these times, it was unusual for a man to be seen carrying jars of water. Such a man would have therefore been easy to find. This man leads the disciples to the Upper Room where the Last Supper and Institution of the Eucharist take place. This Upper Room is believed to have either belonged to Nicodemus, or to Mary, the mother of John Mark, who is the same Mark who wrote the Gospel. It is likely that this would have been Mary, the mother of John Mark’s house, given the account we receive in Acts when Peter is rescued from prison. After he is freed by an angel, we read the following:

When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying. (Acts 12:12)

It is in this verse from Acts too that we come to recognise the Gospel writer Mark within the Biblical text.

In the Upper Room, Jesus does not immediately institute the Eucharist, the New Passover. Rather, He begins by demonstrating to His disciples how they should act after He has gone before them. He washes each of their feet as a servant and then calls on them to serve others as they have been served, to do what He has done for them. The New Commandment, again a perfection of the original Commandments, is given: Love one another as I have loved you.

It is only after showing His disciples how to serve that Jesus sits with them at table and begins the New Passover. Taking bread, He breaks it, says the blessing and speaks the words of Institution that we Catholics are all very familiar with. He then shares the Passover meal, the Eucharist, His Body, with His disciples. After they finish eating, He takes the chalice, again says the blessing, and shares the Blood of the New Covenant, the New Passover, with His disciples.

Before we move on, it is important to highlight here how time was recorded in the Jewish tradition. The Jewish day is not the same as the day we are all used to. The day begins at sunset and ends at sunset. This is how the Sabbath would take place. It would begin at sunset and end the following sunset. Thereby, the New Passover, whereby Jesus would become the perfect sacrifice for all time and put the days of animal sacrifices in the past, began at sunset on Holy Thursday with the Last Supper. It would end by the following sunset with the death of Christ on the Cross.

Another interesting point to note is that the Passover took place on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, known as Nisan. On the tenth day of this month was when the lambs for the sacrifice would be brought forth. Jesus entered Jerusalem on that very day as the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of God.

Following the Institution of the Eucharist, Jesus and His disciples sing a hymn and then go out to the Mount of Olives. It is here that He tells them:

“You will all fall away; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” (Mark 14:27-28)

Many may say that the disciples were distraught after the Passion and death of Christ. This is a line of thinking we can easily fall into. Yes, the disciples were scattered – only John was present at the Cross with Christ, most likely because He went to the Blessed Mother Mary – but they were not distraught. After all, Jesus told them that He would go before them to Galilee following His Resurrection.

After Christ prophesies, Peter speaks up telling the Lord that he will not fall away, that he would die with Jesus before denying Him. While we can all aspire to be like this, to hope that we will stand by Our Lord no matter what, it is not always easy. Peter discovered this the hard way. While Christ was speaking with Pilate, Peter was outside denying Him not once but three times just as the Lord prophesied he would. We too can struggle, we too can turn away from Christ. But the wonderful thing about the ever-merciful Lord is that we can return to Him and He will welcome us back with a warm and loving embrace.

When Christ and the disciples reach Gethsemane, Jesus goes into the garden to pray. And so we have another allusion to the beginning, to the days of Adam in the Garden of Eden. It is here, in the garden, that Jesus brings all things full circle within His Passion in order to bring them back into order with God. In Gethsemane, in the midst of His prayer, Jesus begins to sweat drops of blood. This is a real condition known as hematidrosis, which can occur in individuals suffering from extreme levels of stress. Jesus was under immense stress in Gethsemane, knowing what He was about to endure. It is here that He asks the Father to allow this chalice, the chalice of sin, suffering, and death, to pass Him by. He makes this request three times, yet each time He concludes by uttering the great words of complete surrender:

“Not what I will, but what you will.”

It is by no means easy to surrender our wills to God’s Will. Yet Jesus sets an incredible example for all of us. We must follow in His stead and surrender to God, allowing Him to take over. We may make a request of Him, but each time we should utter those very same words:

“Non voluntas mea, sed tua fiat.” – “Not my will, but your will.”

We should also note here that Gethsemane is derived from two Hebrew words: ‘gat,’ meaning ‘a place for pressing oil (or wine)’ and ‘Shemanim,’ meaning ‘oils.’ Gethsemane was the oil press. The process of pressing olives for their oil took place in three steps, or three presses. The oil from the first pressing was used for the lamp in the Temple. The second press produced the oil used for medicinal purposes. And the third press produced the oil used to produce soap for cleansing.

Just like the olives, Jesus was pressed three times. Each time He prayed to the Father, He was pressed. He was pressed to become the Light of the world. He was pressed in taking our sickness upon Himself so that we could be healed. And He was pressed to cleanse us of sin.

Following the arrest of Jesus after His betrayal by Judas, we find a unique detail in Mark’s account:

And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked. (Mark 14:51-52)

There have been numerous theories as to who this young man might have been. Some Scripture scholars have suggested it was John. Others have said it could have been James. However, the third, and most likely, idea is that this young man was Mark Himself. This is his cameo, his ‘Alfred Hitchcock’ moment per se. If we consider that Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover meal in the Upper Room in Mary’s house, and that she was the mother of John Mark, it makes sense that Mark may have heard the commotion and ran out to Gethsemane, which would not have been all that far from the house where Jesus had instituted the Eucharist.

We then proceed through the trial of Jesus Christ. While there is much that occurs here, what with Jesus being brought before the Sanhedrin, then being taken to Pilate, I think it is interesting to consider the role of Pilate. Pilate was a learned man. He was no fool. As a leader in Rome, his duty was to the Romans. He had no obligation to the Pharisees nor the Jewish people in general. When they brought Jesus before him in an effort to have the death sentence pronounced upon Him, Pilate thought it necessary to speak with Christ. It is clear that, from what we see of Pilate in the Passion accounts, He appeared to understand that Jesus was no threat to the Roman Empire. In the eyes of Pilate, He may have been no more than a religious fanatic, one that was not about to start a revolution against Rome. 

Pilate, however, was under immense pressure from the crowd to make a decision. He made several attempts to delay, having Jesus scourged in the hope that this may sate the bloodthirst of the crowd (to no avail), and then presenting them with an option to have either Jesus or Barabbas released (again, to no avail, given the crowd demand the release of Barabbas). While the Jewish law was of no great importance to him, the peer-pressure and threats of condemnation from the Pharisees and the crowd put him in a position where he hands Jesus over to be crucified. And yet in making this decision, Pilate, in a paradoxical way, is helping to bring about the salvation of the world.

It is at the Crucifixion of Christ that we encounter a moment that is so Scripturally rich, a moment in which Jesus, from the Cross, points us back to the Scriptures. We see how people mock Him, telling Him to save Himself if He truly is the Christ, the King of Israel, the Son of God. In a roundabout way, they are acting like Satan did at the end of Jesus’ forty days in the desert, presenting Him with the same temptation that Satan did when He told Jesus to jump from the parapet of the Temple, saying that if He is the Son of God He will be saved by the angels of God.

This mockery also points us back to Isaiah’s Songs of the Suffering Servant. Isaiah 50 reads:

The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary. Morning by morning he wakens, he wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. (Isaiah 50:4-7)

But Christ also points us towards the Psalms. We are told in the accounts of the Passion that at the ninth hour (again, this is the Jewish timeframe and so would translate to three o’clock in the afternoon), Jesus cried out with a loud voice,

“Elo-I, Elo-I, lama sabach-thani?” – “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This is not a cry of abandonment by God. In this moment, very shortly before He takes His final breath, Jesus points the people back to the prophetic Psalm of David, Psalm 22. It is essential to understand here that, in Jesus’ time, the people knew the Psalms. They prayed the Psalms like we pray the Our Father or the Hail Mary today. If someone starts it, we know what comes next. In the time of Jesus, if someone began one of the Psalms, the others knew the rest.

So, when Jesus began Psalm 22, the people would have known what came next. Psalm 22 was written by David, and yet it was not about him. The Psalm highlights the Messiah and why He came. It is not a Psalm of abandonment, but both a Psalm of deliverance and of praise to God.

We see in this Psalm the mockery Jesus had to endure from the Cross:

All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; “He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” (Psalm 22:7-8)

This is precisely what the people who mocked Christ were saying – if God delights in Jesus, let Him save Him from the Cross.

We again see more of Christ’s Passion in verses 16-19:

Yes, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet – I can count all my bones – they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

‘They have pierced my hands and feet.’ This clearly points to Christ’s Crucifixion, nails driven through both His hands and feet. ‘They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.’ Indeed, just as the Psalm of David prophesied, Christ’s garments were divided up by the soldiers who crucified Him, and when they found His tunic was seamless, they cast lots for it.

The Psalm finishes with the line:

he has wrought it. (Psalm 22:31)

It does not end with suffering, but with praise to God for deliverance. This line can be translated as ‘he has done it’ or ‘it is done.’ This draws us back to Christ’s final words: “It is finished.” 

It is these words, in another translation, that point us to the magnitude of the event that has taken place in the Passion, the New Passover – “It is consummated.” What has taken place is not just an eternal sacrifice for the salvation of man, to bring man back into communion with God. It is the greatest wedding of all time – the marriage of Christ, the Bridegroom, to His Bride, the Church. The Last Supper is the Marriage Supper. The Crucifixion, Christ’s embrace of His Cross, is the consummation of the marriage. And now the marriage supper takes place for eternity, and we take part in it each time we participate in the Mass and, hopefully one day, God-willing, at the eternal banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven.

One final point on the Crucifixion of Christ. The day that Jesus died was the same day the lambs for the Passover sacrifice were slaughtered. These lambs were slaughtered at the ninth hour, three o’clock in the afternoon, the very same time that Jesus died on the Cross. Just as Jesus entered Jerusalem on the same day the sacrificial lambs were brought forth, so He became the perfect sacrifice on the same day at the same hour that the lambs were sacrificed. He was the true Lamb, the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. From His side flowed the blood and water of new life, the New Covenant.

Just as Jesus entered Jerusalem on an unridden donkey on Palm Sunday, He was placed in an unused tomb, the Holy Sepulchre, following His Death – again, pointing to His kingship.

But death was not the end for Christ. For when He rose on the third day, our salvation was accomplished, and our path to full communion with God in the kingdom of Heaven was opened. The Resurrection is essential to our faith. For if the Resurrection did not occur, our faith would collapse. Just as the Apostle Paul writes:

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ had not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:13-19)

The Resurrection is essential for our path to life. Jesus was not merely raised from the dead like Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter. These individuals were raised, however they were raised only to return to their earthly life only to die again in time. Jesus, however, was raised to new life, a life beyond the constraints of this world. He could thereby appear to us in any way He chose, and He chose the form of bread and wine, the Holy Eucharist.

On Easter Sunday, we will hear the Gospel reading about the disciples on the Road to Emmaus. On the journey, Jesus preaches the Scriptures to the disciples, interprets them, then sits at table and breaks bread with them. As soon as they recognise Him in the breaking of the bread, Jesus disappears from their sight. This is because He is now truly present in the Eucharist. The bread He breaks is now the form He chooses to appear in. The account of the Road to Emmaus contains within it the Mass itself – the Scriptures are proclaimed, the priest interprets the Scriptures in his Homily, and then the bread is broken and transforms, or transubstantiates, into the Body of Christ.

And remember, Easter does not conclude on Easter Sunday. Just as the Passover spanned for a whole week, so too do we have the Octave of Easter, spanning for eight days, and then six Sundays of Easter prior to the celebration of the Lord’s Ascension into Heaven. The Easter season lasts fifty days.

This Holy Week, take the time to consider what is really taking place in each Mass and service you attend. This is the most Scripturally rich and liturgically beautiful time in the liturgical year. Participate fully, be engaged in the liturgy, let it take up all your focus and attention for those few hours it spans. The Sacred Paschal Triduum is not three liturgies – it is one major liturgy that takes place in three parts over three days. There are no Introductory Rites, merely a Collect, on Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, and there is no Dismissal on Holy Thursday and Good Friday. It is all one major liturgical celebration of the Lord’s Institution of the Eucharist, His Passion, suffering, and death on the Cross, and His glorious Resurrection.

This is the culmination of everything we have been journeying towards over this Lenten period. As we journey out of the desert and into the holiest of weeks, the holiest of celebrations, let us take time to reflect, understand, and resolve not only to live as Christ has asked of all of us, but to take up our own crosses, to unite all our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings with His, and journey towards the glory of eternal life.

I pray that you all have a very blessed and spiritually nourishing Holy Week.

God Bless.