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.

The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him. Mark 1:12-13

We begin the season of Lent by recalling how, immediately following His Baptism in the Jordan, Jesus Christ is lead out into the wilderness (or the desert). It is there that Christ spends forty days before He returns to Galilee to begin His ministry and call His disciples.

Lent is derived from the Middle English word lente, which means ‘springtime,’ which is descended from the Old English lencten. Often, we will hear the word Lenten, which means ‘of or relating to Lent’ and also ‘meatless.’ There is also another word that may be familiar to some used as a synonym for Lent – Quadragesima. This comes from the Latin quadragesimus, which means ‘fortieth.’

It is interesting that the root word of Lent should carry the meaning of springtime, given the image most closely associated with the Lenten season is that of Jesus alone in the desert. How could a desert, so dry, barren, and isolating, evoke any thought of springtime, when flowers blossom, trees regrow their leaves, and new life springs forth?

Well, there is a springtime in the desert. It is just not one that is visible. This springtime takes place internally, within the soul.

For forty days, we must venture out into the wilderness with Christ so that our souls can be purged from all that is holding us back in our spiritual life, in our relationship with God. We must be freed from all our vices, all that leads us into sin. Of course, as human beings who are subject to concupiscence and to falling again and again, it is unlikely that we will be completely purged of all vices and sin by the end of these forty days. But we can assuredly attain greater freedom from these obstacles in our spiritual life than we had at the outset of our journey into the wilderness and a deeper relationship with Our Lord.

And so, we must imitate Christ in His forty days of desert isolation. This does not mean we literally have to go out into the middle of a desert and sit there for forty days without food and water. What it means is that we must spend time over these forty days following the three pillars of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

When Jesus came to the end of His forty days in the wilderness, Satan came to Him to tempt Him. Given Jesus had been fasting, Satan probably thought this was the best time to strike as He would be weak from not eating or drinking for forty days. He presented to Christ three temptations: turning stones into bread, bowing to him with the promise of bestowing on Christ the kingdoms of the world, and putting God to the test by jumping from the temple roof with the presumption that the angels would save Him.

Each of these three temptations are overcome by each of the three pillars.

The first temptation, transforming stones into bread, is the lust of the flesh. In this context, lust of the flesh does not refer simply to sexual sin, but to any bodily pleasure that tempts us to sin – in this case, desire for food, which could lead to gluttony.

The second temptation, where Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if He bowed down to him and worshipped him, is the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. Satan promised to give Jesus the ‘glory’ of these kingdoms, which included all the things they contained within them, and ruling over the world clearly appeals to pride.

And the third temptation, whereby Satan suggested to Jesus that, since He was the Son of God, He should throw Himself off the temple and that the angels would save Him if He did, again goes to the pride of life, given the devil wanted Christ to exploit His divine authority. It also goes to the sin of presumption – that God will save us no matter what.

Here’s how the three pillars of Lent help us to overcome the three great temptations.

Pride of life is overcome by prayer. When we pray, we acknowledge our dependence on God. We acknowledge that we cannot do anything without Him. Often, when we try to do things on our own, we make a mess of them and end up finding ourselves crawling back to Him for help. Our recognition through prayer that we rely upon God and are dependent on Him increases the virtue of humility within us and helps us to ensure that we do not become prideful and turn away from His loving care.

Fasting helps us to overcome the lust of the flesh. When we fast, we deprive ourselves of all bodily pleasures. We might choose to give up certain foods or drinks that we like, things that would bring us fleeting pleasure. While many of us will abstain from meat on Fridays, we can take this further in various ways, whether it be abstaining from meat a few days of the week, or maybe even fasting throughout the day on a Friday until our evening meal.

But while fasting from food and drink is good, we can also fast from other things that lead us to sin. We might fast from watching television, or from social media and scrolling on our phones. We could fast from becoming angry with others, from losing our patience, from being judgmental, from becoming embittered. Our goal really should be to target those things which either cause us to sin or which are themselves sinful, so that we can at the very least reduce sources of temptation in our lives.

Fasting is important because it teaches us and increases within us the virtue of temperance. It becomes an avenue for control – as we grow more and more used to going without the pleasures that we are depriving ourselves of, we are able to gain a greater degree of control over them and our desire for them. When we fast, we strengthen our will, so that we can better resist temptation.

The lust of the eyes is overcome by almsgiving. When we engage in almsgiving, we are able to become increasingly detached from worldly objects. We can give charitably to those who are in need and reduce what we purchase ourselves to only those things which are essential. This does not mean solely just giving money to others, although this is certainly part of what almsgiving is. We can also give time to others to help them in any way they need.

When we engage in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, we are better able to deal with temptations when they come. And they will come. Because when the devil sees us working to turn away from sin, to strengthen our wills so that we can repel it, to grow closer and deeper in our relationship with God, he will strike and attempt to bring us back down. It is when we are growing in holiness that the devil comes to tempt us. But don’t be put off by temptation. Because temptation means you’re doing something right. The devil does not need to tempt those who are already deep within sin and not seeking the forgiveness of God. He does not need to tempt those who are already his. He tempts those who are God’s in an effort to cause them to fall so that they may turn away from God. But through the practices we engage in during Lent, we can ensure we are better equipped to resist the suggestions Satan tempts us with and send him away with nothing.

Prayer is at the root of that. When Satan begins to tempt you and makes a suggestion, turn to prayer immediately so that you avoid contemplating the suggestion and purge it from your mind. It can be a prayer you make yourself, or you might pray an Our Father or a Hail Mary. Any prayer can help to prevent a temptation from progressing into sin.

When we observe the Lenten practices and make changes in our lives throughout the season, it truly can become a springtime for our souls, whereby the virtues can begin to bloom. But if we want them to continue to grow, we need to keep nourishing them. They are like flowers – without proper nourishment and maintenance they will begin to lose their colour, wilt, and die.

That is why, if we want to continue to grow in the virtues, in temperance, charity, humility, wisdom, fortitude, prudence, justice, chastity, faithfulness, patience and so forth, we need to make sure that what we practice during Lent continues after the season concludes.

Consider this: Jesus was born of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. His Blessed Mother was the Immaculate Conception. She was conceived without Original Sin. She had to be, as the Mother of the Lord, the Mother of the Saviour who would offer Himself up as the perfect sacrifice on what would become the new Tree of Life, had to be a perfect vessel with no impurity. Thereby, Jesus Himself, being the perfect, unblemished sacrifice, born of the Immaculate Conception, was also without Original Sin. Christ had no concupiscence, and so He never would have been tempted by what Satan offered Him.

You may wonder then: Why would Jesus put Himself through forty days of fasting and isolation in the desert if He could not be tempted anyway?

It all goes back to fulfilling the salvation of man, and also providing an example for us to imitate so that we can attain that salvation.

Jesus prayed constantly throughout His forty days in the desert. This period of isolation took place right before He was to call twelve men to follow Him, men who He would teach, instruct, and nourish before sending out to do the Will of the Father. Among other things, Jesus likely prayed for those He was going to call. In praying and fasting, He was showing us what we must do to avoid the temptations of this world and become more like Him.

But Jesus’ time in the wilderness is better understood in the context of salvation. In Mark’s short and sharp account of this part of the life of Christ, he writes of something that is unique to His Gospel: ‘he was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.’

While there are several accounts of individuals with wild beasts in the Old Testament, Mark’s account of Jesus with the wild beasts points us back to Genesis, to the very beginning, when Adam was in the Garden with the wild beasts. And this leads us to the Fall. In the Fall, Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan. They saw that which was forbidden to them by God, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (lust of the eyes), and they desired to eat of it (lust of the flesh) after Satan suggested to them that in eating of it they could become like God (pride of life). In the Fall, each of the three great temptations were put before man, and man succumbed to each, thereby condemning himself to the clutches of sin and death.

We know that Jesus is the ‘New Adam.’ So, just as Adam was tempted by Satan in the Garden and was overcome, it was necessary, in order to right Adam’s wrongs, for Christ to face those same three temptations and to overcome each of them.

Once we understand this section of the Gospel in the context of Genesis and the Fall of Man, we can see the greater purpose that Jesus Christ’s forty days in the desert serves.

During this Lenten season, let us spend time with Jesus in the wilderness, taking the time to reflect, to spend time in prayer, to give alms, and to fast, especially from those things which cause us to stumble. Let us hold fast to the pillars of Lent and purge ourselves from all that is holding us back from growing in virtue and in our relationship with God.

When Jesus concluded His time in the desert, He went into Galilee and began preaching the Gospel, telling the people of the town that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

When we conclude our time in the wilderness, let us do as Christ did. Let us go out into the world and share the Gospel with all others so that they may come to know God and to love Him. Let us use this time of Lent to prepare ourselves so that we can be faithful and effective disciples of Jesus Christ and make disciples of all the world. And may we continue to grow in the virtues and the graces of God.

This Sunday, we hear from Mark’s Gospel the account of Jesus and the leper. While we are all probably familiar with the healing of Christ and, when it comes to leprosy, His healing of the ten lepers, this healing is particularly profound for several reasons and carries a number of lessons that apply to the way we live in the modern day.

Having cast out a demon in the synagogue, healed Simon’s mother-in-law, and preached, healed, and cast out demons throughout Galilee, Jesus is now out, presumably in a place isolated from the town. A leper approaches Him seeking healing. Here is the full account from Mark’s Gospel:

And a leper came to him begging him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. And he sternly charged him, and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to any one; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to the people.” But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter. (Mark 1:40-45)

It’s a beautiful account of healing. To fully comprehend it, however, it is important to provide some background on leprosy.

In the Biblical times, leprosy accounted for a wide range of diseases of the skin. The context is therefore broad in just exactly what condition someone had when they were considered leprous. If we look back to the Old Testament, the first person to be afflicted with leprosy was actually Moses. In Exodus 4:6-9, when God is providing Moses with assistance for his mission to free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, we see how Moses is provided with a sign for the people so that they might believe:

Again, the LORD said to him, “Put your hand into your bosom.” And he put his hand into his bosom; and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, as white as snow. Then God said, “Put your hand back into your bosom.” So he put his hand back into his bosom; and when he took it out , behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. “If they will not believe you,” God said, “or heed the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. If they will not believe even these two signs or heed your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it upon the dry ground; and the water which you shall take from the Nile will become blood upon the dry ground.”

Moses did have leprosy, however he was healed by God so that the people would believe in the Lord and listen to Moses.

The next time we see leprosy is in the Book of Numbers (12:9-16), where Miriam is punished by God for speaking against Moses. Moses intercedes for her, asking the Lord to heal her, which He does, but not without punishment. Miriam is cast out and shut up outside the camp for seven days in isolation, and is then brought in again healed.

We also see a leper in Naaman, an army commander who we meet in the second Book of Kings. He learns from a maid of a prophet in Samaria who can heal him. He comes to the house of the prophet Elisha, likely expecting to see the prophet and be healed by him. However, Elisha sends a messenger to Naaman, who tells him to go and wash in the Jordan seven times. Naaman, in spite of his anger at the prophet not coming out to cure him in the name of the Lord, goes down and dips himself in the Jordan seven times, and his flesh is restored. He then returns to Elisha and gives thanks to him and to God, seeking to give the prophet a gift, which he refuses to take. However, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, goes to Naaman and takes the gift for himself. When he returns to the prophet, Elisha punishes him by bringing upon Gehazi the leprosy of Naaman.

The final time we see a case of leprosy in the Old Testament is in the second Book of Chronicles (2 Chronicles 16-23), where King Uzziah enters the temple and burns incense on the altar of incense, something that only the priests were permitted to do. King Uzziah becomes angry when reproached by Azariah the priest and, upon becoming angry, leprosy breaks out on his forehead. He is then cast out and lives as a leper until his death, dwelling in a separate house.

In each of these manifestations of leprosy, it is either related to sin, or is used for the glory of God. In the cases of Moses and Naaman, their leprosy glorifies God by showing His gift of healing. In the cases of Miriam, Gehazi, and King Uzziah, leprosy is a punishment for their sinfulness.

In the Biblical times, leprosy was not just a disease. It was a sentence of punishment and isolation. The leper would lose his family, would be isolated from the community, and would not be able to enter the temple (ie. unable to go to church). It was more than just a physical disease. The psychological aspects were profound.

So when the leper approaches Jesus, he has likely undergone significant physical and psychological suffering. It is important to note how the leper approaches Jesus. We are told he kneels before Him. In Biblical times, particularly in the Old Testament, kneeling was something that was only done before God. It can thereby be inferred that the leper had faith that Jesus was God.

What is most profound are the words the leper speaks to Jesus:

“If you will, you can make me clean.”

If you will.

He does not demand that Jesus heal him. He does not say, “heal me.” He kneels before the Lord, with great humility and in what could be seen as an act of adoration of the Lord, and essentially surrenders himself to Jesus, putting it all in His hands, saying “if you will.”

He makes a request of the Lord, but he leaves it up to Jesus to choose to heal him.

Oftentimes we can get so caught up in our own will, in what we want, that we can begin to practically make demands of God. We can try to conform Him to our will, rather than surrendering to Him and allowing His Will to be done. The leper’s words are like a prayer in themselves. They echo the Our Father, when we say “Thy will be done.” But they also act as their own prayer, one that we can make our own:

“Lord, if you will, you can help me.”

“Lord, if you will, you can (insert request).”

We know that Jesus did will for the leper to be healed, and He has the power to Will our requests in prayer to be brought to fruition.

But we must take heed of what occurred after the leper was healed. Jesus sternly told the leper not to tell anyone but to go and present himself to the priest and follow the Mosaic Law. He tells him to do this because while Christ is not the Mosaic Law, but rather God Himself who makes clean and remains clean, He wants the people to follow the Law of the Covenant. He does not yet want to upset the priests, and He does not want to merely be seen as a healer-man, but wants the people to listen to and understand His preaching, His message.

The leper, however, did not do as the Lord asked, going and telling everyone what had happened. He may well have also broken the Mosaic Law. It is, in a sense, ironic, given that now Jesus would be viewed as unclean given He touched the leper in healing him. The leper was an outcast and has now been restored, but now Jesus, after having healed him, is an outcast Himself.

Many may wonder why we are told Jesus ‘sternly’ charges the leper not to tell anyone about his healing. There are only a few times where we see Jesus showing great emotion, becoming troubled – for example, in the Garden of Gethsemane. The most likely reason Jesus sternly charged the man is that He knows that what the man has asked for, God has delivered, but what God has asked for, the leper has not delivered. The leper’s actions following his healing contain echoes of the disobedience in the Garden of Eden, of sin. It is a demonstration of how, when we have our prayers answered and get what we wanted from God, we forget Him. We do not do His Will. We do not do as He asks.

While the leper acknowledges the providence and all-powerful Will of God, while he is a model of prayer for us, he does not end his story rightly.

We too can fail to do what is right. While leprosy is not so much a focus of the modern world, there is another kind of leprosy that is rife throughout the world. Biblically, leprosy was not just a physical disease, but also had a spiritual component – sin. That spiritual component is all too common today.

What we have now is a spiritual leprosy. When an individual contracted leprosy in Biblical times, they were cast out of their community. When we sin, we become isolated from God. Leprosy was a contagious disease. Sin also has a contagious effect. Leprosy as a disease affects the nerves, causing a loss of sensation. Likewise, the more we sin, the duller we become to sensation. Leprosy also disfigures the affected individual. So too does sin disfigure us, just not physically.

But there is healing for this spiritual leprosy. Just as in the old days of the Bible when lepers would be sent to the priest after healing, we too go to the priest for healing from our spiritual leprosy. This is not a physical healing, but a spiritual healing, a healing from sin, found in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We are healed through the priest by the great High Priest Himself, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as He physically healed the leper, He wants to spiritually heal us.

But, just like the leper, only people who come to Jesus and meet Him can be healed.

Like the leper, we should also acknowledge the Will of God, falling on our knees in prayer if we have a request to make of Him. We should humble ourselves before Him. One of the most beautiful times to do this is in Eucharistic Adoration, when we are in the True Presence of Jesus Christ. As we humble ourselves before Him, we should, like the leper, in making our request, say those beautiful words to Him: “If you will.”

The Lord is all-powerful. He is Almighty, all great, all loving. He can do all things. We can do all things through Him. If we are seeking something, maybe certain graces or something else, He can Will for them to be granted to us. He can Will this for His glory, for the glory of His Kingdom.

But if God does give us something we ask for, when God gives us what He deems right for us, we must do what the leper failed to do and give thanks and praise to Him and follow His Will.

Like the leper, may we seek His Will.

Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, if You Will, let it be done.