Life! - Homilies for the Sacred Paschal Triduum

Readings for Thursday, March 29 / Holy Thursday: Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14  |  Psalm 116  |  1 Corinthians 11:23-26  |  John 13:1-15


Readings for Friday, March 30 / Good Friday: Isaiah 52:13-53:12  |  Psalm 31  |  Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9  |  John 18:1-19:42


Readings for Sunday, April 1 / Easter Sunday: Acts 10:34, 37-43  |  Pslam 118  |  Colossians 3:1-4  |  John 20:1-9

Triduum & Easter Homilies

Here are the recordings of the Triduum and Easter liturgies as celebrated here at St. Ann Church & St. Vincent Mission.


Readings for Holy Thursday


Readings for Good Friday

Readings for the Paschal Vigil

Readings for Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday

Readings for the Easter Vigil
Readings for Easter Sunday

If you’ve never been to the Easter Vigil before, do yourself a favor and attend it next year. It’s the single most beautiful liturgy of the entire Church Year and with good reason.

It begins in darkness, the crowd of people arriving and making their way to their places. It begins with a simple spark and a small flame. The flame builds into a fire. The people gather around the fire and from the fire comes forth a single flame to light the Paschal Candle, a symbol of Christ the Light of the World. The candle moves to the door and a word is proclaimed: the Light of Christ! All respond: Thanks be to God! And the light spreads to a few, the servers of the Mass. The Candle proceeds into the midpoint of the church and the people fall in behind. Again the proclamation: the Light of Christ! Thanks be to God! The servers share the light with those around them and it begins to spread. The candle proceeds once more, now to the sanctuary and all file into the seats and again the proclamation: the Light of Christ! Thanks be to God! Now the light has spread to the candle of every person in the church and the light has begun to cast out the darkness.

Now the Exsultet is sung, an ancient hymn of blessing upon the candle. At its conclusion, a little light is added to the church as the Old Testament readings are read and responses sung. These tell us the ancient stories of our faith and the ways that God worked to bring about our salvation. At the end of the readings the Gloria is sung and the light come up in the church and the altar candles are lit; more light. After a New Testament reading we sing the Alleluia and the lights are all turned on full strength; more light. After the Gospel and homily, baptisms are celebrated and baptismal candles are lit. But there still remains one light that is dimmed: the sanctuary lamp. After the Consecration of the Blessed Sacrament, the lamp is lit indicating the Eucharistic Presence in the tabernacle. 

The beauty of the Easter Vigil is that while it is primarily the triumph of Jesus Christ over the darkness of death by virtue of His Resurrection to Life, it also is a recounting of the whole story of salvation history, as well as the story of God working in each individual soul.

The world was created in darkness, as we heard in Genesis, and light was created. This can be viewed as God revealing things that otherwise would be unknown to us and it happens continually over the centuries. It begins with a man. Then a couple. Then a family. Pretty soon the family turns into a tribe of people and then into a whole nation. This nation is blessed by God with a leader to become a Kingdom. That Kingdom endured much for a thousand years until the Lord took flesh and came among us to build His Church. Generation after generation came to know the Lord a little bit more than those before them. The light continued to grow and increase until the Light itself came.

The same can be said of the unfolding of the Resurrection story. Mary goes first and witnesses it, then she tells Peter and John, they tell the other disciples, and the flame spreads and grows through the earth and throughout the centuries down to us, to you and me. And should we expect it to be any different after us?

The little flame of faith, symbolized by the baptismal candle we each received, took root in our hearts and began to grow and spread and the Lord Jesus wants to make that little light into a raging fire filled with the Holy Spirit. But we have to be willing to help Him! We have to be willing to share the Light with others and let them know the good news. At St. Joseph Abbey there was an venerable tradition that followed the Easter Vigil. The seminarians had all been fasting and praying while on retreat during the Triduum and were free to go home after the Vigil ended, so inevitably it would let out and a whole slew of famished young seminarians would immediately head home. But before hitting the interstate we would stop at the Wendy’s, which was right at the end of the road to the seminary. Sinking our teeth into a greasy cheeseburger and fries never tasted so good as on that night! Well, confession time: I like to keep that tradition alive. So after the Vigil I went out to McDonalds and got a big cheeseburger and feasted. As I was leaving with my food I thanked the young lady at the window and said, “Happy Easter!” She just looked at me dumbfounded and probably though ‘this poor pastor doesn’t even know it’s only Saturday’.

That’s my invitation to each of you – to share the good news that Jesus Christ has Risen from the dead with everyone you meet this week. It can be by telling everyone “Happy Easter”, which might confused the mess out of people come Thursday or Friday. It can be by acts of kindness, gift of prayers, or any number of things. But the simple point is that we have to share the light. Jesus Christ has conquered the darkness of sin, death, despair, and everything else that this world tries to use to quench our hope. Some people don’t yet know that, and sometimes we still struggle to accept it ourselves. Let the light spread. Help the Lord cast out the darkness. Christ is Risen! Alleluia, alleluia! He is truly Risen! Alleluia, alleluia!

Good Friday

Readings for Good Friday - The Lord's Passion

“Do not let hope die! Stake your lives on it. We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son.”

Do not let hope die. These words of St. John Paul II are the trumpet call to our hearts in the midst of Good Friday to remember the truth of the event of the Cross that we have entered into this afternoon.

Love and sweetness itself was mocked and cursed.

He Who hung the earth on the waters is hung on a Tree.

The King of Angels is crowned with piercing thorns.

He Who wrapped the Heavens in clouds is wrapped in the cloak of mockery.

He Who freed Adam from sin is bound in chains.

The Bridegroom of the Church is fixed to the Cross with nails.

To the eyes of the world, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is foolishness, a stumbling block for belief, the unfortunate end of a promising leader. But to those with the eyes of faith: Christ, the power of God and the Wisdom of God. The Wisdom of God! Who among us would consider this wisdom? And yet it is.

The Cross is our only hope because in it we see the truth that Christ is stronger than everything, even death itself. The victory of Jesus on the Cross means that there is absolutely nothing that cannot be conquered by Christ is we let Him in. Nothing. The hardest of hearts are as butter pierced by a warm knife. The darkest of souls becomes radiant with Divine Grace.

St. Leo the Great reminds us of this reality as he writes, “No one, however weak, is denied a share in the victory of the Cross. No one is beyond the help of the prayer of Christ. His prayer brought benefit to the multitude that raged against Him. How much more does it bring to whose who turn to Him in repentance.”

“Do you realize what I have done for you?”

Holy Thursday

Readings for the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper

“Do you realize what I have done for you?”

Have you ever noticed that often the most important things of life are the things that take the most time to really sink in?

How many years I lived as a baptized Christian, unaware of the meaning of that baptism. How many times did I receive Holy Communion unaware of the gift God had given of Himself? How many times had I gone to Confession and been offered forgiveness but not actually realized it? Many times indeed.

After my ordination to the priesthood, I distinctly remember sitting in the Adoration Chapel at Our Lady of Mercy just staring at my hands. I would look at my hands and look at the Eucharist, over and over again wondering ‘God, what did you do to me?’ I had been preparing for years for ordination and understood intellectually the meaning of every ritual action and the abilities and responsibilities of the priest, but actually living it was different. Staring at my hands, I wondered at how I was able to bless people and objects in the name of God Himself. How my hands would be used to brings about forgiveness of sins, the Eucharistic Presence, the Anointing of Sick, and much more. To this day I still find myself from time to time staring at my hands wondering what God did to me on that day.

The Gospel we just heard told of the Twelve sitting around the table of the Passover Meal with the Lord Jesus and having Him come around to each of them to wash their feet. Doing so, He tells them, “What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.” As He performed this humble act of service to His chosen leaders of the future Church, the disciples surely could not have expected what came next. They couldn’t have expected the Lord to ordain them His priests. They couldn’t’ have expected Him to give them His Body and Blood, commissioning them to do them same in the future. They couldn’t have expected the brutality their humble shepherd would soon receive from their religious and secular leaders. They didn’t understand, but later they would. It took time to grasp what the Lord really did in their midst and it is true of us today.

So we come here each and every year to this most Holy of Weeks and listen to the account once more, permitting us not just to hear it but to enter into it. Tonight we sit around the table with Jesus and receive the Eucharist as at that Blessed Night and watch the Twelve have their feet washed once more by one acting in the Person of Christ the Head. Tomorrow we will honor the Holy Cross and the death of Jesus for us. Saturday we will wit in sacred silence anticipating the Resurrection and at the Vigil will proclaim it with every light, bell, and voice in the house. We don’t come expecting a new story. We come expecting to hear the same story, trusting that our God wants to draw us deeper into it, helping us to understand better the gifts we are to receive.

“Do you realize what I have done for you?’

Reality Changes Everything

He Is Risen As He Said, Alleluia.

Readings for April 20/ Easter Sunday:
Acts 10:34, 37-43
Psalm 118:2, 16-17, 22-23
1 Corinthians 5:6-8
John 20:1-9

CHRIST IS RISEN! ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!

What great to be able to say those blessed words. For over 40 days we have been journeying with the Lord Jesus in the desert. We have fasted and abstained, prayed more intensely, offered sacrifices and mortifications. For weeks have had heeded more purposely the call to conversion of our hearts by becoming aware of our sins and need for the grace of the Lord. And today we have the fulfillment of all of that work in the glory of the Resurrection. Today Jesus destroys death and sin, He conquers everything that is not Godly, and He has arisen. He is alive. The question that we ought to pause to reflect upon today is this: Do we really believe this? 

My dear friends, the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead changes everything.

Often in our culture today we hear people talk about the Resurrection like it's just another ancient mythical story to try to make sense of this life, but the thing is that while in all of the other ancient religious cultures those stories were written but understood to be false, the story of Jesus is written and understood by to be absolutely true. It's not a story to make us feel good. It's not a new rendition of an older tale. It is something entirely different and entirely new. The Gospel accounts don't believe with "Once upon a time..." or "In a galaxy far, far away...." They begin with names, dates, place, specifics that can be verified. We can go there today and see the place where Jesus was born, the place He healed specific individuals, the place where He ate the Last Supper, the place where He died on the Cross. The writings of the New Testament are not just a bunch of guys that wrote a really powerful story. They describe themselves as witnesses. St. John in his first letter begins by saying, "What we have seen, what we have heard, what we have touched with our own hands..." to describe his relationship with the Lord Jesus.

St. Paul Miki & Japanese Martyrs

I guess we could be even more blunt and say simply that people don't suffer and die for fairytales and myths. Nobody is offering their back to be beaten on account of Cinderella, the Roman God Zeus, or some other ancient deity. But for the Lord Jesus they continue to do it even down to today. In my estimation St. Paul gives us one of the most powerful testimonies in the Second Letter to the Corinthians when he recounts his list of sufferings: 5 times he received 39 lashes, 3 times he was beaten with rods, he was stoned on one occasion, shipwrecked thrice, left alone a day and a night on the sea, endured persecution from Jews and Gentiles both, and endured hunger, pain, toil, cold, sleeplessness, and homelessness all for the sake of spreading the Gospel. You don't do that for a story that isn't true. 

The story of Easter Sunday isn't just for us to come and feel good for a few hours today, eat some chocolate, and enjoy whatever activities we partake in this afternoon. It is a call to conversion and to turn definitely away from sin, death, and anything which separates us from Jesus Christ. It is a call to allow the joy of the Resurrection to be something that pervades every moment of the day. It is a call to let Jesus Christ be the true focus in the midst of all that we do; not to let Him be a piece of the pie of our life but to be the crust on which everything else is built. It is a call to call to let this moment be stretched into eternity, to live Easter joy every day and to share that with the world just like the Apostles. Christ is Risen! Alleluia, Alleluia! Do we really believe?

Come Sit With Me

Readings for April 18/ Good Friday:
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-17, 25
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42

September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday. I’ll always remember that random fact because it was also the day that one of my favorite bands’ new album was to be released. I didn’t have time to get it before school that morning so I decided to go right after getting home from school. When I got home my mom was watching the news update on the attacks and she said, “Brent, come sit down and watch this with me.” I told her I would but first I had to run to the store to buy a CD. She said a bit more forcefully, “Brent, come sit down.” “Mom, I’m just gonna run to the store I’ll be back in like 15 minutes,” I replied and walked out the door. I knew the story of what was happening, but I didn’t grasp the full implications of it.

Today Mother Church says to each of us ‘Come sit down and watch this with me’ as we hear again the story of the Crucifixion of Our Lord Jesus. The story we come to hear is far more significant than that of September 11 because it has consequences for every person throughout all time and even into eternity. Many fail to take the time to stop and listen, but if we do come and sit with our mother we are able to deepen our understanding of those events that took place 2000 years ago and yet take place again today. We learn our story – the story of the Cross.

The story of the Cross is a story of apparent contradictions. This shouldn’t surprise us since the whole life of Jesus is characterized by such. A God who takes on human flesh, a king born in a stable, one possessing riches unending is born poor and homeless, the Almighty God is helpless in the arms of His mother. Those are just a few of the images that come to mind, but if we look at the Passion of the Lord these images increase in frequency and intensity. The faithful Bridegroom of the Church is betrayed with a kiss. He who frees us from slavery to sin and death is bound in chains. The King of all creation is crowned with thorns. The Word of God stands silent before His accusers. The Innocent Lamb is made sin for us and sacrificed. He whose hands healed the blind is blindfolded and slapped in the face. He who wrapped the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple cloak of mockery. He who made man from the dust is pressed into that dust under the weight of the Cross. He who is adorned with every virtue is stripped of everything He owns. He who hung the earth and the skies in their order is hung upon a tree. He who came to heal our wounded hearts allows His to be pierced. He who is the Giver of Eternal Life gives up His Spirit and submits to death.

This is a stumbling block to the Jews, St. Paul tells us, and foolishness to the Gentiles. But to we who believe and are being saved, Christ: The Power of God and the Wisdom of God!

The Cross permits us to make sense of this life and understand our own story. The apparent contradictions above are signs that things are not always as they seem. The devil likes to make us think otherwise. He always calls to mind the half-truths in the story of our life. Think back on the trial account of Jesus. We heard all sorts of testimony against Jesus, false and true, but where were the positive accounts of the things done by the Lord? Who recounted the feeding of the 5000, the healing of countless blind, mute, lame, and dead? Where was that part story? When only half of the story is told, terrible things happen. Likewise with ourselves.

Are your sins not great ones, only venial?

Come to the Cross and behold the price for even the smallest sin.

Are your sins great ones?

Come to the Cross and see that there is nothing that God will not forgive.

Have you wounded others by your sins?

Come to the Cross and see what that sin does to others.

Have you been wounded by others sins?

Come and be healed by the wounds of Jesus.

Is your faith strong?

Come to the Cross and see how quickly it can become weak without Him.

Is your faith weak?

Come to the Cross and see how quickly He can make it strong.

Do you gossiped about others, uttered harsh words or made false judgments?

Come to the Cross and see the power of words.

Have you been gossiped about, spoken to harshly or judged?

Come to the Cross and see the One whose judgment alone matters.

Do you feel loved by others?

Come to the Cross and see the extent that we are called to show love.

Do you feel unloved?

Come to the Cross and see the extent of God’s love for you.

In just a moment we will have the Veneration of the Cross, when we will have the chance to come forward, genuflect or bow before a splinter of the True Cross that Jesus died on, and allow the Lord to help you hear the rest of the story. We all know most of the story of the Lord and of ourselves. But let us pause in this moment to really take the time to rest with our mother and see if there is more yet to be said. Come to the Cross of Jesus. Come and meet the Lord once more. Come, let us adore.

Obedience and Christ

Readings for Good Friday:
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-17, 25
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42

In the prophet Isaiah, we hear today about an unnamed servant who is raised up high and who, though marred and beyond human semblance, brings kings to silence. This servant was spurned by the people and yet it was their sins that he took upon himself. People saw him as smitten by God, but he was pierced for their sake, and their guilt was placed upon him who was innocent. In the midst of this torment he remained silent until he was placed in a grave that was not his own.

Taken by itself, this passage seems to be an account of the Passion of Christ, as if Isaiah had somehow seen the future and simply recorded the story of Christ’s own sufferings. And yet we know that it was written centuries prior to those horrendous events. This and many other passages scattered all throughout the Old Testament books seem to point directly to Christ; again, as if someone had actually known the future. The prophets speak in great detail and the ancient stories of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David, and many others seem to have clear connections with the life of Our Lord. When I first began to really take my faith seriously and read the scriptures, when I would come across these and similar passages, I thought it was a great coincidence – I was fascinated how things tended to happen again in a pattern of sorts. Then one day I realized that none of that was coincidental, nor was it a pattern that human writers used to help us see things more clearly. Rather, the patterns that were shown in the Old Testament and lived again in the New Testament were quite intentional.

When the Word of God became incarnate and dwelt among us, He came not to do His own will by the Will of the One who sent Him (Jn 5:30) and so the life of Christ is wholly and entirely guided by the Will of the Father. In making the Father known to the world, Christ chose not to make up His own way of revelation but instead worked – and truly lived – within the only revelation of God that the Jewish people knew: the Sacred Scriptures. The narratives, prophecies, and prefigurations of the Old Testament, then, were not stories Christ could make use of. They were the things by which he configured His life. Christ knew the scriptures and knew them well. He knew who the Messiah was to be, what He was to do, what He was to suffer, and how He was to die. Christ, being obedient to the revelation of God in the Scriptures, then lived His life in conformity with those things. How many times, after all, did we hear just within this Passion narrative the words ‘so that the scriptures might be fulfilled’? He did this, so that the scriptures might be fulfilled. He said that, so that the scriptures might be fulfilled. He endured and permitted these things, so that the scriptures might be fulfilled. He didn’t endure the sufferings that describe the servant in Isaiah because He thought it was a good idea. He endured them because he was obedient to the Father in all things. As St. Paul said this past weekend, “He was obedient even unto death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:8).

As we gather here to celebrate that incredible mystery and venerate the sign of that greatest act of obedience, the question that each of us must ask ourselves is this: do I truly try to conform my life to that of Christ, or do I sometimes seek rather my own preferences and ideas?

Ideally, we would all follow the Will God and conform ourselves to Christ and have no hesitancy in doing so. The problem, though, is that when we seek to do these things, when we seek the Will of the Lord, we will suffer. It’s not a possibility. It’s not a probability. It’s a guarantee. As the Book of Sirach so clearly puts it: When you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials (2:1). And we have only to look at His closest companions, the Twelve Apostles, to verify this.

Andrew, Philip, and Simon were crucified. Peter was crucified upside down. Bartholomew was also crucified, but not before being beaten and possibly skinned alive. James the Greater, Judas Thaddeus, and Matthias were stoned to death. James the Lesser was beheaded. Matthew and Thomas were speared to death. John alone died of natural causes, and he spent his last days exiled on an island because of His faith. All of this is not even to speak of the countless other physical, spiritual and emotional pains they experienced in their lives in service to the Lord and His Church.

Pope Benedict XVI Venerating the Cross

We will suffer. When we make the personal choice to live the faith, we will certainly find our trials. St. Paul reminds us that in baptism we put to death the old self and put on Christ. And so, like Christ, we too must conform ourselves to the will of God. We must set aside our preferences, our desires, our ambitions, and our ideas, those things that we are so strongly attached to and so strongly resonate in our hearts. And in the place of those things, we are asked to place the Will of God.

The good news in the midst of that is that, like Christ, we too have no need of trying to discern what God’s Will for us is. As Christ has the Old Testament within which to configure His life, we too have a guide given to us. When Christ founded the Church, He gave her the gift of the Holy Spirit and promised that the Spirit would lead her into all Truth. And by the Spirit’s guidance, the Church gives to us today the Sacred Scriptures, the Catechism, teaching of the Popes through the ages, and countless documents on doctrine, liturgy, and the moral life. In these we find God’s Will for us and our lives. But, also like Christ, we will have to suffer greatly at times to conform ourselves to these guides. At times our opinions, desires and preferences will be contrary to that of the Church and we will be asked to set aside those opinions, desires and preferences and follow her in Truth. It happens to all of us, but that is the road that we must take because it is in obedience to Christ and His Church that we find salvation. So let us make great efforts to strive forward by setting ourselves aside and seeking the Lord’s Will in all that we do. To aid us in this difficult task, let us begin to make our own the words so beautifully spoken by St. Gabriel Possenti:

I will attempt day by day to break my will into pieces.

I want to do God’s Holy Will, not my own.

Amen.

Divine Mercy Novena

As we celebrate Good Friday today, we also begin the Novena to the Divine Mercy. In the 1930's, Sister Faustina Kowalska (now Saint Faustina) began to receive visions of Our Lord, who told her to pray a chaplet that His Divine Mercy would be poured out upon the world and hearts converted to the Lord. Too, she was told to spread this chaplet and intentions. Blessed John Paul the Great greatly encouraged this devotion to the Divine Mercy and named the Sunday in the Octave of Easter 'Divine Mercy Sunday'. Please join in the novena prayers for souls throughout the world. The specific prayers for the Novena and the Chaplet can be found HERE.