Bishop_Message

Last Wednesday evening in the auditorium at St. Joseph’s Catholic Secondary School, I was blessed to be part of a large audience gathered to hear Ken Yasinski give a one-hour talk on the theme “A Reason to Hope”. Ken is the 35-year old founder of FacetoFace Ministries, a small organization based in Saskatoon dedicated to leading retreats, workshops and other events focusing on the spiritual growth of Catholics.

Ken himself is from a large Catholic family. Growing up in a village in Northern Saskatchewan, he prided himself on excelling in everything he tried: music, sports, academics and parties. During talks he gave to St. Joseph’s and Holy Trinity students on Tuesday and Wednesday, he told about his first year at university: how he nearly lost himself in an endless round of drinking parties as he tried

to be the most popular guy around. It was during a time of prayer at a Catholic retreat centre that he started seeing his life as a gift from a loving God and as a call to live deeply and fully in that love. This transformation led him dedicate his talents to bringing others to that realization.

In 1999, fresh out of University, Ken was invited to lead a retreat with 30 teen participants. Participants were tremendously impacted by their encounter with Christ, and lives were changed. Another community heard about what happened and requested a youth retreat of their own, and the fruits continued. By 2002 numerous parishes were calling for youth retreats, and a more formal team retreat team was formed. This was the beginning of FacetoFace Ministries which has now moved grown to encompass not only youth ministry, including summer retreat camps for teens, but family and parish focused events. Ken’s own musical gifts are put to use in composing worship music and leading a full-fledged music ministry team.

Ken’s talk Wednesday evening was at times funny, at times deeply moving, always inspired and inspiring. He invited us to broaden our horizon and to recognize that we are created to live for all eternity. God’s design for us is huge and calls us to see beyond the immediate physical reality in which we live, to respond to the call to holiness which lies at the very heart of our beings.

Our community cable channel 11 stopped by to record Ken’s talk. It will air a few times in the coming weeks, most notably on Sunday April 3 at 3:00 p.m. Consider this an invitation to share in a beautiful experience.

After five and a half weeks of Lent, we finally come

to the most densely charged of days in the liturgical

calendar, collectively called Holy Week. We start

tomorrow with Palm Sunday, recalling Jesus’ entry into

Jerusalem in the final days of his earthly life. In those days,

the crowds gathered to celebrate the Passover acclaimed

Jesus as a king, laying down the ‘red carpet’ for him with

their own cloaks and palm branches cut from nearby trees.

So tomorrow at Church, we will take up palm branches

as we read this story and sing ‘Hosannah’ to the Son of

David. But we will also read the rest of the story: how a

few days later he was betrayed, handed over to the

authorities, tortured and put to death. On Palm Sunday, we pass from cheering to weeping, from acclamation to lamentation.

In the evening on Holy Thursday (or Maundy Thursday as it is called in England), we gather to remember Christ’s last meal, when he washed the feet of his disciples as a sign of self-giving love, and broke the bread and shared the wine for them, saying the incredible words: “This is my body, broken for you; this is my blood, poured out for you”. And so, in many parishes, the priest will once again wash the feet of twelve parishioners to remind himself, and all of us, that leadership in the Church must always be exercised as a service of love. And then we will celebrate the Eucharist as we so often do, but remembering in a very special way the origin of this greatest of sacramental rituals.

After that Mass, we prepare for the observance of Good Friday by stripping the altar and removing the remaining Eucharistic bread to a place of repose outside the main body of the church. Many parishioners will gather for some time in that place of repose to keep watch in the night with Jesus, as he had invited Peter, James and John to do in the garden of Gethsemane. At midnight at the latest, everyone retires to their homes.

And so starts Good Friday. The liturgy of that day is celebrated at 3:00 p.m. in all the Catholic churches of the world, marking the Jewish ninth hour when Jesus died on the cross. We do not celebrate Mass, but simply listen to John’s account of Jesus’ passion; take some time to pray for the whole world; venerate a cross out of remembrance of Jesus’ death; and share in the Eucharistic bread that remains from the previous evening. It is a sober, quiet, moving time of prayer.

In many parishes, a popular devotion knows as the “Way of the Cross” is celebrated, especially for those who could not make it to the afternoon liturgy. And on Saturday, the Church is silent, like the tomb in which Jesus’ body was lain. Until the nightfall, that is, when parishioners gather around a new fire to light the Easter candle and proclaim the resurrection of Christ.

The paschal Vigil, as it is called, is the greatest celebration of the year as it winds its way through numerous prophetical texts of the Jewish scriptures until we come to the story of Christ’s resurrection. ‘Alleluia’ rings out for the first time in the Church since Ash Wednesday. New Christians are baptized, confirmed, and invited to join in the Eucharist for the first time with their brothers and sisters. This is a joyful, hope-filled celebration that echoes throughout the world.

Easter Sunday Masses round out the Holy Days, echoing the paschal Vigil’s joy as congregations renew their baptismal vows and are sprinkled with water as a remembrance of the sacrament of their salvation. After fourty days of Lent, we now enter into the fifty days of Easter.

Holy Week

The Heart of Christian Faith

Easter Sunday. When the mute finality of death was transformed

into a life-promising passage. When fear-begetting religion was

changed into grace-filled faith. When time-bound humanity was

freed from its limitations to taste eternity.

This day is truly the day when everything changed. On this day

was born the Church, for without the resurrection, there would be

no Church. The whole of the Christian faith hangs on this one fact: that Jesus of Nazareth, who had been tortured, crucified, killed and buried, revealed himself a few days after his death as fully alive, alive with a life beyond all human imagining. Without this belief, the whole story of Jesus makes no sense. Without this belief, the whole history of the Church is one terrible mistake. As Saint Paul puts it bluntly: “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied”

(I Cor 15:19).

Doubters will say that this is only fantasy, the product of humanity’s unwillingness to face the stark reality of its own mortality. For them, life ends with the body’s final breath and everything else is but wishful thinking. They ask for proof that Christ rose from the dead. They say that the Apostles made it all up.

I agree, there is no proof. But I suggest that there are many questions. To start with, why would the Apostles have made up such a story? There was nothing in the Jewish tradition to suggest the Messiah would die and be brought back to life. As a matter of fact, the death of Jesus on the cross could only mean one thing to the Jewish mind: that Jesus was not the Messiah, that God had spurned him, rejected him, revealed him to be a fraud.

Their own lives were in danger. None had stayed to witness Jesus’ death, except for young John who stayed with Mary. Judas had taken his own life, Peter had run away crying. When, after his crucifixion, the disciples dared to gather, it was in fear that they also would be hunted down to be tortured and killed. Some, like the disciples from Emmaus, headed back home, their hearts full of sadness and despair. Others, like the women, thought only of completing the burial rituals that had been hurried on the eve of the Sabbath.

What happened to change them so radically? What transformed them from this fear-filled, hope-dashed, dispirited collection of frail humanity into a faith-filled, hope-inspiring, courageous community of believers? What gave them the ability to leave Jerusalem, no longer to hide from the authorities but to preach a Good News to the world? What gave them the courage to face persecution, torture and death with a prayer in their hearts and a smile on their lips?

Something unexpected happened to them that first Easter Sunday morning. Something that would give meaning to their lives, purpose to their journey and strength to their hearts. They say they met the living Lord Jesus. And what is extraordinary is that, through the centuries, those who listen to their testimony and open their hearts and minds to that possibility have found the same meaning, purpose and strength in their own lives.

We gather every Sunday to celebrate that event. We gather this Easter Sunday with particular joy and solemnity to emphasize what is true of every Sunday: this first day of the week is also the first day of a new world, a world of faith, hope and love. Christ is risen! Indeed, he is truly risen! Alleluia!

Diocèse Catholique

Catholic Diocese

Alexandria-Cornwall