Up Close and Personal

Good Friday.
Readings: Is 52:13-53:12; Heb 4:14-16;5:7-9; Jn 18:1-19:42

“One of the soldiers ran a lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.” Jn 19:34

In his encyclical letter “Rich in Mercy,” Pope John Paul II wrote that the cross of Christ “speaks and never ceases to speak of God the Father, who is absolutely faithful to his eternal love. …Believing in the crucified Son means seeing the Father” (#7).

Jesus is on the cross as the Son of the Father, loving us in complete union with the Father, offering his life in fulfillment of the Father’s plan of mercy for all. “The desire to embrace his Father’s plan of redeeming love inspired Jesus’ whole life” (CCC, #607).

But this love of the Father, this love that Jesus shares and reveals on the cross, is not just “for all” in some general, abstract way. It’s “for each” in an intimately personal way — the “one-on-one” love of a perfect Father for each child.

This, explained Pope John Paul II, is the message of Divine Mercy, “a message about the value of every human being. Each person is precious in God’s eyes; Christ gave his life for each one; to everyone the Father gives his Spirit and offers intimacy” (Rome, April 30, 2000).

What does this mean for you, personally? It means that Christ who, as God, is not subject to time, looked out from the cross and saw you. He saw everything about you: all the details of your life, all your thoughts and actions, all your sin. And He loved you. And then He reached across 2000 years of time and space, grabbed all your sin, and pulled it into His own body, so that when His body died, your sin was all destroyed with it. “By his wounds, you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24).

So, when you approach Jesus in the confessional, don’t go as if trying to wring out forgiveness from a reluctant God. Go in humble gratitude to receive the forgiveness and healing He already won for you on the cross.

Thank you, Father for loving me in spite of my sin and for sending Jesus to die for me. Help me to receive Your mercy with gratitude and learn to love as You do.

Vinny Flynn

Pass it on!

Holy Thursday
Readings: Chrism Mass: Is 61:1-3a, 6a, 8b-9; Rv 1:5-8; When 4:16-21
Mass of the Lord’s Supper: Ex 12:1-8, 11-14; 1 Cor 11:23-26; Jn 13:1-15

“As I have done, so you must do.” Jn 13:15

On Holy Thursday we celebrate Christ’s institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.
But the main reading is from the Gospel of John, the only one of the four Gospels that doesn’t mention the Institution of the Eucharist. Instead, it shows us Christ washing the feet of His disciples.
Why? Because John wants us to understand what Eucharist really means. Who is this Christ we receive in the Eucharist? What is He all about? Why did He come? Why did He choose to remain with us in this Sacrament? What kind of response does He want from us?
Christ was sent by God the Father on a mission of mercy (see Is 61:1). His whole purpose is to bring us the Father’s love. He doesn’t come to us in the Eucharist so that we can enjoy a few warm, fuzzy spiritual moments and then go back to life as usual. He comes to free us, heal us, and transform us so that we can become like Him and participate with Him in bringing the Father’s merciful love to others.
As Pope John Paul II explains, “The Eucharist is a mode of being, which passes from Jesus into each Christian, through whose testimony it is meant to spread throughout society and culture”(“Mane Nobiscum Domine,” 25). As we receive, we are supposed to enter into communion with Christ, adopting His attitudes, His values, His love, His desires, His entire way of being, and then “pass it on” to others.
“It is not by chance,” John Paul continues, “that the Gospel of John contains no account of the institution of the Eucharist, but instead relates the ‘washing of feet.’… By bending down to wash the feet of his disciples, Jesus explains the meaning of the Eucharist” (28).

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for inviting me to share in Your divine life through the Eucharist. Fill me more and more with the desire to bring Your message of mercy to others.

Yes or No?

Wednesday of Holy Week
Readings: Is 50:4-9; Mt 26:14-25

“Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.” Mt 26:24

We’re back at the Last Supper, this time from the Gospel of Matthew, who prefaces his account of the meal with the scene where Judas agrees to hand Jesus over to the high priests for thirty pieces of silver.
In Monday’s Gospel we saw how Mary of Bethany chose to humble herself to take on the service of a slave, lovingly washing the feet of her Master, not with water but with ointment worth three hundred pieces of silver.
Now we see Judas choosing to sell his Master for a mere thirty pieces of silver — the price of a slave. What a huge difference in these two responses to God!
Mary shows us the Yes that flows from a loving heart centered on Jesus. Judas shows us “the No stemming from greed and lust, from vainglory which refuses to accept God” (Pope Benedict XVI).
At the banquet in Bethany, Christ prophesied about Mary, “Wherever the gospel is proclaimed to the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her” (Mk 14:6, 9). But here, at the Last Supper, he says about Judas, “Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. Better for him if he had never been born” (Mt 26:24). Our choices have consequences!
Even after hearing this dire warning, Judas could have repented and thrown himself on God’s mercy. God loves each of us with an everlasting love (Jer 31:3), and it is no part of His plan that any one of us will be lost (see Mt 18:14). He is always willing to forgive, no matter how great our sin. But He will never force salvation on us. He created us free, and we have the power to accept or refuse His mercy. At every intersection of our lives, we choose Yes or No, and our choices determine our destiny.

Thank You, Lord, for creating me free and loving me with an everlasting love. Help me to say Yes to You with my whole heart, now and at every moment of decision. Help me to always choose You, Lord.

Vinny Flynn

Deliver us from Evil

Tuesday of Holy Week
Readings: Is 49:1-6; Jn 13:21-33, 36-38

“Immediately after, Satan entered his heart.” Jn 13:27

Once again we find ourselves reclining at table with Jesus, and once again John’s Gospel provides us with contrasting characters, focusing this time on Judas and Peter at the Last Supper.
The passage begins with Jesus suddenly announcing to His disciples that one of them will betray Him (We know that means Judas, but the disciples don’t); and it ends with His prophecy that Peter will deny Him three times. Wow! What a way to ruin a good meal. Two betrayals!
But wait a minute. Jesus didn’t say, “Two of you will betray Me.” He said, “One of you will betray Me.” What’s the difference?
To really understand, we need to recognize another character who shows up at this meal: Satan. When John asks who the traitor is, Jesus answers, “The one to whom I give the bit of food I dip in the dish.” He then dips a morsel of food and gives it to Judas. “Immediately after,” the Gospel tells us, “Satan entered his heart.”
We saw in yesterday’s Gospel that Judas has a heart problem. He hasn’t been storing up spiritual treasures; he’s been stealing from the common purse and lusting after wealth. So his heart is weak and divided. He hasn’t paid close enough attention to Christ’s warning that “no one can serve two masters. …You cannot serve God and mammon” (Mt 6:24).
When Judas, knowing that Jesus is aware of his treachery, accepts the morsel from Jesus, as if in friendship, his deceit is complete, and he enters into communion, not with Jesus but with “the father of lies” — Satan himself (see Jn 8:44).
Peter has no intention of abandoning Jesus. His denial comes as a surprise to him and is not the result of malice or evil intent, but rather of human weakness. Like many of us, he’s just trying to do too much on his own. As Christ said to St. Faustina, “The cause of your falls is that you rely too much upon yourself and too little on Me” (Diary, 1488).

Lord, Jesus, help me to remember that Satan is real and that without You I will not be able to resist his lies. Strengthen me, Lord, so that I will not enter into temptation, and deliver me from evil.

Vinny Flynn

An Undivided Heart

Monday of Holy Week
Readings: Is 42:1-7; Jn 12:1-11

“… and the house was filled with the ointment’s fragrance.” Jn 12:3

So much in the Gospels comes to us in the context of a meal, and nowhere is this more true or more significant than in Holy Week.
Today’s Gospel brings us to a banquet given for Jesus in the little village of Bethany, where He had raised His friend Lazarus from the dead.
Lazarus is there, along with his sisters Martha and Mary, whom we see in the same roles as in Luke’s portrait of them: Martha as the busy hostess serving the meal, and Mary completely attentive to Jesus (see Lk 10:38).
Here again, Mary seems to have “chosen the better part” (Lk 10:42). Taking a pound of expensive ointment (the value of a year’s wages for a laborer), she anoints the feet of Jesus and dries them with her hair, “and the house was filled with the ointment’s fragrance” (Jn 12:3).
On a spiritual level, what fills the house is the fragrance of Mary’s complete devotion to Jesus, her generous living out of His teaching that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be” (Lk 12:34). Christ’s presence is a priceless treasure to Mary. The ointment has not been wasted; it has been used to express the humble and reverent worship of an undivided heart.
The heart of Judas, on the other hand, has been been drawn to the values of the world. Filled by the desire for wealth and personal gain, he sees only the value of the ointment: “Why was this perfume not sold? It could have brought three hundred silver pieces” (Jn 12:5).
This contrast between Mary and Judas provides us with a great measuring stick to help us examine our own hearts as we enter Holy Week. Does my heart belong completely to God, or have I allowed it to become too attached to things of the world?

Lord Jesus, I invite You to send Your Spirit into my heart to reconsecrate it to You. Purify my desires, Lord and free me from anything that is not of You.

Vinny Flynn

The Bond of Love

“I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator …” (Apostles Creed)

Ever notice that in this prayer God is referred to first of all as “Father” and only then as “creator”? There’s a whole teaching here. Pope John Paul II, in Rich in Mercy, explains that God is not just the creator, but “He is also Father,” and He is linked to us “by a bond still more intimate than that of creation. It is love, which not only creates the good but also grants participation in the very life of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For he who loves desires to give himself” (#7).

God doesn’t create as an all-powerful but distant artisan with no real interest in His creations. He “fathers-forth” from His heart, not just creating beings, but begetting children who are to be His own. Lovingly and tenderly he forms each of us in our mothers’ wombs, fashioning us in His own image and likeness, and breathing His Spirit into us, so that one day we may return to Him “holy and spotless” to live like Him and with Him forever. For “such is the ‘plan of his loving kindness,’ conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #257).

What should our response be to such a gift? To simply live as His children, trusting that His love never changes, His fathering never ends. In the midst of life’s busyness, we can rest in His heart, trusting and rejoicing and giving thanks, letting our daily lives form an endless song of praise.

“He fathers-forth whose beauty is beyond change. Praise Him”
(Hopkins, Pied Beauty).

Vinny Flynn

Are you a fair face?

I heard a homily awhile back that really hit me. It was one of those times where I felt like the priest was talking directly to my heart, and at a time when I was trying not to be annoyed at the church I was in and the people I was with! (Ever notice that Catholic churches unfortunately aren’t always the most welcoming places, and that many times it seems the people want to be anywhere but there?) It grabbed my attention because it wasn’t the take I would have thought of for a homily on that Gospel.

The passage (Mt. 11:2-5 or Lk. 7:18-22) was the one where John the Baptist is sitting in prison, and he sends his disciples to Jesus to ask Him if He is the Messiah, the one they’ve been waiting for, or if they should look for another. Jesus basically says to them, “Go and tell John” and then He proceeds to list the things that are happening. “The blind see, the lame walk…” and so on. I remember being astounded when I first started studying Scripture in college and realized that this comes directly from passages in Isaiah where it says that all these things would come to pass when the Messiah came. (esp. Is.61:1)What Jesus is saying to John (who of course knew his Old Testament) is, “Remember this prophecy? It’s being fulfilled through me now. Yes, I am He.”

What the priest focused on, however, was John in the dark, having to ask through his disciples. Here he is apart from everyone, not seeing Jesus anymore who is now out preaching and performing miracles, and John wants to know if Jesus is THE ONE. “Do I have it right? Have I prepared the way for He who is to come?”

Maybe he was really doubting. I mean, he hears of what’s happening outside and maybe, as some say, it doesn’t exactly fit his expectation of what the Messiah would be like. Maybe more than anything he wanted his disciples to hear the answer…who knows. But what is important here is that this does happen in our life. We don’t see Jesus before us the way He was then…laying His hands on the sick, giving words of comfort to the downtrodden. And we don’t always understand why God acts the way He does, why He allows certain things in our life and in the world.

When we suffer, when we feel alone, when we don’t feel God’s presence the way we’d like or don’t understand something, we can start to wonder, is there meaning to all of this? Is my faith in God well placed? Do I have it right? What if I am truly alone? And Jesus says through this passage to John and to us, “I am He. My presence is real and my love is active in the world, though you do not see me right now, though you do not understand it all.”

One of the main points of the homily became the fact that often it is through others good works and “fair faces” that we recognize and experience God. I thought his expression was cute because…well, who says fair faces? But as I looked around I thought it was an apt description. All around me, in the very people I had felt alienated from a bit earlier, were fair faces. All of a sudden my heart was opened and my expectations of what things should be were left behind. I saw the sweet old women who smile with their eyes of wisdom, teens trying to find their way in a society that doesn’t support their morals…all around me children of God who are in their imperfect, wounded way, bearing Christ to me, if I but have the eyes to see Him.

When Mary (speaking of fair faces) said her “Fiat” (her “yes”) to the angel Gabriel, she became the first to have God “take flesh” in her. She then went immediately to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who at the sound of Mary’s voice felt the babe in her womb (John the Baptist!) “leap for joy.” (Lk.1:44) In the Eucharist, Jesus has given us the great gift of remaining with us here on earth, fully present to us under the veil of bread and wine. When we receive Him in Holy Communion and say our “Amen,” we are saying, “Fiat, let it be done. Jesus, take flesh in me that I might become like You, that I might carry You out from here and bear You to a world in need.” This is how we conquer our doubts, this is how we become Christ for others. Hopefully, if we allow ourselves to be transformed by Him, even our voice will witness to His presence.

Be encouraged, look for God in the unexpected, draw near to Him in the Eucharist.

~ Erin Flynn

If You’re Good…

As we got out the Advent wreath this year, I found myself thinking back on seasons past when our kids were young, and I remembered an Advent reflection my daughter Colleen wrote several years ago. It’s a great reminder of what this season is really all about.

By Colleen Free

So often, during the Advent season, I hear people say to their children, “If you’re good, Santa Claus will bring you lots of presents this Christmas.”  Santa Claus and presents make Christmas merrier, but for many people they overshadow the deeper joy of Christmas – the joy of welcoming the Lord Jesus into our world and our lives.  Seeing this, I can only pray that I may someday preserve this joy for my children as it was preserved for me in my childhood.
Coming from a big family, I was fortunate enough to be a part of many traditions, and the most meaningful one for me was at Christmas. At the beginning of Advent, my father built small mangers out of scrap wood, and set one next to each of our beds. Every night before we went to bed, we would each get one piece of hay to put in our manger for every good thing we had done that day.
When I think back on childhood Christmases, I don’t remember hearing, “If you’re good, Santa will bring you lots of presents.” What sticks in my mind is that if I was good, I would have enough hay in my manger, and the Baby Jesus would come.  For the first couple of weeks of Advent, we all struggled to remember as many good deeds as we could every night.
But as Christmas Eve drew closer and closer, we really got into the spirit of it, getting a little nervous that we wouldn’t have enough hay for Jesus. We started concentrating on doing all the good deeds we could think of … making Mom and Dad’s bed, helping with the dishes, setting the table, changing the baby’s diaper. By Christmas Eve, the anticipation was too much, and at bedtime we all tried to stay up to wait for Jesus. The next thing we knew, it was Christmas morning, and there He was, a little Baby Jesus, asleep on the hay! My parents were awakened by squeals of delight over the Baby Jesus as we brought our mangers downstairs to show them. And the little Lord Jesus lay right next to us as we ooh’ed and ah’ed about the contents of our stockings and the presents under the tree. The baby in each of our mangers was only a doll, but that doll, in our eyes, meant that we were good … that Jesus loved us and had come to be with us. It’s a lesson I’ll never forget.

Now married, with six children (and one in the womb), Colleen, along with her husband Jason, has continued the tradition, so that their children, too, will always remember the joy of the Christmas manger.

Good News…

Hey folks!

Check out this link:

http://www.catholicity.com/cds/healing.html