You took some palm home with you Palm Sunday? Where is it today?
Following Jesus isn’t a one day thing, it’s a lifelong journey. Stay at his side day by day. To enter Jerusalem, he sat on a humble beast of burden, the donkey, who carried the burdens of the poor.
Follow him on his way and make it your way too.
Filed under Passionists, Religion
I spoke today, the final day of our mission at Immaculate Conception Church, Melbourne Beach, Florida, about the mystery of the Resurrection of Jesus, a crucial mystery of our faith. Each of the gospels presents it in its own way. Here’s a summary from a previous blog of mine.
A recent presentation on the Resurrection by Bishop Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham, to the Catholic bishops of Italy, is particularly interesting. I put it on my blog last month.
I began my presentation talking about Harold Camping’s prediction from last spring that the world was going to end on May 21, 2011. It didn’t, of course. But Harold’s thinking probably reflects the widespread gloom in our western world, in particular, about where the world is heading.
Our belief in the Risen Christ affects the way we see our church, ourselves and our world. We learn from this mystery to trust in the Risen Christ who King of all creation, our Way, our Truth and our Life. We need Resurrection Thinking.
Here’s a visual meditation on the Passion of Jesus from Rembrandt:
Filed under Religion
Jesus of Nazareth
Following up on the pope’s remarks about the blurred picture of Jesus we have today, here are some reflections on what we know about Jesus today. I’m offering these reflections at our parish mission:
“Tell me the landscape where you live and I’ll tell you who you are.” (Ortega y Gasset)
Thanks to recent archeological discoveries and historical studies we know more about the land where Jesus lived and the ancient texts of the bible than has been known for centuries. These new resources help us know Jesus Christ.
New editions of the bible like the New American Bible Revised Edition and the New Jerusalem Bible Revised Edition (both Catholic sponsored) make use of these resources.
We know more about Galilee, the northern part of Palestine where Jesus lived most of his life, than we knew before. He grew up and was raised by Mary and Joseph in the Galilean hill town of Nazareth, the gospels say. Extensive excavations have gone on in Nazareth, today the busy capital city of modern Galilee.
After his baptism by John in the Jordan River Jesus made his home in the Galilean town of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee–also extensively excavated in recent times. From there, he visited the small Jewish towns scattered nearby in the fertile plains and mountains, teaching in their synagogues, healing and performing extraordinary signs. New historical studies tell us much about Jewish life in these places.
In Galilee Jesus proclaimed the good news that God’s kingdom was at hand. He used images from this land, like the seed and the sower, in his preaching as well as the scriptures he knew so well. Today Galilee still offers a picture of the land as he knew it.
“After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
‘This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.’” Mark 1
Under the rule of Herod Antipas, Galilee during Jesus’ public ministry was dotted with important cities like Tiberias, Bethshan, Sepphoris, and the seaport of Caesarea Maritima, all with large gentile populations. Matthew’s gospel calls it the “Galilee of the gentiles.” Hardly the backwater land once thought, the region was an important provider of food for the Roman world.
The gospels suggest that Jesus avoided these important Galilean cities. Instead, he saw himself sent first to the “children of Israel,” although he occasionally performed cures for some gentiles, like the Syro-Phoenician woman who sought him out and the Roman centurion whose servant was sick in Capernaum.
The arrest and execution of John the Baptist by Herod may have been a practical warning about the danger of places where the powerful lived.
After his baptism in the Jordan River by John, Satan told Jesus to reveal himself in a spectacular way in the temple of Jerusalem, the religious center of Judaism; some disciples urged him to go there too. However, Jesus made Peter’s simple home in Capernaum his home and from there brought his message to Jews and some non-Jews who lived on Galilee’s farmlands and fished in the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus grew up in Nazareth and his ministry was mainly in Galilee, but he customarily celebrated Jewish feasts, like the Passover, in Jerusalem. Visiting the Holy City, he likely camped among the olive groves that surrounded Bethany, where other pilgrims from Galilee stayed. He had friends in Bethany– Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary, and also some friends in the city itself.
His visits to the temple at Jerusalem became more significant as the years passed. Even at twelve, he began to dialogue in the temple courtyard with the rabbis who marveled at his questions and answers; he spoke of the temple as “my Father’s house.” (cf. Luke ) After his baptism in the Jordan his dialogue with the rabbis sharpened and the claims he makes about his relationship with his Father increased.
John’s gospel, which we read extensively in the last weeks of Lent, offers some of his exchanges in the temple courtyard about his relationship with his Father. The scriptures and the prophets testify to him, he says. (John 5,31-47 Thursday 4th wk) “I am from him, he sent me.” (John 7,1-30 Friday, 5th wk) “ Just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.” ( John 5,17-30 Wednesday, 4th wk) “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize I AM.” (John 8,21-30Tuesday, 5th wk ) His divine claims were violently opposed by the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem.
The gospels, especially Luke’s, emphasize Jesus’ love of people. He reached out to those in need; he welcomed women as well as men to his company. His acceptance of outcasts like tax collectors and sinners brought him criticism from others. When John’s disciples asked him “Are you the one who is to come?” he replies, “Tell John what you see and hear: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead rise, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. “
“Come to me all you who are weary and I will refresh you, for I am meek and humble of heart,” he said, and he urged his followers to also welcome the weary: the sick, the prisoner, the homeless, the naked, the hungry needing refreshment.
He taught that God should be loved above all and we should love our neighbor as ourselves. He said we should forgive those who have offended us, because God forgives our offenses. He told us to pray to God thankfully and ask for what we need.
People listened to his teaching and knew that he lived what he taught himself.
After his resurrection, he appeared on a mountain in Galilee to his disciples and told them to go out to all the nations and preach the gospel, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” From the “Galilee of the gentiles,” he sent his disciples out to farthest corners of the earth.
Become like children, he said, because those with the spirit of the child belong in the kingdom of heaven.
According to St. Leo the Great, Jesus does not ask us to return to our play pens. We can’t do that. The spiritual child is
Filed under Religion
Today I began a Parish Mission at Holy Family Church in Nassau, Bahamas, on Robinson Road, a few miles in from the tourist area and beaches along Bay Street.
The two lively Masses this morning were filled and the singing was especially lively to my northern ears. It’s a growing area and Archbishop Pinder is planning a large new church here. Fr. Tom Brislin, CP, an American Passionist from my province is in charge of the building.
Holy Family Church
Here are some pictures of Holy Family. I include a beautiful painting given to Fr. Tom from an Argentinian painter who is working in the area.
I recommended this morning to the people at Mass that they check out this blog because I’m going to preach on the great messengers of Advent: Isaiah, John the Baptist, and Mary of Nazareth.
The Benedictines from Collegeville, MN and the Sisters of Charity from New 
York were among the Catholic communities who worked in the Bahamas. I’ll put up some pictures of the churches and schools they built. The Catholic school system has been an important factor in the growth of these islands.
Filed under Passionists, Religion
Tonight, we are going to visit three important events in the life of Jesus, which I notice are pictured in the windows of the church here in St. Clement’s, Matawan.
They are all found in St. Matthew’s Gospel:
Here are pictures of two of the windows.
Filed under Passionists, Religion
We know from the gospels that Jesus used examples from his time to speak to the people of his day. Today’s readings tell us that. Since Jesus lived most of his life in Galilee in northern Palestine, and most of the people he preached to were farmers who made their living on the land or fishermen fishing the sea, Jesus talked to people about fishing and their farms and vineyards and planting seeds.
So how would he speak to us now? Would he Google the place?
I’m here for your parish mission for the next three days. Tonight, tomorrow night and Tuesday night at 7:30 PM. I googled “Matawan” for information about your town, or borough, to use the right word, and Wikipedia said there are about 9,000 people here in Matawan. in a space of 2.3 square miles. The median age about 36.
In a New York Times article last year entitled 2 Lakes, the Shore and a Train to the City the writer said that Matawan was a good place to live, to bring up kids, close to the train, close to the shore, close to the water. The statistics say you’re more prosperous here than other parts of the country, but the 2000 census did say that 5.5 of your population were below the poverty line. I’d guess that might be greater these days.
Now, I don’t think that Jesus, if he came here to talk to you, would go on a lot about statistics. The gospels say he urged people to be grateful to God for what they had. Don’t forget God who gave you everything; God should be at the center of your life.
Be like your Father in heaven, aim high. Live a grateful life and love the way God loves.
The gospel also says that Jesus was not someone who was always calling people out. He saw the heartbreak, the sorrow, the sickness, the pain that’s present in everyone, no matter where they live. He saw sinners. Sinners are those who get life wrong. He spent a lot of time with them. He’s God’s face for us to see.
For the next few evenings I’ll be using the Gospel of Matthew to follow Jesus Christ through the last days of his life and his appearances as Risen from the dead. These are the most important parts of the gospel. We’ll follow him as disciples, which means we’ll learn from him, our teacher and Lord, how to live today from the way he lived yesterday. I’ll go slowly through the scriptures step by step, so if you come to these evening sessions might be good to bring a bible along.
I hope this mission helps us to appreciate Jesus Christ and give us a greater appreciation for the scriptures that speak of him. In our church today, the scriptures have become our catechism and our prayerbook.
But you know as well as I that many don’t read the scriptures much or understand them too.
An article in a recent issue of the Jesuit magazine, America, (http://www.americamagazine.org/content/current-issue.cfm?issueid=786) discussed the way American Catholics read the scriptures. Actually, they don’t read them much or know much about the writings we call the Word of God, the author, Brian B. Pinter, says. Also, Catholics who do read the scriptures, may read them literally, like fundamentalists. But the Pontifical Bible Commission in 1993, Pinter points out, warned that “Fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide.”
Last summer the pope urged Catholics to take up and read the scriptures. It wasn’t a pious wish, he was dead serious. The scriptures are the Word of God that nourish our faith and help us know God’s will.
A couple of weeks ago was catechetical Sunday, when parishes began their religious education programs for the year. Most of these programs are for our young people. But you know religious education involves more than young people. All of us are called to grow in our faith and live what we believe.
Unfortunately, adults may think that faith is something you learn as a child in school or in a religious education program and you never have to learn about it again.
The Catholic writer Frank Sheed once said the problem with adult Catholics is that they don’t keep engaged in the faith they learned as children. He used the example of our eyes. We have two eyes. Let’s say one of them is the eye of faith; the other is the eye of experience.
As children, in religious education we may see the world with two eyes; but as adults we may see the world only with the eye of experience. And so we lose the focus that faith gives, another dimension. We won’t see right. Faith helps us to see.
“You are all learners,” Jesus said. It’s not just children who learn, all of us learn. We are lifelong learners. Lifelong believers, engaged believers, struggling believers, even till the end.
So, I invite you to our mission this week as lifelong learners. Some of you may not be able to make it, but let me make a deal with you. How about doing a little online learning? I have a blog on the web called “Victor’s Place.” I’ll put up some material from our mission every day, starting with this homily. If you can’t get here yourself, or have a neighbor who wont darken the church door, or have a daughter in California who’s not going to church, take a look at “Victor’s Place.”
You saw me bring up a cross at the beginning of Mass and put it next to the pulpit. That was to remind me and to remind you that Someone Else is here speaking during these days of mission. The Lord is with us. He wants to speak to us here in this place where 9,000 people live, a place of “2 Lakes, near the Shore and a trainride to the City.”
The mission services, a short catechesis, a longer reflection on the scriptures, hymns, prayers and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament will be about 1 hour. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday Nights at 7:30.
I’ll be celebrating the morning Masses on Monday and Tuesday at 8 AM and preaching a short homily. Afterwards I’ll be available for confessions.
Fr. Victor Hoagland, CP
vhoagland@mac.com
.
Filed under Passionists, Religion
Notice in Matthew’s account of the Passion that Jesus gradually becomes silent. As the hours before his death go by, his words become fewer and fewer. He works no wonders, no cures. His power seems to slip away and he becomes more and more helpless.
In the garden, he prays a short troubled prayer, over and over: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not my will, but your will be done.”
He looks for the comfort of friends but finds none. They fall asleep and seem to not notice. “Pray that you don’t enter temptation. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,” Jesus tells them.
When he’s brought before Caiaphas, the high priest, he doesn’t dispute the false witnesses that bring charges against him. Through his public ministry he’s quick to answer what’s false, but now he’s silent. Only when Caiaphas directly asks him if he is the Messiah, the Son of God, does Jesus answer: “ You have said so. I tell you from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
Similarly, when Jesus is brought before Pilate, he is mostly silent. “Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate asks him. “You say so,” Jesus answers. Then, he says no more.
He’s silent when the crowd calls for Barrabas; he’s silent when the soldiers scourge him with whips and crown him with thorns. He’s silent when they mock him and lead him away to be crucified.
The only words he says in Matthew’s gospel, as well as in the gospel of Mark, are the final words from psalm 22, which the evangelists quote in Aramaic, as well as Greek: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.?”
It’s not that Jesus is unaware of what’s happening to him, or that he has steeled himself and turned away from it all. He’s not retreated into his divinity. “He humbled himself, accepting death, even death on a cross,” St. Paul, the Apostle says.
His silence is his humble acceptance of death and all it entails.
Yet, his trust in God never fails, even when God seems absent.
What kind of cross do we carry? We know it when words and human solutions fail and we can accomplish nothing on our own. Think of the silence that followed the earthquake in Japan. People could hardly take it in. It’s not just physical pain, it’s more than that.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
It was more than a question, Jesus was asking. It was a prayer. As he did in the garden, he threw himself into the hands of God, his Father, who knows all and receives us all. There he was safe and his soul found peace.
As he said to his disciples in the garden, he says to us, “Pray when the cross comes, put yourself in God’s presence our safety when the storm comes.”
Filed under Religion
The other day, one of the parishioners at St Mary of Mount Carmel Church said he finds the Catholic Catechism from Rome hard going, and it is. Tonight at our mission I’m going to recommend to the people the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, published by the US Biishops in 2006.
I like this catechism for a number of reasons, it’s easier to read than the Roman catechism and has a lot of stories in it. They’re stories about people who have done a great deal for our church and our world; they’re examples of the faith we profess, saints like Elizabeth Seton, John Neuman and uncanonized saints like Dorothy Day.
Here in St. Mary’s two saints are honored whom I find particularly meaningful today, especially for those of Italian heritage: St. Lucy Filippini and St. Pio.
I’m interested in St. Lucy because she comes from the same period and region the founder of my community, the Passionists, comes from: the Tuscan Maremma, the poorest part of poor Italy in the 18th century. She believed if you educated girls and women you could change the family and change society. She founded a community of teachers:The Institute of the Religious Teachers Filippini, For more on her and her sisters see here.
Two of her sisters minister in this parish today.
We need saints like Lucy and Padre Pio today.
Unfortunately, we adults think the catechism is for kids and that’s all behind us, but as Jesus said, we’re always learners. With Catholic schools closing, especially in inner city areas, we need adults to pass on the faith to others.
Our theme for Monday night is “Following Jesus.” We don’t do that just with our feet or with our will, but we also follow him with our hearts and minds. He is “our Teacher and Lord.”
The story of the Passion and Death is the great book we read these days of Holy Week. Tonight I’m going to look at that book which opened before us in Matthew’s Gospel on Palm Sunday this year. Take a look at the beautiful commentary on the Passion narrative from Matthew by Fr. Donald Senior.
We are going to reflect this evening on the story of the Last Supper and Jesus’ prayer and agony in the garden. 7 PM
Then we’ll have Benediction and remember Jesus who is present and prays for us.
Filed under Religion
This afternoon I begin a parish mission at St. Mary of Mount Virgin Church in New Brunswick, NJ, preaching at the Palm Sunday Masses and conducting mission services till next Wednesday evening.
These days of Holy Week speak with “a well-trained tongue;” We celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus, remembering the days when Jesus was arrested, judged unjustly, scourged and crowned with thorns, led to a cross and was crucified.
“He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. On the third day he rose again,”
We take into our hands palm branches this Sunday, as those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem did long ago. We listen to the story of his passion and death; they witnessed what happened to him long ago. They heard his call to faith as we do now. They promised to follow him, but the next days came. How many followed him then?
These are precious days when God’s graces are given and God calls again. The graces are given through Jesus Christ and his life-giving Cross; the call is made through his bruises and wounds and through his empty tomb.
Let us follow him, like those whom he invited into the supper room and received him in bread and wine. Like Simon of Cyrene, let us carry someone’s cross. Like the women who met him on the way, let us have compassion on those who are hurting or are in trouble. Let our hearts be open to the needs of our neighbor and the misery and hopes of our world. Like the thief, who called from his nearby cross, let us ask him for forgiveness. Like Joseph of Arimithea let us tend his body, like Mary his mother, let us hold him in our arms. Like Mary Magdalen let us see him risen from the death; like Peter and James and John let us be enflamed with new dreams for our world.
From Monday to Wednesday, at 7 PM I will conduct of service of preaching and Benediction, followed by confessions.
The Passionists provide an excellent commentary on the gospel accounts of the Passion of Jesus and the devotions that arise from this mystery at Bread on the Waters. The commentary is by Fr.Donald Senior, CP. and can be found here.
Filed under Religion
Sunday evening, April 3rd
Learning from Holy People
“We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.
Night is coming when no one can work.
While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” John 9
In the gospel for today, Jesus gives the blind man– blind from birth– sight he never had. Jesus is the light of the world.
But we share in his work. “We” have to help people to see. It’s our mission to light up the world with our love and our lives. “You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,” Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew.
The new US Catholic Catechism for Adults offers short biographies of holy people, many of them from our own time and country, to exemplify different aspects of our faith. So, St Elizabeth Ann Seton demonstrates the search for God that goes on, uniquely, in all of us. Faith doesn’t exist in the abstract. The profiles of holy people in the new catechism say that you don’t find faith in a book, or in a list of propositions, you find it in people.
Growing in faith means growing in the knowledge of God, but it also means growing to appreciate people, made in the image of God.
I offer two examples at our mission service tonight of people who have helped me to see. One of them is Father Theodore Foley, a Passionist priest from Springfield, Ma, who is a candidate for canonization.
Read about him at http://www.theodorefoley.org/
There’s a video at http://vimeo.com/20519385
And http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrqTClkJidk
How about those who help you to see? Can you name one or two?
Lord Jesus Christ,
I am blind to so much,
help me to see.
Some other web resources you may be interested in:
The Passionists: www.thepassionists.org
St. Paul of the Cross: https://vhoagland.wordpress.com/st-paul-of-the-cross/
Victor’s Place: https://vhoagland.wordpress.com/
Filed under Religion
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