A reflection by Fr. Antony Kadavil.

1)  We need to permit the Holy Spirit to direct our lives:   a) by constantly remembering and appreciating His Holy Presence within us, especially through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation;  b) by fortifying ourselves with the help of the Holy Spirit against all types of temptations;  c) by seeking the assistance of the Holy Spirit in our thoughts, words, and deeds, and in the breaking of our evil habits;  d) by listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to us through the Bible and through the good counsel of others;  e) by fervently praying for the gifts, fruits and charisms of the Holy Spirit;  f) by renewing our lives through the anointing of the Holy Spirit; and  g) by living our lives in the Holy Spirit as lives of commitment, of sacrifice, and of joy.  We are called to love as Jesus loved, not counting the cost.  As Saint Paul exhorts us, "Walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16, 25).

2)  We need to cultivate the spirit of forgiveness.  The feast of Pentecost offers us the chance to look at the role which forgiveness should play in our dealings with others.  Thus, we are challenged to examine our sense of compassion, patience, tolerance and magnanimity.  Learning to forgive is a lifelong task, but the Holy Spirit is with us to make us agents of forgiveness.  If we are prepared on this day of Pentecost to receive the Holy Spirit into our lives, we can have confidence that our lives will be marked by the Spirit of forgiveness.

3)  We need to observe Pentecost every day.  "It will always be Pentecost in the Church," affirmed Saint Oscar Romero on Pentecost Sunday 1978, "provided the Church lets the beauty of the Holy Spirit shine forth from her countenance.  When the Church ceases to let her strength rest on the Power from above which Christ promised her and which he gave her on that day, and when the Church leans rather on the weak forces of the power or wealth of this earth, then the Church ceases to be newsworthy.  The Church will be fair to see, perennially young, attractive in every age, as long as she is faithful to the Spirit that floods her and she reflects that Spirit through her communities, through her pastors, through her very life."  Saint Romero’s declaration reminds us -- as does the Gospel -- that Pentecost is not just one day, but every day.  Without breath, there is no life.  Without the Spirit, the Church is a field of dry, dead bones.  The Venerable Fulton J. Sheen once said about the Church, "Even though we are God's chosen people, we often behave more like God's frozen people -- frozen in our prayer life, frozen in the way we relate with one another, frozen in the way we celebrate our Faith."  Today is a great day to ask the Holy Spirit to rekindle in us the spirit of new life and enthusiasm, the fire of God's love.  Let us repeat Saint John Henry Newman’s favorite little prayer, “Come Holy Spirit:”

“Come Holy Spirit 
Make our ears to hear 
Make our eyes to see 
Make our mouths to speak 
Make our hearts to seek 
Make our hands to reach out 
And touch the world with your love.  Amen.”  

4)  We need to be Spirit-filled Christians:  Spirit-filled people acknowledge their weaknesses, ask for the strengthening, anointing and guidance of the Holy Spirit every morning, ask for His forgiveness every evening, and pass on that forgiveness to those who sin against them.  Spirit-filled people are praying people.  Paul encourages us, "Pray on every occasion as the Spirit leads.  For this reason, keep alert and never give up; pray for all God's people" (Eph 6:18).  They are praying and worshipping God in their families and parishes.  They try to grow continually in their Faith, and they seek out every opportunity to discover Christ and what it means to be children of God.  Spirit-filled people are people who allow the Spirit to change their lives through their daily reading of the Bible and their frequenting of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist.  Spirit-filled people speak words that heal, restore, make people happy and build people up instead of tearing them down.  Spirit-filled people pass on the love of God to the people living around them by their acts of kindness, mercy, and charity.  Hence, let us ask the Holy Spirit for a spirit of love instead of hate, a spirit of helpfulness instead of non-cooperation, a spirit of generosity instead of greed, and a spirit of gentleness in place of a spirit of being hard-hearted.

St. Augustine's Prayer to the Holy Spirit

Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit,
that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit,
that my work, too, may be holy.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit,
that I love but what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit,
to defend all that is holy.
Guard me, then, O Holy Spirit,
that I always may be holy.
Amen.

A reflection by Fr. Antony Kadavil.

1)  We need to be proclaimers and evangelizers:  Jesus gives this mission to all the believers:  "Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.”   This mission is not given to a select few but to all believers.  To be a Christian is to be a proclaimer and an evangelizer.  There is a difference between preaching and proclaiming.  “We preach with words but we proclaim with our lives.”  As we celebrate the Lord’s return to His Father in Heaven – His Ascension -- we are being commissioned to go forth and proclaim the Gospel of life and love, of hope and peace, by the witness of our lives.  On this day of hope, encouragement and commissioning, let us renew our commitment to be true disciples everywhere we go, beginning with our family and our parish, "living in a manner worthy of the call [we] have received.”

2)  We need to live a life of Christian joy in the presence of the ascended Lord.  According to Luke, the disciples "returned to Jerusalem with great joy."  Apparently Jesus' exaltation and final blessing gave them, as it gives us, the assurance that, though absent, Jesus is still present, present even in the pain and sorrow we undergo.  That is why St. Augustine assures us, “Christ is now exalted above the Heavens, but he still suffers on earth all the pain that we, the members of his Body, have to bear.  He showed this when he cried out from above: 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?' and when he said: 'I was hungry and you gave me food.'  While in Heaven he is also with us; and while on earth we are with him.  He is here with us by his Divinity, his power and his love.  We cannot be in Heaven, as he is on earth, by divinity, but in him, we can be there by love."

3)  We have a teaching mission:  Jesus taught us lessons of Faith, Hope, forgiveness, mercy, redemption and Love.  We cannot put these lessons on a shelf and ignore them.  They stand before us in the person of Jesus.  Although no longer visibly present in the world, Jesus is present in his words, and we must make these words real in our lives as well as in the lives of others.  Christianity was meant to be a Faith in which Jesus’ followers would help and care for others, just as Jesus had done.   But the spreading of the Good News to all nations is not a goal that can be attained by human might and craft.  This is why Jesus promises to empower the Church with His abiding presence and that of the Holy Spirit.  The challenge of sharing the Good News with all mankind should, therefore, begin with our admission that we have often been arrogant and overbearing.  We must learn to be humble and let the Holy Spirit lead our way.

4)  The ascended Jesus is our source of strength and encouragement:  Perhaps some of the nagging doubts which inevitably accompany the journey of Faith could be lessened by our meditating on the Ascension and its implications.  When we are too far from Faith to pray on our own, let us remember that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous, praying for us.  When the trials of life feel too heavy to bear, we must remember that Christ will come again in glory, the same glory in which Jesus arose from the tomb, the same glory to which Jesus ascended, and the same glory in which Jesus currently abides.  Though our limited perception might find him absent, Jesus is fully present, participating in every moment of our lives.  By His Ascension, Christ has not deserted us but has made it possible for the Holy Spirit to enter all times and places.  In this way it is possible for each of us to be transformed by the power of the Spirit into agents or instruments of Christ.  We become enlivened, and our actions become animated in a new way by the Spirit of the God we love and serve.  We have become other Christs in the world.

If the sacrifices of Lent seemed to last a long time, make sure the rejoicing of Easter lasts longer!

It is a beautiful thing that after the privations of 40 days of Lent, the Church gives us 50 days to celebrate Easter!

The first week of this season (the Octave) is marked with special intensity, with each day getting the designation of solemnity.

Now the Octave is over, but we’ve still only just begun the Easter season.

Here are some suggestions for keeping up the Resurrection atmosphere for the full 50 days.

• Begin a time of family prayers.  Rejoice in the Resurrection as a family with a simple ritual of morning or evening prayers.  Reflect together on the next day’s Gospel reading, or simply take turns telling Our Lord something you’re grateful for about that day.  Or here you can find prayers to use as a family.

• Get a hymnal for your home.  Begin your prayer time with a hymn for the Easter season.  Not only will you be able to enjoy all the beautiful hymns for Easter, you will become more aware of each of the liturgical seasons.  In addition, your family will soon be able to sing the hymns at Mass without the hymnal!  My family uses the Adoremus Hymnal.

• Keep your Easter table decor throughout the Easter season.  The liturgical colors are white or gold.  This is so easy to do with a table cloth or even just a table runner.

• Desserts.  I hate to even suggest it after all the chocolate we have already consumed but, let’s face it, we all associate sweet treats with celebrations.  Make your favorite desserts each Sunday.

• Make a Paschal Candle for your table or prayer area.  You can buy a kit or follow instructions from the internet.  If you’re not crafty, buy a baptismal candle from a Catholic store.  Light this at your family meal or prayer time.

• Plant an Easter garden with flowers already in bloom from your local nursery.  The extra color and life in your yard will bring to mind the new life in Christ that was made possible by His Resurrection.  At the very least, get some Easter lilies and do your best to keep them alive!

• Take on a project of service to others.

• Easter is a great reason to be with loved ones.

• Since Easter ends with the celebration of Pentecost, begin a novena to the Holy Spirit, to end on that day.

• Pray the Regina Caeli.  It is a quick, beautiful prayer to Our Lady that can be recited or sung and replaces the Angelus at morning, noon, and evening during the Easter season.  We focus on different aspects of the Blessed Virgin Mary during the various feasts because they help bring to light different truths about Our Lord, whose life, death and resurrection are the reason for the whole year of liturgical celebrations.

The Regina Caeli

Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
For He, whom you did merit to bear, alleluia.

Has risen as He said, alleluia.
Pray for us to God, alleluia.

Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
For the Lord is truly risen, alleluia.

Let us pray:  O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life.  Through the same Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.  As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.  They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”  She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?”  Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”  She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher!).  Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.  But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!”

— John 20:11-18

A reflection from Fr. Antony Kadavil

1.  We are to be Resurrection people.

Easter, the feast of the Resurrection, gives us the joyful message that we are a “Resurrection people!”   This means that we are not supposed to lie buried in the tomb of our sins, evil habits, and dangerous addictions.  It gives us the Good News that no tomb can hold us down anymore - not the tomb of despair, discouragement, doubt or death itself.  Instead, we are expected to live a joyful and peaceful life, constantly experiencing the real presence of the Risen Lord in all the events of our lives.  “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad.” (Psalm 118:24)

2.  We need to seek our peace and joy in the Risen Jesus.

The living presence of the Risen Lord gives us lasting peace and celestial joy in the face of the boredom, suffering, pain, and tensions of our day-to-day life.  “Peace be with you!” was Jesus’ salutation to his disciples at all post-Resurrection appearances.  For the true Christian, every day must be an Easter Day lived joyfully in the close company of the Risen Lord.

3.  We are to be transparent Christians.

We are called to be transparent Christians, showing others, through our lives of love, mercy, compassion and self-sacrificing service, that the Risen Jesus is living in our hearts.  

4.  We need to live new, disciplined lives in the Risen Jesus.

Our awareness of the all-pervading presence of the Risen Lord in and around us, and the strong conviction of our own coming resurrection, help us control our thoughts, desires, words and behavior.  This salutary thought inspires us to honor our bodies, keeping them holy, pure and free from evil habits and addictions.  Our conviction about the presence of the Risen Lord in our neighbors, and in all those with whom we come into contact, should encourage us to respect them and to render them loving, humble and selfless service.

5.  We need to remember Easter in our Good Fridays.

Easter reminds us that every Good Friday in our lives will have an Easter Sunday, and that Jesus will let us share the power of his Resurrection.  Each time we display our love of others, we share in the Resurrection.  Each time we face a betrayal of trust and, with God’s grace, forgive the betrayer, we share in the Resurrection of Jesus.  Each time we fail in our attempts to ward off temptations – but keep on trying to overcome them – we share in the Resurrection.  Each time we continue to hope – even when our hope seems unanswered – we share in the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.  In short, the message of Easter is that nothing can destroy us – not pain, sin, rejection, betrayal or death – because Christ has conquered all these, and we, too, can conquer them if we put our Faith and trust in Him. 

6.  We are to be bearers of the Good News of Resurrection power.

Resurrection is Good News, but at the same time, it’s sometimes painful because it involves death.  Before the power of the Resurrection can take hold in our own lives, we’re called to die to sin, to die to self.  We may even have to die to our own dreams, so that God can do what He wants to do with our lives.  Resurrection is about seeing our world in a new way.  Early that Easter morning, Mary did not find what she was looking for, the dead body of Jesus.  But she found something better than she could have imagined: The Risen Jesus.  Sometimes, the things we think we want most are not granted to us.   What we get instead is an experience of God’s new ways of working in the world.  That’s the power of the Resurrection.  When those moments come, we must spread the news — just as Mary did:  We have seen the Lord!

A Reflection by Michelle Francl-Donnay

The Stations of the Cross are an ancient devotion, reaching back to the earliest days of the Church when pilgrims would go to Jerusalem to visit the holy places.  Small local versions were eventually constructed so that anyone could contemplate the mysteries, for those who couldn’t get from distant places to Jerusalem.

There is a physicality to this devotion that reminds us again and again that God became one of us, even unto death.

Contemplating the Via Crucis — the way of the cross — slowly and deliberately teaches us much about how to carry our cross, not just during Holy Week, but daily.

In the Stations of the Cross below, walk with Jesus through Jerusalem to Calvary...

Lent is a 40-day period leading up to Easter, beginning with Ash Wednesday.  Lent is a penitential season.  That means it is an opportunity to examine your life, give your struggles to God, and invite him to help you become the-best-version-of-yourself.

During Lent, there is a strong focus on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  All these spiritual exercises help prepare us for the celebration of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

When is Lent in 2020?

Lent this year begins on Ash Wednesday, February 26, 2020.

The day before Ash Wednesday is popularly known as Mardi Gras (literally Fat Tuesday).  Since Lent is a season of fasting, Fat Tuesday traditionally is a final day of feasting and merrymaking before the 40-day fast.

When is Easter?

Easter this year is April 12, 2020.

When is Holy Week?

Holy Week begins on Palm Sunday, which is April 5, 2020.  Holy Thursday, which begins the 3-day period the Church calls the Easter Triduum, is April 9, 2020.  Good Friday is April 10, 2020.

What should I give up for Lent?

Lent is the perfect time to form new life-giving habits and abandon old self-destructive habits.  But most of us just give up chocolate.  Then, when Easter arrives, we realize we really haven’t grown spiritually since the beginning of Lent.

Giving things up can help us to have a meaningful Lent, but that’s not what Lent is really all about.  Lent is about doing something—something bold to become a better husband or wife, father or mother, son or daughter, friend, neighbor, etc.

What if this year you did more than just give up something during Lent?  Do something life-changing.

What are Prayer, Fasting, and Alsmgiving?

Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are three traditional practices of Lent.  They are meant to help us turn away from self-destructive habits and open ourselves to God so he can help us become the-best-version-of-ourselves.

What is Prayer?

St. Therese of Lisieux wrote, “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”  And yet, the truth is, prayer is perhaps the most difficult thing we will ever do.

Prayer is central to the Christian experience.  A Christian life is not sustainable without it; growth in the Christian life is simply not possible without prayer.  Growing in character and virtue, learning to hear the voice of God in our lives, and walking where he calls us all require the discipline of prayer.

If you want to know God, and if you want to know yourself, pray.  Talk to God.  There are many different kinds of prayer (adoration, petition, intercession, thanksgiving), but in the end, prayer is simply conversation with God.

What is Fasting?

Fasting is a spiritual exercise, and is primarily an action of the inner life.  We do not fast to impress other people.  We fast to cultivate the inner life.  Fasting should be an occasion of joy, not a cause of sadness.  Authentic fasting draws us nearer to God and opens our hearts to receive his many gifts.

Go without food for several hours and you quickly realize how truly weak, fragile, and dependent we are.  This knowledge of self strips away arrogance and fosters a loving acknowledgment of our utter dependence on God.

Catholics are invited to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.  Guidelines for a day of fasting include eating only two small meals and one full meal, without eating in between meals.  Those who are physically unable to fast from food are encouraged to choose something else to fast from on those days.

Why do Catholics not eat meat on Fridays?

Catholics often do not eat meat on Fridays, especially during Lent.  This is an intentional way to remember Christ’s passion and death with an act of self-denial.  It is generally practiced on Fridays, since that is the day that Jesus suffered and died.

What is Almsgiving?

Almsgiving is giving to those in need.  If we open our eyes we will discover that we are surrounded by need.  We are always called to be generous, but during Lent, we are invited to share the love of God with other people by being especially generous with our time, talent, and treasure.

We cannot do everything, but that doesn’t mean we should do nothing.  We cannot save everyone, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t save some.  Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.  And what we can do, all of us, is make small sacrifices, and simplify our lives in some small ways so that others may simply live.

Lenten Prayer for Transformation

Loving Father,

I invite you into my life today
and make myself available to you.
Help me to become the-best-version-of-myself
by seeking your will and becoming a living example
of your love in the world.
Open my heart to the areas of my life that need to change
in order for me to carry out the mission
and experience the joy you have imagined for my life.
Inspire me to live the Catholic faith
in ways that are dynamic and engaging.
Show me how to best get involved in the life of my parish.
Make our community hungry for best practices
and continuous learning.
Give me courage when I am afraid,
hope when I am discouraged,
and clarity in times of decision.
Teach me to enjoy uncertainty and lead your Church
to become all you imagined it would be
for the people of our times.

Amen.