Monday night, the Governor of my home-state issued the "Stay home - Stay safe" order, calling all (apart from essential workers) to shelter at home.
Wednesday - March 25 - the Church celebrated the Solemnity of the Annunciation!
Today is Thursday.
The day before the "stay home" order was given was Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent. This is a special day in this liturgical season of repentance where the vestments are "rose" instead of violet, like the last burst of color from the setting sun before it dips below the horizon. After next Sunday, the Fifth Sunday of Lent the statues are traditionally veiled in the church as the final Lenten "hunkering down" and shock to the senses before Holy Week begins.
Many have reflected how this pandemic has put the world in Lent.
This week, my State and governments throughout the world is beginning to realize what it means to "hunker down" as we globally and locally seek to flatten the curve of this virus.
I find it amusing how so many directives globally are following the liturgical calendar.
God's hand truly is everywhere, and I don't believe the timing of all this is hap-hazard at all!
Being placed in a societal shut-down as a form of quarantine, cloistering and essentially an exile where we long for what we took for granted even last week or last month, I've been reminded of the people of Israel.
Wednesday - March 25 - the Church celebrated the Solemnity of the Annunciation!
Today is Thursday.
The day before the "stay home" order was given was Laetare Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Lent. This is a special day in this liturgical season of repentance where the vestments are "rose" instead of violet, like the last burst of color from the setting sun before it dips below the horizon. After next Sunday, the Fifth Sunday of Lent the statues are traditionally veiled in the church as the final Lenten "hunkering down" and shock to the senses before Holy Week begins.
Many have reflected how this pandemic has put the world in Lent.
This week, my State and governments throughout the world is beginning to realize what it means to "hunker down" as we globally and locally seek to flatten the curve of this virus.
I find it amusing how so many directives globally are following the liturgical calendar.
God's hand truly is everywhere, and I don't believe the timing of all this is hap-hazard at all!
Being placed in a societal shut-down as a form of quarantine, cloistering and essentially an exile where we long for what we took for granted even last week or last month, I've been reminded of the people of Israel.
Being strangers in strange lands, their exit from Egypt and subsequent journey to the Promised Land is recalled every year at Passover. That God delivered them from slavery and provided for their safety and nourishment is the basis for the desert hospitality they would then be commanded to extend to the foreigner encountered in their nomadic life. God traveled with them in the Ark, his Spirit descending upon the Tent of Meeting and ultimately inhabiting the Temple built by King Solomon. The Temple was everything to them, key to their faith because it was THERE that God dwelt, and when it was destroyed, even living in the holy city, they were / they are in exile.
Prophets were sent by God with the same message to both the Israelites and pagan lands of Salvation History - Repent!
Return to Lord!
Many heeded the call and learned that the exterior exile only reflected the interior exile of sin's desert that keeps us from dwelling with God. Many did not heed. Many heeded and then forgot. Which are we?
Prophets were sent by God with the same message to both the Israelites and pagan lands of Salvation History - Repent!
Return to Lord!
Many heeded the call and learned that the exterior exile only reflected the interior exile of sin's desert that keeps us from dwelling with God. Many did not heed. Many heeded and then forgot. Which are we?
Sometimes we need our longing to increase so that we can truly embrace and value that which is away from us … or in the case of our relationship with God, longing for the One we have turned away from through our sin. This is the mystery of the expulsion from Eden and the core of why and how the mystery of the Incarnation, and the Paschal Mystery of Jesus' crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension reveals God's Divine Mercy!
It is why and how the Church can exclaim in the Easter Vigil Exsultet:
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
It is why and how the Church can exclaim in the Easter Vigil Exsultet:
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault,
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
In the biblical books of Maccabees and Ezekiel we learn that Ezekiel saw the Glory of God leave the Temple (Ezek. 10:3-5) and the Ark built by Moses was hidden by Jeremiah (2 Macc. 2:1-18) before Temple was destroyed in 587/6 BC. Even though the temple was subsequently rebuilt in 516 BC (the same which was later destroyed in 70 AD), the Glory of the Lord did not again descend to earth until the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary as she became the Ark of the New Covenant at the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) which we celebrated yesterday. Visible to the people as they sojourned through the desert, God's glory remained hidden from the people from the time of the Babylonian Exile until it shone around the shepherds at the angels announcement of Jesus' birth (Luke 2:8-20).
The great news is that this Good News still rings true today!!
God has come, in the midst of our sin, to save us from our sin so to bring us to life everlasting.
The great news is that this Good News still rings true today!!
God has come, in the midst of our sin, to save us from our sin so to bring us to life everlasting.
While churches remain open for private prayer, our physical access to Church as we've come to love, cherish or even take for granted is currently "lost."
Yet, in and with and through the Paschal Mystery, we are NEVER alone!
We have our home in Christ as his Bride - as members of his mystical body.
Yet, in and with and through the Paschal Mystery, we are NEVER alone!
We have our home in Christ as his Bride - as members of his mystical body.
Like the phrase:
"where goes the Head" (Christ's Ascension),
"so goes the Body" (the final Resurrection of the Dead)!
God has neither left us nor abandoned us! This is GREAT NEWS!!
"where goes the Head" (Christ's Ascension),
"so goes the Body" (the final Resurrection of the Dead)!
God has neither left us nor abandoned us! This is GREAT NEWS!!
We are still living Salvation's Story.
The truth is, we've been in exile since the first sin expelled Adam and Eve from Paradise.
We're feeling the effects of sin and our expulsion from the fullness of life in a way never so globally tangible since perhaps the Great Flood or the Tower of Babel, but as Jesus expresses in the Parables, the Kingdom of God is near at hand … NOW is the time to make sure our lamps are filled with oil to spare - not hoarding our spiritual wealth to ourselves (as we do toilet paper!) but being prudent, attentive … in a word AWAKE so to awaken and alert others to likewise prepare for the long night ahead, anticipating the wedding feast that awaits us all at the end of days when Christ returns.
And as we awaken to the Light of Christ - the Glory of the Lord in our midst - let us allow Christ's light to shine in and through us through spiritual and corporal acts of mercy - the tangible means by which we are called to proclaim the Good News of God's mercy and love to all. The tangible ways we are called to be Church in the world. Let it be said of us as Tertullian reflected on the early Church "see how they love one other".
As we turn to our neighbor in thought and prayer (remember that we're social distancing and sheltering at home!), ask the Lord to awaken the areas that have grown sleepy or dormant, so that as we're called to respond - both within this crisis and after the immediate threat is gone and the corona-virus becomes a memory in the history books - we will be ready to follow Jesus wherever and however he leads us.
Please pray fervently for the quick containment and rapid cessation of this virus.
Pray for those who are suffering - physically, emotionally, spiritually, economically because of this pandemic.
Pray for those working at the front-lines: medical personnel and other essential workers, and especially our pastors.
Pray for those who are suffering - physically, emotionally, spiritually, economically because of this pandemic.
Pray for those working at the front-lines: medical personnel and other essential workers, and especially our pastors.
Our Lady of Seattle, Untier of Knots, Pray for us.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have mercy on us.
O Blood and Water, which gushed forth as a fountain of mercy for us - Jesus - I trust in you.
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