I hope everyone enjoyed a truly blessed Easter. We had a great one here at the Musing's Mansion. Made Easter Baskets for the boys, went to Mass, a truly beautiful celebration with the full choir and a great homily from Fr. Brian. Just when I decry the lack of good Catholic homilies all three times I made it to Mass during Holy Week we had exceptional ones.
Alleluia He is Risen!!! I think that the Mass is beautiful every time but there sure is something special about the Liturgies during Holy Week, particularly Easter.
For it is on Easter Sunday that we can truly say we no longer need fear anything. Our Lord has conquered death and sin and in his dying has united us unto himself as Sons and Daughters of the Living God. There is a passage in the Exsultet which is sung at the Easter Vigil that always gives me chills:
This is the night
when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death
and rose triumphant from the grave.
What good would life have been to us,
had Christ not come as our Redeemer?
Father, how wonderful your care for us!
How boundless your merciful love!
To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.
O happy fault,
O necessary sin of Adam,
which gained for us so great a Redeemer!
Watching The Passion of the Christ on Saturday, I was struck as I always am by the notion that He suffered that terrible pain all for my failings and my faults. That in itself is always enough to make me weep, but it's when I realize, even if I were the only one who needed saving He would have endured all that pain just the same.
Watching the opening scenes of the Agony in the Garden and seeing Jesus just about choking under the weight of all He is about to bear. You can't help but be struck by the fact that Jesus is probably feeling the burden of the sins of the world for all time on his shoulders. He that knew not sin, was made sin so that we might experience the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).
During this Holy Week every year Holy Mother Church celebrates Her birth, Her true calling (evangelization and bringing people to the knowledge of Christ) and the beginnings of Her great Sacrament.
For on Holy Thursday we celebrate the night Christ "Carried and held Himself in His own hands," as St. Augustine said.
It was on that night that Christ gave his Apostles Himself in a future tense showing them what they were to do and instructing them to do it always ..."in remembrance of me." (Luke 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24-25).
As I have mentioned before it is worth noting that St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians was one of the earliest manuscripts of the New Testament and he seems to plainly believe in a Catholic interpretation of the Eucharist from the words of institution to the Real Presence, warning the Corinthians not to eat the sacrifice unworthily (1 Cor. 11:29).
It was special this year to get to the Liturgy on Good Friday and to walk up the aisle and kneel before the Cross, venerating the "Wood...on which hung the Savior of the World." Always moving, but this year it just seemed especially more so.
I hope you all had a blessed Holy Week and Easter. I love this time of year because most of my favorite Gospel readings are clustered into it. The story of Thomas, The road to Emmaus, The post-Resurrection Jesus seems more like he is drawing everyone into himself.
He is risen Alleluia, Alleluia!!!!
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