Happy Easter!!
St. Pope John Paul II echoed St. Augustine when he proclaimed:
“We are an Easter people!”
The message that we celebrate today - that Christ has risen, that Love conquers all things (even death) - is not just a message we are called to recognize once a year. It is a message we are called to live, every day of our lives. The challenge of Easter is - how do we keep this joy?!
St. Pope John Paul II:
Today had to feel so hopeless.
Why didn’t you take yourself off that cross? Why didn’t the angels come help you? It’s over, isn’t it? You’re laying in a tomb, sealed and impossible to open. It’s over.
Today had to feel so hopeless. Lamentations 3: 1-33
No long reflection today, except to say this.
You are loved. Enormously and immensely and impossibly. 2,000 years ago, somebody loved you. Enough to do this.
We remember Pope Leo’s message for this year:
“Lent invites us to place the mystery of God back in the center of our lives.”
That mystery is, so much, about love.
2,000 years ago, you were loved, enough to do this.
Holy Thursday
Our tradition tells us that tonight, Jesus gathered with his closest friends and ate the Passover meal - his final meal.
So much of what we know about the Last Supper comes from the Gospel of John. The Synoptic Gospels handle it relatively quickly, but John spends a great deal of time not just on the dinner… but on Jesus’s words that night. His final teachings (at least, verbally).
Wednesday of Holy Week
The Gospels tell us about the Agony in the Garden, which takes place after the Last Supper on the night before the crucifixion, in which Jesus prays through his anxiety.
“My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39). He returns to pray this same prayer three times, always ending the same way: “your will be done!” (Mt 26:42); “not what I will but what you will.” (Mk 14:36).
(As I mentioned yesterday, there is too much to learn from Holy Week. Too much to digest in 100-word bites. My hope this week is to introduce something new, something thoughtful, some other angle by which to view the week’s events. And my prayer is that just one might be meaningful to you. - Chris)
The Last Supper: Jesus Washes the Feet of his Disciples
Station 10: Jesus is Stripped of His Garments
Station 11: Jesus is Nailed to the Cross
“As we enter these sacred days of Holy Week, we are invited again - not as observers, but as companions - to walk closely with Jesus.”
It’s a challenge to provide reflections for this group of devout, learned, educated and intelligent people. I have felt a weight of stress as we approach Holy Week - how can any “reflection” written at a computer in 2026 live up to the gravity of these moments, which we remember this week?
Jesus enters the opening of Palm Sunday to shouts from a crowd:
"Hosanna in the highest."
Hosanna is a transliteration of the Hebrew word “hosi-ah-na,” which means to save or rescue, or designates the person who saves or rescues. The cry of the crowd echoes through the centuries—through dusty roads, waving branches, and longing hearts. It comes down to us each week during mass.
It has always seemed unfortunate to me that a man grieving the brutal death of a friend has, for centuries, been remembered chiefly as a “doubter.”
We forget that when Jesus announced he was returning to Jerusalem—where danger surely awaited—it was Thomas alone who urged the others,
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16)
That is not doubt.
That is courage.
The Ninth Station of the Cross
Jesus Falls for the Third Time
It seems we keep falling.
We long to be known and loved as we are, yet we fall into hiding,
placing masks over our true faces.
We yearn for community, yet we fall into division.
We say we seek peace, yet find ourselves at war.
Like Jesus, we sometimes feel the heavy weight of the crosses we carry.
We keep falling.
