Last night, all observant Jews around the world began their annual Passover celebration.  For us, however, tonight begins the Passover of the Lord.  Holy Thursday is act one in the three-part drama that is the Paschal Mystery, the central mystery of our faith.  The Passover is a central theme in the readings for this evening’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper.  In our first reading, we heard the instructions that God gave to Moses and Aaron regarding the first Passover meal, which included the slaughter of a spotless lamb for each […]

Today’s readings challenge us every day because we can recognize ourselves in so many of those involved in the events that we hear today.  We sometimes find ourselves to be as fickle as the crowd in today’s gospel passages who, in one moment, joyously welcome Jesus to the holy city of Jerusalem like a king with palm branches waving and chanting words forever enshrined in our Eucharistic celebrations – Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord – and then, at another moment condemn Jesus to a […]

“O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them. …Then you shall know that I am the Lord.”  “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will live.”  Our readings today go straight to the heart of our Christian faith.  They speak of death, and new life in Christ.  We hear it promised in the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel and we hear about it actually happening in today’s powerful Gospel account.  In a world where we spend hundreds of millions […]

Throughout Salvation History, we find God acting in unusual ways, calling us to rethink our priorities and expectations as he works to lead us back to himself.  Today’s readings give us good examples of this.  We begin about 1,000 years before the time of Jesus with God’s surprising choice of the boy David to be Israel’s king.  In a society that prized the firstborn, warriors and wise men, Samuel had to accept God’s unusual choice of the last of Jesse’s sons – a mere shepherd – to be anointed as […]