“Peace be with you.”  Three times in today’s Gospel, we hear the risen Lord assure his disciples with these comforting words: “Peace be with you.”  And, although this greeting of peace, “Shalom,” was a common expression among the Jewish people of his day – as it still is today – it had taken on a much deeper meaning for the followers of Jesus who had just gone through three days filled with anything but peace.  It made them remember our Lord’s words of encouragement to them just a few days […]

Again, allow me to wish all of you a joyous Easter with a hopeful message for all of us believers.  Christ is risen! Alleluia!  These are the victorious words we shout with gusto on this greatest of all feast days.  This is a celebration of moving from doubt to belief, from fear to faith, from death to life.  Our readings present the strong faith that the earliest followers of Jesus expressed as they spread the Good News of our salvation in the risen Lord.  In today’s first reading, we hear […]

Over these past three days, we have participated in something most unusual – in fact, absolutely unique in the history of humanity.  God, the almighty, the creator of the universe and all that is in it, the maker of light and darkness, life and death, has died in his human form.  As we recite in the Nicene Creed every Sunday, “for our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried.”  Every Good Friday, silence envelopes the earth as it contemplates this terrible reality.  We have […]

You know this is a special Sunday when we have two gospels.  And, you can’t help but notice how different our two Gospel passages are in tone and sentiment.  We began with Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the adulation of the crowd, and followed it with Mark’s account of his passion, at the hands of that same crowd.

As Jesus enters Jerusalem, he is at first the focus of Israel’s deepest hopes and dreams.  Frenzied crowds shout with pleading and joy – Hosanna – which means both, “save us, we […]