​Dearly Beloved,
 
"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will" (Mt 26:39). A significant act and event in the life of Jesus Christ is his sacred passion. The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson's 2004 movie on the passion of Christ, portrays how deep and intense Christ's act of love for the redemption of the world from sin and death was, illustrating the gory, the blood-letting, bodily pain associated with his humble submission to the Father's will. It is counterintuitive to  imagine that God, who is love, would demand the free obedience of his beloved son to pay such a high price for the sake of sinners. Yet, it is truly an act of love when Jesus became "obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8) to save humanity from eternal doom. Jesus drank the chalice; he freely took upon himself the suffering that our sins earned. 
 
Chris's passion is central to our salvation history, and the church had to dedicate an entire liturgical week to commemorate it. "Holy week is ordered to the commemoration of Christ's passion, beginning with his Messianic entrance into                  Jerusalem" (Universal Norm, 31). Our Lenten season reaches its crescendo in the days of the Holy week, from Monday to Thursday inclusive. It climaxes in the Sacred Triduum when we remember and spiritually participate in the paschal mystery- suffering, death and resurrection of Christ. 
 
Today, Palm Sunday, we recall the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem to fulfill his paschal mystery. In the procession, we spiritually stepped into that sacred moment that began the journey of our redemption. Let us keep the spirit of passion alive in the days ahead. "What, really, do the liturgies of the triduum celebrate?" Nathan Mitchell raised this question in an essay titled "The Three Days of Pascha." Is it just about stepping into a historical moment and walking the way of the cross with Jesus? It is more than that. Mitchell provides an answer: "What the paschal triduum actually celebrates is mystery, not    history; anamnesis, not mimesis...They celebrate not once what happened to Jesus but what is not happening among us as a people called to conversion, gathered in faith, and gifted with the spirit of holiness."
 
May the spirit of Christ's passion take full possession of our hearts to do the Father's will and participate actively in the    liturgies and services of the Holy Thursday of the Lord's Supper, Friday of the Passion of the Lord (Good Friday), and the solemn Holy Saturday. Please pray earnestly for our catechumens who enter the last week of their year-long preparation for the reception of the sacraments of initiation. We look forward to celebrating the triumph of the Risen  Christ with the elects and candidates for reception into full communion with the Catholic church at the Easter vigil in the holy night. The passion is the prayer; pray it.
 
In the passion of Christ,
 
Fr. Bernard, O.P.
 

​Dearly Beloved,
 
Jesus tells Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life" (Jn 11: 25). Jesus promises Martha that her brother, Lazarus, will be raised from the dead because Jesus can restore life. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. This declaration is of great importance and effect to Martha and Mary as they are to all of us who are spiritually dead in sin. As we get closer to the remembrance and deeper participation in the passion of Christ, as we approach Holy Week, beginning with Palm Sunday next week, we should be seeking Christ's resurrection of our spiritual life if they have suffered deadly wounds inflicted by sin; Jesus desires to give life back to our souls so that we may celebrate with joyful praise the paschal mystery. 
 
As with the elect who will present themselves to Christ, who gave us the sacraments to lift us to eternal life, we, too, those already baptized, should be preparing our sinful souls for Jesus to heal and redeem them through the sacrament of penance. We are all sinners; we have sinned and need a remedy for our spiritually sick souls.
 
What is sin? It is an act contrary to reason, a choice to violate God's law of love. It is mortal when it involves grave matter and is done freely and with awareness of doing it. It may be mortal or venial; it may have broken or severed our relationship with God or done some light damage to it, as the case may be. Whatever the case, sin is like cancer that grows, and only Jesus, through the merits of his passion, death and resurrection, can cure it. He does it for us in the sacrament of reconciliation. The parish is holding her penance service on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Please, properly examine your conscience and come to the service to receive new life if you know you need it. Jesus is ever-loving and forgiving. He wants to forgive us, but we must acknowledge that we are sinners and confess our sins to his priests. Please take some time to check the Holy Week schedule and make plans to be fully involved in all the preparation for Easter.
 
Please note that I will be the speaker at the Elizabethtown Ministerium Lenten service on Wednesday at Sell Chapel. It starts at 7 p.m. I would like your support by praying for me and attending in large numbers. Thanks.
 
Fr. Bernard, O.P.
 

 
Dearly Beloved,
 
“Jesus said to him, ‘you have seen him, the one speaking to you is he’” (Jn 9:37). The Gospel account of Jesus healing the man born blind is a story of faith. It is about enlightenment that develops over time. The Christian life is about the journey of seeing. We all are born blind; that is spiritual blindness. Sin is indicative of this state of spiritual blindness. Jesus is the light of the world, and he has come to heal our blindness. Spiritual blindness points to a state of unbelief, and Jesus came to offer a remedy for it. In the encounter with the man born blind, Jesus restores his sight in stages. He first makes a healing paste from the soil and his saliva and then sends the man to wash his face in the pool of Siloam. The water here also represents the water of baptism that washes our sins away, sins that blind us from seeing and believing God. Hence, we can point to faith and the sacrament of baptism in this story.
 
We cannot fail to see the connection between the healing of blindness and the sacrament of enlightenment, the baptism our elects are preparing to receive at the Easter vigil (which we all have already received in our baptism). Our elects, our candidates, and indeed all of us grow little by little in our faith. Our vision gets better and better as we continue to stay connected with Jesus. Beginning with our baptism and through the Sacraments of Holy Eucharist and Confirmation, we continue to improve our faith and understanding of who Jesus is.
 
We must continue to pray for all our fourteen children who received the Sacrament of Confirmation from the hands of Bishop Robert Gainer last Sunday. They are only beginning to see and know Jesus better. We must support them in getting their full sight. And may the suffering and sorrows that accompany our growth yield the fullness of joy.
 
In the words of Prophet Isaiah, I urge you to “be joyful, all who are mourning; exult and be satisfied at her consoling breast” ( Is. 66: 10-11). May St Joseph guide us to the Light of Christ.
 
In His Joy,
 
Fr. Bernard, OP
 

​Dearly Beloved,
 
"Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink'" (Jn 4:7). Jesus was thirsty. So he asked the Samaritan woman for water to drink. So here, Jesus' thirst for water is beyond the bodily need for refreshment; Jesus thirsts for the Samaritan woman's faith. So in Lent, our elects and all the baptized prepare their hearts to receive and profess faith in the paschal lamb who, by his passion, death and resurrection, has won us victory over sin and death. Each of us thirsts for living water, Christ's divine life. Each of us longs for something beyond our capacity to provide, a deep desire in our soul; only Jesus can supply or satisfy it. Are you thirsty?
 
We may or may not realize it, but in each of us is a thirst for divine love, a more profound longing than we imagine. Unfortunately, we often don't give this a thought. Whenever we find our spirit restless, it is because it is yet to find a suitable home in Jesus Christ. So, we continue to search in the wrong places, like the Samaritan. Lent offers us time to seek Jesus and get attached to Him. He is the trustworthy source of living water, the only thing satisfying our thirst. 
 
Prayers, fasting and almsgiving, are spiritual means of opening up our hearts to Jesus to drench them in the living water, and the water He shall give will become in us a spring welling up to eternal life. So let's keep the spirit of Lent and intensify our thirst for the living water Jesus alone can give. 
 
I ask all of us to pray, especially for our elects, James Hathaway, Samantha Cornwell, Terry Martin and Drake Pugh, who undergo their First Scrutiny this Sunday as part of their spiritual journey toward receiving the Sacraments of Initiation at Easter Vigil. I also ask you to pray for all our confirmands as Bishop Ronald Gainer confirms them this Sunday afternoon. I told them last Sunday during their interview that the best way to prepare for the strengthening of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in them is to thirst for it every day. So may they be satisfied by the living water that Jesus gives.
 
Friday, March 17, is a special day for me-a Nigerian Irish! It is the feast of St. Patrick. As you probably know, the bishop has lifted the lenten obligation to abstain from meat just so that we joyfully celebrate the faith of a great missionary who had his thirst for liberation and joy fulfilled by Jesus. As we say in Irish Gaelic, Beannachtai na Feile Padraig oraibh/ Happy St. Patrick's Day!
 
Your Thirsty Irish,
 
Fr. Bernard, OP
 

Dearly Beloved,
 
"This is my beloved son; listen to him" (Mt 17:5). How do we listen to Jesus, God's beloved son? Moses and Elijah appeared on the mountain of transfiguration, joining Jesus. Jesus was in the company of his close disciples, Peter, James and his brother John when Jesus' face transfigured and his clothes became dazzling white. These appearances and transfiguration are indicative of a divine encounter. Moses and Elijah had previously encountered God on Mount Sinai or Horeb. Jesus has been revealed in his glory as he begins a new exodus that will lead to the liberation of humanity from sin and death by his death on the cross. God the Father commands us to listen to his son at his transfiguration. What do we listen to, and how do we hear?
 
Lent is a season for listening to God's voice speak to our hearts. As we go into the desert to pray and fast with Jesus for forty days, and as we return to the Father and deepen our love and relationship with him through Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, let us not fail to find time to listen to the "sound of silence." I am here alluding to Simon and Garfunkel's classic song title, "The Sound of Silence ("Bridge over Water" and "The Sound of Silence are two of my favorite songs of all time-pardon my digression, I could not resist the temptation. Did I not preach about how to overcome temptations last week? Lol!). It is a paradox. How do you juxtapose sound with silence? How do you hear and listen to the "sound" of silence? I find the song's last lines helpful: "The words of the prophets are written on the subway halls, in tenement halls. And whispered in the sounds of silence." Elijah once showed us that God speaks to us in a "still small voice" (1 Kg 19: 12). 
 
Jesus still speaks to us if we choose to listen. To listen is an active act, not a passive attitude. To listen is to act on what we heard in a "still small voice." That voice speaks to us in Sacred Scriptures, the Holy Eucharist, and meditation before sacred icons like the Crucifix. St. Thomas Aquinas once heard a voice talk to him while meditating on the crucifix in a convent in Naples: "Thou has written well of me, Thomas. What reward will you have." He answered: "Domine, non nisi te (Lord, nothing except you). Likewise, St. Francis heard God telling him while praying before the crucifix in a broken-down church in San Damiano, "Francis, rebuild my church." If you listen to Jesus in the Gospels, Eucharistic adoration, and gaze on the crucifix, you will hear him calling you to a deeper union with him through ongoing conversion.
 
Regarding conversion, the catechumens we sent to the bishop for election are now called elects. They are currently going through a period of purification and enlightenment. This period of interior conversion will be aided by constantly listening to the voice of Jesus calling them to come closer. Let us join them in going through this period as we prepare to renew our baptismal vows at Easter. We have provided opportunities for reflective listening in our parish, especially at Lent. We have a quiet time to listen to Jesus exposed on the altar before or after daily masses, Monday to Friday; we have a bible study on the biblical root of Mass on Tuesday and Wednesday; we have a Hallow app to download on our phones to access podcasts to help us listen to Jesus; Liturgy of the Hours during Eucharistic Adoration on Thursday night inclusive of meditation on the Five Sacred Wounds of Jesus; Stations of the Christ on Friday preceded by a brief reflection on the Five Sacred Wounds of Jesus, and so on and forth.
 
What intentional plans do you have this Lent to listen for the voice of Jesus? Make plans and act on them. Then, I can guarantee you that you will grow closer to Jesus.
 
In His Heart,
 Fr. Bernard, OP