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Showing posts from April, 2025

Fourth Sunday of Easter (Cycle A) "Good Shepherd Sunday"

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The Good Shepherd Lectionary:  49 Reading 1 -  Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Responsorial Psalm -  Psalm 23: 1-6 Reading 2 -  1 Peter 2:20b-25 Alleluia - John 10:14 Gospel -  John 10:1-10 I am the good shepherd, says the Lord! So we have reached the mid-point of the Easter Season and come to what is unofficially known as “Good Shepherd Sunday” because every year at this time we read from John 10, the famous “Good Shepherd Discourse.” For the most part, the readings are focused around the idea of Jesus Christ as our divine Shepherd. But what is a shepherd like? Now, let’s be honest: most of us have never actually spent much time with a literal sheep. We tend to romanticize them as fluffy, docile creatures on greeting cards. Case in point, despite having midwestern farmers as parents, my experience with sheep is limited to petting zoos and the movie Babe … where except for a very talented pig, Shepherds often drive sheep in different directions using dogs to intimidate them...
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Second Sunday of Easter (Cycle C) - "Divine Mercy Sunday"

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Sunday of Divine Mercy Lectionary: 45 Reading 1 -  Acts 5:12-16 Responsorial Psalm -  Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24 Reading 2 -  Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19 Alleluia -  John 20:29 Gospel -  John 20:19-31 LESSON: The Ultimate Revelation of God's Mercy Each Sunday we commemorate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, but in this period after Easter, Sunday takes on an even more illuminating significance.  This Sunday, as we conclude the eight-day solemnity of Easter and continue into the liturgical season of Easter, we celebrate the gift of Divine Mercy. So why is today Divine Mercy Sunday? Saint Faustina Kowalska [koh- VAHL-skuh] was a nun with the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Krackow, Poland. Beginning in 1933, Christ granted her a series of apparitions which, at his request, she recorded in a diary now known as Divine Mercy in My Soul . He gave her a mission, saying: “Today I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want ...
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Holy Week - A Retrospective

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It has now been seven (7) months since my ordination (Sept 21); and now that I have finally become more comfortable with the general format and structure of the liturgy (and my functions within it), along comes Holy Week where everything changes and the cues I have established to prompt my specific participation have become nearly useless ... which means that once again, I find myself alternating between anxiety and panic that I will make an inevitable mistake (although few probably noticed them, I did, and that is enough). The Deacon in the Liturgy Chants from the Roman Missal Holy Week is the most important week in Catholicism. This week of great reverence and reflection spans the final eight days of Jesus’ life—from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.   Palm Sunday [Passion Sunday]  commemorates the entrance of Christ into Jerusalem, during which palm branches were placed in his path, before his arrest on Holy Thursday and his crucifixion on Good Friday. It thus marks the begin...
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