What the priest says

If your wife just heard that she has to not have sex for 15 days, because she is having a baby.
And her husband told her that he could not wait 15 days for sex. So after church on a Sunday, he pulled his parish priest a side and told him that he could not wait 15 days for sex. The priest looked him dead straight in the eye and said try for 365 days.

Good Friday

Good Friday is the Friday immediately preceding Easter Sunday. It is celebrated traditionally as the day on which Jesus was crucified. If you are interested in a study of the issue, please see our article that discusses the various views on which day Jesus was crucified. Assuming that Jesus was crucified and died on a Friday, should Christians remember Jesus' death by celebrating Good Friday?

The Bible does not instruct Christians to remember Christ’s death by honoring a certain day. The Bible does give us freedom in these matters, however. Romans 14:5 tells us, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.” Rather than remembering Christ's death on a certain day, once a year, the Bible instructs us to remember Christ’s death by observing the Lord’s Supper. First Corinthians 11:24-26 declares, “...do this in remembrance of me...for whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”

Why is Good Friday referred to as “good”? What the Jewish authorities and Romans did to Jesus was definitely not good (see Matthew chapters 26-27). However, the results of Christ’s death are very good! Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” First Peter 3:18 tells us, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.”

Many Christian churches celebrate Good Friday with a subdued service, usually in the evening, in which Christ’s death is remembered with solemn hymns, prayers of thanksgiving, a message centered on Christ suffering for our sakes, and observance of the Lord's Supper. Whether or not Christians choose to “celebrate” Good Friday, the events of that day should be ever on our minds because the death of Christ on the cross is the paramount event of the Christian faith.

Holy Thursday

HOLY THURSDAY is the most complex and profound of all religious observances, saving only the Easter Vigil. It celebrates both the institution by Christ Himself of the Eucharist and of the institution of the sacerdotal priesthood (as distinct from the "priesthood of all believers") for in this, His last supper with the disciples, a celebration of Passover, He is the self-offered Passover Victim, and every ordained priest to this day presents this same sacrifice, by Christ's authority and command, in exactly the same way. The Last Supper was also Christ's farewell to His assembled disciples, some of whom would betray, desert or deny Him before the sun rose again.

On Holy Thursday morning there is a special Mass in Cathedral Churches, celebrated by the bishop and as many priests of the diocese as can attend, because it is a solemn observance of Christ's institution of the priesthood at the Last Supper. At this "Chrism Mass" the bishop also blesses the Oil of Chrism used for Baptism, Confirmation and Anointing of the sick or dying. The bishop may wash the feet of twelve of the priests, to symbolize Christ's washing the feet of His Apostles, the first priests.

The evening Holy Thursday Liturgy, marks the end of Lent and the beginning of the sacred "Triduum" ("three days") of Holy Week, which culminates in the Easter Vigil, and concludes at Vespers on the evening of Easter day (see Paschalis Sollemnitatis, §§ 38-40). The Mass begins in the evening, because Passover began at sundown; it commemorates Our Lord's institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper. It also shows both the worth God ascribes to the humility of service, and the need for cleansing with water (a symbol of baptism) in the Mandatum, washing, commemorating Jesus' washing the feet of His apostles, as well as in the priest's stripping and washing of the altar. Cleansing, in fact, gave this day of Holy Week the name Maundy Thursday.
The action of the Church on this night also witnesses to the Church's esteem for Christ's Body present in the consecrated Host in the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, carried in solemn procession to the flower-bedecked Altar of Repose, where it will remain "entombed" until the communion service on Good Friday. No Mass will be celebrated again in the Church until the Easter Vigil proclaims the Resurrection.

And finally, there is the continued Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament by the people during the night, just as the disciples stayed with the Lord during His agony on the Mount of Olives before the betrayal by Judas.

There is such an abundance of symbolism in the solemn celebration of the events of Holy Thursday layer upon layer, in fact that we can no more than hint at it in these few words. For many centuries, the Last Supper of Our Lord has inspired great works of art and literature, such as the glorious stained glass window in Chartres cathedral (above), Leonardo's ever popular (and much imitated) Last Supper in the 16th century; and a reminiscence called Holy Thursday, by the French novelist François Mauriac, written in the 1930s. (A chapter of Mauriac's meditation was reprinted in Voices, Lent-Easter 2002, with permission from Sophia Institute Press).

Psalm Sunday

We now come to the Sunday with a split personality. It starts with an upbeat gospel recounting Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It is a festive affair, complete with a parade route strewn with palm branches instead of ticker tape. But we quickly progress to the stark reading of Jesus’ passion, bearable only because we already know its happy ending. Mel Gibson’s film did us a favor in reminding us how shockingly brutal the whole business really was.

Two names for the same day: Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday. I propose a third name: Fickle Sunday. For the same crowd that was cheering during the parade were jeering a few days later. They’d been wowed by His sermons, fed with loaves and fishes, healed of their diseases, delivered of their demons. But as soon as the tide began to turn, so did they. Their cries of “Hosanna” turned to shouts of a very different kind: “Crucify Him!”

Of course, He was not surprised in the least. The gospels tell us that He knew the human mind heart all too well. He was not fooled by all the acclamations and fanfare. Flattery could not swell His head. He had no illusions of grandeur or ambition for worldly glory. In fact, our second reading tells us that He had willingly emptied Himself of heavenly glory in pursuit of His true passion — His Father’s will and our salvation.

He “set His face like flint.” He was on a mission and nothing would deter Him. He barreled through barriers that usually stop us dead in our tracks — fear of ridicule, fear of suffering, abandonment by our closest companions. He was willing to endure the sting of sin to blot out sin, and was eager to face death in order to overcome it.

He did indeed have a “well-trained tongue.” His words had mesmerized the crowds, intrigued Herod and even made Pilate stop and think. But now His lips are strangely silent. All the gospels point out that He said very little during His passion, collecting only seven brief statements from the cross. Maybe this was to fulfill the Scripture that said “like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth” (Is 53: 7b). Actually, everything that happened in those fateful hours fulfilled Scripture. Isaiah 50 had foretold the beating and mockery. Psalm 22 lays it all out hundreds of years before it happens: His thirst, the piercing of His hands and feet by Gentiles (called “dogs” by the Jews), and the casting of lots for His clothing. The opening line of this psalm happens to be “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Could it be that the Lord uttered this phrase to remind us that this was all in the plan?

So the virtual silence of his well-trained tongue was to fulfill Scripture. But there was another reason for His silence. Though Jesus was destined to preach on Good Friday, the message was not to be delivered in words. The language of this sermon was to be body language. Good Friday, according to Jewish reckoning, actually began at Sundown on Holy Thursday. So on the beginning of His final day, Jesus gave us the verbal caption of His last and greatest sermon: “This is my body, given for you; this is my blood, which is poured out for you.”

“I love you” is not so much something you say as something you demonstrate. Diamonds may be a moving testimony to love, but the laying down of one’s life is even more compelling. And though this life is human and therefore vulnerable, it is also divine and therefore infinite in value. A gift so valuable that it outweighs every offense committed from the dawn of time till the end of the world. An act so powerful that it melts hearts, opens the barred gates of paradise, and makes all things new.

How can we have a deeper conversation with God

Let me offer a 3-step plan:  1.)  Take Inventory, 2.) 
 Discern Your Desires, and 3.)  Take Baby Steps

1.)  Take Inventory.  Tonight, make a list of everything you are doing today in your spiritual life.  Write down if you go to Mass every Sunday, if you say prayers in the morning or evening, if you pray as a family before meals.  Be honest.  Maybe your list will only be as long as "Going to Mass on Sunday."  That's OK.  This isn't about feeling bad about where you are.  This is about understanding where you are today, so you can plan where you will go tomorrow.

2.)  Discern Your Desires.  Make another list.  On this list, write down where you'd like to go in your spiritual life.  Maybe you want to say a Rosary each day.  Maybe you want to make visits to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.  Maybe you want to go to confession more frequently.  Maybe you'd like 5 minutes of silent prayer with the Lord each day.  Prayerfully consider how you'd like to grow in your relationship with God and make a list of your desires.
3.)  Take Baby Steps.  I can't run a marathon.  But I can run to the refrigerator.  That's my baby step.  My friend, Fr. Jake Runyon just got back from a vacation in which he pedaled his bike around Lake Michigan!  870 miles!  Not exactly my idea of a vacation.  It wasn't Fr. Jake's first time on a bike.  He had to take baby steps to get to that point.  Often, when want to accomplish something, we will get super-ambitious and make big plans for ourselves and sometimes we will try to do to much too soon.  When that happens, we often fail and then we say, "Well, I guess prayer doesn't really work for me."  Or, "I guess I'm no good at prayer."  That's nonsense.  Take baby steps.  When I was in the seminary, I wanted to cultivate the habit of praying a Rosary each day, but I was failing.  So my advisor told me to pray one decade each day for a month.  Then 2 decades the next month and so on. 

And we've got an event coming up that can serve as a great launching pad for deepening your spiritual life.  It's a retreat called "The Sacred and the Ordinary: Uncovering God's Presence in Our Busy Family Lives."  You will learn how to recognize how God reveals Himself to us in our busy schedules and obligations.  It will take place Saturday, July 31st from 9AM-3PM in the St. Vincent's Spiritual Center.  There's a signup in the gathering space after Mass.

Taking baby steps forward in our spiritual life will deepen our conversation with God.  They will deepen our relationship with God.  We will all meet Him face-to-face one day.  When we do so, we want to meet a very good friend, not just a casual acquaintance.  Taking baby steps forward will help us be both Martha and Mary at the same time.