Palm Sunday, 11:15am -Decided that it would be busy this morning, so I left early. Turns out that I didn’t leave early enough, got to the Church only 15 minutes before Mass. Parking lot was completely full. Remembered what Fr. Bert Foliot at Our Lady of Lourdes in Toronto once told me: “If you arrive early, you should park further away so that the people who come late can have the spots that are closest to the Church.” Found a spot in the back parking lot.
11:17am – The 10am Mass is just ending. Just saw Fr. Boniface and he’s wearing his red stole. Red stole!?! I thought today was purple! Where’s my red stole? At home. I actually own three sets. All three of my red stoles are at home. Too late to go and get it. I hope Deacon Dave lets me borrow his.
11:30am – Mass starts on time. Deacon Dave was nice and let me borrow his dalmatic. Mass starts without a hitch. I proclaim the “Hosanna” Gospel from the back of the Church. Everything is very solemn.
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I received an email early yesterday morning from a friend who said she’d be thinking about me these days because of the papal election. She wondered if she’d see a progressive pope in her lifetime.
In a way, I guess, Pope Francis is not going to be a “progressive” pope. He is not going to ordain women, agree with the re-definition of marriage, nor will he say that abortion is OK under certain circumstances. He’s Catholic and that means he’s a liberal when it comes to social issues and a conservative when it comes to moral issues. Besides, these terms, “liberal” and “conservative” don’t really apply to Catholicism. They are political terms.
But, is he progressive? Let’s back up a bit: Pope Benedict XVI decided that he needed to serve the Church in a new capacity and that it was OK for the pope to retire. That’s progressive.
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Here’s a reflection I wrote on August 26, 2008 on the Catechesis given by Cardinal Mario Bergoglio (now, Pope Francis) at the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec City.
Ok – This may come out sounding a bit complicated, so you’ll have to bear with me –maybe help me sort it out – I apologise for not sorting it out first before bringing you into it, but it is too big to contain. Think of Cat Steven’s song, “I can’t let it in… I gotta let it out…”
I was disappointed about half way during the Eucharistic Congress, because my goal to write a bit about every day was not made possible. By day three, there was just too much. I managed a blog entry on day four, and promised more, but was not able to do it.
The reason why this upset me is because there was so much to share, so many insights, so many “A-ha” moments. We recently taped a Catholic Focus talking about our Eucharistic Congress experience (to be broadcast in September), and it allowed me to “relive” the Congress and be able to remember many of those wonderful moments.
Not surprisingly, for me, many of them had to do, not with the Eucharist specifically, but with marriage. Which makes sense, because what is true for one Sacrament, is true for all of them.
On June 18th, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Primate of Argentina, spoke on the daily theme of “The Eucharist builds up the Church, the Sacrament of Salvation”, his talk titled: “The Eucharist and the Church, Mystery of the Covenant”.
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A reflection for the 4th Sunday, Lent, Year C
First Reading: Joshua 5:9, 10-12 (or 1 Samuel 16: 1, 6-7, 10-13)
Psalm: 34 “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (or 23 “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”)
2nd Reading 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 (or Ephesians 5:8-14)
Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 (or John 9:1-41)
“He longed to fill his belly with the food of the pigs.” That makes me sad. But not because there are people in the world today that are that hungry – children that are this hungry; people who live in darkness, but because all of us, at some level, are that hungry. We are all hungry, we all need to be satisfied. We are all in darkness and need to see; we all hunger for truth. This is one of the deepest longings of the human heart.
I think that’s what we’re seeing happening today. Pope Benedict announced that he was retiring almost four weeks ago and every day, on every major news network, there has been something about the Church: CBS, CNN, ABC, BBC and in Canada, CTV, shows like Canada AM; City TV, CP24, CBC TV and Radio; every day have some segment about the Church. Sure they want to talk about sex scandals and women’s ordination, but even when they speak about those issues, the coverage has been fairly positive. They’ve had young Catholics, who love the Church talk about their experiences – this is very positive. And did you see Peter Mansbridge’s interview on the National with Cardinal Marc Ouellet? It’s very positive coverage. And that’s because people are hungry and people are in darkness. And people know deep down inside that what the world offers is not food and is not light – it’s not the fullness of truth. And, I think that they sense that the Church can offer us Truth. But society doesn’t give us permission to talk about Church and God. Sure we can ask the big questions, who am I? Why Am I here? What’s the purpose of my life? from a philosophical point of view, but we definitely cannot talk about Church and we feel that we cannot talk about Jesus.
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deacon pedro 