During the pandemic of COVID in America, a blessing was receipt in email of Gospel reflections by a superb priest of our parish. This was from April 2020. At this time we lay people were not allowed to go to Catholic Church because they were closed due to COVID. Gospel Reflection Palm Sunday Matthew 26 14-27 and 66 Readings for Mass on Palm Sunday can be found HERE. I’ve been a priest nearly 4 years, and never did I think a Lent would provide me with the opportunity to truly live in the desert as Our Lord did. Think about it, Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, in complete isolation, in prayer and in sacrifice preparing for what God the Father would eventually ask him to do: lay down his life. In these times of great frustration and fear, many of us are left to wonder what will become of us? What will become of the world that only a few short weeks ago we left? Will it ever be the same? I think the simple answer to these questions is to recognize that if the world we come back to is the world we left, then we have failed… The Gospel reading this weekend gives us the opportunity to live, as much as we can, through the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, our merciful savior. Each and every time we reflect upon this reality, we are called to change. We are a people of the cross, but we are also a people of the resurrection! Like our Lord, who spent such a sacred time in the Garden of Gethsemane, we are called to spend this time in silent prayer and worship. Christ himself suffered in the garden - to the point of sweating blood…but in this suffering, he never lost hope - he never ceased in trusting God the Father. Perhaps, for a moment, we are called to trust as Jesus did. We do not know what the future holds, we have no understanding of what world we will be left with when this is all over, but we do know that God has won the war against evil. No matter how dark it gets, we know that light of Christ always conquers evil! We are called to simply trust. Yes, of course, it’s difficult to trust in the unknown, but as Christians, we know who we are called to trust Jesus Christ, who willingly laid down his life for us…out of love. We are called to trust with love, knowing that our merciful Father never asks us to bear the burden alone. Have faith, Oh people of God! When we have the opportunity to look back on this time in the desert, may we do so with renewed faith and a fresh set of eyes. What is God calling us to learn? How is he calling us closer to his merciful heart? And most important: how did we respond? Fr. Fr. NOT SHOWN ON PURPOSE End of email sent on 4.4.2020
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