“The new commandment is both very simple and very complex. To give my life for love is not for me one giant act, for instance taking a bullet for someone. There could be an occasion when that is the expression of my love, but that’s not what I aim for in following Christ.”
“You planted your holy song, O Lord, in laughing brook and rambling river fed by rain before time.”
“My daughter cheers, ‘Summer’s coming!’ I join her in that song of hopefulness and joy. But for now, for today, it’s spring. The season of resurrection and new life.”
“Now they are opening a crack for another’s well being. And at table they know him by his blessing and breaking of the bread.”
“You enter a dark tomb expecting death, only to find the tomb illuminated with truth. Truth, as in a state of seeing. Or the posture of the soul. Pilate resisted truth, as expressed in his flippantly exclaimed rhetorical question, What is truth? Jesus had already answered the question, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.”‘
“I think about Good Friday, and I thought to myself that this is a cross Notre Dame was bearing at that moment in time. This was their Golgotha that they must endure, just as Christ had to suffer the cross as the women and the beloved disciple watched helplessly.”
“As we move from Lent into the events in Holy Week, we enter one of the busiest times in the church year. Between the plethora of church services that lead up to Easter and the packed lectionary that includes some of the most powerful and exciting scriptures there is a lot going on physically, mentally, and spiritually.”
“As I wipe off the chalice and drape it with a purificator I reflect that I am not a very shiny vessel. And yet God has chosen to abide in my heart.”
“John’s portrayal of Jesus washing feet is that of an artist, almost surreal with imagery more than depiction. John included this whisper of a story in substitution of the Maundy Thursday institution of the Holy Eucharist found in the other Gospels.”
“Train our eyes to see in the dark. On that Friday, that we call good, help us to see the love laid out for the world, on the cross, never to be surpassed.”