April 15, 2025, Class Update: Holy Week and the Triduum

Greetings everyone!

The Paschal Mystery of Christ's Death and Resurrection is at the heart of our faith.

The days when we commemorate these central events happen at the end of Holy Week during the three days of the Triduum that begins on the evening of Maundy Thursday, continuing through Good/God's Friday and Holy Saturday, and lasts until Resurrection/Easter Sunday.

The Triduum was our focus during class time.

Our opening song was "Glory in the Cross of Christ", and its lyrics encompass our focus during Holy Week and the Triduum.

During His Passion, Christ suffered greatly, and through the ages, people have asked why there's suffering in the world.  Bishop Barron offers some thoughts on this topic in this homily.  We listened to a few minutes of it starting around the 8:00 mark when he shares a story about his family's dog when he was growing up.

In Philippians 2:6-11, the second reading for Palm Sunday Mass, St. Paul writes that Christ humbled Himself in obedience to the Father and suffered greatly and then died on the Cross, fulfilling the plan to redeem us from sin, and then He rose to new life.

We recall Christ's exuberant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and we hold palms to remember how Jesus got lavish treatment when He entered.

On Maundy Thursday, we celebrate when Christ instituted the Eucharist, and the priesthood, at a meal with the apostles celebrating the Jewish Passover, when they remembered God's deliverance of His people from slavery in Egypt and established a covenant with them.  Christ instituted a new covenant at that Passover meal, with a new commandment to love one another.  Maundy comes from the Latin term mandatum, the word for command.  (I recorded this video 5 years ago to illustrate elements of Maundy Thursday.)

Then we remember the Crucifixion on Good Friday, terminology that comes to us from the phrase "God's Friday".  During the liturgy of this day, we venerate the Cross by touching it with a reverent gesture.

The darkness of Holy Week Friday continues when the Holy Saturday Easter Vigil begins with the church in darkness.  As we hear stories of how God sought to save His people, the light in the church grows gradually brighter until all the lights are illuminated when we sing the Alleluia acclamation and rejoice that Christ is Risen.  (I also recorded a video on Holy Saturday and its stunning visual effects.)

There is so much joy that marks Easter Sunday when we celebrate the Lord's Resurrection, and it continues for 50 Days until Pentecost.

Becuase of the Resurrection, we are truly a people of hope, and that is the focus of this year's 2025 Jubilee.  We finished class with the Jubilee 2025 Year Prayer.  Everyone got a copy of it upon leaving class, along with a handout on the Shroud of Turin that I got from the National Eucharistic Congress.

We'll focus on the meaning of the Easter Season next time we gather as we approach the end of the RE year.

Please feel free to contact me with questions, etc.

Remember, you're not just lucky, you're blessed.

We remain connected as One Church bound by faith in Jesus Christ Who humbled Himself to the point of death on the Cross to bring us salvation and new life:

All my relations.

God's blessings for Holy Week and the Triduum,

Paul

Inside Ascension on Palm Sunday

April 8, 2025, Class Update: God Working in Us

Greetings everyone!

During our opening prayer time was this video of Chris Tomlin's performance of "Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)".  It features scenes from the movie Amazing Grace, one of my favorites that I watch annually.

In celebration of Percy Julian's birthday on April 11, we watched a clip from the biographical documentary on his life Forgotten Genius, in which he shares a story about his great-grandmother at the time of his college graduation.  She bore wounds from a beating she received in the waning days of slavery and then said his graduation, with honors, was worth all the scars.

Jesus bears the wounds from His crucifixion as a sign that His wounds were part of the sacrifice by which God redeemed us.

We continue to re-present that sacrifice when we gather for Mass.  I shared some analogies about the Eucharist to help us understand this mystery a little better.

We also watched part of actor Jonathan Roumie's speech at the National Eucharistic Congress when he does a dramatic reading of John 6:47-69, a scene that isn't part of The Chosen series in which he stars.

This link is for the entire speech, which lasts about 15 minutes, and his dramatic reading starts around the 9:00 mark.

I was there when Jonathan Roumie spoke before tens of thousands gathered in Lucas Oil Stadium on the second to last day of the National Eucharistic Congress.

Ultimately, at the end of that passage, some disciples stop following Jesus, but the Twelve remained committed, as St. Peter, speaking for all of them, expresses belief in Jesus.  We are called to go forth from frequent reception of the Eucharist to confess our faith in God by how we live.

One great example of someone who expressed her faith in Christ was 16-year-old Brazilian Olympic athlete Rayssa Leal, who competed in the 2024 Paris Summer Games, and used sign language to share a verse from John chapter 14.

This video shares the story, and the report itself ends around the 1:30 mark.

On March 25, hundreds gathered to testify to the beauty of all life, including the unborn, at the Illinois March for Life in Springfield. The Diocese of Springfield, IL, made this video recapping the event.  I make a cameo appearance at the 2:16 mark.

We concluded class with Philippians 3:8-14, in which St. Paul writes about how he considers the Cross to be the greatest gain, and strives constantly to grow in faith grounded in the Cross of Christ.  It was the second reading for Mass in Cycle C of the Fifth Sunday of Lent, which was April 6.)

The Cross is a central part of Holy Week and the Triduum, which will be our focus in our upcoming class on April 15.

Please feel free to contact me with questions, etc.

Remember, you're not just lucky, you're blessed.

We remain united as One Church, professing faith that shows the power of the Cross in our lives:

All my relations.

Paul

P.S. A very Happy Belated Birthday to our class aide, Hadley, whose birthday was on April 9.  Thanks to the students in class for signing a card for her.