I'm Monsignor Gerard O’Connor from the Office of Divine Worship here at the Archdiocese of Portland. This Sunday, we celebrate the beginning of Holy Week with Palm Sunday, and unusually for the liturgical year, we will have two gospels this Sunday. The first will be at the beginning of Mass before the possession of the palms, and the second will be at the normal place however, the prolonged gospel, because today we will hear the passion of the Lord.
In the beginning of Mass we celebrate the entrance to Jerusalem of Christ on the donkey with the crowd singing "Hosanna". Then during the main gospel of Mass, we hear the passion of the Lord as well. This passion will get us in the mood for Holy Week as we follow the Lord in his footsteps going through that terrible passion, but coming to the end of the week, when we celebrate his Resurrection and the glory of the Lord and this beautiful Easter feast.
I'm Monsignor Gerard O’Connor from the Office of Divine Worship here at the Archdiocese of Portland. This weekend we celebrate the fifth Sunday of Lent and our gospel is that very familiar scene of the visitation of our Lord to Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus. Eventually, the Lord will bring Lazarus back to life.
The interesting thing here is the Lord asked Martha what she thinks about the resurrection, and she affirms that she knows that Lazarus will rise on the last day, and the Lord tells her, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me, even though he dies, will have life.”
This is a great clarion call for us as we approach Holy week, and we will celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord, that great feast of Easter. Remembering also that Christ through his Resurrection put an end to death. Although Lazarus would die again, we will not after the Resurrection, because He is the Resurrection and the Life.
I'm Monsignor Gerard O’Connor from the Office of Divine Worship here in the Archdiocese of Portland. This week, we celebrate the third Sunday of Lent and our gospel reading for this year's cycle is the woman at the well, Samaritan woman, that our Lord encounters when he stops to pause on his journey.
I think one of the great points of this beautiful gospel is that the Lord does not discriminate against anybody. He doesn't have favourites. He will talk to anybody, but he will do that in truth. This is one of the great things when the Lord eats with sinners, the Lord sits and talks with people that are pariahs as far as the Jewish people are concerned. He tells them the truth.
We see here at the well, he tells the woman exactly what she has done, as she says. In that, she is amazed by the truth that is explained to her.
That is part of the gospel is that we love everybody, but we love them with truth as well and not hiding some of the, perhaps, hard parts of the gospel. I think that comes out in today's holy scripture; the Lord loves us but loves with great truth.
I'm Monsignor Gerard O'Connor from the Office of Divine Worship here in the Archdiocese of Portland. This weekend, we will celebrate the second Sunday of Lent and our Gospel reading is the Transfiguration.
A sign of how important the Transfiguration was to the early church is that this scene appears in all three of the Synoptic Gospels and is given to us every Sunday through the liturgical cycle of this time of Lent.
Transfiguration was really meant, I think, to be a boost to the disciples. The Lord knowing that they would go through the passion with him and that their faith would be tempted, they were brought to this point where their faith was in fact boosted by the appearance of the voice of the Heavenly Father, reminding them that this was his beloved Son.
This time of Lent we all need a little boost, and we get that in different ways. We get that through celebration of the sacraments, we get it through prayer and fasting, and we get it through spiritual reading, you know, just shoring up our own prayer life to get ready for the suffering of the Passion.
We come from the other end because we know the good news of the resurrection, of course. The disciples in the scene of the Transfiguration didn't know that yet. So we know the whole story; we know the victory of Christ, but still, at this time when we're about to go through the passion with him, it's good for us to boost our faith as well.