Marvels of Mass

By now, we’re all kind of used to the ‘Easter’ thing. The candy is gone out of the stores, no more Easter bunnies running around, the hard-boiled eggs have gone bad, the Easter lilies are dying. But, we’re still celebrating Easter in Church! The flowers have been renewed, the Alleluias still sound strong, the Easter Baptismal water still flows! We still have another 4 weeks of celebrating until we return to Ordinary time, with a couple other liturgical feasts thrown in at the end. This long period of celebration shows to us the importance of what this entire Easter feast means to us.

Today’s Gospel passage reflects on Jesus’ encounter with two disciples, after His death and resurrection, while on the road. He even proves to them that he wasn’t a ghost by eating a piece of fish, since we all know that ghosts can’t eat! He then goes on to ‘open their minds to understand the Scriptures’.

Our songs this weekend reflect the Easter season that we are in with “Festival Canticle: Worthy is Christ” and “The Strife is O’er”, two strong hymns revealing the basic tenets of Christ’s Resurrection and victory over death.

Today we celebrate the Octave of Easter. That means we should celebrate this Sunday just as we celebrated Easter Sunday last weekend. The great dismissal is sung again today with a double ‘Alleluia’. We still rejoice in our Risen Lord!

Excerpt from St. Augustine: Discourse on the Psalms: The Easter Alleluia

Today we begin what is typically referred to as ‘Holy Week’.  It is a time set aside by the Church for us to commemorate the events of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection.  Following are excerpts from the Ceremonial of Bishops, 1984, regarding these services.

We are now here at the last ‘regular’ Sunday of Lent. Next week begins Holy Week with the celebration of Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil, and Easter Sunday.

Our opening song each and every week this Lenten season is “Save Your People” by J. Farrell, reminding us that it’s still not too late to turn to Him. He will always be there for us.

This Sunday is known as Laetare Sunday.

This weekend, we celebrate the First Scrutiny with the elect. Who are the elect? These are the people who are preparing to enter our community at the Easter Vigil. Some have been baptized already and are the Candidates; those who are not baptized are the Catechumens. After the Rite of Election during the first week of Lent, they are all now called the elect (technically, the catechumens are just ‘the elect’; the candidates remain as ‘candidates’ – but for our sake, we refer to all of them as ‘the elect’). During the following two weekends, we will celebrate the 2nd and 3rd Scrutinies.

This Sunday ends our current liturgical season of Ordinary Time, as Lent will begin this coming Wednes-day on February 17, (Ash Wednesday). We will sing the Gloria and Alleluia for the last time today – not to be heard again until the Easter Vigil on April 3.

In today’s Gospel we hear of Christ’s Transfiguration on the mountaintop.  Every year we hear this Gospel on the 2nd Sunday of Lent, regardless of which cycle we are in.  (Remember the Church Sundays are divided into 3 cycles – A, B and C.  We are currently in Year B.)  We hear as the underlying message in the Gospel passages of recent weeks to follow him – whether it was when Jesus was calling his apostles at the seashore, or when John the Baptist told the disciples to follow Him when He passed by, or during any of the miracles that have happened in the recent Gospels.  We are to follow Hi