Twilight Twitches

Dear Family,
Father Larry Gillick, S.J. has written many reflections for the Creighton University Online Ministry. They publish meditations based on the daily scripture readings. I was really touched by this one and hope you like it as much as I did. – Fr. Jim

Dear Family,
As the saying goes, man proposes, and God disposes. My hope and expectation was to celebrate The Sacred Three Days with all of you. I did, sort of, from afar.

Before anything else, from the depth of my heart, I want to thank Father Gary Wiesmann, Monsignor Mike Hippee and Father Antony Vayalikarottu for coming to celebrate the Holy Week liturgies. How blessed and fortunate we were to get men like these to fill in at the last minute in the most demanding celebrations of our whole liturgy.

Each of those men will probably tell you that the main reason it worked was because Annie Gardner made it work. If it wasn’t for Annie, I have no idea what we would have done. For me personally, maybe Annie was God’s way of showing me his mercy, and His timing couldn’t have been better.

Dear Family,
“Jesus Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!”

That’s what it’s been about. That’s what it is about. That’s what it will be about.

One of the nicest experiences I have had in a long time was the time I spent with Molly Cowart, as she prepared to become our newest member. We baptized her (last night) at this year’s Easter Vigil celebration.

Among other resources, we went through a book called “Christ Among Us.” I still think it’s one of the best presentations of the Catholic Faith. It’s been around for fifty years, but went through numerous revisions and updates, so it has a very relevant freshness. But in my years, I’ve never had the pleasure of someone delving so thoroughly into the theology and history of the church as Molly did.

Dear Family,
“Hosanna to the Son of David.” What would it have been like to be one of the crowd crammed into the streets of Jerusalem seeing this guy everyone is talking about?

I could only answer that question if I had been one of those people with all their hopes, expectations, disappointments, and fears of one who belonged to a subjugated nation.

Who will deliver us from the Romans? Who will restore our nation to its freedom and independence? As Mark tells it, the crowd cried out, “Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come!” There it is. The Kingdom. Jesus was a means to an end, not the end itself. Freedom from foreign domination! That’s the headline.