Low Sunday 2011

I hope you had a very pleasant Easter, where ever in the world you celebrated the Resurrection. Holy Week was an incredibly busy week. Easter Week provides a chance to recover! So my postings over the Holy Days were scant. I will put my notes and ideas together at some stage and post them. All in all, this Easter was very special! Good weather and good sized congregations added extra to the celebrations. We arise with Christ and keep going, knowing He goes before us.

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"In union with the whole Church we celebrate that day when Jesus Christ Our Lord, rose from the dead in His human body" The Roman Canon. 


There are so many things to celebrate today. The last day of the Easter Octave makes this an Easter Day. The celebration of the Divine Mercy reminds us of the greatness of God's love and the pledged of love and forgiveness we have received in Jesus. The Gospel tells us today that we are blessed because we have not seen. Easter joy is all over the place! One extra celebration today is the beatification of the Servant of God, Pope John Paul 11.

It only seems like yesterday we heard of the tragic news of his death. I had the privilege of being in St Peter's Square that evening. As long as I live I will never forget it. It was an event of mystical proportions. I was ordained to the deaconate the previous Easter Monday (this was now Saturday). My family had all returned home, the previous evening a number of students form the Irish College had remained in the Square all night, joining with hundreds of others, praying, singing, keeping vigil with someone who was special to us all.

He died about half nine, or twenty to ten. The rosary had just finished. After a pause of a few seconds some extra prayers were offered ad hoc, then came the announcement "Our beloved Holy Father has returned to the House of the Father." Many cried, the Italians clapped in accordance with their tradition, the entire crowd united in prayer, sorrow and mourning. I met people whom I had had known in college, people who until this I had only know by sight - that night we were brothers and sisters, united in the loss of a common father. It was a profound experience of what it means to be Catholic - people from every tribe and people and tongue and nation, formed into one by a common faith

I have often reflected on that night. Particularly I have often reflected on that phrase 'returning to the house of the father'.

Pope, soon to be Blessed, John Paul II procalimed one thing and one thing only - Jesus Christ. In his love of Mary, his condemnation of evil, his striving for the truth to prevail against all odd,  all pointed to the reality of the the love of God made visible in Jesus. You may say that this is a radical simplification of the achievements of a great man, possibly a doctor of the Church, but the essence of what he was about was Christ. In all his journeys he was an apostle of the Lord. From the first moment of his Papacy he challenges us all to open wide the doors to Christ, the only one who will not let us down.

I have not read, nor will I probably read but a fraction of John Paul II's writings. So many of his encyclicals and sermons, which we studied in college, plumb the depth of the heart and mind. The one thing I will learn from him however is; in a world filled with darkness and disappointment, of short cuts and half values, there is a possibility of living the Gospel to the full. The life and death of this great man reminds me  that there is another way - a way of life, a way of truth, a way of hope. Pope John Paul II points us to Jesus; to Calvary and beyond.

The day he took up his sacred office as Successor to St Peter he said "DO NOT BE AFRAID, open wide the doors to Christ" May Blessed John Paul help us in our fears and encourage us by his prayers to open wide the doors to Christ.

The man himself:

This song always reminds me of Pope John Paul II: