Parish Bulletin for Sunday, April 2, 2006

FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT

                      Cycle A

"Lazarus Come Out!"

The raising of Lazarus is a many layered story where death and life touch each other, where Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, shows us once more that his imminent death will not be the last word, and where Jesus reveals the depth of love he holds for Lazarus, Martha and Mary.

It reminds us once more that this love for friends is extended to all and the invitation to share in eternal life with him is open to all who answer the call.

Going to Lazarus meant going into the den of vipers – Jesus must enter Judea and he knows that there are those who are plotting his death and will stop at nothing to make sure he is silenced. Regardless, Jesus goes to his friends and risks the dangers.

So it has been for followers of the Christ throughout Christian history and so it will continue. Death is as inherent to following Jesus as is the life that is promised to all who are faithful.

The Lazarus event affirms the power of Jesus over death and is also the event that seals his fate. Jesus is the one man through whose singular dying and rising we are saved. Jesus is the man who has done the "far, far better thing" for all of us. We who believe in him, even if we die, we will live forever.

TUESDAY, April 4

Lenten Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Lydia Arsenault

Requested by husband

WEDNESDAY, April 5

Lenten Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Barbara and Francesca Drake

Requested by Rita Drake

THURSDAY, April 6

Lenten Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Georgina Aprile

Requested by husband

FRIDAY, April 7

Lenten Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Amelia Couvinha

Requested by Helen Sousa

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, April 9, 2006

PASSION SUNDAY

This Sunday we will once more participate in the reading of the Passion of the Lord. You will notice that the homily this weekend is rather short. The reason for this may at first seem rather obvious; the reading is longer than usual and the preacher is giving us a break. That may be true; however, when we examine the meanings of the root word for homily, which comes from the Latin word, homilos, we find reference to the word crowd. This could suggest that the group experience derived from a more participatory approach to proclaiming the Gospel is as beneficial as one person interpreting the text for all.

Dividing the text into parts for narrator and specific speakers including Jesus, with the assembly participating as the crowd through active listening, brings home the fact that this is not a past, but a present event. We are in the story, invited to identify with the emotions, decisions and actions of the characters. Here is our communal examination of conscience, our chance to connect to the suffering and death of Jesus to the front-page stories of both violence and compassion being lived out in our world.

Jesus was arrested and tried at night, in secret, taken from one detention centre to another, mocked, beaten, tortured, and then sacrificed out of political expediency. It appears from all the gospel accounts that the torture of Jesus was a commonplace occurrence, a sport for the soldiers who worked for Pilate. These same soldiers were used to the war on zealots and insurgents who were opposed to Roman rule. Jesus, though innocent of any crime, was crucified between two such insurgents as a public show of Roman power meant to intimidate and deter such resistance.

This Sunday we stand in our churches re-enacting an account of heartbreaking cruelty that has become universal and timeless. It happened long ago; it happened yesterday; it is happening today. We are invited to take it to heart, to imagine it vividly, and then interpret it in the light of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who bears on his shoulders the sins of the world for our sake.

If we accept this invitation, we will be ready for Easter Sunday, when the crucified, risen Christ leads us out into the world.

TUESDAY, April 11

HOLY WEEK

8:30 a.m. - † Mary Carter

Requested by Winnie Caballero

WEDNESDAY, April 12

HOLY WEEK

8:30 a.m. - † Barbara Manza

Requested by Manza family

THURSDAY, April 13

HOLY THURSDAY

7:30 p.m. – Mass of the Lord's Supper

FRIDAY, April 14

GOOD FRIDAY

3:00 p.m. – Celebration of the Lord's Passion

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, April 16, 2006

EASTER!

The Resurrection of Jesus

Everything the gospels tell us about Jesus comes to us in the light of decades of reflection on his ministry after the resurrection. The resurrection was the foundation of early Christian belief in Jesus. His followers realized that by raising Jesus to new life, God was putting his 'stamp of approval' on Jesus' teaching and ministry once and for all time.

Through Jesus, God offers to transform the lives of all believers. It is the conscious presence of the living Christ whom God raised up on the third day, who ate and drank with his own after he rose from the dead and who was seen by many witnesses.

Paul tells us in the second reading that rejoicing is the order of the day because believers have died with Christ and shall live forever with him in glory. Joy and hope and peace are the signs of Christian faith because Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified is raised – no longer does the tomb encase him. He lives and we who believe in him shall also live forever. The signs that celebrate our faith are signs of triumph, signs of light and signs of life. It is these signs that bear witness to others so that all will know to whom we belong, in whom we believe and whose words and works we have accepted so that they may direct and shape our lives.

It is the resurrection that uniquely demonstrates Jesus' victory over sin and death as well as God's vindication of all that Jesus did and said. This is truly the good news! Jesus lives and Joy abounds!

TUESDAY, April 18

EASTER OCTAVE

8:30 a.m. - † Ernie Garlichs

Requested by daughter Marion

WEDNESDAY, April 19

EASTER OCTAVE

8:30 a.m. - † Sofie Waychison

Requested by Peter Waychison and family

THURSDAY, April 20

EASTER OCTAVE

8:30 a.m. - † Eric Goguen

Requested by friends

FRIDAY, April 21

EASTER OCTAVE

8:30 a.m. – Intentions: Greta Dooley

Requested by husband

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, April 23, 2006

Second Sunday of Easter

Breaking Open the Consequences of Easter!

Another Easter has come, and with it another season of remembering the Christ-event by which, through which and because of which all of humankind has been given the opportunity to be transformed. While the consequences of the Christ-event are many and are available to all, these consequences, if they are to be enjoyed, must be daily and freely appropriated in faith. Some of the wondrous consequences of the dying and rising of Jesus are represented in each of today's scripture texts. As the Word and the gifts of Easter are proclaimed yet again in our hearing, so also is extended the invitation to welcome these gifts into our lives.

One of the foremost consequences that has come to us because of Jesus is the gift of being begotten by God. To put it another way, believing in Jesus leads us to being God's children, and within this special relationship born of faith and sealed in love, believers are made capable of loving on another as true brothers and sisters. We do not always do so, and we often even despise one another – but this only proves that the gift has not yet been fully unwrapped and that we have work to do in order to understand what this gift is meant to be.

In the very early decades of the church when the gift was in its newness, those who believed and were begotten of God bore such a love for one another that it caused quite a stir amongst their contemporaries. In today's first reading, Luke testifies to the ideal by which those early believers in Jesus tried to live. While Acts does record discord among these same believers later, today we are inspired by the quality of their communal life.

In addition to the gifts of being begotten by God and of sharing our lives together in Christ, today's Gospel reminds us that peace and forgiveness are also available to us because of Easter. The risen Christ breathes peace deep into our darknesses and fears. We need only dare to inhale and surrender to serenity. Forgiveness, too, comes to those who repent, and it remains a life-giving resource to those who, in turn, will also be forgiving of others.

TUESDAY, April 25

St. Mark

8:30 a.m. - † Fred Locicero

Requested by daughter Sarah, son Al and family

WEDNESDAY, April 26

Easter Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Barbara Manza

Requested by Manza family

THURSDAY, April 27

Easter Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Inez Yee

Requested by Mary Ward staff

FRIDAY, April 28

Easter Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Marcelo Briones

Requested by Elma and staff at Price Waterhouse

Parish Bulletin for Sunday, April 30, 2006

Third Sunday of Easter

LUKE 24:35-48

Luke's Gospel this week occurs following the encounter on the road to Emmaus and serves to establish very clearly for both the disciples present and for all disciples in every time the flesh and bones of the risen Christ. This was no ghostly apparition, but a Jesus truly present in visible, palpable form. "Look at my hands and my feet." The wounds of the cross were clearly visible.

Then Jesus asked for something to eat. In the Jewish tradition at the time, otherworldly visitors did not eat. The risen Jesus can be seen; the risen Jesus eats real food! Luke is telling us something important about the risen Lord and is revealing something significant about the nature of Jesus' victory over death. It is not an escape from this perishable frame, but rather a transformation of it. It is not a transformation into a purely spiritual being because Jesus remained flesh and bone, although immortal and not restricted by time and space.

Paul, too, wrote about this in one of his letters to the Corinthians. Both Paul and Luke understood the risen Christ as the prototype of Christian existence and Jesus' victory over death as the very same victory for which his disciples are to hope.

But what about us? We cannot see the risen Christ, we cannot hear his voice, and we cannot touch him. Obviously, the Lucan Jesus anticipated our longing; certainly, he knows our desires and our need for union. For this reason, one of the overriding functions of Luke 24 is to clarify the nature of Eucharist for Luke's readers.

Like the meals Jesus shared all during his ministry, the Eucharist is a meal of communion where disciples are nourished in every way. But at this special meal, unlike all the others, it is Jesus himself who is the nourishment. Our understanding of God's plan and Jesus' role in our salvation is clarified, remembered and celebrated with the bread of the Word – with the law of Moses, the prophets, the psalms, the Gospels and the letters to the churches. With the bread of Eucharist, we touch and are touched by Jesus. We eat and become one with him, with one another, and one with all those who throughout history have ever been fed, body and soul, at the Eucharistic feasts that Jesus hosts.

All those who share in the bread of the Word and the bread of the Eucharist are commissioned to be witnesses of the saving death and resurrection of Jesus as well as the forgiveness that Jesus' dying and rising has afforded to sinners. What Jesus said to those very first disciples he continues to say to each of us at every Eucharistic gathering: "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord."

TUESDAY, May 2

St. Athanasius

8:30 a.m. - † Mary Soles

Requested by Victoria and Veronica

WEDNESDAY, May 3

St. Philip and St. James

8:30 a.m. - † Lydia Arsenault

Requested by husband

THURSDAY, May 4

Easter Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Alberta Banda

Requested by family

FRIDAY, May 5

Easter Weekday

8:30 a.m. - † Amelia Couvinha

Requested by Helena Souza