Author Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 1782366 times)

cassini · « **Reply #150 on:** March 18, 2026, 01:19:34 PM »

Fr Sean again
The Gravity of the Grave

Someone noted that if you don’t know the bad news the good news is no news. The Catholic Church is entering the fifth week of her Lenten journey in preparation for what she traditionally calls “Holy Week” that culminates in Easter Sunday. Thus she gives us the bad news of Jesus' passion and death so that we can appreciate the good news of His Resurrection. The bad news for each of us is death. The good news is the possibility of an eternal life of happiness after death. The Church, in obedience to her Head, Christ Jesus, prepares us through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to celebrate the gift of life after death. Listen to God as He speaks to us through Ezekiel 37:12-14; Psalm 130: 1-8; St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 8:8-11; and the Gospel of St. John 11:1-45.

Bad News and Good News

How often have you reflected on the bad news that you are going to die? Have you purchased a grave where your body will be buried? The more we reflect on our coming death the more we want to hear Jesus’ good news that death isn’t the end of life. The more we realize we’re headed toward the grave the more we’ll realize the gravity of what the future holds for us if we’re not preparing to die with Jesus in order to rise with Him (Rom 6:8-18).

God’s people were in a grave situation in Babylon and they were conscious of the gravity of being exiles. The Israelites were in a hopeless situation having been exiled from their homeland. Then God spoke to them through Ezekiel with the consoling words: “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them, and bring you back to the land of Israel.” No sweeter words could have sounded in their ears. Those who died in exile would be brought back to their birth place and buried with their ancestors. This promise probably caused them to wonder what He meant since their notion of resurrection was vague. However, it gave them hope that God would free them from their enemies and restore them to their own country. It eased the gravity of their situation.

God revealed through Ezekiel that His nature is to open graves, especially the ones we dig ourselves through our sinfulness. By His life-giving, just and merciful nature God replaces our sadness at the prospect of suffering and dying with a spirit of consolation and joy. He assures us: “I will put my spirit in you that you may live ... thus you will know that I am the Lord.” God, the Life-Giver, brings life out of death and joy out of sadness. That is the Good news.

Don’t Deny the Seriousness of the Grave

There’s a relationship between the grave and gravity. When we talk about the “gravity” of something, we imply that it’s a serious matter. When we describe something as “grave” we tend to prepare ourselves for the worst. Perhaps that’s why we avoid reflecting on the fact that we all face the grave one day. The gravest experience we’re destined to have is death which with each day gets closer and closer to each of us. With death comes judgment that determines our eternal state. Because death is contrary to our nature we tend to ignore it. But actually, through the good news of our Faith we should embrace it with a sense of joy. Because through uniting ourselves with Jesus we will be resurrected.

God didn’t create death. But the atheistic culture that’s dominant in the world either runs from death or uses it to put an end to suffering. It uses all kinds of euphemisms for death in order to avoid facing its ugliness and unnaturalness. The world refers to death euphemistically as “passing on,” “passing away,” “kicking the bucket,” “buying the farm,” “croaking,” or “biting the dust.” Abortion is referred to as “healthcare” or “a termination” to cover up the murder of an innocent child on the altar of egotism and selfishness. The word “euthanasia” comes from the Greek and literally means “good death.” There is no good death because death is evil. “Death is the wages of sin” (Rom 6:23). The only “good death” was that of Jesus only because in taking it on He conquered it. It’s amazing to me that when it comes to death we tend to use language that avoids facing its actual reality and outcome. I wonder why? Is it that we’re afraid and pretend it won’t happen to us? Is it that we don’t want to face the full gravity of what happens at death? Jesus was blunt when He warned us to, “Keep watch for you know not the day nor the hour when the Lord will come” as our Judge (Mt 25:13).

We all know about the Law of Gravity. It is the built-in law of nature that pulls things down or prevents things from going up. Gravity and grave have the same Latin root. As human beings, we have a built-in need to be free. Anything that pulls us down is a threat to that freedom. The notion of the grave runs counter to our need to be free. Perhaps that’s why we don’t like to talk about death since it pulls us down into the grave. What’s grave pulls us down, at least emotionally and mentally, if not spiritually and physically. We prefer to be up rather than down.

You Reap what You Sow

St. Paul warns us that, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Why? When we’re focusing primarily on our body it pulls us down because as we grow older we see it deteriorating. We give our body a lift when we use it to serve our soul. God is never pleased with what pulls people down or diminishes our humanity. God is life and God is eternal. There’s no place in God for death. He didn’t create you and me to die. Rather He created us to live forever in a world without end. To be in the flesh is to focus completely on the body and invest on what will end up in the grave. St. Paul spells it out for us when he was inspired to write: “For he that sows in the flesh will reap corruption; but he that sows in the Spirit shall reap everlasting life” (Gal 6:8). In death, whatever we have lived for becomes eternal. An important question for each of us is, “Do I want the way I am living now to become eternal?” If not, now is the time to change.

Fulfillment of God’s Promise

God’s promise to open the graves of His people was visibly fulfilled by Jesus as demonstrated in the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The death of Lazarus was bad news for his sisters, Martha and Mary. Jesus brought them good news prefiguring what He was going to do for all who believed in Him. Here we see God’s personal involvement in the life of His people. Both Martha and Mary didn’t even dream that their brother would walk away from the tomb. However, Martha did believe that if Jesus was present that He would have somehow prevented Lazarus from dying. She did believe in the resurrection of her brother on the last day. Then Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” He tested her faith by asking her, “Do you believe this?” She answered: “Yes, I do believe …” After this exchange Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb and restored him to life after death. In Jesus’ Mass the priest says in the preface for the funeral Mass, “For the Christian in death life has changed, not ended.”

As Catholics, imbued with Jesus’ Good News, the grave is no longer so grave that we have to fear or avoid reflecting upon it. We shouldn’t be afraid to face the reality of death unless we are living in sin. Then we should be afraid, but that fear should motivate us to repent and seek forgiveness while we still have time.

Reflect on the Bad to Appreciate the Good

To appreciate the Good News of what Jesus accomplished for us we would do well to reflect upon the bad news, namely that we live in an evil world riddled with suffering and eventual death that affects us all and against which we’re powerless on our own. The uplifting aspect of this is that we do the reflection in light of God’s revelation that He will open the graves of all those who believe in Him. Our Faith in God becomes visible when we focus more on the things of Heaven than on the things of earth and on our soul more than our body. Questions for our reflection might be, “Do I look to God as the source of my security or do I focus more on material things? How much of my day do I devote to worshipping and praising God? Do I discipline my body so that it serves my soul? How generous am I giving my time, talent, and money to others in need? Do I use the Commandments and the Beatitudes to measure my love for God? How active am I in my Church parish? Do I reflect on my sins of omission? We’re reminded by our sagging body as we grow older that the law of gravity pulls all material things downwards. Gravity won’t raise us up, only God can do that. Hence, our need to invite His Spirit to reside in our soul through feeding our mind with God’s Word that shapes our heart, which reflects the state of our soul. The Good News is that, “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through His Spirit welling in you” (Rom 8:11). Make your body serve your soul through fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. (fr sean) amen

cassini · « **Reply #151 on:** March 25, 2026, 10:22:46 AM »

Fr Sean again
Palm Sunday: Divine Loyalty and Human Fickleness

To be fickle implies deceitfulness, treachery, or inconsistent behavior in one’s relationships. It is impossible to have a stable relationship with someone who is fickle. Jesus came face to face with the fickleness of many of His followers on that first Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday are two names for the same day but the Palm and the Passion reflect opposing realities. One symbolizes the beauty and the grace in humanity while the other reflects its ugliness and sinfulness. Thus, we begin Holy Week, which culminates in Easter Sunday when beauty triumphs over ugliness and grace conquers sinfulness. That first Holy Week almost 2,000 years ago changed the world. Jesus Christ gave witness to the best in humanity as God designed it. In the process, He suffered the worst and most stupid in humanity as demonstrated in the acts of sinners who crucified the only one who could save them from eternal hell. The gentleness and faith of Jesus seemed to be no match for the brutality and arrogance of Satan raging in the hearts of men blinded by his lies. Jesus demonstrated Divine loyalty by fulfilling Psalm 22 when he cried out, “My God, my God why have you abandoned me” and in the next breath declared, “Into Your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.”

The Cross of Trust

The pivotal message and witness of Easter is that gentleness conquers violence and faith in God proves stronger than the brute force of arrogant and egotistical men. This message is of utmost importance for us today since we live in a world that dismisses gentleness as weakness and rejects faith in God as naive. Violence, and the culture of death that uses it as its weapon, is rampant in society physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, and economically. The Easter message of Jesus to you and to me is: “Be gentle; trust in God, commend your spirit to Him, and He will raise you up in glory above those who abuse or attempt to destroy you. Trust in me as I trusted in my Father Love and you will conquer suffering and death!” Jesus countered the fickleness of fallen human nature upon which Satan capitalizes by His trust in His Father and we’ll counter our fickleness by our trust in Jesus.

Living with Blinkers On

People waved palms in welcome as Jesus entered Jerusalem, serenading Him with hymns of praise. This shows human nature at its best embracing Jesus as its Lord and Savior. Sadly, the best was to disintegrate into the worst. The dark side of people, reflected in the fallen state of human nature aided and abetted by Satan, manifested itself in their heartless chorus: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The effects of Original sin erased the image of God in man and woman. We turned away from God as the source of our freedom and accepted Satan’s version of freedom, which is the license to satisfy our disordered desires at the expense of our soul’s salvation. God calls us to be our best selves through repentance and forgiveness. Satan tells us that we’re fine as we are and to cancel anyone that opposes us so that we don’t have to face the truth about ourselves. Thus we live our life with blinkers on. God reminds us that we’re free only if we choose the truth that exposes the lies with which we fool ourselves. Satan hates the truth since it exposes his false promises and so he packages lies to look like truth. God created us to be happy through sharing and caring for others. Satan promises happiness through using others for our own ends. God emphasizes the importance of focusing on “You” and “us,” while Satan encourages the promotion of “me, myself, and I” – the unholy trinity. This cosmic struggle for our souls between God and Satan is dramatized in the Passion Narratives from the Gospels of St. Matthew 26:14-27:66; St. Mark 14:1-1547; St. Luke 22:1-23:56; and St. John 18:1-19:42 proclaimed by the Church this Holy Week. In these narratives we see God’s unconditional love for mankind in action despite mankind’s total unworthiness.

Love is Sacrificial

The purpose of our Catholic Faith in Jesus as members of His Church, His bride, is to show us what it means to love without counting the cost – thereby giving witness to the image and likeness of God within us as the treasured Guest of our souls who fills our hearts with a peace that is divine. Jesus is the Model par excellence of what it means to love from the heart and the power of that love over suffering and death. He is God-become-Man, blessing and redeeming our fallen humanity. Our Faith unites us with Jesus in a relationship wherein His Spirit purifies us from our sinfulness as He teaches us to speak and act like Him. The dark side of us never brings us the peace, freedom and happiness for which we crave. Jesus Himself revealed that “There is no greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn 15:13). Jesus laid down His life not only for His friends, who were few in number because most had abandoned Him, but also for His enemies for whom he interceded with His Father, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Lk 23:34). In the inspired words of St. Paul (Rom 5:8), “It is precisely in this that God proves His love for us: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” As we commemorate Jesus’ sacrifice to atone for our sins may we express our gratitude by laying down our lives for Him and the mission of His Church so that we give love the opportunity to conquer hate and commitment the opportunity to conquer our fickleness in our relationships with Jesus and with one another. I wish you all a truly Holy Week as you walk with Mary praying with Jesus as He carried the Cross of total obedience to His Father on behalf of each of us. (fr sean)

Maturity

Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situations that threaten your peace of mind, self-respect, values, morals, or self-worth.

cassini · « **Reply #152 on:** March 31, 2026, 12:35:35 PM »

Fr Sean again
Easter: The Church Reminds Us that Jesus Won

Back in the 1960’s William Bell sang a song, “Everybody Loves a Winner.” The first verse went as follows: “Once I had fame/ Oh I was full of pride/ Had lots of friends/ Always here right by my side/ Well my fame, oh it died/ Now my friends all try to hide/ Everybody loves a winner/ Everybody loves a winner/ But when you lose, you lose alone.” In the boxing world at the end of the fight the referee raises the hand of one of them and, in a booming voice, shouts, “And the winner is …!” Winners get all the accolades while losers disappear into the crowd. Easter is all about winners and losers. Jesus was the winner and Satan was the loser. In Jesus, life won over death, good conquered evil, hope overcame despair, sin was defeated by grace, and the followers of Jesus were given a bright future in which to hope. On Easter Sunday morning, at the end of the fight between good and evil, Jesus’ Church joyfully announces to the whole world: “And the winner is Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, God’s Word-made-flesh, the Saviour of the world.” The loser is the devil skulking in the background with his power over mankind crushed forever. But, like a beaten dog, Satan still remained ready to bite anyone who let him come near them.

Easter Sunday is the highpoint of the Catholic Church’s Liturgical year. It’s the day we’re reminded that God has rescued us from Satan’s evil claws. It’s the day when we’re able, as Christians, to proclaim from our heart in the words of the Psalmist: “This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it” (Ps 118:24). Easter is the celebration of a hard-fought victory over sin and death by Jesus who sacrificed Himself on behalf in order to reconcile humanity with divinity that was ruptured by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It is the most joyful occasion for those who’re baptized into Jesus’ Church and those who are seeking Him. Paradoxically, it was by taking on suffering and death that Jesus demonstrated life’s victory. The Holy Spirit raises our consciousness through St. Paul that if we die to the world as Jesus died on the Cross for us He will raise us up from the grave as the Father raised Him from the tomb: “Are you not aware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. Through baptism into His death we were buried with Him, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life. If we have been united with Him through likeness to His death, so shall we be through a like resurrection” (Rom 6:3-5). Are you a Christian? Do you see yourself as a winner? If you practise your Christian Faith you are definitely a winner. As Christians we aren’t like groupies hanging around some celebrity. We, through Baptism into His Church, were adopted by Jesus as His brothers and sisters, and given the grace to be like Him, following in His footsteps, doing His will as outlined in the Commandments and the Beatitudes until we meet Him as our Judge the day we die. For His is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory now and forever.

Jesus Is the Victor

St. Peter tells us how Jesus, God’s promised Messiah, conquered sin and death. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. We are witnesses of all that He did … They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree. This Man God raised on the third day and granted that He be visible to us … who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead” (Acts 34, 37-43). Satan tempted man and woman to “be like gods” but independently of God and so doomed mankind to eternal death. What Satan didn’t tell them was they could not be like gods because they would have no power without God. It signalled the end of the peace and happiness for which God created man and woman that was now marred by suffering and death. Jesus restored the possibility of achieving peace and happiness through His death and Resurrection. Jesus during His public ministry restored peace and happiness to those who believed in Him.

From Grief to Consolation

Mary Magdalene is one example of the hope and the peace that Jesus instilled in those who believed in Him. She found in Jesus the kind of love that restored her dignity and gave her a sense of her God-given beauty that she never knew or felt before. She was at peace in His company. Good Friday for her was not a good day. She watched the only One who gave her hope now bleeding and hanging from the cross, lifeless. She felt helpless and bereft. Unable to sleep she rose early on Easter Sunday morning and came to Jesus’ tomb. Imagine her consternation when she found the tomb empty. Who robbed her of this one last act of reciprocal love for Jesus by perfuming His dead body? Remember she previously washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointed them with expensive oil as He sat at a banquet. Now, lost in her grief Mary sat weeping beside the empty tomb. Miraculously, through her tears, she beheld two angels who questioned her, “Woman, why are you weeping” (Jn 20:13)? Startled, she replied, “Because the Lord has been taken away, and I don’t know where they have put Him” (v 14). Then she turned around and saw a man she thought was the gardener who asked her why she was crying and who she was looking for. She pleaded, “Sir, if you are the one who carried Jesus’ body off, tell me where you have laid Him and I will take Him away” (v 15). Then the man called her name. Only one Person had ever spoken her name with such love – “Mary”. Immediately ,she recognized Jesus – crying out, “Rabouni –Teacher” – and joyfully raced to Him, throwing her arms around Him, almost crushing the life out of Him, so much so that He gently responded, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God!” (v 17).

Enjoy Easter with Mary Magdalene

To really appreciate Easter you and I need to put ourselves in Mary Magdalene’s shoes. She went from the depths of loss to the heights of gain, from the pain of grief to the joy of consolation. She went from feeling like an unfortunate loser to being a fortunate winner. The thrill of meeting the resurrected Jesus rang out as she informed the Apostles, “I have seen the Lord!” The Risen Jesus replaced her drooping spirit of grief with a soaring spirit of hope. Hope springs eternal. This is what Jesus does for all His followers. He changes us from being losers to being winners. So St. Paul brings us down to earth by cautioning us: “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Co 3:1-4). Yes, everybody loves a winner, and Jesus is the greatest Winner the world has ever or will ever know? With Him we win; without Him we lose. Why don’t more people understand this? Jesus Himself during His public ministry revealed, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who lives in me and I in him, will produce abundantly, for apart from me you can do nothing” (Jn 15:5). Have a joyful Easter. (fr sean)

St. Augustine: "It is completely useless to pursue a Cristian end except by Christian means."

""One world is impossible without one God (one Saviour) and one Church"

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Author Topic: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live (Read 1782366 times)

cassini

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cassini

Re: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live

cassini

Re: Forgive So We Can Live and Let Live