A message from our parochial administrator, Fr. Paulson Mundanmani:
Dear Parishioners,
Pope Frances tells us that “Lent is a time of renewal for the whole Church, for each community and every believer. It is a favorable time to become more like Christ. This happens whenever we hear the word of God and receive the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. There we become what we receive: the Body of Christ. In this body there is no room for the indifference which so often seems to possess our hearts. For whoever is of Christ, belongs to one body, and in him we cannot be indifferent to one another.”
This week we celebrate Ash Wednesday which ushers in the Season of Lent. Come to Mass and receive ashes on your forehead. Why the ashes? Pope John Paul II reminds us that this is “a very ancient tradition. This act is … an important sign of conversion and inner renewal… very profound because of its penitential meaning…”
The 40 days of Lent are a time to open our hearts for change, for conversion … for a deepening of our love for the Lord. The season of Lent – especially Holy week – focuses us on the “passion” of Christ. I share with you a powerful insight by Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI:
“Passion comes from the latin, PASSIO, meaning passiveness, non-activity, absorbing something more than actively doing anything. The “Passion” of Jesus refers to that time in his life where his meaning for us is not defined by what he was doing but rather by what was being done to him. What is being said here?
The public life and ministry of Jesus can be divided into two distinct parts: Scholars estimate that Jesus spent about three years preaching and teaching before being put to death. For most of that time … he was very much the do-er, in command, the active one, teaching, healing, performing miracles, giving counsel, eating with sinners, debating with church authorities, and generally, by activity of every sort, inviting his contemporaries into the life of God. And he was busy…
However, from the time he walked out of the last supper room and began to pray in Gethsemane, that activity stops. He is no longer the one who is doing things for others, but the one who is having things done to him. In the garden, they arrest him, bind his hands, lead him to the high priest, then to Pilate. He is beaten, humiliated, stripped of his clothes, and eventually nailed to a cross where he dies. This constitutes his “passion”, that time in his life and ministry where he ceases to be the do-er and becomes the one who has things done to him.
What is so remarkable about this is that our faith teaches us that we are saved more through his passion (his death and suffering) than through all of his activity of preaching and doing miracles.”
Sr. Dominic Marie, OP