A Word from Your Pastor March 8 - Second Sunday of Lent

Dear Parishioners:

Prayer is a practice that is at the heart of our life in Christ.  We pray in various ways throughout the Season of Lent in preparation for the celebration of Easter.

Jesus shared His experience of prayer with His disciples. When they asked Him to teach them to pray, He told them to address God as Abba, Father.  This was an invitation into intimacy with God, a sharing in Jesus’ own experience of being the Father’s Beloved Son. 

As He was preparing them for the experience of the Cross – the Paschal Mystery of the Suffering, Death and Resurrection – Jesus chose His intimate friends, Peter, James and John, and allowed them to witness what happened to Him in the midst of Prayer.  The Transfiguration is a revelation of the deep truth that God’s glory has been planted and is hidden in human nature.  The anticipated experience of the glory that God has prepared for us is made present for the disciples so that when the journey of Jesus to the Cross would begin, they would, at least subconsciously, already have a hint that the suffering was not going to end in death and loss.

The same three disciples would be invited to be close to Jesus as He experienced another kind of intimacy in prayer, the depth of His despair and anguish in Gethsemane, just before His arrest and crucifixion.  Jesus cried, “Abba, Father, take this Cup from Me.”  There, they slept through the experience.

Only John was there at the foot of the Cross as a witness of the final prayer of the Lord in the midst of the Passion, when, bowing His head, He breathed His last, releasing His spirit to His Father.

We are invited to intimacy with God.  The Prayer of the Church is the prayer of faithful hearts, individually and collectively as in the Liturgy, that becomes one with the very prayer of Jesus.  When we pray, we are in the very heart of the Lord, calling God Our Father.

May we open our eyes to see the hints of glory that are at work among us.

Thanks to all who participated in the Spaghetti Dinner last week and to all who were present for the Parish Penance Service.  Our community works and prays together, giving God His due and opening our hearts to the glory that is held in store for us.