What I love about Pope Francis is that he is so approachable and practical. His smile is infectious, his love genuine, and he is not afraid of talking about his own experiences and relationships. So, when Pope Francis announced the Jubilee Year of Mercy and the theme for World Youth Day 2016 in Krakow, we knew he understood and experienced mercy in his own life.
When I was a child, I grew up in a home with both my parents and grandparents. I shared a bedroom with my sister and each night, as I drifted off to sleep, I heard my grandparents praying the rosary together. Every time we set out in the car on a family vacation, my parents led us in a prayer asking God to grant us a safe journey. Other devotions surrounded me as I grew in my Catholic faith. Our family went to Stations of the Cross on the Friday nights of Lent, and we celebrated the Sacrament of Reconciliation regularly. We participated in our parish May crowning and attended Eucharistic Adoration and parish missions. Throughout my life, Catholic prayers and practices have been an essential part of my journey of faith.
There they were, practically paralyzed with fear. Over the past three years, they talked and traveled with the greatest of teachers. They witnessed miracles, learned life’s deepest truths from him, and grew spiritually sharper and more formidable. Yet their current circumstances reduced them to cowering in the upper room, unable to move and barely able to believe.
Standing on the corner, across the street from my home is a remarkable stop sign protruding out of a cement sidewalk. What makes it remarkable is the tree has beaten all the odds by taking root and growing up through the inch-wide metal post and blossoming fully out of the hole at the top. Not only is it alive, it continues to grow larger. Year after year, its roots delve deeper under the cement to gather nutrients and water from the earth beneath. It seems the tree has no plans to stop flourishing.
“I am a visual thinker, not a language-based thinker. My mind is like Google Images.” Who am I? If you guessed a person diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder or ASD, you would be right. More specifically, this quote is from Dr. Temple Grandin, a self-advocate, diagnosed with autism as a child. She is now a professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. An expert on animal behavior, Dr. Grandin, designed more humane livestock handling facilities, which are utilized around the world today.
Finally, we made it. The wait is over, and it has arrived. It is Holy Week, the holiest of all the weeks in the Church calendar. We anticipate it. We look ahead to it. We hope for it. But, are we ready for it?
Many Latin American cities and towns spend the months leading up to Lent busily preparing the carnival celebrations that, for many observers and participants alike, are a spectacle of excesses of every type. Yet Carnival time, in its beginnings, had religious connections.
The story of the Epiphany is arguably one of the most widely known of the Bible. But because it is so familiar, there is a tendency for us to overlook and therefore oversimplify its full meaning. Even the word Epiphany has dual definitions. It denotes the manifestation of Christ, yet in addition, it connotes a moment of sudden revelation.
In the liturgical calendar, the feast of our Lady of Guadalupe is celebrated as a solemnity in Mexico, South and Central America and many other countries. This celebration is of great importance because Our Lady of Guadalupe, or La Morenita, meaning “little dark one,” as she is affectionately called, has allowed many indigenous peoples to identify with her and her message. The Church recognizes that in 1531, Mary appeared to Juan Diego dressed as an Aztec princess, with dark hair and olive skin. In communicating her appearance, thus, she restored dignity to the Aztec people of Mexico after they had suffered and endured many years of inhumane European colonization.
At the end of their annual Passover dinner, our Jewish brothers and sisters exclaim, “Next year, Jerusalem!” This is not a wish for a change in venue, but rather a bold prayer that the next Passover will be the Final One – the one that is celebrated in the fullness of God’s Reign, in the fullness of God’s Presence.