As we continue our festive celebration of Easter the scriptures today describe the indomitable love of God for us; a love that could not be extinguished by the cruelty of crucifixion, the “finality” of death, nor a set of locked doors in the Upper Room where the disciples were gathered in fear of their lives.

Jesus was determined to carry the astoundingly great news of the resurrection to his apostles personally!   Surprisingly, he chose to share this news with his former companions in a very specific way: Forgiveness.   The horror of the crucifixion and death of Jesus drove Judas to suicide (total despair); Peter to deny him; and the other disciples (like Thomas) to abandon him and the mission in fear and hopelessness.   The community that Jesus had formed among his followers was shattered and seemingly beyond repair.   But his Mercy would change all of that.  It does the same in our lives if we are open to accept it and willing share it.

At the end of this month on Saturday April 28^th I have invited all of the heads of the different ministries in the parish (about 40) to come together to spend the morning with me for a mini workshop on the Church’s call and mission to “spread the Good News of the Gospel”; or, in short, to evangelize.  Since the Good News is a Person, our mission is to lead people to a personal and life-changing encounter with the Risen Lord.  Throughout the 50 days of Easter we will be reading about many such encounters which changed people’s lives forever!  So, the purpose of our gathering of ministry heads at the end of this month is to:  Gain a deeper appreciation of this great and high calling to lead others to this life-changing encounter; clearly identify how we are already carrying out this mission through our parish ministries each day and to explore how we can do this more consciously, deliberately and effectively moving forward.   Finally, I want to hear directly from our ministry heads how I, as pastor, my staff (clergy and lay) and our Parish Pastoral Council can support them in carrying out the work of evangelization.

With the help of the Risen Lord, the True Head of our ministries and our Church, we too can carry on his Mission of Mercy which restores hope and changes lives forever!

Under the direction of Samuel E. Cromwell, Jr., the 56-member choir performs nine songs on the CD, with six additional singers included. The concert also features the choir’s band with bass, drums, guitars, horns, keyboards, organ and strings. It’s the St. Augustine Gospel Choir’s first CD release in seven years.

In addition to singing on Sundays at 12:30 p.m. Mass at St. Augustine Catholic Church, through the years the St. Augustine Gospel Choir has performed at St. Peter’s Basilica and in the Vatican for Pope John Paul II, in addition to Costa Rica, Germany and Toulouse, France. One can purchase the CD for $9.99 or $.99 per song through Amazon.com, CD Baby or iTunes. For more information on the choir, please visit www.saintaugustine-dc.org or email.

Love   “For as of yet, they did not understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead” (John 20:9).   Do you understand that Jesus had to rise from the dead?  Do you understand that the grave could not hold him; that your sins would not deter him; that your rejection would not discourage him; that your cruelty would not break him; or that your pride would not lesson his resolve to save you?  Do you understand that true love is unbreakable, unshakable, indestructible, and incorruptible?  Do you understand that Christ’s love for you is “Death-proof” and “Sin-resistant?”  If so, then you know why he HAD to come back from the dead; why he had to come back for you.

Joy   Easter Joy is no ordinary kind of joy.   It is a joy that comes precisely out of the experience of deep sorrow.  In fact you cannot experience the former (joy) without an experience of the latter (sorrow).   It is the joy of approaching the tomb to anoint the deceased Savior and instead encountering him alive and speaking your name: “Mary!”(John 20:16). It is the joy of the soldier’s parent who receives the dreaded “We regret to inform you letter…” who later picks up the phone and hears her son’s voice because the letter was a mistake.   Easter joy is an unexpected joy; a too- good-to-be-true joy; an “I-can-hardly-believe-it” joy; a “jump-up-out-of-your-seat-and-shout-from- the-roof-top” kind of joy!   It’s the experience of resurrection when we thought death had had the last say.  It is the Joy of discovering that there is hope for you when you were convinced that all hope was lost.  It’s the ultimate Easter Gift that Christ died and rose that you might have!  

Victory  Death awaits everyone born into this world.  Jesus was no exception.   But death, which had gone undefeated for all of human history, would meet its match, once and for all, when it confronted God’s only begotten Son.  For “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and Power” (Acts 10:38).   But our Easter celebration is not limited to a shout of “Congratulations!” to Jesus for rising from the dead, but a cry of “Halleluiah” that HIS victory over death is OUR entry into eternal life!   The First Letter of John tells us: “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (5:4).  Did you get that?  OUR faith in the Victorious One is victory for us because we believe in him!  For this reason we can sing with all faith and conviction:  This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad!

Patience.  The scriptures tell us that the Lord hears the cry of the poor… but not necessarily as quickly as we would like!  For almost three weeks now the cries of millions for justice in the case of a teenager senselessly killed in Florida refuses to be silent in the face of justice delayed.  For the parents, the delay must be excruciating.  But when failure is not an option, giving up is out of the question.  Without patience in our spiritual walk we sputter and eventually come to a complete halt.   In the first reading today, God gave Isaiah a well-trained tongue and well-worn knees on which to pray!  He was not turning his back on God even when God seemed deaf to his voice.  He would wait.  He would trust that God would come through.  Will you wait on God to bring you through?  Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe it’s God who is waiting on you? Waiting to see what you will do?

Passion.   Jesus said in today’s gospel: “All of you will have your faith shaken”!  This includes you and me.  There are no exceptions!   For this reason the Church invites us every year on Palm Sunday to pay close attention to how Jesus carries himself through the excruciating circumstances of what we call The Passion of Christ.   Passion literally means “to suffer”.  Everyone suffers but not everyone suffers well.  Some just fall apart, others grow bitter, and others suffer valiantly and with great courage.  Why the difference?  The secret lies in Jesus’s life itself.  Have you noticed that we never read in the gospels Jesus saying to his disciples, “Ok guys, write this down.”  But he does say repeatedly “Follow me!”  As a Teacher, Jesus’s greatest lesson is his life!  Look at me, he says, and learn (Matthew 11:29).  Watch how he clings to his Father in heaven especially when the suffering is most fierce.   This was the real “Passion of the Christ’ – his passionate love for his Father and his compassionate heart for us! 

Endurance.  Jesus sweated blood in the garden.  But he didn’t stop praying.  He pleaded for deliverance from the cross, but in the end resigned himself to doing his Father’s will.  He proclaimed the truth and was convicted by lies, but he kept telling the truth anyhow.  He was beaten and flogged and His love was mocked and rejected.  He kept on loving anyway.  The people yelled “Crucify him!” He cried out to his Father for our forgiveness.  St Paul said it perfectly: “Love is patient, love is kind…it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests…Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.  Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13).  Jesus will never quit on you.  True love never does.  True love endures.

Called to Die.  The Christian life is not the life you were born with!   But it is the life that God wants you to have.  But the only way to have it is to make an exchange:  You freely laying down your old life and God freely giving you the gift of a new one. This is why we, like the grain of wheat in the Gospel, first have to die before we can live… for Christ.   As we see in the first reading from the prophet Jeremiah, the old life, like the Old Covenant, was marred by broken promises, broken hearts and shattered dreams.   Commitments made but not kept; oaths taken but not lived up to; love pledged but frequently betrayed were all the legacy of sin that ended in exile and death.   So, God calls us to die to ourselves and this legacy of sin and instead take up a new profession: Living for Him.  How do begin?  Repenting of our sins and asking for a NEW heart!

Called to Live.   I once knew a man suffering from a very bad and rare form of heart disease.  He was told that he needed a heart transplant!  Without this delicate and very complicated operation, he was not going to survive very long.   In other words, he needed a new heart to live.   In the hymn, Give me a clean Heart based on today’s Psalm (51), we sing: “Give me a clean heart, that I may serve Thee”.  God says, ‘I will make a new covenant with (my people)… I will place my law within them and write it on their hearts”(Jer. 31).   We need healthy hearts to live healthy lives.  We need Godly hearts to live holy lives!   We need clean hearts with his law of love engraved on them.  Then we can answer the call to live… for Him and for others!

Called to Forgive.  Jesus’s entire human life was about one thing: reconciling the world to his Father in heaven; and it would require the sacrifice of his life to accomplish this mission. When we die to self and live for him we instantly realize that his mission is now our mission.  What will be the unique characteristics that clearly distinguish our new lives from the old way of life?   Forgiveness and reconciliation.   When you forgive another from your heart, you sabotage Satan’s master plan and conquer hell itself.   The glorious finale of Jesus human life was not the resurrection, but the crucifixion!  The glory of the cross is Christ willingness to accept its excruciating pain in order to demonstrate his unshakable love and trust for his Father and his Father’s indomitable love for us.   Christ’s mission is now your mission: Trust God no matter how painful the circumstances and forgive others no matter what the cost.