This Is the Night

God knew before creation that man would fall, yet His Love is so immense, He went ahead and created us. Without the fall, we would have no need for a Redeemer. So, God knew all along that Jesus would need to become a man to show us the way of Love. He shows us His Love through His Infinite Mercy in the Person of Jesus. Because Jesus was faithful, the Father raised Him from the dead. Tonight, during the Easter Vigil, the Exultet will be sung. This night is special above all nights. THIS IS THE NIGHT!

THE EXULTET

Rejoice, heavenly powers! Sing, choirs of angels!

Exult, all creation around God's throne!

Jesus Christ, our King, is risen!

Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,

radiant in the brightness of your King!

Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!

Darkness vanishes for ever!

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!

The risen Savior shines upon you!

Let this place resound with joy,

echoing the mighty song of all God's people!

My dearest friends,

standing with me in this holy light,

join me in asking God for mercy,

that he may give his unworthy minister

grace to sing his Easter praises.

Deacon: The Lord be with you.

People: And also with you.

Deacon: Lift up your hearts.

People: We lift them up to the Lord.

Deacon: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

People: It is right to give him thanks and praise.

It is truly right that with full hearts and minds and voices we should praise the unseen God, the all-powerful Father, and his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ has ransomed us with his blood, and paid for us the price of Adam's sin to our eternal Father!

This is our passover feast, when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain, whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.

This is the night when first you saved our fathers: you freed the people of Israel from their slavery and led them dry-shod through the sea.

This is the night when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin!

This is the night when Christians everywhere, washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement, are restored to grace and grow together in holiness.

This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave.

What good would life have been to us, had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

Father, how wonderful your care for us!

How boundless your merciful love!

To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

Most blessed of all nights, chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!

Of this night scripture says: "The night will be as clear as day: it will become my light, my joy."

The power of this holy night dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy;

it casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride.

Night truly blessed when heaven is wedded to earth and man is reconciled with God!

Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night, receive our evening sacrifice of praise, your Church's solemn offering.

Accept this Easter candle, a flame divided but undimmed, a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.

(For it is fed by the melting wax, which the mother bee brought forth to make this precious candle.)

Let it mingle with the lights of heaven and continue bravely burning to dispel the darkness of this night!

May the Morning Star which never sets find this flame still burning: Christ, that Morning Star, who came back from the dead, and shed his peaceful light on all mankind, your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Amen.

***************

"O happy fault! O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!

How can we comprehend a Love that prompts such Mercy? It was not nails that held Jesus to the cross.It is Love that held Him there. Today is a day to simply reflect on His Love and Mercy.

See His Love

by Tim Hughes

See His love nailed onto a cross

Perfect and blameless life given as sacrifice

See Him there all in the name of love

Broken yet glorious, all for the sake of us

This is Jesus in His glory

King of Heaven dying for me

It is finished, He has done it

Death is beaten, Heaven beckons me

Greater love no one could ever show

Mercy so undeserved, freedom I should not know

All my sin, all of my hidden shame

Died with Him on the cross, eternity won for us

Such love, such love

Such love is this for me

TGI Good Friday

Good Friday is a day of paradoxes. Even the name and what happened on this day almost 2000 years ago don't seem at first to go together. This day juxtaposes unmatched or opposing themes in many ways.

• Jesus is King, but not the kind of king the Jews expected. His kingdom is not of this world. The Jews didn't want Pilate to call Jesus king on the plaque above Him on the cross, but He had it written anyway. Ironically, Pilate, who condemned Jesus to death, proclaimed Him king to all the world. The statement read, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" in three languages: in Hebrew for the Jews, in Greek for the Gentiles and in Latin for the Roman Empire.

• Jesus, the Lord of Life, suffers and dies. Jesus lived to die so that we may die to live.
• The cross is an instrument of torture, but we venerate it because we know this isn't the end of the story. We still have the Resurrection to come.
• Jesus is alive because He died. the Father raised Him up because He was faithful.
• Jesus IS King because He lowered Himself and submitted to suffering and death.
• Jesus wants to show us the way beyond suffering by enduring it.
• The instrument of death becomes the instrument of Life. We cling to the cross because it brings us salvation.
• Through Jesus' suffering, our personal pain is united to the anguish of all the world.
• Jesus turns failure into victory and so failure does not lead to despair. The promise of His failure is victory.
• Jesus became sin to free us from slavery to sin in that it was nailed to the cross.
• The king's crown is a diadem of thorns.
• The Cross is the throne of Grace. It is the seat of Jesus' reign - where He rules from. We can approach Jesus on the throne of Grace with great confidence because nothing can possibly stand in the way of His mercy.
• Our very weakness is where Jesus is strong.

Jesus' Seven Last Words - a meditation

1. "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

• When are we "they"?
• Compassion leads Jesus to forgiveness of His persecutors.

Oh Source of our Gladness, free us in mercy and heal where our sins have wounded.

2. "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise."

• For the thief who admitted his guilt, mercy is given.
• That day, the good thief stole heaven.

Jesus, remember me when you come into Your kingdom!

3. "Woman behold your son. . . . Behold, your mother!"

• Who can grasp Mary's grief?
• Who can grasp Jesus grief for His own mother at the foot of the cross?
• What can He do for her? He gives us to her and her to us.

At the cross, her station keeping, Mary gazed upon her Son.

4. "Eloi! Eloi! Lama sabachthani. My God! My God! Why have You forsaken Me?"

• No suffering of Jesus was worse that the abandonment He felt.
• On the cross, Jesus walked in the very absence of God.
• There is not despair that God has not been there before us and can meet us there.

Jesus, all Grace supplying, O, turn Your face on me.

5. "I thirst"

• The cross is an instrument of torture upon time is endless. A second turns into minutes that turn into hours. Time cannot be measured
• Water, to a crucified man, is life.
• Jesus may have been praying Psalm 63: "For You, my soul thirsts."
• Thirst is a cry for life - a cry for God. Do we dare share His thirst?

Jesus, I thirst for you.

6. "It is finished."

• After seemingly endless pain, the end comes. But Jesus cries out in triumph that He endured until the end. He is victorious - His mission accomplished.
• Heaven is opened.
• The Church will carry on what He began.
• Jesus undid what Adam and Eve did so long ago.

What wondrous love is this? I will sing!

7. "Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit."

• Jesus gasps one last breath to cry out this one last time. What was the point? He wanted us to follow His example. Despite everything, Jesus entrusts all that gives His life meaning to His Father.
• Can we entrust our lives completely to the One Who was at the creation of the world? ...to the One Who laid down carpenter's tools for a cross.

Were you there? Sometimes, it causes me to tremble

"Upon Him was the chastisement that makes us whole."

Holy Thursday - Mass of the Lord's Supper

Holy Thursday’s Mass of the Last Supper is the first liturgy of the Paschal Triduum. This is the only Mass of the liturgical year in which we also find the washing of the feet. But what does it mean? To better understand, let’s look at the readings for this liturgy.

First Reading – Exodus 12:1-14

In the first reading, God establishes the Passover as a permanent feast for the Israelites. This memorial feast was to remind them of what God had done in delivering them from slavery to the Egyptians. It also tells of His covenant and his fidelity to his promises. Every Passover the Israelites would look back but they also looked to the future - at what God was going to do for them in sending them a Messiah. The meal was to be celebrated in community because God was saving all His people and they ate in haste because they were to move quickly if they wished to move from slavery to freedom. Eating the bitter herbs was a reminder of the sufferings they endured under slavery. Finally, they were commanded to remember - "Do this..."

Jim Caviezel as Jesus in "Passion of the Christ"

Second Reading – 1 Cor 11:23-26

St. Paul reminds us of what Jesus did at the Last Supper. So Paul repeats the actions and the words Jesus spoke at that Supper so that we will remember them. (Jesus) “took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’” Then He took the cup of blessing and said, “’This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’” But these words were not part of the Passover tradition. Jesus was changing the Passover meal to the confusion of the disciples. What could Jesus mean? They would only understand after Jesus’ death.

Gospel Reading –  John 13:1-15

While the other evangelists give a detailed description of the last supper as a Passover meal, only John indicates that this meal is BEFORE Passover. On this night, during the meal, Jesus girds Himself with a towel and bends down with basin to wash His disciples’ feet. Instead of the institution of the Eucharist as in the synoptic gospels, Jesus shows us what Eucharist is all about. But they do not understand His actions, so Jesus makes it plain what He has done. “If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you too must wash each other’s feet.” Jesus never intended for the washing of feet to end. He was teaching us to do the same, over and over. “I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

For the disciples to truly understand the significance of Jesus’ actions, they would have to see Jesus lifted on the cross. They would only come to understand Jesus Himself as the true Passover Lamb who died to free us from slavery to sin when they understood the significance of everything He did while He was teaching them. Jesus’ entire life led Him to the cross where His gave it freely out of love for each of us.

Our smallest services given to our neighbor takes on an infinite dimension when we do it out of love. These actions are simply the prelude to that total sacrifice for which we must all be prepared. They look forward to the kingdom towards which we should all be moving. We must follow Jesus to the cross – to the suffering of His passion – to allow His spirit of true poverty to quicken within us. Then we will understand the true meaning of His sacrifice and be moved to meet the needs of others.

I have a teacher friend with a student who came into the classroom one day and told her, “Mrs. Yolan, today I am going to be a lover.” When asked what she meant, the little girl said, “I am going to love everyone today so that the world will be a better place.” Out of the mouths of babes comes the greatest wisdom. To be willing to serve others without reflecting on the cost to ourselves is the true love that Jesus is calling all of us to. How many of us can say, “Today, I am going to be a lover.”?

Looking at the empty tabernacle last night, I thought about how different the world would be if we all loved the way Jesus loved. If we take the Eucharist - the Real Presence - and become Jesus’ living tabernacle, then we will continue what Jesus did. The world would indeed be a better place. You never know when you might be called to be Jesus to someone. You never know what shoes another person stands in. You never know – until you truly love.

Bread for the World

by Bernadette Farrell

Refrain:
Bread for the world: a world of hunger.
Wine for all peoples: people who thirst.
May we who eat be bread for others.
May we who drink pour out our love.

1. Lord Jesus Christ, you are the bread of life,
broken to reach and heal the wounds of human pain.
Where we divide your people, you are waiting there
on bended knee to wash our feet with endless care.

2. Lord Jesus Christ, you are the wine of peace,
poured into hearts once broken and where dryness sleeps.
Where we are tired and weary, you are waiting there
to be the way which beckons us beyond despair.

3. Lord Jesus Christ, you call us to your feast,
at which the rich and pow'rful have become the least.
Where we survive on others in our human greed,
you walk among us begging for your ev'ry need.