Message from Fr. Rensch (10 April, 2020):
Mass Intentions:
Good Friday is the only day in the entire year that Mass is not celebrated. On this day dedicated to the remembrance of Jesus’ death, we forgo the celebration that includes that commemoration of his resurrection.
Important Updates:
God’s blessings on all who came to confession today! Sometimes I think that a priest’s greatest prompt to holiness is hearing confessions. It’s like a mini-homily, hearing how people are striving to put the Gospel into practice in their everyday lives. And it’s very humbling, to witness the great faith with which people confront their challenges.
For the Easter Vigil Mass I’ll be back in Rutland to celebrate Mass at the parish there. The diocese will be live-streaming a Mass, however, at 7 pm, from their web site -https://www.vermontcatholic.
Easter Sunday Mass will be live-streamed on the parish facebook page at 9:30 from right here at St. Anthony’s. Join us! https://www.facebook.com/ourladyvt
Reflection of the Day
(http://www.usccb.org/bible/
The Church calls today Good Friday, even though it was on this day that Jesus Christ was given up to death. It seems as though the Church almost stubbornly insists upon the name. Though Jesus was rejected by his own people, betrayed, tortured, and condemned, it is Good Friday. The name reflects the Church’s knowledge of God’s unseen power. God’s limitless power is able to bring good out of evil. He can take an evil and use it as the space to make a new creation. In the first creation, God came to the empty void and spoke his life-giving word. In the redemption, the new creation, God enters the void of sin and death and speaks his life-giving word of forgiveness. Although humanity proves the depths of its depravity today, Jesus proves the depths of his love. In St. Paul’s words that can never grow old: God’s love is shown in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
In the Liturgy of the Hours, the series of prayers that priests and religious pray, there is a heavy focus on the book of Hebrews throughout Lent. The reason for this focus is that Hebrews unveils the mystery surrounding Good Friday. It reveals the hidden goodness at work on the cross; the reason Good Friday is good. To draw us into the hidden beauty of the day, it teaches us that Jesus’ action today is the self-offering of a priest.
Every priest, the book of Hebrews reminds us, is appointed to offer sacrifice. Every sacrifice offers up the life of its victim. What Jesus did on the cross was offer himself as a sacrifice. Hebrews says, He entered, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, and achieved eternal salvation. So in Jesus we have a priest presenting the offering, as well as the victim, offering up himself. This new priest, offering himself as a new victim, begins a new covenant. That's why at Mass we cite his words, This is the blood of the new covenant. Jesus initiates the new testament, a new agreement between himself and his people.
The entire book of Hebrews is one giant compare / contrast of the former covenants that God made with his people. God made a covenant with Moses when he freed them from slavery in Egypt. In doing so, the sacrifice of the Passover lamb – the Easter lamb – was the offering. In the new covenant, Christ frees his people from the slavery of sin. The offering is no longer an animal, but Christ himself. Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. The Church commands us to behold the lamb of God! We first behold him on the cross.
In the old covenant, the sacrifice of the lamb ensured ritual purity, a sign of the real purity of holiness. The ritual purity meant that someone was fitting to worship in the temple. In the new covenant, Christ’s blood grants forgiveness of sins, true purity. By forgiveness of sins, he makes us worthy to worship in the temple of his body. That forgiveness is given from the cross.
In the old covenant, the priest entered the holy of holies in the Jerusalem temple with the blood of the lamb. In the new covenant, Christ did not enter into a sanctuary made with hands … he entered heaven itself that he might appear before God on our behalf. He departed for the heavenly sanctuary from the cross.
What a marvelous mystery! Jesus goes to heaven as the priest of the new humanity, to offer the new sacrifice, the pleasing worship of a new, humble, pure, humanity. What a privilege to be a member of his body, to share in the one act of worship that truly offers God fitting praise. And what a transformation of our understanding of the Mass. The Mass is the representation of Good Friday. It’s the renewal of the offering. It brings heaven within reach. St. John says that in heaven he says that he saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain. Jesus is the lamb that has been slain, but he stands. He’s alive. And the Mass lifts us into heaven so where we hear the saints cry out, Behold the lamb of God! Behold him who takes away the sins of the world with his sacrifice on the wood of the cross.
It is indeed Good Friday.
God bless you all,
Fr. Rensch