Message from Fr. Rensch (12 April, 2020):
Important Updates:
1. Many joined us for the live-streamed Easter Sunday Mass from St. Anthony's, and a big thank you to Mary Ann Church for providing the Easter music, as well as Rosemary for her help with the altar linens and flowers. For a time of pandemic, the Mass went so well!
2. I was finally able to upload the video to the website, so that those who are interested and who don't have facebook are able to watch it. You can find it at the homepage, or by clicking this link: https://vimeo.com/406948486
Reflection of the Day
(http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041220.cfm)
Alleluia! Our Lord has risen as he said. Alleluia!
The Church proclaims her risen Lord in every age. Over and over it proclaims Christ crucified and resurrected. The resurrection, of course, implies not just a resuscitation. Jesus did not return to life the way Lazarus did. Jesus did not rise to the same kind of life; he rose never to die again. His resurrected life revealed a transformed kind of life. The Gospel accounts emphasize two aspects: that it is truly a real, physical life, as well as a new, supernatural kind of life. It is real natural and physical life, as shown from Christ's eating food and the empty tomb. It's his same physical body, with the wounds from his passion. At the same time, his life has a new, supernatural power. He's not contained by the barriers of walls and doors and locks. He's not constrained by great distances. He might vanish in an instant, and cannot be recognized easily. So the resurrection is a revelation. It is the revelation of the form of life of the Son of God, the God made man.
The resurrection is also the destiny of all of us who live and die in him. As we profess in the creed, "I believe in the resurrection of the body." That's a reference not only to Jesus' body, but to the bodies of us all. Jesus' pattern of life, complete with the resurrected body, is the promise to all believers. Death could not hold our Lord, and neither can it hold us, if we follow in his way.
Thus the Church proclaims alleluia. It knows that in every age the world dwells in darkness and the shadow of death. But it proclaims that the shadow has been cast by the light of the resurrection. The hope of God, and his power that conquers even death itself, remains in every age. In our own time the alleluia cry is perhaps more insistent, more defiant, more needed. The Church continues to believe the God, his love, and his power is the ultimate answer. The Church trumpets with its invincible certainty that Christ is the Lord of history, the light that never sets, the path to heaven, the way, the truth, and the life. No matter the trial, no matter the tribulation, Christ reigns until he has put all his enemies under his feet. His enemies still wield considerable influence in this world, yet we've seen witnessed the proclamation of their ultimate defeat. When the strongest weapon of the world, death itself, snapped like a twig against Christ our Lord, we saw our own ultimate victory.
Even now, before Christ's victory extends to every corner of our existence, his victory over death shows God's dominion. It reminds me of a line that St. Theresa of Avila is well known for, that "God alone is sufficient." God alone is enough. God alone satisfies. Her line is true in two senses. Nothing else but God is sufficient, and God all by himself is sufficient. God alone satisfies, and satisfies completely. The resurrection is that point of God's full sufficiency breaking into the world, since nothing can present an obstacle to him. The Easter alleluia is a obstinate proclamation that, every appearance to the contrary, we remember that Christ has conquered, Christ reigns, and that Christ alone offers us everything we need.
Happy Easter!
God bless you all,
Fr. Rensch