Our Lady of Hope Blog

My Dear Friends,

Happy Easter!!!! Our Lord has not only risen, but he is very much alive!! He has conquered death and opened up the way to the Father! On this Easter Sunday we celebrate the love of Christ by commemorating his victory over death, but in all reality, we celebrate his victory over death each and every day. Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross is a perpetual offering to the Father, for he has transcended time and at the moment of breathing his last, he says to he Father, “Forgive them for they know not what they do, ” and “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my Spirit.”

My Dear Friends,

We are entering Holy Week; a week devoted to our meditation of the suffering and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. We start today, Palm Sunday, with the reading of the Passion account from the Gospel of St. Mark (Cycle B of the three year cycle of readings for the Mass). Then during the next three daily Masses we hear about the plans to betray Jesus, culminating on what is usually called Spy Wednesday, when Judas the Iscariot approaches the chief priests and offers to hand over Jesus to them for thirty pieces of silver.

My Dear Friends,

We are moving through Lent at a fast pace. Easter is only two weeks away. These next two weeks are a special time for me. We start noticing more Mass readings talking about our Lord’s suffering and death, and this is capped off by the reading of the Passion on Palm Sunday and again on Good Friday. But there is also the expectation of the Resurrection as we move closer to Holy Week. The joy that comes from celebrating the Resurrection on the Easter Vigil and on Easter Sunday is exhilarating.

My Dear Friends,

For three weeks we have been discussing Salvation History, beginning with Adam, followed by Noah and Abraham and last week Moses. Today we discuss King David and the covenant God makes with him. David is the youngest son of Jesse and a shepherd. When Samuel the prophet met with Jesse, he introduced to Samuel every son but David. Yet it was not until he asked Jesse to call David that God picked David to be the one to enter into the covenant. David was described as a youth, ruddy in appearance.

My Dear Friends,

During Lent, like we did last year, we are singing the Holy, Holy, Holy and the Lamb of God in Latin. We have added the Lord have mercy in Greek as well this year. Some people seem to be afraid of Latin and/or Greek because they claim that they do not know what it means. (Surprisingly these same people never seem to mind if we have Spanish in one of our hymns). The Greek is more difficult to try and make a connection to the prayer in English, but it is sung during the same place of the Lord, Have Mercy in English, so there should be no problem in figuring out what the Greek means.