April 2025: Points to Ponder

Points to Ponder

Fifth Sunday of Lent

6 April 2025

The men who brought the woman to Jesus saw her only in terms of her immediate past, while being blind to their own past. Jesus’ way of looking at her was very different; he saw the whole picture of her life, not just one little bit of it. Seeing the whole picture of her life, he also saw that she had a future as well as a past, a future that those who brought her to him would have denied her. When the Lord looks at us, he sees the whole picture too; he does not become obsessed with one or two dark details of the picture. The Lord is attentive to the full story of our lives, not just to a couple of lines of that story. He also knows that the story of our lives is always an unfinished story. It is the Lord himself who will endeavour to write the final chapter of that story when, in the words of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he will come from heaven to transfigure our lowly bodies into copies of his own glorious body. Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord says, ‘I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future full of hope.’ The Lord offered the woman, and offers all of us, a ‘future full of hope.’ He can offer us such a future because, again in the words of Paul, his power at work within is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.’

Fr Martin Hogan

curate in the parish of Finglas,

Finglas West and Rivermount

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Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

13 April 2025

Renewal in the Church will always be a following of Jesus along the path of the Cross. When we journey along the way of the Cross we do not know what that way will entail and how long our journey will take. The challenge is not to follow the short-cuts of the disciples who found that fleeing was the quick and easy answer; the challenge is not to follow the hypocrisy of Pilate who places his own position ahead of his responsibility towards an innocent man; our challenge is not to get trapped in irrelevant questions of prestige and status as did some disciples at the Last Supper. Our challenge is to be like Jesus who, with all the anguish and fear it entails, does not flinch or waver in remaining faithful to the will of his Father, even at the price of enduring the ignominious death on a criminal’s cross. In his humility and fidelity Jesus rejects the perennial temptations of power, wealth and success. The arrogance and self-certainty that accompany the unscrupulous use of power will only produce friendships of convenience like that between Herod and Pilate, friendships useful only to generate a pride and a greed that divide society and cut us off from others and damage the weakest among us. True simplicity and humility must never be simply a humility of show gestures. Authentic humility alone is the key which creates hearts open to the mysterious ways in which Jesus calls us to be like him in his poverty and to love and serve him in others.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin

from a homily for Palm Sunday

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Easter Day of the Lord’s Resurrection

20 April 2025

The Easter story is basically a story of where God stands and that stand is clear in the resurrection. He raises up Jesus who told us to turn the other cheek. To go the extra mile, if someone asks for your shirt, give them your coat. He told us one should go first and be reconciled with your brother or sister. Then come and offer your gifts at the altar. He told us do not return evil for evil but cry out with Him on the cross. ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ He said feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty and always remember it profits you nothing to gain the whole world then lose your soul. This Jesus way of life the Father raises up. In other words, Easter is beyond its tremendous mystery; is a statement. A divine statement of divine values. I do not preach about Easter bunnies and butterflies. They are nice and safe, more comfortable, But the truth is that Easter Christianity is about deeper stuff. It is about life and death, right and wrong.

     The fact is, the day Jesus entered Jerusalem from the east on a donkey and Pilate from the west on a warhorse, that was the day you and I were confronted with the choice. Which entrance shall we take? Which procession shall we follow?

Easter is the day God announced His choice. By raising His Son from the dead and all that He stood for. Easter is the day God announced His choice, what is left is yours.

Fr Bob Warren SA

Franciscan Friars of the Atonement

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Second Sunday of Easter

27 April 2025 • Divine Mercy Sunday

The risen Jesus penetrates the disciples’ defences, overcomes their fears, and brings them joy. I ask him to pass through all my security systems and liberate me from whatever prevents me from ‘having life and having it in all its fullness’.

     Thomas was a modern man, finding faith hard, like many people today. He was let down by the others who ran away, the leader denied Jesus, his trust in the group of apostles had been abused. He didn’t want much more to do with them. He had gotten tired of it all. He wanted to believe but needed a sort of proof. But faith grows within a community. That’s why we baptise children because faith grows from the beginning of life. We find growth in our faith through the community – for example, in the Mass, shared rosary, sharing our faith in a group, a good spiritual book, sharing our doubts but never closing the door to Jesus, sharing our faith in thanks for what our faith gives us.

     In community, the disciples found faith in the risen Christ. Thomas, for some reason, was not with them when the Lord came. Separated from the community, he found faith more difficult. Faith in the Lord, while personal, is not a private affair. In the faith of one, the faith of another may be strengthened. Formation in faith for the disciples had its communal experience – together they learned and found faith in the Lord.

sacredspace.com

A resource of the Irish Jesuits

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