Phew!!!

Sorry I have been a bit out of touch. Holy Week was really busy and this week I am at school Monday through Friday.
A couple of things:
Sunday is our monthly social gathering--4:30 pm-6:30 pm in the parish house.
Saturday (I know I am working backwards) is the EYE event at St. John's Grace--it is a dance and it costs $5 to get in. It runs from 7 pm to 10:30 pm. Cullen and John are going.

Hope to see you all this weekend!

Finally, I gave a sermon on Holy Saturday, here it is:


JESUS IS DEAD

Jesus is dead. He has been laid in the tomb.
Where is the good news in that?
Surely disbelief filled all those who loved him.
Peter plagued by his guilt of being the denier.
Judas dead by his own hand.
The beloved disciple, wracked with grief.
Mary of Magdala, inconsolable.
And then there’s his mother. Is there a pain worse than that of a parent who has lost a child?
Where is the Good News in that?
It is all so sad.

But this morning we aren’t here to lament, we aren’t here to weep, we aren’t here to mourn.
No, we gather this morning to marvel at Jesus. Not at his miracles, not at his stirring rhetoric, not at his parables. Not at Jesus, Son of God. No, we gather in our quiet exhaustion to marvel at Jesus the man. For today Jesus has made the most human of journeys. Jesus
has plunged into the depths of death. He has fallen into the abyss of nothingness, of desolation and of loneliness so that, once and for all, we will never be alone. Because Jesus has been, is and will be everywhere we could ever go.
Think about it. Feeling abandoned? Jesus has been there. Been spit upon? Jesus has been there. Been denied by your own? Jesus has been there. Raged in frustration? Jesus has been there. Jesus, on this Holy Saturday has been everywhere. For today he has descended to the dead. Today he looks death square in the eye and says, no
more, no more will death be a thing to fear, a thing to worry about, a thing to hate.
Never again do we have to feel the loneliness of Mary. Never again do we have to feel the abandonment experienced by Job. Never again will we be shrouded in the darkness of Jonah. Never again will we wail our laments alone. Because today Jesus has filled the last of our emptiness, today Jesus has plummeted himself into the abyss of darkness, despair and death so that each of us, when we inevitably fall into those dark spaces of our minds, into those hells of our humanity, into the depths of grief, is not alone. Jesus has been there. And Jesus remains there.
For Jesus, the son of the living God, the Word made
flesh, the author of our salvation has been to the heights and the depths of our human existence so that we will never again be alone. So today in the quiet solitude of this day of rest, be comforted in knowing that even as his body lies in the tomb, Jesus is with us. Tomorrow, next week next month or next year when you feel the desolation of pain, the fear of abandonment or the despair of grief,--the ups and downs of our human existence--know that you are not alone for Jesus, our Jesus, has been there too and will not, no matter how much we resist his love, abandon us. And today? Today that is good news indeed.
Amen.