Click here to read the daily readings from the USCCB website.
Praise be to God! Yesterday Archbishop Jackels announced that public mass will resume in our Archdiocese beginning on Pentecost! Alleluia! Thanks be to the Holy Spirit on this amazing feast!
As we begin to approach the sacraments again, it find it important to remind ourselves that the sacraments are a gift. Mass is not for us. Mass is for God! Anything that we “get” out of Mass is purely a gift given to us by the God that loves us. The readings, the homily, the fellowship, the Eucharist. All are gifts. Remember that as you return.
I think that today’s Gospel is a beautiful for our times.
“A little while and you will no longer see me,
and again a little while later and you will see me.”
What a reminder that Jesus is in control. In this instance, Jesus was talking about His death and descent to the dead and His later Ascension into heaven, but He know this pandemic would happen and He knew that His beloved people would feel far from Him. Scripture is eternal, yet this passage is timely.
I think this “little while” felt so long because it was indefinite, and the pandemic is still indefinite even if things are opening up again. But remember Jesus’s purpose in this Scripture. It applies to life without Sacraments in the pandemic, but there’s more than that. Jesus doesn’t walk the earth like He did 2000 years ago. He’s fully present physically in the Eucharist and spiritually in the Mystical Body, but we don’t see Him as His first disciples did.
So what have we learned over the course of these last few months? What ways have we learned to encounter God that we weren’t aware of before? What good habits have we developed that have drawn us closer to Him and what bad habits do we need to ditch in an effort to take our relationship with God more seriously? How will these things ultimately lead you to heaven? Take this question to prayer today.
-Amanda Nobis, Director of Evangelization