Easter Monday

Today is Dyngus Day , a traditional Polish day of festivities after the long Lenten Fast.  If you live in our near a Polish Community you are lucky, because the food is amazing.  We are blessed to have a Dyngus Day celebration at one of the local parishes, complete with all those great Polish delicacies:  beet horseradish and hard boiled eggs,  pirogies, polish sausage, sour kraut, and of course beer.

Fortunately for me, most of those foods would pass muster with my new eating plan,  but unfortunately I have band practice tonight, so if I go it will be a quick run it to grab a bite before band and not a leisurely stay to visit with friends as it has been in the past.

One of the best things about Dyngus Day is that it reminds us that Easter isn't just a Sunday.  Easter is a Season.  We celebrate the Easter Season for 50 days, from now until Pentecost.  Each day should ring with the sound of the Alleluia of recognition of the risen Lord's saving action in our lives.

After all, If Christ conquered death for us what other response could there be except to celebrate?

How will you celebrate these 50 days?

Pax

Mystic Monday: Old Friends Week

I spent this last weekend with Gradual School friends at St Meinrad because it was Graduation weekend and there are still people that we went to classes with who are graduating; way to go Paul and Ben and Mike and Glory,(who had the tough job of representing as the only woman in the graduating class this year); as well as seminarians we know who are finishing up since it takes them so many more years to get their MDiv than it takes us to get our MA and MTS degrees. Congrats to Deacons Peter Marshall, Jeremy Gries, John Hollowell, and Chris Wadelton from the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, who will be ordained to the priesthood in June.

Anyway, I digress (a favorite saying of one of my friends with whom I spent the weekend)

Since I spent the weekend with old friends, I have decided to revisit an old friend for Mystic Monday. Because I took a survey on Facebook on Friday and to my utter shock was told that should I choose to join a monastic order I would be best suited to join the Dominicans, I am going to return to Henry Susso, a Dominican from the 14th Century, who loved the name of Jesus so much he gave himself a tatoo of the Holy Name over his heart with his writing stylus . (personally, I would have gone for a slightly less permanent badge of rememberance, but hey if it worked for him . . .)

Here is a bit from his text on "The Computer of Wisdom" a stricture for living the Spiritual Life

In the fellowship of saints which as the morning stars shone in the dark night of this world and as the sun and moon shed forth the beams of their clear knowledge you shall find some who surpassingly were perfectly grounded not only in active life and virtue but also in contemplation, of whose teaching and example you may take the most perfect doctrine and love of true spiritual life. And nevertheless I willingly and condescendingly to your youth and inexperience shall give you some principles of spiritual living for a memory to have always at hand to set you in the right working if you desire to have the perfection of spiritual life that is to be desired by all men and if you will and desire to take it up manfully you shall first withdraw from ill fellowship and harmful company of all men who would hinder you from your good purpose, seeking always opportunity when and what time you may retire and there take privy silence for contemplation and flee from the perils and turbulance of this harmful world. Always it belongs to you first to study to have cleanness of heart, that is to say that you keep your sensory perceptions turned into yourself and there you have as much as is possible the doors of your heart busily closed from the forms of outward things and images of earthly things. Truly among all other spiritual exercises cleanness of heart has the sovereignty, as a final intent and reward of all the travails that a chosen knight of Christ is to receive.

Good companions, time to study God's word and stay away from earthly distractions that draw you away from Godly things. Isn't it amazing how easy the right stuff really is?

Pax

The SEASON of Easter Begins Today

Wake Up Folks, Easter isn't just a Sunday, it is a season of the Church year.

For seven weeks we celebrate the resurrection of Christ and what that means to us. For fifty days (even longer than the Lent we just passed through, we enter into a new kind of apprenticeship of our journey with our loving Saviour; for in the resurrection stories we learn something new about Jesus.

As Father said at Mass this morning, quoting from Fr. Larry Gillick SJ (of Creighton University ) The risen Christ plays a game of Now you see me, Now you see me in a new way in the stories we hear during the Easter season. Each new encounter draws us deeper into the mystery that is our union and communion with Him in faith and belief. We become so enamoured of the Good News that we cannot keep it to ourselves; like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who after their encounter with the Risen Lord ran all the way back to Jerusalem to report the Good News to the others with the phrase "Were not our hearts burning within us?" (Luke 24: 5-34)

Or like the Apostles at Pentecost, we are so emboldened by the Holy Spirit that we cannot keep silence, and are called out of our hide-away to preach what we know to be true to the crowds, some of whom I am sure weren't receptive to the message. (Acts 2)

And also like our friend Steven the first martyr for the faith. Steven teaches us that we must be bold enough too stand up for the truth, and our faith even in the face of the most crushing contempt and unbelief. We must be willing to do so even if it means doing so at our very own peril. (Acts 7)

So my dear children, enter into this season of Easter with Joy and thanksgiving. Allow yourself to seek the Lord where he may be found and draw strength from Him while He is still near. Grow strong and bold in your faith, because I can tell you that dark days are ahead when even your own brothers and sisters will reject you because of your faith in Christ.

Do not be swayed, stand up for the truth and be bold in proclaiming in loudly. You have a right in this country to the free expression of your religious faith. Use that right.

Pax