 On John Prine’s 1971 debut album, there is a powerful song called ‘Paradise’. The narrator of the song describes an idyllic town in Eastern Kentucky called Paradise. A coal company comes in with “the world’s largest shovel” and begins to dig for coal. It torches the land while calling it the “progress of man.” The son of the narrator asks his father if he will take him to visit Paradise. The father delivers the sad news to his son that they are too late, “Mister Peabody’s coal trains have hauled it away.” As a kid from Scranton, the capital of Pennsylvania’s coal country, I grew up seeing firsthand the damage this kind of “progress of man” can do after decades of coal mining. The landscape and its people have been forever scarred by the unchecked desire for profit. One can see the physical damage, such as piles of coal ash and mine waste, or the collapse of mine shafts that affect buildings and roads. There is not just physical damage, but there are also significant health issues that still threaten residents of coal country. This is just one small example of how environmental issues can impact so much. These issues of care for the environment and care of people are at the very heart of what we should be celebrating Earth Day, which occurred last week on April 22nd. It is a celebration of not just all the great and wonderful gifts our planet has given to us, but of its people too. As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic and begin to remove our masks from our mouth and nose, we have the opportunity to remove the mask from our eyes and hearts to the plight of the planet and its inhabitants. Pope Francis offers a fresh view of how we can interact with our natural world in his encyclical Laudato Si'. Drawing inspiration from his namesake and building off the foundations of his papal predecessors, the Holy Father calls on all of humanity to integrate the care for creation into all aspects of our lives. We must do so with our economies, our faith life, our politics, and our daily life. He calls on us to recognize society’s role in the denigration of our environment and to begin the process of healing the earth. He says we can do this by advocating for the poor who are disproportionately affected by climate change, improve the goals of our economies, and take political and personal action to repair the damage done. Pope Francis reminds us that this is all at the heart of our faith. Our love and care for the other must include the environment that our neighbor lives in too. One of the most striking aspects of this wonderful document, to me, is how deeply Pope Francis ties to our faith this cause of care. He says that this kind of care demands a change of hearts. We must reevaluate our daily lives to see what we can do to improve our earth. Some actions can be as simple as making sure that we are turning off the lights, while others require massive societal change such as the move away from fossil fuels, but both are important. Both can be achievable if we can commit ourselves to each other and to our earth. God will guide us to this grace, for it is through God alone that we can achieve our goal. “God, who calls us to generous commitment and to give him our all, offers us the light and the strength needed to continue on our way. In the heart of this world, the Lord of life, who loves us so much, is always present. He does not abandon us, he does not leave us alone, for he has united himself definitively to our earth, and his love constantly impels us to find new ways forward. Praise be to him!”-Laudato Si', 245 For more resources on Laudati Si', please click here.
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 How are you navigating daily life these days? Are you scurrying around afraid of what is next or are you charging into each day with enthusiasm and hope? That sounds like the opening to an infomercial about to reveal some amazing product to enhance your life in some miraculous way, doesn’t it? But these are questions we need to ask ourselves as Christians; Jesus calls us to be exuberant about our mission in every moment because every moment counts. Life as we knew it before the Covid-19 pandemic has not returned, and all of us are still in some stage of the mess. But, as Easter people, we hold firmly to God’s promise that He is with us always, supplying grace and wisdom, no matter the circumstances of our present life. And this promise envelopes me personally with great comfort and allows me to begin each day with joy! The Easter message we celebrate again this year guides us through the steps of living in joy, filled with hope, even though our world seems dark and scary. Our daily scripture readings walk us through the Acts of the Apostles as the church was newly formed after the Resurrection and we learn once again of our mission as baptized priests, prophets, and kings in the new covenant Jesus established. Thirty minutes of ingesting current news makes us aware of the many divisions within our nation and on a global scale. There is very little uplifting or good news being reported. Our world is filled with turmoil and unrest, and the doom and gloom can seem overwhelming. But, let’s flash back to over 2000 years ago on a stormy Friday afternoon when Jesus was tortured and suffered an agonizing death by crucifixion and the earth shook. This horrifying event in the news of the time seemed bleak to the early Christians, yet in actuality, this event was the defining moment for all of humanity. It was and continues to be God’s greatest gift to us. In the dismal hours on Good Friday centuries ago, Jesus our Savior exhibited the ultimate “cancel culture” by completely canceling our sins and opening the path for us to enter the glory of heaven! In recent years, we are more familiar with a different type of “cancel culture” – one that is not merciful and has a negative message. Yet, if we focus on walking closely with Jesus, we can experience the freedom that comes from that horrific sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary. Our lives are forever redeemed, and the love and mercy of God allows us to live amidst times of great trial without fear and even be filled with joy. We have been commissioned for the work of heaven and as we live in this Easter season, we have the knowledge of Jesus’ teachings, His examples of how to love and act toward others, and His living Spirit within us to keep us steadfast in being joyful. We can smile when the world is unkind, courageously proclaiming the Good News in a culture that will scoff and try to shame and shun us because, as St. Paul says in Col. 2:13-14, “And you who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven all our trespasses, having canceled the bond which stood against us…. nailing it to the cross.” This is truly the “divine cancel culture” that heals us and rescues us from sin and death. The secular “cancel culture” reviles people who disagree, seeks to destroy those it determines unworthy, and ascribes to inflicting recriminations and paybacks. The “divine cancel culture” Jesus instituted from that Cross on Calvary expects us to always forgive and cancel the wrongs others do to us, as He taught us: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matt. 6:12). We can confidently choose to walk in the footsteps of our Lord and Savior and practice the principles of faith, hope, and love – love being the greatest of these. We walk together, you and I, as Easter people, united in the mission passed to us personally by Jesus Himself. Even though chaos may be swirling about us, He is who transforms our lives in a miraculous way so that we can live each day with exuberant joy! Help us Lord to be your messengers of love and mercy to the lost, the despairing, the cruel, the innocent and the vulnerable— to draw all your people to your glorious kingdom forever! Amen, Alleluia, Glory!
 “Have you seen Him?” The question is uttered among the bewildered Apostles and echoes out to us this Easter season. In the Gospel reading for Divine Mercy Sunday, Thomas hadn’t seen him. Thomas didn’t believe the men who had become his brothers when they told him about the resurrected Christ. Not even the details of his wounds swayed him. “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe,” he says. Believing meant vulnerability. It meant more heartbreak. The Man for whom Thomas and the others had left everything, the Teacher who had sent them two by two to preach and heal, the Master who had washed their feet and fed thousands with a few loaves and fish was gone—betrayed, tortured, killed. It was easier not to believe. It was easier to stay hidden away in the Upper Room with a heart as locked up as the doors. It was easier to go back to what they knew. Even Peter resumed fishing. Today as we continue in the third week of Easter, I ask you what the disciples likely asked each other in those first days: Have you seen Him? We prepared for Easter throughout 40 days with prayers, fasting, and almsgiving. We kept vigil with Jesus on Holy Thursday in the Garden of Gethsemane and in Caiaphas’s prison. We shuddered at His scourging, covered our ears to the mocking, and knelt in front of Him at the foot of the Cross. We waited in silence as the tomb was closed and we entered into Holy Saturday. Then, we celebrated His rising on the third day. But as we continue in the Easter season, can we truly say we have seen Him? Have we experienced Easter joy or are we locked in the Upper Room or back to fishing? Grief, anger, passivity, media consumption, alcohol, food, loneliness—all of these could be our Upper Rooms. All of these could be means of locking our hearts to the Good News of Jesus Christ. But what does Jesus do in response to our locked hearts? He shows up. He extends His wounded hands. He breathes peace. This is what this fifty-day Easter season is all about: encountering the Risen Lord. Seeing Him. Touching His wounds. Sharing a meal with Him. Allowing Him to open the Scriptures to us and reveal God’s plan of salvation—even in the here and now, even in our own lives. Our fasting, grieving, and sighing is over. Our desert is over. But sometimes entering into the light, joy, and beauty of the Easter season can seem jarring after all we’ve worked on spiritually or given up. Even more so, we look at the world and may not hear the Easter song. We see humanity still trapped by sin, death, and division. Perhaps our hearts, like Thomas’s and the other disciples’, are broken. Perhaps after a year of fear, isolation, confusion, and division, it feels easier to lock the doors than to believe. Believing requires faith, hope, vulnerability. It requires opening yourself to the possibility of another heartbreak. And it requires letting go. And so, Thomas says, “I will not believe.” And we may say, “I cannot believe.” But Christ’s wounds change everything. They show that suffering can be redeemed. That our scars, while part of our story, are not the end. That death has been humbled, and that glory and resurrection await us. Over these next few weeks of Easter, as we prepare to celebrate the Ascension of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, I invite you to spend time with the disciples as they sit once again at the feet of Christ. Jesus spends 40 days with them—the same length of time as the Lenten season—instructing them, encouraging them, accompanying them. Do not let this most holy of liturgical seasons end on Easter Sunday. I invite you today and every day to encounter the Risen Lord. Spend time with His wounds. Show Him your own. Allow His words to penetrate your heart: “Peace be with you.” Only then can the doors of our hearts be unlocked. Only then can our wounds be transfigured. Only then can we fall to our knees and proclaim with Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” Click here for more ideas to cultivate Easter joy.
 As we continue through this “Year of St. Joseph” as proclaimed by Pope Francis in his Apostolic Letter Patris Corde, one cannot help but reflect on St. Joseph: adoptive father of Jesus, spouse to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Patron of the Universal Church. These lofty and impressive titles have been given to a man who in many respects is seen as humble, consistently in the background, and having no words come from his mouth in Scripture. His example of what it means to be a man and a father is one men can strive for. As a father of a precocious one-year-old, I cannot help but look for examples of how to be a father. Of course, we often look to our own fathers, grandfathers, friends, and perhaps even godfathers and spiritual fathers through the priesthood. There are many qualities that we can emulate from these father figures in our lives, indeed very practical ones. How to change diapers without a mess; how to look good while carrying an undersized backpack filled with wipes, pacifiers, and a change of clothes; or at what posture to best steer that not-tall-enough stroller? What prayers should we be introducing to our young family? How can we strive to provide for our child both practically and spiritually? However, I would suggest another figure to look to: St. Joseph. When my son was baptized, a friend of ours – who happens to be named Joseph – gifted to him (and to us) a statue of St. Joseph. At the time, I considered it more of a funny coincidence, and a nice gesture. As I continued to reflect on it, I really began to see it as providential. Admittedly, as a new father, I was scared and anxious (I still am). St. Joseph undoubtedly faced many of the same anxieties. However, throughout Scripture he is portrayed as a man who sorts out problems and comes up with solutions in practical and brave ways. It is this particular quality that I think we, as fathers, should take as a noble example. There will be times throughout our fatherhoods when we will come to face challenges, confusion, and doubt. St. Joseph protected the Holy Family and trusted in the word of God when it was easy not to trust. As fathers we are called to protect our own families, not necessarily always from harm or danger, and also to provide an example of kindness, love, and humility that so often is characterized as weak. Instead, I invite you to seek St. Joseph’s noble example and see these qualities as a strength. We also need to trust in God. Pope Francis says in Patris Corde, “The greatness of Saint Joseph is that he was the spouse of Mary and the father of Jesus. In this way, he placed himself, in the words of Saint John Chrysostom, 'at the service of the entire plan of salvation.'” Let us as fathers follow in St. Joseph’s noble example to place ourselves at the service of God’s plan for us. Then we will truly be able to serve our families without fear or anxiety. For more on St. Joseph, read our blog post: “Ite Ad Joseph: 10 Quotes to Celebrate the Year of St. Joseph.”
 I think there is something special about a cover—about taking a song, a painting, or a movie and recreating it within the modern frame of mind. Aretha Franklin’s bold and unapologetic “Respect” is a perfect example, as she interprets the song as a Black woman in the 1960’s. As is Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower,” in which he narrates the song with hauntingly beautiful guitar riffs. In visual art, Andy Warhol recreates the portrait of Mao Zedong with a messy array of bright colors—an unusual depiction of the dictator. Finally, modern movies, headlined by the Cohen Brothers’ True Grit, give life to old characters and stories, recreating them for new audiences. However, even the Beatles, the most covered band of all time, cannot compete with the millions of interpretations of Jesus Christ. Thousands of artists have painted Christ crucified or the Madonna and Child. Everyone from Van Gogh, Basquiat, or da Vinci have painted Jesus Christ, each in their own manner. It can be mind-numbing to try to flip through them all, viewing each painting, alien to the others, and, oftentimes, to us. There are always two questions to ask when discussing art: “What is this artist trying to say?” and “What do we think he or she is trying to say?” These questions matter much more when investigating faith. In a special way, how artists of all disciplines—including sculptors, writers, or directors—interpret Jesus will affect us. Every Catholic, no doubt, thinks of Jesus through some piece of art or another, but Jesus is more than just a collection of paints, words, or images. Jesus is alive. It is tempting to trap Him in a Caravaggio, an El Greco, or even in the Passion of the Christ—to prevent Him from challenging us. Jesus as represented in art cannot call us out in our sins; He cannot tell us the hard truths we need to wrestle with. Even further, we should not trap Jesus in the Church or solely in the Mass. Yes, we are oftentimes challenged in specific ways during the Mass, especially when a priest gives a difficult homily. It can be easy, however, to selectively hear the priest, interpreting him and hearing only what we want to hear. We often want a sanitized Jesus, one that affirms us and makes us feel good. But while Jesus resides in the tabernacle and comes to meet us in every celebration of the Eucharist, He cannot be left there. Jesus wants to encounter us personally in order for us to help others encounter Him. Jesus always challenged His disciples to worship, act, and believe in accordance with truth. Jesus was not “sanitized” or acting in the “proper way” when He overturned the tables of the money changers; He was not “sanitized” when He described the narrow way; and He surely was not clean and tidy when He died on the Cross. Jesus defied our expectations. He was filled with passion for God’s truth. While He is Beauty itself, Jesus often made His listeners look away as they were unable to embrace the unsavory truth that can be hard to swallow. I enjoy going to Washington’s National Gallery of Art or New York’s MET, but next time I see Christ there, I will be reminded that He is not trapped in the golden walls of the frame. Jesus is alive, living in the Eucharist and in others. While it is beautiful to witness Jesus in the arts, we must remember that Christ lives in the audience, the museum goers. While the beauty of the art itself is mesmerizing, Christ is alive in flesh, both on the altar and in people who remind us that, while beautiful, Christ’s message is a challenge.
 This coming Sunday, to close out the Easter Octave, we will celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. Devotion to Divine Mercy started with St. Faustina in the early 1900s and Divine Mercy Sunday became officially recognized by Pope John Paul II in 2000 along with the canonization of St. Faustina. Growing up, I would hear a homily about the image of Divine Mercy every Divine Mercy Sunday, but it wasn’t until I was introduced to the Divine Mercy Chaplet that I began to understand more about the overall message of Divine Mercy. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a devotion that was started by St. Faustina from her visions of Jesus. It is a series of prayers that can be said on rosary beads, albeit usually much quicker than a rosary, that is especially connected to Divine Mercy Sunday. What particularly strikes me about the Divine Mercy Chaplet is how many of the prayers end with “us and the whole world.” Both the Eternal Father prayer, the prayer said on the “Our Father” beads, and the prayer said on each of the “Hail Mary” beads ends with this emphasis on “us and the whole world.” I began to understand what Divine Mercy meant when I thought about mercy not just in terms of myself, but about the whole world, both my closest friends and people I had never met. The message of Divine Mercy is that through the mercy Jesus shows us, we are called to be merciful and in harmony with all of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. Our inward journey of mercy ultimately leads us outward to living a merciful life. For me, I am reminded of the Beatitudes and the call for everyone to be merciful, peacemakers, and more (Matthew 5:3-12). However, I have found myself struggling with how I, a college student, can live out this mercy to the “whole world.” How can I show mercy to the “whole world” during the COVID-19 pandemic when we cannot travel? These are some of the questions I find myself grappling with when thinking about how to live out a life of Divine Mercy. When I think about Divine Mercy, I think about God’s abundant love for us and how we are called to share that love with all our brothers and sisters. In that, I mainly think about community service opportunities I have had while in college to go on both service and justice immersion trips around the country, as well as locally in Washington, DC. But I also thought about doing little acts of service throughout the day. I think just as we can do little acts of service throughout the day, we can do little acts of mercy to spread a consistent ethos of mercy. As Mother Teresa is attributed with saying, “we cannot all do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” In my daily life, I have learned that there are many ways that we can treat people with mercy and love, bringing the ethos of Divine Mercy to our daily lives. A lot of this includes little things, such as: not getting upset when the cafeteria food takes twice as long as normal to be made, receiving and giving criticism in group projects and assignments with love rather than having an attitude of superiority, and being adaptable and understanding when situations change, especially with COVID-19. Over the years I have seen some commercials advertising “pass it on” campaigns in terms of good deeds, but I think that idea also applies to living in a merciful and loving way. Our mercy spreads to the “whole world” through us being merciful to someone who is in turn merciful to many more people. As we approach and celebrate this Divine Mercy Sunday, let us think about ways that we can live a life of Divine Mercy every day. “Extend your mercy towards others, so that there can be no one in need whom you meet without helping. For what hope is there for us if God should withdraw His Mercy from us?” – Saint Vincent de Paul (attributed) To learn more about the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, please click here.
 We may be well-acquainted with Lenten practices and devotions such as giving something up, abstaining from meat, or praying the Stations of the Cross. It can be more difficult, however, to name ways to observe the Easter season. Yet in the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer at every Mass during the Easter season, we hear: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, at all times to acclaim you, O Lord, but in this time above all to laud you yet more gloriously, when Christ our Passover has been sacrificed… Therefore, overcome with paschal joy, every land, every people exults in your praise and even the heavenly Powers, with the angelic hosts, sing together the unending hymn of your glory…”[1] What is “paschal joy” and how do we praise the Lord “more gloriously” in the Easter season? It is unreasonable to expect anyone to will themselves to be happy at any given moment, much less for an entire season. But joy is not the same as happiness, nor is it the absence of sadness. Joy is a fruit of charity. It flows out of love; it results from a participation in goodness. We feel joy in the presence of someone or something we love; we rejoice in the well-being of our loved ones. If our Lenten observance is focused on charity—particularly acts of charity such as prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—then joy flows naturally from them. The disciplines that turn our gaze outward to God and neighbor, the sacrifices we make, are all a participation in goodness, an act of love. Paschal (Easter) joy, then, can be seen as the fruit of our Lenten journey. Our Lenten efforts are not meant to be temporary measures. They are intended to effect lasting change in us, to conform us more profoundly to our Lord who died but has been raised. What can we do then, so that we don’t simply drop our Lenten observance now that Easter has arrived? How can we instead allow these observances to take root in such a way that they enable us to celebrate the Easter season more fully and joyfully? Consider one or more of the following suggestions to cultivate paschal joy and fill each of the fifty days of the season with festivities and devotions:
Click here for more resources to accompany you this Easter season. [1] Preface I-V of Easter, Roman Missal, Third Typical Edition. [2] Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, no. 150, no. 152. [3] Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, no. 153. [4] Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, no. 154. [5] Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy, no. 155. [6] Cf John Paul II, General Audience, Wednesday, 30 May 1979
 I often find myself avoiding sad and painful things, searching to find a silver lining and help make me or someone else feel better. It can be at the cost of seeming empathetic, too, like avoiding sitting with the pain and instead dealing with it head on. My immediate reaction is to fix something broken or to solve a problem instead of to actually let it sink in and affect me. Growing up, this was a coping mechanism that I’ve been able to turn into a strength of mine as a teacher, making split-second decisions and problem-solving throughout the day. Personally though, I think I need to wrestle with it. As we enter into the saddest, most heart-wrenching day of the year, my gut says “avoid the topic, think about Sunday,” but instead I’m going to go a little deeper for Good Friday this year. Good Friday was what I can only imagine to be a marathon of a day for Christ to endure, only to end with his sacrifice in the Crucifixion. The brutality and agony that he must have felt while carrying his cross can be overwhelming to think about. He carried it bleeding, tired, hungry, and aching from the weight of such an enormous cross. I’ve never experienced pain like that, so I’ve found it easy to skip through, acknowledging it happened and moving on. But this is where I’ve gotten it wrong: Christ did all of that for me, for us, for every human being on this Earth. Jesus did that so we wouldn’t have to experience it for ourselves and could be together with God in his Kingdom one day. This day is the one I shouldn’t overlook. The Stations of the Cross, a 14-step reflection on the Passion of Christ, is the perfect place for me to start contemplating Christ’s sacrifice on Good Friday. While there are many versions of this devotion, I’m using the Stations of the Cross in the Spirit of St. Vincent Pallotti to help me think more clearly about the meaning of Good Friday. There are many different Stations of the Cross to use depending on your spirituality, vocation, or age. In my classroom I like to use a coloring book version and when I taught 2nd grade, we liked this one for children. For this year’s study, I think I’ll also try this Scriptural Stations of the Cross from the USCCB’s website, located on the Catholic Apostolate Center’s resource page as well. I hope to think more deeply and clearly about the Passion of Christ and appreciate a little more heavily the price he paid for me, everyone I know, and beyond. There are many signs throughout this Triduum that we can think about in addition to praying with the Stations of the Cross. Tonight on Holy Thursday, the tabernacle was emptied and colored cloth was placed there instead. There will be no consecration of the Eucharist until the Easter Vigil and instead of Mass, we pray, remember, and venerate the Cross. The color for Good Friday’s services changes too: red is now the color we see and use to remember his blood shed for us. Red was also the color used on Palm Sunday, when Jesus made his way through palm branches on a donkey into the City of Jerusalem in joyous celebration. These signs in church help us remember all that Christ did for us. We may take his sacrifice for granted possibly because it is easier to avoid the sad and scary realities about the time between Jesus’ arrest and Easter morning. We also may be too “busy” to stop and reflect on not just the happy moments when Jesus was teaching, but also how he gave His life to save ours. In our lives, we must continue to appreciate and enjoy the good parts of Christ’s life and ministry. We can live knowing that the end is happy and He is Risen on Easter morning. But without Good Friday, we wouldn’t have Easter Sunday. Tomorrow on Good Friday, I invite you to join me on this sad and painful day as I look more deeply at the Stations of the Cross. For additional resources, please visit the “Additional Lenten Resources” page on the Catholic Apostolate Center page.
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