First Sunday of Lent, Year C

Man of Sorrows, William Dyce, ca. 1860

One of the enduring memories that I have growing up on the farm as a boy and young man was the annual spring ritual of picking stones from the fields that we had tilled for the planting of corn or a new seeding of hay crop.  After the fields had been plowed and then harrowed, we would enter into the field, often the whole family, accompanying our tractor with its bucket loader.  Each of us would begin this methodical search for stones that were large enough to cause damage to the crop planting and harvesting machinery.  When we found those stones, we would then pick them up and throw them, or carry and drop them, into the tractor bucket.  With the largest stones, the best we could do was to pry them up out of the brown earth with our hands and roll and flop them into the tractor bucket.


The image in my mind’s eye of the barren stony field with its brown tilled earth, and our methodical wandering back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in front of the tractor searching for stones to pick, conjures a parallel image of the Israelites wandering in the barren desert, a story we are reminded of by Moses in the first reading we heard today — a story not just of the Israelites wandering in the desert alone but, as Moses reminds them, wandering accompanied by God who heard their cry, saw their affliction, their toil, and their oppression, and led and accompanied them out of that.  They were not alone; God was with them in the midst of their deserts and provided for them.  We are encouraged to remember this today, as we wander in our own desert fields, picking stones from our lives:  God is with us, by our sides, in our midst.  And God the Son, Jesus Christ, invites us to seek his help in doing so.  He tells us:  “Come to me, all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28) 


It is desert and stones again that we hear of also in the Gospel passage.  Jesus Christ has been in a self-sacrificing fast in the desert, is hungry, and is tempted by the devil to use his power to turn stones into bread and to feed on them.  He resists the temptation — pointing to and drawing strength from reliance on God. 


Are we often tempted to feed on the stones that we carry in the desert fields of our lives?  How often are those stones temptations, not to feed on something seemingly desirable, like bread, but rather to feed on that which is unpalatable — such as stones of bitterness, animosity, anger, discord, fear, discouragement, or useless anxiety.  I think those are just as often the weighty stones we carry in our desert fields and that we may be tempted to feed on.  It takes conscious effort to reach out to God for grace, in even the simplest of prayers, to resist these temptations, recognizing that often God’s grace comes through others around us who help us, support us, and love us.  Let us not forget that we have in Jesus Christ one who, like us, has been similarly tested through what he endured; he is able to help us who are being tested (cf Heb 2:18).  One who invites us:  “Come to me, all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Jesus invites us to give him our burdens, our stones — whatever they may be:  bitterness, animosity, anger, judgmentalism, fear, discouragement, anxiety — all of the things that ultimately rob us of the joy God and Christ desire for us. 



We have an invitation and a choice to give these over to Christ —to let go of these stones.  It is an invitation and choice that is mirrored symbolically in our parish invitation in the bulletin over the last few weeks to leave a stone at the foot of Christ’s Cross here in the well throughout Lent.  A ritual act of handing over, letting go, and letting God; letting God take our stones which do not and cannot feed us, and instead feed us with his True Food and life-giving Word and Spirit.  If you have not thought to bring a stone from home, fear not; there are a bucket of them here in the well.  And, don’t worry about dropping your stone on the burlap desert sands; there is plenty of padding underneath!  And as we leave our stones behind, maybe we can pick up and take away with us the kindness Fr. Chris invited us to share in his homily on Ash Wednesday; kindness that we feed each other with, looking out for each other, loving each other.  It’ll be the same kindness that will end up feeding us.


Easter Sunday 2025

By Fr. Chris Welch • May 12, 2025
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Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy), Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • April 27, 2025
How many of you recall the following hymn refrain? Misericordes sicut Pater Misericordes sicut Pater… It is the refrain from the hymn of the same title that was composed for the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, which Pope Francis opened in the first week of Advent in 2015 and concluded with the feast of Christ the King on November 20, 2016. You may recall that throughout that Jubilee Year, we opened our Masses with that hymn and sang that refrain. Misericordes sicut Pater… …Merciful like the Father …Merciful like the Father. How appropriate that on this Sunday, the second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, is also the weekend in which we have laid our Holy Father Pope Francis to rest, and entrusted him to the tender, eternal mercy of God the Father. It was no coincidence that Pope Francis declared the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. Pope Francis believed Mercy is the primary expression and experience of God’s love for us, and Mercy is the primary expression and experience of the love that God calls us to share with each other. So important was his belief and trust in God’s Mercy, that when he was ordained to the order of Bishop, he took as his episcopal motto “ miserando atque eligendo ” ( which roughly translates from Latin as “having mercy, he chose him”). It is taken from a homily written by St. Bede the Venerable, an eighth-century saint and Doctor of the Church, reflecting on the call of St. Matthew by Christ to become an apostle. St. Bede wrote, “[Jesus] saw the tax collector [Matthew] and, because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him, he said to him: Follow me .” So important was his belief and trust in God’s Mercy, that when Francis was elected as Pope, he kept this episcopal motto as his papal motto. This motto expresses so simply and beautifully truths of our faith: God loves us deeply; God expresses that love to us through His mercy for us in our sinfulness; and that despite our sinfulness, God calls us . God calls us to trust and hope in God’s love for us and calls us to express the same love and mercy for one another. That call is reflected also in the Gospel account of Matthew’s call to discipleship by Jesus, which concludes with Jesus challenging the Pharisees, saying “Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice'” (Mt. 9:13). Jesus challenges us in the same way. He calls the Pharisees – and us – out of ritual acts of worship and piety that are not also accompanied by acts of mercy! Jesus is clear about this. In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus says, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk. 6:36). In his Papal Bull announcing the Extraordinary Year of Mercy, Pope Francis describes God the Father’s mercy for us as like “that of a father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child…a “visceral” love…gush[ing] forth from the depths naturally, full of tenderness and compassion, indulgence and mercy” (Misericordiae Vultus, no. 6). He also describes God’s Divine Mercy as a ”wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace.” (MV 2). These words bring to mind the visceral atoning sacrifice of Christ on the cross for our sins, when blood and water sprung forth from Christ’s side as the cleansing waters of baptism. It is that visceral sacrifice which we recall in the Divine Mercy chaplet when we pray, “O Blood and Water which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in You!” It is that cleansing sacrifice that we recall when we pray in the Anima Christi prayer, “Water from the side of Christ, wash me.” And it is that same merciful cleansing in which we hope and trust, as we place all that burdens us into the waters of God’s grace, as we have done here, symbolically, in placing our Lenten stone-burdens in this fountain of Holy Water from the Easter Vigil Baptismal pool. As we contemplate God’s Divine Mercy, we place our trust and our hope in that Divine Mercy, recalling the words our late Holy Father Pope Francis left us with: “Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive” (MV 3); “Mercy [is] the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever” (MV 2). Misericordes sicut Pater Misericordes sicut Pater…

Palm Sunday, Year C

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • April 13, 2025
I have long thought that the Church gives us the two Gospel passages we hear today — the account of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem and the account of his Passion and death — for very practical reasons: this is the last Sunday before Easter when we will celebrate Christ’s Resurrection and not everyone is able to attend and celebrate the Triduum liturgies during Holy Week. Therefore, the Church places these two critical Gospel passages together so that we hear and experience them in a regular Sunday Mass setting — literally, to ‘fit them in’ before Easter. But there is another equally, if not more, important reason we are to experience these Gospel passages together. And I honestly don’t know if the Church intends this reason or not, but I believe the Holy Spirit intends it. These two Gospel passages remind us as much as any passage that Jesus Christ, while fully Divine, is also fully human. He is like us in all manner except one, in committing sin. He therefore shares with us the experience of the full range of our humanity. In these two Gospel passages we experience Christ moving from triumph to tragedy, from soaring to suffering: the triumphant, soaring entry into Jerusalem and the suffering and tragedy of His Passion and crucifixion. Christ’s human experience is also our human experience, for do not we all experience triumph and tragedy, soaring and suffering? Therefore, we do not have a God and Savior who cannot sympathize with our human experience, but rather one who shares it with us! And we have a God and Savior who not only soared and suffered for us, but soars and suffers with us. Not just two thousand years ago, but right here, right now, in every minute of our lives. For what did Jesus promise? “I am with you always , until the end of time.” (Mt 28:20) When we soar and triumph, Jesus is with us, by our side. And when we suffer and experience tragedy, especially, Jesus is with us, by our side. We are encouraged to give thanks to God in our triumphs and soaring. And we are invited to unite our suffering with Christ’s suffering and offer it up for whatever or whomever is in need. Christ’s suffering was not pointless, and united to His, neither is ours. We offer it up, trust, and hope. Sisters and brothers, that hope comes from our knowledge of the rest of the Gospel story that we will experience with Christ: that His triumph and tragedy, His soaring and suffering does not end in death, but in the glory of Easter Resurrection.