Easter: Let God roll the stone back

This has a been a journey focused on transformation: God has a specific plan on us and He is willing to do whatever it takes to bring it about. If we let Him, He will wash our feet and take away the mud the world puts on us. If we let Him, He will open the doors to Heaven for us as He took on Him all that separates us from God.

If we let Him, He can roll back the stone on the tomb and allow us to experience New Life, experience Him alive and living in our midst. God is not dead, but too many look for Him among the dead. They will never find Him, and yet, they are those who go around in the world saying that “God is dead.”
God is alive. In Jesus, God has accomplished the unthinkable: He who was “in heaven” is not living in our midst, we who were His enemies have become friends and now able to share His life in us through Baptism.

If we let Him wash us in this living stream of new water that He provides, we will be able to see that we are His children. And Life can start again.
What will it take? and, how will this new life look like? Can you imagine: living a life with a heart as big as the world?

This is the beginning of a new era for each and everyone of us. this is the time when we can taste the Newness that we long for.

I am ready to follow Him; who else will join me?

Good Friday: "we are the 'Because' of God

We walk together on this most beautiful of days, following Jesus who carries His cross. We go with Him all the way to Calvary where we see Him, true God and true Man, hanging on the Cross, dying for our salvation.
We walk today with Him and we will see Him crying out “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”

“Why have you forsaken me?”

In this Cry we find the cry of every people, of every age, of every nation who struggle to find God today. We walk with them, we walk for them, and we walk on their behalf. With Jesus, we cry with them as they wonder: “where is God when tragedy struck? Where is God, when I can’t find a way to sustain my family due to loss of jobs, poverty, illness…? Where is God, when I experience injustice and discrimination?”

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” In the abandonment of Jesus, this terrible feeling of isolation and forsakenness, we can find ourselves.
It seems as though the Father remains silent and does not answer to the “Why?”
But we know that something else was happening. As true man, Jesus uttered those words two thousand years ago; as true God, He utters them eternally.
Jesus cries out “Why have you forsaken me?” and one day you were born, “Why have you forsaken me?” and another day you were born. “Why have you forsaken me?” And yet another day I was born.
By God’s grace, in the power of the Spirit, we become part of this wordless dialogue that the Father has with His Son. We, therefore, become the “Because” of God. We are God’s answer to Jesus’ cry on the Cross.

We walk with Jesus because we matter to God; we walk because we know that His great love has reached its most sublime form: He died for us.

We walk with Jesus to Calvary because we find today the answer to humankind’s greatest question: “’Who am I?’ and ‘Why am I here?’ ” We are here because He loves us immensely; we are here because we are God’s gift to His Son (John 17:6)

We walk also with those who cannot, those who don’t believe yet in His Love. We take their sufferings, their questions, their own “Whys?” and make them our own and we put them in the Cry of Jesus today and we pray that they too become aware of what HE does for them.

We walk with Jesus, with grateful hearts, and we say “Yes” to His love as we live our lives as “the ‘because’ of God”

We walk with Jesus together as the family of the redeemed, and we will continue to do so, brother to brother, sister to sister, until we will realize what He dreamt for us  - that we can “Become one as He and the Father are one… so that the world may believe”(John 17:21)that He died for the salvation of all. They He died because HE loved us to the end (John 13:1)

Letting Jesus wash our feet

I look at the story of the washing of the feet and wonder how can I enter into this reality so that I, too, can do this and, therefore, partake of the Kingdom.

He loved them to the end. This is the framework. Whatever Jesus does is out of Love for us. How far does this Love go? He does the unthinkable: at the table He washes the disciples’ feet.

I understand why Peter has a problem with this: those feet not only were covered with dust, but also with the human and animal waste that run in the streets. When they came into the house, they were too smelly and the lowest rank slave would wash people’s feet.

Are we willing to let Jesus do that, take away all the mud and yucky stuff that we collect from the outside? are we willing to let Jesus take away from us the mud that other people put on our feet?
The world out there wants us to believe that the Church, for example, is an old institution that needs to be taken away, filled with corrupted people who do nothing for the world. Once I let Jesus take way the mud, I see the Church as a family, made one by the meal we share at the Table of the Supper of the Lord.

Are we willing to let Jesus transform us into someone New?

New Life

The story of the resurrection of Lazarus speaks to me very strongly. I can get a glimpse of God’s heart from this story: He wants us to have and enjoy a new life, a new type of life - the resurrection life. How can I...we... experience this life?

I enter the story by following Martha. “If you had been here.” How many times I told God the same thing: where were you when that tragedy struck? when that child was being hurt?

“I am the resurrection and the life... do you believe this?” I am invited to answer. Do I believe that He is the source of this new life? nobody else and nothing else. Can I rely on Him alone for this Life?

“They brought him to the tomb.” If I want to experience new life, I need to bring Jesus to that part of my soul or my body or my mind that is dead or dying. This may be the place where I let nobody get close but it is at the tomb that new life begins. I have to bring my pain and my needs to Him, even if I am embarrassed or do not know how to talk to Him about it.

“Take the stone away” It’s not enough to bring Jesus to the tomb, He wants to face the darkness. I need to face the stench of the sinfulness, the reality that death creates.  It stinks in the cave because I allowed to many dead thing to accumulate. It’s impossible to clean up. Now what? I cannot continue to cover things us. The smell will never go away. There is only one way of letting the stench go away forever.

“Lazarus, come out!” I cannot exit the cave on my own strength but He can. And He calls me to a new life. Every time He calls us by name we are being re-created again.
But now, I have to answer. Do I have the courage to follow the voice and get out of the dark cave or will I ignore it and remain where I feel “comfortable?” Life is risky but I have to make a choice.

I choose the new life. I am ready!
Are you?