Coffin Break #22 – Easter, Coming Soon

Happy Friday, Everybody. After months of putting in the practice of making every Friday a Little Triduum, here we are concluding the Lenten Season at the Big One. This Sunday is, of course, Easter. But today, Good Friday, the churches are desolate. So, from this desolation which is an unavoidable part of our pilgrimage through this Valley of Tears, let’s look at the upcoming Gospel in the Light of the Grave:

The Gospel is Matthew 28: 1-10 and can be read here:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040526.cfm

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were met by the angel of the Lord at Jesus’ tomb where they are told:

He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said.
Come and see the place where he lay.

Let’s take the time this Good Friday, amidst the desolation, amidst whatever anxieties are plaguing us, to consider the words from the angel -- “just as he said.”

Our world is so full of words. Words in books, words on the news, words in podcasts, words on the street, words in our houses, words in our heads. We live amidst a torrent of words, but very few of them have any meaningful connection to The Word. The Word that was made flesh to suffer and die to save us from our sins.

The simplicity and certainty of the angel’s words, “just as he said,” strike me as a rebuke to our lack of faith or understanding. Surely our anxiety would be completely extinguished if we would hear and trust Jesus’ words as we ought to. But that rebuke from the angel, that subtle invitation to weigh and judge the strength of our own faith, does not stand alone.

Knowing our weakness, our sinfulness, our failure to break free from the doubts that plague so many of us so much of the time, the angel, as an ambassador of God’s mercy, invites the women to ‘come and see the place where he lay.’ To engage the physical evidence of that most marvelous of all historical events: Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead.

For us on this Good Friday, in a mysterious way, Jesus will be glimpsed still laying there, apparently crushed under the weight of our personal sins. Our willingness to soberly face this vision, and how we respond to it, plays a pivotal part in our passage to Easter joy - coming very soon – and serves as a template for how we will face Jesus, personally, at the end of our lives - coming sooner than we think.

Happy Easter Everybody, Jesus I trust in You

Coffin Break #21 – Flesh Shaken, Spirit Stirred

Happy Friday, Everybody,

Here we go into our last Little Triduum before the big one. To commence Holy Week this Sunday is Palm Sunday, and our Gospel reading is Jesus’ Last Supper and Passion from Matthew 26:14 – 27:66, which you can read here:

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/032926.cfm

It gives us a lot to consider in the Light of the Grave.

I have been reading a book by Nicholas Diat called A Time to Die wherein the author writes of his visits to monasteries to learn how the monks face death. One might think that the detachment from the world and disciplined devotion to God which are essential to monastic life would guarantee an easy crossing from the here to the hereafter. But it is not always so. It would seem, from reading this book, that not only does no one here get out alive, but that few, if any, here get out with ease.

Our Lord’s words to the disciples that they would have their faith shaken on the night of his arrest came true, despite all the time they’d spent with him witnessing his miracles, and despite Peter’s bold reply that maybe the others’ faith would be shaken, but his would not (we know how that worked out!).

Soon after this, Jesus, finding Peter asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane, tells him “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

With our privileged perspective of Jesus’ victory over death, and that we were created to live with him forever, how weak ought our flesh to be? Well, it remains… fleshly weak. Flesh is flesh, before, during and even after the death that ended all death. But the spirit? The spirit that wills can be strong, and God has given us a Divine Inverter to increase the strength of that spiritual will.

What is that inverter? It is Jesus himself. Paradoxically, when we take the things that shake our flesh and run them through Jesus our spirits are strengthened.

We might lament this inverse relationship as we cling to our physical existences, but God knows best. He knows that it is our spirit that will be carried over the threshold and that our bodies, in their present state MUST be left behind. You know this, and I know this too; it is this apparently terrible truth that shakes our flesh.

But appearances can be deceiving. Hosanna in excelsis!

Beauty in the Broken Places

An article was recently published about the neighborhood we have put Marian Caskets at the service of ministering to. Whenever you purchase a casket from us, some of the proceeds are going to these works of mercy as well.

https://philanthropydaily.com/beauty-in-the-broken-places-how-a-scranton-parish-is-reviving-newmans-vision/

Thank you all for giving us the privilege of doing this work and partnering with us to ease some of the very heavy burdens being carried by the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania!