This weekend we mark the beginning of Holy Week with the celebration of Palm Sunday. Please join us for the various celebrations of this coming week. Holy Thursday will be celebrated with Mass at 7:00 PM, followed by the Procession with the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose in the Atrium where time can be spent in quiet prayer with our Lord until Night Prayer is prayed at 10:00 PM. On Good Friday, the Service will be celebrated at 12:30 PM and that evening we will offer Tenebrae, part of the Office of Matins for Good Friday at 7:00 PM. Holy Saturday is marked with the Blessing of the Easter Food in the morning and the celebration of the great Easter Vigil beginning at 7:45 PM.
In order to guide us over the course of this week spiritually, I thought I would, once again, share some of the reflections of St. Alphonsus Liguori which reflect on the depths of God’s loved as revealed to us in the suffering and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ:
“’Two things,’ says Cicero, ‘make us know a lover – that he does good to his beloved, and that he suffers torments for him; and this last is the greatest sign of true love.’ God has indeed already shown his love to man by many benefits bestowed upon him; but his love would not have been satisfied by only doing good to man, as says St. Peter Chrysologus, if he had not found the means to prove to him how much he loved him by also suffering and dying for him, as he did by taking upon him human flesh: ‘But he held it to be little if he showed his love without suffering;’ and what greater means could God have discovered to prove to us the immense love which he bears us then by making himself man and suffering for us? ‘In no other way could the love of god towards us be shown,’ writes St. Gregory Nazianzen.
Ah, when he showed himself to us, a God, wounded, crucified, and dying, did he not indeed give us the greatest proofs of the love that he bears us? ‘God showed his utmost love on the cross.’ And before him St. Bernard said that Jesus, in his Passions, showed us that his love towards us could not be greater than it was: ‘In the shame of the Passion is shown the greatest and incomparable love.’ The Apostles writes that when Jesus Christ chose to die for our salvation, then appeared how far the love of God extended towards us miserable creatures: The goodness and kindness of our God appeared.
O most loving Savior! I feel indeed that all Thy wounds speak to me of the love Thou bearest me. And who that had so many proofs of Thy love could resist loving Thee in return? St. Teresa was indeed right O most amiable Jesus, when she said that he who loves Thee not gives a proof that he does not know Thee.”
In order to guide us over the course of this week spiritually, I thought I would, once again, share some of the reflections of St. Alphonsus Liguori which reflect on the depths of God’s loved as revealed to us in the suffering and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ:
“’Two things,’ says Cicero, ‘make us know a lover – that he does good to his beloved, and that he suffers torments for him; and this last is the greatest sign of true love.’ God has indeed already shown his love to man by many benefits bestowed upon him; but his love would not have been satisfied by only doing good to man, as says St. Peter Chrysologus, if he had not found the means to prove to him how much he loved him by also suffering and dying for him, as he did by taking upon him human flesh: ‘But he held it to be little if he showed his love without suffering;’ and what greater means could God have discovered to prove to us the immense love which he bears us then by making himself man and suffering for us? ‘In no other way could the love of god towards us be shown,’ writes St. Gregory Nazianzen.
Ah, when he showed himself to us, a God, wounded, crucified, and dying, did he not indeed give us the greatest proofs of the love that he bears us? ‘God showed his utmost love on the cross.’ And before him St. Bernard said that Jesus, in his Passions, showed us that his love towards us could not be greater than it was: ‘In the shame of the Passion is shown the greatest and incomparable love.’ The Apostles writes that when Jesus Christ chose to die for our salvation, then appeared how far the love of God extended towards us miserable creatures: The goodness and kindness of our God appeared.
O most loving Savior! I feel indeed that all Thy wounds speak to me of the love Thou bearest me. And who that had so many proofs of Thy love could resist loving Thee in return? St. Teresa was indeed right O most amiable Jesus, when she said that he who loves Thee not gives a proof that he does not know Thee.”
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