From Good Friday to Easter Sunday

Have you lived a Paschal Mystery? That is, have you travelled the journey from Good Friday to Easter Sunday in your own life and met God along the way?

Paschal Mystery: A time when it seemed that all was lost, but then you rose from the ashes to a new life that was better than the life you left.

Paschal Mystery: A time of great loss that gave way to new blessings that you never could have imagined before.

Paschal Mystery: A time of suffering that gave way to a time of relief and restoration?

Paschal Mystery: A time when you fell so low that you thought God might give up on you (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) only to find that God was there supporting you and lifting you up and restoring to you your lost dignity?

Paschal Mystery: Someone might be lying right now on a bed of pain, terminally ill, awaiting or even hoping for death, hoping that the death they have to pass through will help them experience the words, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Some of us might be at the Good Friday stage of our own Paschal Mystery—some of us might be suffering, or might be disappointed, humiliated, bewildered, confused, unsure or tempted to despair—in other words, some of us may be experiencing our own Good Friday during this Lent. If so, don’t give up hope: look beyond your pain and your loss to an Easter Sunday which is sure to follow.

And on the journey, you will encounter Christ. Look for Him. Pray for Him to reveal Himself to you.

God bless you.

Breaking through doubt.

I just finished reading a pile of letters that my creativity students wrote for me. A few of them said that they were skeptical or doubtful about the course since it is so different from other "traditional" courses thye have taken. But each of them laid aside whatever hesitation or objections they had and plunged on right ahead.

And guess what happened? Each one of them discovered that the material in the course is both valuable and helpful. Their personal experience was able to help them put their doubts to rest. Good for them!

It is so common that our thoughts about a thing prevent us from being open to learning or benefitting from what is new or different. The students laid aside their thoughts and were rewarded by seeing a whole new world.

I pray that our politicians will learn to do the same.