Collect: O God, who have commanded us to listen to your beloved Son,
be pleased, we pray, to nourish us inwardly by your word that, with spiritual sight made pure,
we may rejoice to behold your glory.
I am sorry for the not posting these past few days as things have been busy.
With that, these past few days indeed leave us with some interesting things to ponder this Lent.
We saw the passing of Antonin Scalia, one of the Supreme Court Justices, and a practicing Catholic. Now, lately, I haven’t been paying attention to politics, but Scalia’s funeral Mass was broadcasted publicly, and his son celebrated the Mass. When someone is able to preach to a national audience, of course I am interested in seeing how to goes.
It was one of the most excellent homilies I have ever heard.
“We are gathered here because of one man. A man known personally to many of us. Known only by reputation to even more. A man loved by many. Scorned by others. A man known for great controversy. And for great compassion. That man, of course, is Jesus of Nazareth.” ~Fr. Paul Scalia, son of Antonin Scalia, during the Homily of his father’s funeral.
Even in the face of sadness, even in the face of tragedy, even in the face of death, Christ must be the center of our lives. It is because of His life, death, and resurrection that we must be a people of hope.
We look to Christ in the past for thanksgiving of all blessing we have received from God. We look to Christ in the present in order to ask Him for his help because He died and rose for all of us, each and every single one of us. Then we look to Christ to eternity, with the hope that He would judge us with mercy and justice.
We who are merely sinners, we who do not deserve what Christ has done for us, are blessed to have Him as our hope. For in the end, we are His first.
We must also remember that only those Christ has perfected can enter the Kingdom. As such, we must pray to God for those who are still in sin, and those who have passed away because we are all sinners.
We must continue to pray for God’s inexplicable mercy to us sinners. The worst thing we can deprive of those who have gone before us is our prayers.
As for us, we need to be mindful of ourselves, because death is whenever God wills for us. We look to Christ in eternity so that we may be turned away from sin.
May we pray for those who have gone before us. And may we pray for ourselves, that we may follow His will and that we may be turned away from temptation and sin.
All of this can be possible in the end, when we have Christ perfected in us, so that we may enjoy the beatific vision and join together with the communion of Saints.
Have a blessed Lent.
The Scarlet Trad Cat 