March 28 – Palm Sunday

Unlike Holy Week and Easter last year when the Churches were closed and livestreaming was the only option, this year we are able to have a limited number of people present to celebrate the liturgies of Holy Week and Easter. The Diocese of Joliet sent a memo on March 4, 2021 to all parishes stating that despite the increase in the number of people being vaccinated and relaxation of restrictions in some Dioceses and businesses that for now, parishes are directed to hold to the current requirements that have been in effect.  SO, IF YOU WANT TO ATTEND IN PERSON ANY OF THE HOLY WEEK SERVICES AND/OR MASS ON EASTER SUNDAY, YOU MUST PRE-REGISTER ON THE PARISH WEBSITE OR CALL THE PARISH BY MONDAY, MARCH 29.  Many of the services and Easter Sunday Masses will still be livestreamed.  Let’s all pray that a return to “normal” will not be far off!

Today we begin Holy Week.  Twice we will hear the account of the passion of Jesus.  In today’s gospel from Mark, and on Good Friday from the gospel of John.  In these readings we focus a lot of our attention, and rightly so, on the suffering of Jesus and all he endured out of love for us, to save us.  I also challenge us with another perspective regarding the passion accounts of Jesus.  Among all the cruel and violent persons we hear about in Christ’s suffering last hours, it is easy to overlook those who were kind.  At Bethany, Simon the leper offers him hospitality, and a nameless to us woman, with an alabaster jar of perfumed oil anoints Jesus.  Since Jesus will soon be executed as a criminal, with the possibility of no Jewish funeral rite or burial place, this was a tender moment of deep meaning.  She put herself in danger to honor him and his sacrifice.  In Jerusalem there was Simon of Cyrene who helped carry his cross, and Joseph of Arimathea who courageously asked Pilate for the body of Jesus and laid him in a new tomb.  All of these people, and perhaps more whom we do not know, were glimpses of light in a day of darkness.  They were peace amidst the conflict.  Joy amidst the sorrow.  Celebration in the midst of tragedy.  With this in mind, we are challenged this week to be in solidarity with someone who is suffering.  Discipleship requires the way of solidarity.  Jesus emptied himself.  Jesus sacrificed.  Jesus gives himself completely for all of us.  What sacrifices might God be asking of us to better live in solidarity with those who suffer across the globe and in our local community?  Solidarity is the God-given ability to love others who are different from us and to see them as our brother or sisters.  Solidarity compels us to work for justice, make sacrifices for the common good, and love our neighbor as ourselves.  Pope Francis writes:  “This word solidarity runs the risk of being deleted from the dictionary because it is a word that bothers us; it bother us.  Why?  Because it requires you to look at another and give yourself to another with love.”  This week, be one of the named or unnamed characters in the passion narrative who showed kindness to Jesus!

Have a Blessed Holy Week!

Father Don

March 21 – Fifth Sunday of Lent

On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, we enter the last full week of Lent.  Next weekend is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.  Lent ends when we start the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday evening, this year on April 1.  It is time to reflect on how well we have done with our resolutions for this Lent.  If not so well, perhaps a prayer St. Augustine recited resonates with our experience:  “Grant me chastity and self-control, but please not yet” (Confessions 8.7.17).  This prayer probably resonates with some of us.  We admire goodness and righteousness.  We respect them and aspire to them, but we also enjoy our faults.  If they weren’t enjoyable, we wouldn’t keep kicking the proverbial can down the road!  Perhaps the title of St. Augustine’s “Confessions” should be re-titled:  “The Procrastination of Perfection!”  With Augustine, we pray for conversion from our sins, but not yet.

In our First Reading today from the Prophet Jeremiah, there is an astounding message to the people of Israel who kept breaking their covenant with God time and time again.  Jeremiah proclaims that God is going to make a new covenant:  “All, from least to greatest, shall know me….for I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sin no more.”  This is great news for those who truly desire conversion and salvation.  For those of us who relish our sins, however, it is unnerving.  We do not wish to be made perfect yet.  Just a bit longer.  That’s all we ask, right?  But, as Jesus answers in the gospel reading, “The hour has come.”  During this final week of Lent before Palm Sunday, may we not kick the can any further down the road!  Instead, be reconciled to God, go to confession, and pray for a clean heart!  The last confessions before Easter are:  Tuesday, March 23 – 7pm to 8pm; Saturday, March 27 – 9am to 10am and 1:30pm to 2:30pm; Sunday, March 28 – 4pm to 5:30pm; Tuesday, March 30 – 8:30am to 10am and 7pm to 9pm.

May I ask for your prayers on Thursday, March 25.  I will be having surgery to remove part, or all of my thyroid.  Medical tests I had in December when I had my gallbladder removed, and tests subsequent to that, indicate that I have nine granulomas in my lungs that are not cancerous and do not need to be treated.  Two of the granulomas, one being the largest at 3cm, are in my thyroid and causing problems.  So, part or all of my thyroid needs to be removed.  Because this surgery requires general anesthesia, I will be in the hospital overnight and discharged the next day.  I should be just fine, I better be! As I am preaching all the Masses Palm Sunday weekend, March 27 & 28.

Have a blessed last full week of Lent!

Father Don

March 7 – Third Sunday of Lent

Today is the Third Sunday of Lent.  This Sunday and the next two Sunday’s we celebrate the SCRUTINIES with those who will be baptized this year at the Easter Vigil.  And while I write about the Scrutinies every year at this time, a reminder might be helpful.  Even if these rites are not celebrated at the liturgy you attend, it can be wonderful to reflect upon the journey the Elect, those preparing for baptism at the Easter Vigil, as an inspiration and source of renewal for us in our journey.  At the Mass the Scrutinies are celebrated, the A cycle of the Sunday readings are used.  This week, the woman at the well, next week the man born blind, and the following week, Lazarus being raised from the dead.

These are ancient rites and they may, at first, seem strange to us.  But they are profoundly rooted in our human experience.  We need to examine (scrutinize) the areas of our lives where we are tempted, or seriously in, in what we do and what we fail to do.  We really need healing and the strength that can come from the support of our sisters and brothers.

Unfortunately this year, due to the COVID pandemic, we have not been able to conduct the RCIA as it usually is done.  Missing has been the group coming to Mass together and after the homily being dismissed to gather together and reflect deeper on the Word of God they just heard.  The formation sessions have been held through Zoom instead of gathering each week in person.  So, you have not had the opportunity to see those who are preparing for baptism and those preparing to be received into the Church.  So, in these final weeks of preparation, I ask you to intentionally keep them in your prayers.

At this time of year, some households get turned upside down for the annual ritual of spring cleaning.  More zealous housekeepers go to great extents.  Bedding is taken outside and aired, bed springs rinsed of the year’s dust.  Floors are waxed, rugs and furniture vacuumed, windows washed, nook and crannies dusted.  Lent is our spiritual spring cleaning.  We are called to go again to the center of our faith – our share in Christ’s death and resurrection.  We are asked to examine how our conviction and practice may have gathered dust during the past year (especially since when have been dispensed from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass during the COVID pandemic).  It is only human for us to get complacent, to slack off, to compromise with evil, to get comfortable with our sins.  Do we really have to take out all the furniture for an airing?  Yes, we do!

Have a blessed Lent!

Father Don

February 28 – Second Sunday of Lent

How easy do you find it to trust in God?  I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life that I have found it difficult to trust in God, believing that He really has a plan.  When I have to conduct the funeral of a parent leaving behind small children, or the funeral of a teen who died by suicide or a drug overdose, I find myself asking God a lot of questions.  Trusting in the paradoxes of God is challenging!  For example, in today’s first reading from Genesis, Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac appears to make no sense at all.  The promise to the patriarch seems to be in jeopardy since Abraham can realize the blessing of a great posterity only through Isaac.  God’s command is apparently counterproductive.  In this account however, the author informs us that this entire actions is designed as a divine testing.  It is meant to evoke the patriarch’s wholehearted commitment to God.  Abraham thus emerges as the paragon of faith and trust.  He learns, painfully perhaps, that we are called to trust in the paradoxes of God.

In the second reading Paul also struggles with trust in divine paradox.  He speaks of God as one who did not spare his own Son but handed him over to death for the sake of all humanity.  Paul then quickly adds the human trust component to this paradox of live via death.  If God has acted in this seemingly bizarre way, the “how will he not also give us everything else along with him?”  Paul captures the depth of divine paradox in the death and resurrection of Jesus to elicit human trust in One who apparently does not go by the book!  We are called to trust in the paradoxes of God.

The early Christian community saw Good Friday as the great paradox.  The kingdom so eloquently proclaimed by Jesus was obviously in jeopardy, if not already snuffed out.  However, Mark in today’s Gospel uses the transfiguration to establish the divine paradox.  Jesus had earlier enunciated the plan of passion, death, and resurrection.  In the transfiguration story, the three disciples share in the divine revelation yet come away discussing the meaning of resurrection.  For Mark, the transfiguration makes sense only on the grounds that one presupposes the resurrection follows only after suffering and death.  In Mark too, we are called to trust in the paradoxes of God.

The Eucharist provides a fitting setting for the theme of the paradoxes of God.  It is the paradox that Jesus’ dying can lead to Jesus’ being raised.  The bread and the wine become the symbols of divine paradox.  They challenge us to transcend the world of effort and results to accept a God of concern who writes straight with crooked lines.  In the Eucharist, too, WE are called to trust in the paradoxes of God!

Have a blessed Lent!

Father Don

February 21 – First Sunday of Lent

This Wednesday I begin a six-week reflection and discussion series “Living Your Baptism in Lent.” It is held on Wednesdays from 7:00pm – 8:30pm. You can participate in person or via zoom. Registration is on the parish website.

So why discuss baptism in Lent? Most people think of Lent as a time of penance, giving up some pleasure, going to confession, fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. Lent is that, but it is also more. Lent is also a time for the faithful to PREPARE to renew your baptismal promises on Easter Sunday. Most people give little thought to their baptismal promises because most people were baptized as infants and your parents and godparents made the baptismal promises for you at a time you were not cognizant of the meaning of those promises. When you were baptized, your parents and godparents said “yes” for you to the following questions:

• Do you reject sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s children?
• Do you reject the glamour of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?
• Do you reject Satan, the father of sin and prince of darkness?
• Do you believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
• Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?
• Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?

The question then as we have grown up is how well each of us have understood, embraced and lived those promises that were once made for us by our parents and godparents? The Lenten theme of conversion is also an important part of our understanding of Baptism. Conversion is a LIFELONG process and Lent helps us to remember that. Lent is about responding to the grace of Baptism. Lent is a time to intentionally respond to God’s call. At our baptism we were given the Holy Spirit. Lent invites us to consider the movement of the Holy Spirit already in us.

Whether you are able to join my presentations and discussion, use the above questions to reflect on your baptism this Lent, and be PREPARED to renew YOUR baptismal promises this Easter.

Have a blessed week!

Father Don

February 14 – Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

In addition to today being the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, it is also World Marriage Sunday.  How appropriate – Valentine’s Day!  I will share with you some points about the day from the Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

• The readings for today highlight our need for Jesus as the Divine Physician. The Old Testament reading from Leviticus lays out the law for those who have contracted leprosy: such persons would be declared unclean, turned out from society, and made to live apart from others in efforts not to spread the disease.  If a person were to touch a leper, they would then be declared unclean as well, facing the same restrictions.
• Jesus, “moved with pity…stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, ‘I do will it. Be made clean.” The act of Jesus actually touching a leper would have shocked those around him.  Love reaches out and touches others.  Jesus touches this man, regardless of the risk of being ostracized himself.  True love does not count the cost.  Jesus gives all for all, unreservedly because his love knows no limits.
• Every marriage is meant to be a little icon of the love of Christ and his bride, the Church. The love shared between a man and a woman in holy matrimony points us to the self-emptying, self-sacrificing love God has for each one of us.
• The promises that married couples make to each other illustrate what this love looks like lived out in the day to day experience: to have and to hold, exclusively, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to cherish, to honor until death. A person gives everything to his or her spouse.
• The continuation of living life amid a global pandemic may have some married couples reflecting that this has been a season of “for worse, for poorer, and in sickness.” There are many married couples who are suffering right now:  marital strain, illness, unemployment, etc.  The sacrament of marriage provides the grace necessary to weather the storms of marriage and family life.

On this World Marriage Day, I thank all married couples for the witness of their sacrificial love “to have, to hold, to honor”!

Have a blessed week!

Father Don

January 31 – Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

This week the Church throughout the country celebrates “Catholic Schools Week.”  The theme this year is:  “Catholic Schools: Faith. Excellence. Service.”  Catholic schools have a specific purpose to form students to be good citizens of the world, love God and neighbor and enrich society with the leaven of the gospel and by examples of faith.

Our Lady of Mercy parish is one of the five financially supporting parishes of the inter-parish Catholic grammar school All Saints Catholic Academy on Aurora Avenue in Naperville.  There are many choices of Catholic grammar and high schools in the area for parishioners who want to send their children to a Catholic grammar school.  Our Lady of Mercy specifically promotes All Saints Catholic Academy because the school and our parish is in the Diocese of Joliet.  The other ten Catholic parishes in Aurora are a part of the Diocese of Rockford.  While we provide tuition assistance for registered and active parents of OLM for their children attending a Catholic grammar school in the Rockford Diocese, our primary support and promotion is for All Saints Catholic Academy.

All Saints Catholic Academy provides Catholic education from pre-school through 8^th grade, and has had in person instruction since school began last August.  Mass is celebrated weekly on Wednesday at 8:15am.  Often times I am the celebrant.  It is an excellent school with a strong and dedicated administration, faculty and staff.  I invite you to check it out at:  ascacademy.org

As communities of faith, Catholic schools instill in students their destiny to become saints.  Academic excellence is the hallmark of Catholic education intentionally directed to the growth of the whole person – mind, body and spirit.  Service is fundamental to Catholic education and the core of Catholic discipleship.  Service is intended to help form people who are not only witnesses to Catholic social teaching but also active participants through social learning.  Catholic schools, like the Catholic Church is not a building or an institution, but it is the people.  As the people of God, we work together to bring the Kingdom of God to Earth and raise up the next generation to do the same!

I encourage our parents with grammar and high school age children to check out Catholic Schools as an option for their children’s education.  And I thank all the dedicated staff and teachers who make a financial sacrifice by their dedication to Catholic education!

Have a Blessed week!

Father Don

January 24 – Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the bulletin of January 10, I gave a Big Christmas Thank You to those involved with the planning and implementation of our Christmas liturgies. Whenever I publicly recognize persons or groups for their service, inevitably I forget to mention someone or group.  This time I failed to include the many volunteer greeters in my Christmas Thank You.  I apologize.  The greeter ministry at OLM is so very important.  It is the greeters, holding the doors open and welcoming all who come to OLM that give that first sense of hospitality to those who pass through our doors.  So thank you!  Not only at Christmastime but all those Saturday/Sunday Masses throughout the year, rain, cold, snow we thank you for your smiling face and words of welcome!  We welcome additional individuals and families who would like to join the greeter ministry.  Please contact Phil Zwick at philiipzwick@yahoo.com.

Today, the Third Sunday in Ordinary time is “Word of God Sunday” proclaimed by Pope Francis in 2019.   In the Introduction to the Lectionary for Mass, we are reminded of the role of the Word of God in the life of the Church:

“In the hearing of God’s word the Church is built up and grows, and in the signs of the liturgical celebration God’s wonderful, past works in the history of salvation are presented anew as mysterious realities. God in turn makes use of the congregation of the faithful that celebrates the Liturgy in order that his word may speed on and be glorified and that his name be exalted among the nations.  Whenever, therefore, the Church, gathered by the Holy Spirit for liturgical celebration, announces and proclaims the word of God, she is aware of being a new people in whom the covenant made in the past is perfected and fulfilled. Baptism and confirmation in the Spirit have made all Christ’s faithful into messengers of God’s word because of the grace of hearing they have received. They must therefore be the bearers of the same word in the Church and in the world, at least by the witness of their lives.  The word of God proclaimed in the celebration of God’s mysteries does not only address present conditions but looks back to past events and forward to what is yet to come. Thus God’s word shows us what we should hope for with such a longing that in this changing world our hearts will be set on the place where our true joys lie.”

Have a Blessed Week and take some time to read Sacred Scripture this week!

Father Don