Inspired by my attendance at the (somewhat different this year) Stations of the Cross at my parish, I thought I would share a few possibilities to enhance our time in anticipation of Christ’s Resurrection on Sunday morning:

• Bp Barron’s reflections on the Stations (I listened to this on my bike ride to and from church)
• More Barron with Rabbi Wolpe on Easter and Passover (from today)
• John Bergma’s reflection on the day (I learned a lot during these eleven minutes — one of the most exciting Catholic voices today)
• Jesus of Nazareth (1977) closing act (my fave Jesus movie of all time)

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I finished Thomas More’s The Sadness of Christ today (see my short review here). A verse that struck me:

[T]he hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.

Jn 16:2b

Certainly the Pharisees and scribes claimed to be defending true worship when they constantly harangued Jesus about Sabbath laws. And recall Caiaphas’s words to the Sanhedrin immediately before plotting to have Jesus killed:

{I}t is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish.

Jn 11:50

The Chosen People must survive for God’s sake! But my thoughts more so turned to today’s cancel culture. Just as an attempt was made to “cancel” the politically incorrect (and inconvenient) Lord (how did that work out?), so today, killing reputations and careers has become sport for those who claim to be on the “right side of history.” Well, I, for one, would rather be on the right side of His-story. Let the secularists offer perverted worship to their gods, I will stick with the one true God in season and out of season (“as for me and my house we will serve the Lord” — Josh 24:15). Remember, there is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday.

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Finally, it was sixteen years ago today (!) that our beloved John Paul II went to the Father’s house. It was just shy of a week after Easter that year after 4:00pm local time on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday, appropriately. I recall going to Mass that morning and the new priest (part of the JPII Generation) crying as he anticipated the imminent death of the pontiff. A beautiful litany. Pope St. John Paul II, ora pro nobis.

God bless.