Speaking to the congregation in St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral, Trenton, Bishop O’Connell talks about the symbol of the crucifix on Good Friday March 29. Hal Brown photo
Hal Brown
Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., celebrated Masses and presided at services in a number of different parish churches of the Diocese throughout Holy Week. Beginning with Palm Sunday and continuing through Easter Sunday, the Bishop shared his spiritual insight and love for his flock in the series of homilies he preached during these solemn liturgies. Excerpts of his homilies follow:
Palm Sunday: St. Mary Parish, Colts Neck
Palm Sunday is, liturgically speaking, the doorway to Holy Week. … Jesus enters the “house of Holy Week” through “the door” that is Jerusalem … What we see from this door may be a bit deceiving: crowds cheering Jesus the King, palms and olive branches thrown before his feet, sung hosannas to the Son of David. … Soon, in the story of Holy Week, the crowd will turn ugly. … The supporters abandon their palms and thin out. Even the apostles scatter as Jesus walks the path to Calvary.
“I gave my back to those who beat me,” Isaiah prophesied in today’s first reading, “My cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord GOD is my help; therefore I am not disgraced.”
From the door where we stand in the liturgy today and through which we pass into Holy Week … We see the King enter. We witness his passion. … In Jesus Christ, ours is a God who is willing to suffer not only for us but with us. There is no place in our humanity where God is not present … We may not get that on Palm Sunday, but it is only “the door” and the beginning of the week that will follow.
Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord’s Supper St. John the Baptist Parish, Allentown
I n the ancient world of Jesus’ time, the custom of washing someone’s feet was a gesture of hospitality. … It was a practical thing to do as well as a sign of respect for the guest.
But in tonight’s Gospel, the gesture of foot washing has special significance. As with so many other practices, Jesus used what was common to create a holy moment … The symbolism of respect for another person by humbling oneself, showing that humility and care by washing feet, and the sharing one’s life by giving one’s life totally to another – which is what the Eucharist is, Jesus’ gift of his own Body and Blood – is the essence of what we celebrate together on this Holy Thursday evening. … My sisters and brothers, this night is Holy, not because of the things we do but, rather, because of the things He did – the Lord Jesus Christ. It is He who gathers us. It is he who gives us himself as food and drink. It is he who drops to his knees to wash the feet of his disciples. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, makes this night Holy. And what we do, we do in His memory.
Good Friday: St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral, Trenton
A crucifix or cross … is the central and most widely known symbol of Christianity … The fact that a symbol has endured for so long everywhere should convey something to everyone who sees it. … The crucifix … has endured because it depicts and represents the turning point of humanity. … The Lord Jesus Christ was put to death by us, by those He came to save. … But, by contrast, the most hopeful admission we have to make is that He died for us and in His death, He did save us. Nothing more important has ever happened in the history of the world than the moment of His death, which we remember in a dramatic way today. … The crucifix is the most powerful reminder of the greatest love the world has ever known: one wooden beam pointing from the earth to the sky, pointing our attention to God; another wooden beam pointing from east to west, pointing our attention to our fellow human beings. And what brings those two wooden beams, those two directions together, is a single body, His body, Jesus Christ, whose life of suffering and transforming love … turns the wood of the tree of defeat and death into a tree of life and victory.
Easter Vigil: Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish, West Trenton
Tonight, we celebrate the first official commemoration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is a ceremony steeped in symbol and tradition … We can become overwhelmed … precisely because no event in human history is as overwhelming as the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. … In tonight’s Gospel from St. Mark, the women go to his tomb … Instead of the dead body of Jesus they encounter what St. Mark describes as “a young man clothed in white” who tells them … “He is not here. He is Risen.” … Two simple sentences that changed the world. … Easter is about glory and triumph, first Christ’s and in our faith, ours as well. … And the source of our joy tonight is that the Risen Lord offers the same triumph and glory to us who believe in him. Our Sacraments celebrate our personal experience of Easter! That is the meaning of our Baptism when we say we die in Christ only to rise in him …. That is the meaning of our Confirmation, which strengthens the grace of Baptism. That is what receiving Holy Communion offers every time we receive it. “When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.”
Easter Sunday: St. Paul Parish, Princeton
Today, we read from John’s Gospel, but all four Gospel accounts describe the women coming to the tomb but finding it empty. They arrived to mourn and to anoint Jesus’ body, but it was not there. … They had to be reminded by an angel or two of what Jesus himself had foretold before his death on Good Friday. “And they remembered his words (Luke 24: 8).”
For over 2,000 years, the story of Jesus’ death and Resurrection has been remembered and retold, sung and proclaimed every day … “He is not here. He has been raised up just as he said (Matthew 28: 6).” And we “remember his words.” … Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, risen from the dead, speaks his word to us once more this Easter: a word of triumph, a word of victory, a word of life. “And we remember his words” each year, each Spring. The truth and the power of his word shatter the darkness of death and give rise to the bright promise of eternal life. That promise is offered to us. That offer is simply an invitation to believe. And that belief, that Easter faith changes our lives forever.