There are certain things that don’t happen often in Parish ministry, but they occur like clockwork during particular times of the year. You can set your clock by the fact that people will call in droves to double check the Ash Wednesday schedule to make sure they get their ashes. It’s a virtual lock that confessions pick up in the week or two prior to Christmas and Easter. And one of the true, time-honored traditions is people voicing their displeasure at having to cry out, during the Gospel on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, “Crucify Him!”

I understand this point of view all too well. Our practice of reading the part of the crowd crying out for the death of Our Lord is a painful reminder of our need for redemption. By our sins we participate in sending Jesus to the Cross, and it can be painful to dwell upon our faults and sins.

But as we conclude the season of Lent and approach the most important celebration of the Church year, we must balance this sorrow with the joy that we have a Savior who is willing to enter into our broken humanity and raise us up. Neither the Cross nor the Resurrection makes sense without the other.

In order to fully live out the fruits of redemption in our lives, we must first pass through the con-sequences of sin in our own lives, and in the Life of Christ. As St. Paul says, “Christ never knew sin, and God made him into sin for us, so that in him we might be turned into the holiness of God.”

As we approach the Paschal Triduum as a region, we would do well to pray about all that God has done for us, both as individuals and as the holy people of God. The best response to God’s saving work in our lives is to praise and thank Him in worship, and then to go out to our families, friends, neighbors, and the entire world, to proclaim the message of the Gospel, in the hopes of sharing in eternal life with Our Lord.

Prayers always,
Fr. McCullough