For the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Divine Mercy Sunday
Fifth Sunday of Lent – April 6, 2025
Readings (for Year C): Isaiah 43:16–21 • Psalm 126:1–2, 2–3, 4–5, 6 • Philippians 3:8–14 • John 8:1–11
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040625-YearC.cfm
“Let the one without sin be the first to throw a stone”
Oh, how fickle a crowd can be! They were determined to embrace the divine mandate and impose the righteous, just, albeit deadly price for this grave sin. They never considered the possibility of mercy.
I imagine this scenario, the scribes and Pharisees looking to take down Jesus, as something out of a wild west movie: white hats verse black hats, but life is never that easy. The scribes and Pharisees know they are doing their job. The law is clear: Moses commands us to stone such a woman. Who has the hutzpah to say that Moses was wrong?
There can be no challenge; God said it, I believe it, that is that! There can be no society where the law is capricious. Who does this Carpenter think he is? His so-called good news is attracting all the wrong people. The broken, poor, and the sick, even the tax collector and prostitute are told they had a place in God’s house. For the sake of all that is holy, this must be put to a stop!
But there will be no duel today. Jesus will not challenge the ancient law, but He will ask a unique question. Can you imagine the people of the community, old and young, at the ready with the rocks of justice in their hands? Can you see them craning to hear the exchange and then desperately trying to see what Jesus was writing in the dust?
And just like that, everything changed with one sentence. Pausing briefly from his writing, he affirmed the law but added: let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. He then returned to the task at hand.
I wonder if Jesus was writing the sins of those gathered there. But writing them in the dust — not in stone.
It was the elders who first realized that everything had changed. Then slowly, a spontaneous symphony of the gentle thuds began as the stones fell upon the dusty writing of Jesus. Mercy makes a lot more sense when you are the one in need of it.
And what of the sinful woman, is it fair that she escaped judgement? Probably not, but just about everyone that day was grateful that their God does not play by their rules.
Palm Sunday – April 13, 2025
Readings: Luke 19:28–40 • Isaiah 50:4–7 • Psalm 22:8–9, 17–18, 19–20, 23–24 • Philippians 2:6–11 • Luke 22:14—23:56
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041325.cfm
“The Master is in need of it”
This week celebrates the foundation of our faith. During the last six weeks, strengthened by our prayer, fasting, and charity, we have been preparing ourselves to dance with the foundational mysteries of what it means to be Catholic. The Liturgies this week are ancient and contemporary, they are deliberate and poetic, they are simple and baroque. They take seriously the human experience. They are also a challenge for a preacher; we are humbly reminded our homily is just a small part of the liturgies.
There is a lot of cheap grace (spiritual junk food) being offered these days. There are some who have declared charity is a vice, empathy a sin, and poverty a divine punishment. Doubt and dialogue are signs of weakness and pithy memes have replaced study and self-reflection. There is nothing new here; Pastor Bonhoeffer spoke of the same thing over eighty years ago.
Our task, as preachers, is to offer brief words that will invite and highlight the journey with our community through the spectacle of Palm Sunday, the hope of Holy Thursday, the scandal of Good Friday, the silence of Holy Saturday and the promise of Easter. It is our job to connect the ancient stories to the reality of our lives in 2025.
On this Palm Sunday, the Gospel at the Procession sets the stage for the whole week! The confident preparation, the exuberant crowds, and the fear of the authority are met with a confident Jesus. He is unfazed by the extremes. He understands his destiny and will do it His way.
The disciples are preparing for the week. Two are given a simple task with the authority of Jesus. When their work is challenged, they reply: the Master needs it! There is no doubt that the Lord is in charge of it all.
But terribly quickly, as we read the passion, the joy and hope turn to anger and fear. Is Jesus really in charge? Jesus’ passion is not difficult (algebra is difficult), it is an existential catastrophe. How are we expected to worship this broken one?
Each aspect of Luke’s passion demands the rethinking of what it means to follow Christ.
- The betrayal by his friend Judas
- The cowardice of Peter
- The despair in the Garden
- The humiliation of his trial
- The contempt of the soldiers
- The capricious nature of the crowd
- And even the borrowed grave
Oh Lord, where is your grace? Oh Lord, where is your victory?
The genius of Christianity is that grace is not a destination or reward, but rather within the life we embrace. Throughout Luke’s passion Jesus shows that the betrayal, cowardice, despair, humiliation, and contempt are never the final word. They are evils that are confronted and endured. Amid the joy and hope, the grief and anxiety of human life, grace uses the cracks and brokenness of our life to let God’s saving light shine. Let us go forth to walk with the Lord this week.
Holy Thursday – April 17, 2025
Readings: Exodus 12:1–8, 11–14 • Psalm 116:12–13, 15–16bc, 17–18 • 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 • John 13:1–15
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041725-Supper.cfm
“What I am doing you do not understand, but you will understand later”
The Christian life is a response to the invitation to be fully alive in Christ. It is not falling in love with an ideal or a tradition, it is a dramatic encountering with the Risen Lord. Once that happens — everything changes.
Today we celebrate the second of the four major liturgies of Holy Week. We celebrate the gift of the Eucharist and the priesthood! It is the promise of God’s sacramental presence in our lives, the source and summit of faith. This is the center of our faith lives and yet tonight is different.
During this celebration of the gift of the Eucharist and the priesthood, we depend on Paul to offer the words of consecration. John’s Gospel is something quite different. There are no words of consecration here, but rather he presents the peculiar rite of the washing of the feet.
I was a first-year student at St. Pius X Prep Seminary in the 70s. During Holy Week I was asked to be one of the twelve students who would have their feet washed by the rector. After his homily, which I have long forgotten, our rector, Fr. Dan Fagan, took off his chasuble, put on an apron, and washed the feet of twelve high school students. I was repulsed, embarrassed, mesmerized, and fascinated all at the same time. My Rector, who I was afraid to even talk to, was washing my smelly feet! It made no sense. How could the leader of my school do such a thing? I have never forgotten what he did. What I am doing you do not understand but you will understand later.
Decades later, when I was the principal at Xaverian High School, our school would re-enact the washing of the feet during our Holy Week prayer service. I was now the washer of feet. My students shared the same emotions from 50 years ago, and asked me the same question, why are you doing this? What I am doing you do not understand but you will understand later.
Why does John offer us this story? Simply, it is because humble service is constitutive to the Christian life. It is the only reasonable response we can offer. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.
Holy Thursday, while promising food for our journey, is also a mandate that our journey is one of humble service. As we take the Eucharist from the Church, singing the ancient hymn, we journey to the sinful reality of Golgotha, but we are not without hope.
Good Friday – April 18, 2025
Readings: Isaiah 52:13—53:12 • Psalm 31:2, 6, 12–13, 15–16, 17, 25 • Hebrews 4:14–16; 5:7–9 • John 18:1—19:42
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041825.cfm
“It Is Finished”
One of the most painful memories I have is of my mother sitting at the edge of her bed, mindlessly smoking a cigarette, trying to understand how her husband could have just died. The harsh gray smoke embodied all the numb emptiness she was experiencing. The fallen ashes were the loss of the hopes and dreams she and my dad shared. I remember it being a cold night.
No matter what the actual weather is today, there is something terribly cold and foreboding as we enter the church today. It could be the stark emptiness, or maybe that the sanctuary lamp has been extinguished. The open and empty tabernacle does not help much either. It is a cold day.
While John’s Passion presents a Jesus who, despite all he endures, is not a victim, I find little solace in John’s Jesus. His humiliation, agony, and broken body are all too real. I can smell the smoke and see the ashes. The truth is cold and unforgiving.
Good Friday is all too real. No one can escape the scandal of suffering and the emptiness of the grave. Yet we live in a culture that expects us to ignore the pain and suffering of life and deny the reality of death — until we cannot.
The best public relations propagandist in the world cannot fully hide the cruel truth of the cross. The dark cold tomb is recognized by all: Illness, hunger, despair, alienation, suffering, and death are all too real and the death of Jesus seems to affirm that these horrors are the final word for humanity.
But the liturgy will not allow this to happen. As the reading of the passion ends with Jesus being laid in the tomb, the Church responds in a most peculiar way. We soon hear the cry:
Behold, the wood of the Cross
On which is hung our salvation!
O come let us adore
The Catholic imagination cannot allow death to prevail. As true believers we know that we do not live a Gospel that promises a painless prosperity. No, the Good News we celebrate is the Gospel where faith that wrestles with despair, hope that endures suffering and love conquers death.
With a humble kiss of Christ’s cross, the pangs of hunger, the emptiness of loneliness, the loss of health, the reality of the grave, our struggles to love, and our other countless crosses are recognized as a terrifying grace and are made holy! God transforms our suffering; God does not ignore it.
We end the liturgy with receiving the Eucharist. Mother Church will never leave her children cold and hungry.
Easter, the Resurrection of the Lord – April 20, 2025
Options for Easter Vigil readings can be found at:
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041925.cfm
Readings for Easter Sunday: Acts 10:34a, 37–43 • Psalm 118:1–2, 16–17, 22–23 • Colossians 3:1–4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6b–8 • John 20:1–9
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042025.cfm
“All are welcome!”
If there is a better Easter homily than the one attributed to St. John Chrysostom, I have yet to hear it. The great preacher begins:
If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour, let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first.O death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory?
Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead! 1
St. John Chrysostom has captured for the ages the essence of the this most holy and wonderful of feasts! Today is about abundance! The abundance of food and drink, of family and friends, of gratitude and hope. Today is about an abundance of Grace.
On Easter I remember Pop, my paternal grandfather. He fancied himself a stern man, not very demonstrative with an air of authority and reserve. My favorite memory of the old man was on Easter, which turned out to be his last Easter. There had been turmoil in the family, who wasn’t to speak to whom, who was upset about this or that, who wouldn’t come to the holiday dinner. The grave slights have long been forgotten but at the time they threatened to fracture the family.
Pop said little. Easter came and all but one of his children were at the table. Then, a clap on the door revealed his prodigal son who sat at the table as if nothing had happened. True to his nature, the meal betrayed none of the drama. The rather unspectacular meal ended, and Pop retired to his chair. I followed him and saw a tear roll down his cheek. I was afraid — he never cried — not Pop! He saw me and lifted me onto his lap. (Something else he never did.) As he wiped away his tear, I dared to say, “Hey Pop, you, OK?” and with a cracked voice he said, “Everything is wonderful, all my children came home!” This memory helps me understand what St. John Chrysostom wrote and what Easter means.
The gates of Hell have been destroyed, and the gates of Heaven are thrown open.
Life prevails; Love is the victor, and our Father welcomes all his children home.
Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) – April 27, 2025
Readings: Acts 5:12–16 • Psalm 118:2–4, 13–15, 22–24 • Revelation 1:9–11a, 12–13, 17–19 • John 20:19–31
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042725.cfm
“My Lord and my God!”
I realized this year that, whenever I read this passage of John’s Gospel, I gloss over verses 19–23 and want to dive into the experience of Thomas. I do not spend time imagining the shock and awe of Jesus’ appearance to the apostles. He disregards their makeshift fortress and enters, offering peace to replace their fear. He consecrates all of them with the commission to forgive and heal. Well, not all of them.
My whole life has been in and about the City. There is a particular je ne sais quoi to being a New Yorker. We are accused of being brash, skeptical, and poorly suffering fools. I think Thomas would be comfortable in New York. He never avoided asking tough questions or making bold challenges (John 14:5; John 11:16). He is not afraid to be in the middle of it all. One can only wonder what errands he was on or what he needed to do that kept him from encountering the Lord the first time. What we do know is that he had no time for silly hallucinations or fairy tales offered by his timid colleagues. There was real work to be done.
I easily identify with Thomas. He is practical and direct, a man of action, and despite what people say, his issue was not his faith; it was his hope. I wonder, was he afraid to believe in what could be? Thomas remembered all too well the broken body of Jesus. He had nightmares of the memory of the lifeless body in the tomb. He had no time for hope.
Adults live in a world where they earn everything. Their homes, security, and reputation are all things for which they have worked. They are responsible and have no time to entertain silly childish fantasies. Life is hard enough without the distractions. When people enter a Church, they are embracing faith, and when they give to others, they show charity. But all too often our ability to hope is the issue. We are wired to protect ourselves from hoping in the impossible and carrying the pain of disappointment and despair. Common sense, maturity, and prudence are the salve we apply. In the process, however, we close our ears to the whispers of the Holy Spirit. In these times, sometimes, the Lord must shout!
When Jesus returns, He teases, not taunts, his old friend. Jesus repeats Thomas’ demands of verification. With this, Thomas has his own epiphany. He sees who Jesus has always been – My Lord and My God!
Thomas’ faith to believe was not weak; it was his hope in believing! It was just too good to be true.
There is no common sense in the resurrection, and nothing subtle about the Holy Spirit! Easter cries out that God has come to be part of creation, to renew and recreate!
Lord, I believe! Please give me the hope to overcome my disbelief.
About Deacon Kevin McCormack
Speak Your Mind