“Christ is Risen.” – Teams Oceania

Lent.

Lent is a little like having a haircut. The sun feels warmer and the wind fresher around the ears. The haircut tends to make us all feel better…was it not one of the real nuisances of the pandemic? Hairdressers and barbers were severely curtailed. In some ways, the cut restores hope. And whatever the beginnings, liturgically, and however we celebrate it today, Lent is ultimately a time to refresh and invigorate hope; hope that has been tarnished, dashed, even sometimes extinguished. Ultimately, the season leads to the proclamation of the Easter message, “Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.”

Hope in today’s restored Liturgy is offered for those seeking Baptism (and so many are in parishes all over) as well as refreshed hope for those worn out by the trials and tribulations of daily life. After all, the personal trials, the inhumane treatment, and physical brutality taken on by Jesus and, to a lesser extent by the two thieves (guilty of crimes), the innocent Jesus conquered all the hate and ignorance and manipulation of his religious traditions by envious and power-seeking leaders of his people, to triumph.

Hope was restored to humanity!

Few will read the scripture of this Sunday and not see the parallels of today’s world. One finds it hard to believe that in our enlightened society (true in many aspects), people can be so cruel to other people.

Evil is so obviously real in our world and on display everywhere and, thankfully, this current experience has shocked and awoken a world often consumed by the slogan, “What do I want?”

We are still full of selfish mistakes and witness examples of superpower aggression.

It is much easier to look outside ourselves and point out the faults in our neighbours!

But the Gospel challenges us at the beginning of Lent to go into our inner space and to connect with the themes of the Gospel related temptations that Jesus faced:

to POSSESS all the kingdoms
to DEVOUR all the bread
to THRILL on the high parapet
to IMPRESS all the glory.

We all succumb in some way or other.

Have a haircut this Lent and let the Holy Spirit lead you though the desert and emerge with a new invigorated hope for yourself and for our world.

Mons Frank

We celebrate Resurrection Day 2021 with great delight. Locked up last year we all missed something, and not just the parade of the Dragons in Bendigo, let alone the many events like the big Bardifest in Nathalia. All communities had their specific activities to celebrate the inheritance established by our predecessors, of the Easter weekend. They even made Good Friday a holiday so people could make that day a Holy day…that is not so in many parts of the world!

Why do we do it?

Why are we disturbed by the slow but successful move to turn this day into a secular day?

Well, many are the reasons. Principally, because of the handing down of the belief in the Resurrection of Jesus.

The many teachings of Jesus had not penetrated until the women led by Mary of Magdala proclaimed,

“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.”

Then the men arrived!

John followed Peter and went into the tomb and proclaimed,

“He saw and he believed.”

All the words spoken by Jesus until then, in a sense, were just so many words.

“Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead”.

And so, began the witness of millions who in so many different ways have “entered the tomb”; eyes have been opened, testimony again proclaimed, and belief arrived at.

We are still experiencing what Paul experienced in proclaiming the Resurrection.

………Laughed at in public in Athens,

………..Mocked by his own people,

…………..Scourged and beaten by various Civic authorities, but unwavering in his proclamation of the truth –

“Christ is Risen.”

We, too, depend upon witnesses as well as the scriptures, and the testimony of those who proclaim and give their lives in service.

May we joyously proclaim, “Christ is risen, Christ is risen indeed.”

A wonderful Easter to all.

Mons Frank

First Sunday of Lent 6 March 2022

Easter Sunday 4 April 2021