Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Most of the crowd spread their
cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on
the road (Matthew 21:8;
Gospel for Procession of Palms).
The Commemoration of the Lord’s Entrance into Jerusalem
When Jesus and
his disciples drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of
Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village in
front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her.
Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say,
“The Lord needs them”, and he will send them at once.’ This took place to
fulfil what was spoken by the prophet, saying, ‘Say to the daughter of Sion,
“Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a
colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” ’
The disciples
went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt
and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread
their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread
them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him
were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’ And when he entered Jerusalem, the
whole city was stirred up, saying, ‘Who is this?’ And the crowds said, ‘This is
the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.’
Readings at Mass
Readings(Jerusalem
Bible: Australia, Ireland, New Zealand)
Readings(English
Standard Version, Catholic Edition: England & Wales, Scotland, India)
New American Bible version; the Philippines and USA
The
response for today's Responsorial Psalm is My God, my God, why have you
abandoned me? ('forsaken me' in the Jerusalem Bible Lectionary), the
last words of Jesus according to St Matthew, whose version of the Passion is
read today. The readings carry that theme, explicitly or implicitly. The
Prophet Isaiah says, I gave my back to those who beat me, my
cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from
buffets and spitting. The church applies these words to the sufferings of
Jesus. Yet there isn't total abandonment: The Lord GOD is my
help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like
flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.
Psalm
21 (22) is fulfilled in the Passion and Death of Jesus. St Paul in the reading
from his Letter to the Philippians speaks of the self-emptying of Jesus
who: though he was in the form of God, did not regard
equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied
himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human
likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and
became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:48).
An tAthair Pádraig Ó Crolaigh (Fr Patrick Crilly) of the Diocese of Derry, Ireland, reflects on this in his poem in Irish, An Crióst Tréigthe (The Abandoned Christ). I have added my own English translation.
An raibh sé ina aonar ar feadh a shaoil,
Was he alone throughout his life,
An Críost seo scartha ón Trionóid naofa?
This Christ separated from the holy Trinity?
Ar chrothnaigh sé an dá phearsa eile,
Did he notice the absence of the two other persons,
Nó an raibh sé in aineolas orthu?
Or was he unaware of them?
Agus i ndiaidh fhás na spioradáltachta ann,
And after the growth of spirituality in him,
I ndiaidh greim a fháil ar a cheangal le Dia,
After he grasped his connection with God,
Ar fágadh in aonar arís é ar an chrois
Was he left alone again on the cross
Gan a fhios aige cén fáth ar tréigeadh é?
Not knowing why he had been abandoned?
Nuair a fhuair sé bás ar an chrois,
When he died on the cross
Ar ócáid cheiliúrtha é filleadh abhaile?
Was going home an occasion of celebration?
Nó ar bhraith sé tréigean a dhaonnachta
Or did he feel the abandonment of his humanity
I gcumha a shaoil abhus mar dhuine?
In the loneliness of his life here as a human being?
Ag leanúint Chríost dúinn i mbeocht an tsaoil
In following Christ in the living of life
An mbuailfimid lena thréigean siúd?
Will we encounter his abandonment?
An féidir linn a bheith Críostaí
Can we be Christian
Gan casadh sa saol leis an Chríost tréigthe?
Without coming across the abandoned Christ in life?
Father Ó Crolaigh, I think, is teasing out some of the meaning of St Paul's words in today's Second Reading: Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Jesus wasn't acting or engaging in any kind of 'drama-drama', 'not the real thing', as they say in the Philippines. He truly suffered a sense of being forsaken, of being abandoned, in the very depths of his being. He did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. We see that in the Garden of Gethsemane when the three Apostles closest to him fell asleep during his hour of greatest need. His cry from the Cross, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? comes from the innermost recesses of his heart, from a sense of even his Father having abandoned him.
One of the forms of feeling abandoned that I have come across in recent years in persons I have met and in my reading is a sense of disillusionment with the Church. In some predominantly English-speaking countries Church leadership has lost much of its moral authority because of the way it has been seen to have dealt - or not to have dealt - with the awful reality of some priests having abused children and adolescents.
Many older persons in Western countries are bewildered by the reality of the younger generations having abandoned the Church to a large degree, not a few having abandoned Christianity itself. Maybe some have abandoned the faith because they see the Church, and by extension Christ himself, as having abandoned them. That should be a fearful thought for those who see themselves as followers of Jesus with the responsibility of making him known to the world.
In more and more families spouses are abandoned by their husband or wife, children by their parents. Though it's not as great a phenomenon now as it was in the 1970s and 1980s, friends have expressed to me their sense of having been abandoned by their priests who left. I know from friends who have left the priesthood that their decision to do so was often very painful and not taken lightly but I have rarely heard one who has made that decision express any awareness of the pain it has left in others.
The Donkey
by G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), Read by Ben W. Smith
When fishes flew and forests walked And figs grew upon thorn, Some moment when the moon was blood Then surely I was born;
With monstrous head and sickening cry And ears like errant wings, The devil's walking parody On all four-footed things.
The tattered outlaw of the earth, Of ancient crooked will; Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb, I keep my secret still.
Fools! For I also had my hour; One far fierce hour and sweet: There was a shout about my ears, And palms before my feet.
Traditional Latin Mass
Palm Sunday
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 03-29-2026 if necessary).
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will”(Matthew 26:39).
GospelJohn 11:1-45(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
There was a man
named Lazarus who lived in the village of Bethany with the two sisters, Mary
and Martha, and he was ill. It was the same Mary, the sister of the sick man
Lazarus, who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair. The sisters sent this message to Jesus, ‘Lord, the man you love is ill.’ On
receiving the message, Jesus said, ‘This sickness will end not in death but in
God’s glory, and through it the Son of God will be glorified.’
Jesus loved
Martha and her sister and Lazarus, yet when he heard that Lazarus was ill he
stayed where he was for two more days before saying to the disciples, ‘Let us
go to Judaea.’ The disciples said, ‘Rabbi, it is not long since the Jews wanted
to stone you; are you going back again?’ Jesus replied:
‘Are there not
twelve hours in the day?
A man can walk
in the daytime without stumbling
because he has
the light of this world to see by;
but if he walks
at night he stumbles,
because there
is no light to guide him.’
He said that
and then added, ‘Our friend Lazarus is resting, I am going to wake him.’ The
disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he is able to rest he is sure to get better.’
The phrase Jesus used referred to the death of Lazarus, but they thought that
by ‘rest’ he meant ‘sleep’, so Jesus put it plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead; and for
your sake I am glad I was not there because now you will believe. But let us go
to him.’ Then Thomas – known as the Twin – said to the other
disciples, ‘Let us go too, and die with him.’
On arriving,
Jesus found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days already. Bethany is
only about two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary
to sympathise with them over their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus had
come she went to meet him. Mary remained sitting in the house. Martha said to
Jesus, ‘If you had been here, my brother would not have died, but I know that,
even now, whatever you ask of God, he will grant you.’ ‘Your brother’ said
Jesus to her ‘will rise again.’ Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the
resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said:
‘I am the
resurrection and the life.
If anyone
believes in me, even though he dies he will live,
and whoever
lives and believes in me will never die.
Do you believe
this?’
‘Yes, Lord,’
she said ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to
come into this world.’
When she had
said this, she went and called her sister Mary, saying in a low voice, ‘The
Master is here and wants to see you.’ Hearing this, Mary got up quickly and
went to him. Jesus had not yet come into the village; he was still at the place
where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were in the house sympathising with
Mary saw her get up so quickly and go out, they followed her, thinking that she
was going to the tomb to weep there.
Mary went to
Jesus, and as soon as she saw him she threw herself at his feet, saying, ‘Lord,
if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ At the sight of her
tears, and those of the Jews who followed her, Jesus said in great distress,
with a sigh that came straight from the heart, ‘Where have you put him?’ They
said, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus wept; and the Jews said, ‘See how much he
loved him!’ But there were some who remarked, ‘He opened the eyes of the blind
man, could he not have prevented this man’s death?’ Still sighing, Jesus
reached the tomb: it was a cave with a stone to close the opening. Jesus said,
‘Take the stone away.’ Martha said to him, ‘Lord, by now he will smell; this is
the fourth day.’ Jesus replied, ‘Have I not told you that if you believe you
will see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted up
his eyes and said:
‘Father, I
thank you for hearing my prayer.
I knew indeed
that you always hear me,
but I speak for
the sake of all these who stand round me,
so that they
may believe it was you who sent me.’
When he had
said this, he cried in a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, here! Come out!’ The dead man
came out, his feet and hands bound with bands of stuff and a cloth round his
face. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, let him go free.’
Many of the
Jews who had come to visit Mary and had seen what he did believed in him.
Shorter form John 11:3-7, 17, 20-27, 33b-45(New American Bible)
The sisters of Lazarus sent word to Jesus, saying, “Master, the one you love is ill.” When Jesus heard this he said, “This illness is not to end in death, but is for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that he was ill, he remained for two days in the place where he was. Then after this he said to his disciples, "Let us go back to Judea.”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise.” Martha said, “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
He became perturbed and deeply troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Sir, come and see.” And Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him. ”But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the blind man have done something so that this man would not have died?”
So Jesus, perturbed again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay across it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a stench; he has been dead for four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone.
And Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. I know that you always hear me; but because of the crowd here I have said this, that they may believe that you sent me. ”And when he had said this, He cried out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands, and his face was wrapped in a cloth. So Jesus said to them, “Untie him and let him go.”
Now many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he had done began to believe in him.
On Christmas Eve 2022 I met a friendly young Irishman working as a security guard in a Dublin hospital. He told me that he believed in Egyptian gods. I was somewhat taken aback as I had never met anyone before with such beliefs. Our conversation was very brief. Later, as so often happens, I thought of what might have been a helpful question: Which of those gods died for you?
In today's gospel we read: ‘Your brother’ said Jesus to her ‘will rise again.’ Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said: 'I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ she said ‘I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into this world.’
So often I have heard people, usually Catholics, say something along these lines: We're all on the same road and we all believe in the same God. Not true. Jesus says very clearly to Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. It is only through Jesus Christ that we can attain heaven. Jesus teaches this to us again in John 14:5-6, Thomas said to him, 'Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?' Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'
In this incident Jesus is drawing his disciples - and us - to faith in him. He says that explicitly to them before they go to Bethany: Lazarus has died,and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. He also draws Martha into her wonderful expression of faith: Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world. This is before he raises her brother Lazarus from the dead. Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him.
That faith in Jesus Christ is also faith in our bodily resurrection at the end of time. When we pray the Nicene Creed at Mass on Sundays and solemnities we pray, I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. We say the same thing if we pray the Apostle's Creed instead of the Nicene Creed, I believe in . . . the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.
Commenting on today's gospel in his Angelus talk on 9 March 2008, Pope Benedict XVI said, Christ's heart is divine-human: in him God and man meet perfectly, without separation and without confusion. He is the image, or rather, the incarnation of God who is love, mercy, paternal and maternal tenderness, of God who is Life.
Drawing our attention to Martha's expression of faith, Pope Benedict says, It is a question that Jesus addresses to each one of us: a question that certainly rises above us, rises above our capacity to understand, and it asks us to entrust ourselves to him as he entrusted himself to the Father. Martha's response is exemplary: 'Yes, Lord, I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world' (Jn 11: 27). Yes, O Lord! We also believe, notwithstanding our doubts and darkness; we believe in you because you have the words of eternal life. We want to believe in you, who give us a trustworthy hope of life beyond life, of authentic and full life in your Kingdom of light and peace.
May that too become the prayer of the young man I met at the hospital in Dublin on Christmas Eve 2022 and others like him.
Antiphona ad introitum Entrance Antiphon
Iudica me, Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta; ab homine iniquo et doloso eripe me, qui tu es Deus meus et fortitudo mea.
Give me justice, O God, and plead my cause against a nation that is faithless. From the deceitful and cunning rescue me, for you, O God, are my strength.
[In the video the upper subtitles are in Latin while the lower ones are the Italian translation]
Traditional Latin Mass
Passion Sunday
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 03-22-2026 if necessary).
GospelJohn 9:1-41(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
[For the shorter form (9:1, 6-9, 13-17, 34-38) omit the text in brackets and italics.]
At that time:
As Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. [And his disciples asked him,
‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus
answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works
of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me
while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the
world, I am the light of the world.’ Having said these things,] he spat on the
ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the
mud and said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). So he
went and washed and came back seeing.
The neighbours
and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, ‘Is this not the man
who used to sit and beg?’ Some said, ‘It is he.’ Others said, ‘No, but he is
like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ [So they said to him, ‘Then how were
your eyes opened?’ He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my
eyes and said to me, “Go to Siloam and wash.” So I went and washed and received
my sight.’ They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’]
They brought to
the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day
when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. So the Pharisees again asked him
how he had received his sight. And he said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes, and
I washed, and I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God,
for he does not keep the Sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a
sinner do such signs?’ And there was a division among them. So they said again
to the blind man, ‘What do you say about him, since he has opened your eyes?’
He said, ‘He is a prophet.’
[The Jews did
not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they
called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is
this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’ His
parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son and that he was born blind. But
how he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he
is of age. He will speak for himself.’ His parents said these things because
they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should
confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. Therefore
his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’
So for the
second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, ‘Give glory
to God. We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘Whether he is a
sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’
They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He
answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you
want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’ And they
reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We
know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he
comes from.’ The man answered, ‘Why, this is an amazing thing! You do not know
where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not
listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, God
listens to him. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone
opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do
nothing.’]They answered him, ‘You were born in utter sin, and would you teach
us?’ And they cast him out.
Jesus heard
that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in
the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’
Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’ He
said, ‘Lord, I believe’, and he worshipped him. [Jesus said, ‘For judgement I
came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may
become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to
him, ‘Are we also blind?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would
have no guilt; but now that you say, “We see”, your guilt remains.’]
Fr Noel O'Neill with Myeong Sek at grave of You Ha
Jesus heard that they had cast him
out, and having found him he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He
answered, ‘And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?’ Jesus said to him,
‘You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe’,
and he worshipped him (John 9:35-38; Gospel).
The blind man met Jesus, heard him and believed. When St John wrote his gospel his purpose was that we, like the blind man, would meet Jesus, hear him and believe.
Fr Noel O’ Neill, a Columban
priest from Limerick, Ireland, who died last year aged 92, went to Korea in
1957, four years after the war had ended there. Working in Gwangju he
became involved with the Mudeong Institution, also known as the Beggars' Camp,
which housed 600 people from the margins, including persons with learning
disabilities. He noticed that there were not able to speak for themselves and
felt drawn to these ‘forgotten ones’.
Holy Mass in Emmaus Community, Myeong Sek in grey
Fr One of these 'forgotten ones' was a young woman named You Ha. Father
Noel was called to visit her when she was dying in a nearby hospital. He
arrived just in time to hear her say Kamsahamnida, ‘Thank you’, her last words. You Ha had
no family and the hospital was going to use her body for medical research. But
Father Noel bought a grave for her in the Catholic cemetery and took care of
the funeral expenses. He had these words inscribed on the tombstone: Will
you forgive society?Will you forgive the Church?For too long
have we ignored you.
This
experience led to Father Noel’s discovering his ‘vocation within a vocation’:
to spend the rest of his life enabling persons with learning disabilities to
live in small family-like homes in the wider community. He saw this not just as a matter of charity but
of justice.
The first person to join him in such a community was Myeong Sek. Here are Father Noel's own words.
Myeong Sek had been abandoned by her
parents when she was a few years old and ended up in ‘The Beggars Camp’,
Mudeong Institution, which I frequently visited while in parish ministry. After
much negotiation with the authorities there I succeeded in getting permission
for Myeong Sek to leave and to join with me and a volunteer as we moved into a
two-storey house in a residential part of the city. It was October 1981. This
was the first attempt in Korea of offering people with special needs the
opportunity of living in the local community.
Early in 2012 Myeong Sek was diagnosed with cancer. She
spent the last ten days of her life in a hospice. A hospice and Emmaus [the name Father Noel had chosen for the small communities] have
something in common. A hospice is for people dying whose ailment cannot be
cured. Emmaus is for intellectually disabled people whose disability cannot be
cured. A visit to either one alerts us to the preciousness of each moment of
life; it arouses within us a sense of gratitude.
While Myeong Sek was in the hospice I visited her every day.
As I sat beside her bedside and held her tiny hand, we reminisced about the
funny incidents we had shared together throughout the previous 30 years, the
times we used to sing Kaptori Wa Kapsoni (a popular Korean action song) and dance the hokey pokey.
As she laid back on her bed she would break into a broad
smile, a loving smile, sending me a message that no words could express. They
were happy moments, happy days, happy years.
That
smile also hid the many wounds and hurts she had endured in her lifetime. I was
only too well aware of those painful wounds. Watching the peaceful look on her
face I felt she already sensed the heavenly welcome. She could almost make the
dying words of St Thérèse, the Little Flower, her own: ‘I am not dying, I am
entering into life’.
Myeong
Sek was waked for three days at the funeral home. Those who had lived with her
in the group home were dressed in mourning black dress, and they greeted those
who came to pay their respects, present and former staff members who had known
her for many years. Many Catholic friends and sponsors came who were touched and
moved by their relationship with Myeong Sek. This tiny, fragile woman had the
gift to make them feel loved and at peace with themselves as they struggled
with their problems.
Myeong Sek often said, ‘When I die, those who come to the
wake, feed them well’. They came in large numbers to pay their respects and all
ate well. Before leaving as each one ate and departed you could almost sense
the presence of Myeong Sek as she said kamsahamnida, ‘thank you, thank
you’.
The funeral Mass was held at the parish church Myeong Sek used
to attend. Six priests concelebrated for a packed congregation. I chose for the
Gospel the story of the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus. As the two
disciples eyes were opened at seeing Jesus break the bread, so also my eyes
were opened by my relationship with Myeong Sek. This tiny, fragile woman, who
could not read or write, who had no concept of time or money, was my teacher,
my professor. We need to invite and welcome more Myeong Seks into our society
because they will surprise us with the manner they can touch our inner selves
and help us to welcome our weaknesses, our old age with graceful and peaceful
courage. Yes, Myeong Sek was differently abled.
To slightly adapt the words of Jesus in today's gospel: It was not that You Ha or Myeong Sek sinned, or their parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in them.
And
may the Myeong Seks in our own lives display the works of God to us and open our
eyes as Jesus opened the eyes of the blind man in today’s gospel, bringing us to
say, ‘Lord, I believe’ and to worship him.
Myeong Sek's funeral Mass
Myeong Sek's funeral
Traditional Latin Mass
Fourth Sunday in Lent
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 03-15-2026 if necessary).
Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted (John 6:11; Gospel).
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