From the Pastor – November 15, 2009

“Brothers and sisters: Every priest stands daily at his ministry, offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins. But this one offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God.” (Heb. 10:11-12)

Over the next two weeks, there are three important events happening in our parish. And they are each centered on the “Paschal Mystery.” What is the Paschal Mystery? Simply put, the Paschal Mystery is the suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. When the Jews were slaves in Egypt, God told them to slaughter a lamb in the evening twilight and to place its blood on the two posts and the lintels of their houses. Seeing the blood, the Lord would “pass over” their homes in striking down the first-born of the Egyptians. (Ex. 12). The lambs which saved the Jewish people were commemorated in the Jewish feast of Passover, and the lamb was called the passover lamb, or “paschal” lamb in Hebrew. The meaning of this event and its prophecy were revealed in the first-born Son of God, who allowed Himself to be slaughtered in the evening twilight with His blood dripping down the cross to save us from an eternal death due to sin. In doing so (in the words of John the Baptist), Jesus was the “Lamb of God.” The mystery of a God who loves us so much that He would become a man and suffer and die so that we might rise with Him is what makes up the mystery. That is the mystery that we proclaim with the cross of Christ, and that is the mystery in which we participate at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, where we enter into the Paschal Mystery by remembering it and receiving the Lamb of God as the Bread of Life in the Holy Eucharist.

So what are the three events over the next week? (1) the erection of a new glorious cross on our steeple as a visible sign to our community of our belief in the Paschal Mystery, (2) a Eucharistic procession from Our Lady of Good Counsel Church to St. Henry Church to St. Stephen Church in which we proclaim that our Lord is truly present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Blessed Sacrament, and (3) the celebration of Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (the “Old Latin” or “Tridentine” Mass) in which we participate in Holy Mass as it was celebrated for at least 1700 years before it was changed after the Second Vatican Council. And each of these events point us to Jesus Christ, our Savior.

The above Scriptural selection from Hebrews reminds us that Jesus died once and for all as an offering to God so that our sins could be forgiven. And since the sacrificial offering was made by the Son of God, it exists forever and for all time. Our proclamation of that great mystery of love with the sign of the cross, and our participation in the mystery through Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass point to our salvation in Heaven!

Rev. Msgr. Christopher H. Nalty
msgr.nalty@gmail.