Jesus came into our world to bring us this help, to restore humanity to its original state of good health and wholeness, and to give us the hope of new life in Him. God's mercy extends to all His people. He offers this healing to every person.

Consider moisture: Our prayer and sacramental life dampen our outer shell in which the culture tends to wrap us. Holy Scripture and Holy Communion water our spiritual shells. Consider light: Our light is the Light of the World…Jesus. We strain to reach and grow in his warm and marvelous light.

How do we know what God's will is? We have to pray. Prayer is the connection to the divine. Prayer connects our hearts with God's heart. It is through this union of hearts that we can know whether we are on the right path or not.

While the first covenant never guaranteed eternal life, the new does because it was sealed with costly blood through a perfect sacrifice offered once and for all.

When we are baptized, we are baptized into the life of the Holy Trinity. Through the waters of baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we become one with God. We belong to God, and by His gift, God belongs to us.

The first-century Jews would have caught the connection between Jesus being raised up on a cloud and what had happened in past events in Jewish history. They would have remembered the stories about Moses and his encounters with God in the desert.

Jesus took on all of our sins. When He was nailed to the cross, our sins were nailed to the cross. Jesus took on and absorbed all the anger and violence that humans are capable of.

The image of Christ, the vine, reminds us that we are loved, sustained, redeemed, and sanctified through the person of Christ and that, cut off from him, we are, quite simply, good for nothing.

A shepherd guides and protects his flock. He cares about the well-being of each one of his sheep. The Good Shepherd notices when one wanders off and is in danger of becoming lost.

God’s divine mercy has triumphed in saving humanity from eternal death. God went into the depths of human misery, all the way to dying on the cross, in order to save us from the same fate.

It is important to believe with all our hearts that Jesus has won the victory and that He has opened the gates of heaven so that God’s faithful may enter and enjoy God’s rest.

Palm Sunday is a fascinating day. We reenact Jesus' triumphal entrance into Jerusalem, wave our palm branches, and sing Hosanna. It’s a joyful event. However, the joy of the triumphal entrance soon becomes ugly. We hear of the plot to entrap and arrest Jesus, His betrayal by one of His closest friends, and His subsequent trial and execution.

After celebrating the first and third scrutinies, the Church lovingly entrusts to the RCIA elect the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. The Creed recalls the wonderful deeds of God for the salvation of the human race and suffuses the vision of the elect with the sure light of faith. The Lord’s Prayer fills them with a deeper realization of the new spirit of adoption by which they will call God their Father, especially in the midst of the Eucharistic Assembly. Let us pray that each elect will become enlightened and refreshed by the Gospel. May they who are called to be disciples of Jesus Christ practice his dying and rising in their daily lives.

Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He has conquered sin and death. He has overcome the grave. Death no longer has the last word. Life everlasting is offered to those who believe and give their lives to Christ.

Jesus wanted to cleanse the Temple and bring it back to what it was meant for – a house of prayer. It was meant to be a place where the people could encounter the living God and strengthen their relationship with Him.

In our gospel from St. Mark, we are atop a mountain and hear about Jesus’s encounter with the Old Testament Prophet, Elijah, and the Law Giver, Moses. In the Gospel we hear Jesus called God’s “beloved Son”—as Isaac is described as Abraham’s beloved son.

The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty days before they reached the promised land. But it was also through those experiences that the people of God learned fidelity, trust, redemption, and a stronger relationship with God.

The leper obviously recognizes that Jesus can heal him. There is no doubt in the leper’s mind. The leper doesn’t say, “Perhaps you can make me clean.” No, he is very definite, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” The leper has full confidence that Jesus can do this. In the Old Testament, the Israelites believed that only God had the ability to make a leper clean.

Our whole life may seem to be these ailments or problems, and we may feel like there is nothing else in the world that matters. This is the kind of world that Jesus entered. God became flesh and entered right into the darkness and suffering. God was not above everything watching what was going on with us.