Why Jesus?

MAGISTERY

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I sat in my basement staring in utter shock as I watched the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York collapse right before my eyes. The sight of two planes flying directly into the towers was horrific, but when I saw those enormous towers, possibly the world’s most vivid symbols of man’s power, completely fall within a matter of minutes I was shaken to the bone, numbed and left trembling in disbelief.

Like most everyone who watched the events of that day, I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of evil unleashed on the thousands of unsuspecting people who died there. To witness such manifest evil filled everyone who watched it with fear and confusion. How could this happen? What kind of evil and depth of hate could drive someone to do such a thing? Seeing the face of evil that day drove multitudes of Americans and people all around the world to their knees. Suddenly everyone, even the normally cynical, secularized news commentators were talking about God, the mystery of evil and the existence of the devil.

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What Does the Gospel Say About the Eucharist?

What does the Gospel, which is simply Old English for “Good News,” say about the Eucharist? Quite a bit, it turns out. In fact, one of the important realities that the Gospel proclaims is the good news of the Eucharist.

At one of the most critical moments in Jesus’ life, in the few hours before he was to begin his passion which was to lead to his saving death, he had one last meal with his disciples, the sacred Passover meal of the Jews.

The Passover meal commemorated the deliverance from slavery of the Jewish people, who labored in Egypt and who were led out by Moses. As the angel of death passed over the land to kill all the firstborn, only the homes of the Israelites, who had marked their doorposts with the blood of a lamb, were spared the punishment of death. The Fathers of the Church understood the Passover meal and the Passover event itself as a type of what was to reach its fulfillment in Jesus. Just before Jesus offered his life as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from eternal death (the true Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world by the shedding of his blood), he instituted a new sacred meal – a meal derived from the Passover, but a sacred meal of the new covenant – to commemorate what he was about to do:

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Why Women Cry…

A little boy asked his mother, “Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m a woman,” she told him.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

His mom just hugged him and said, “And you never will.”

Later the little boy asked his father, “Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?”

“All women cry for no reason,” was all his dad could say.

The little boy grew up and became a man, still wondering why women cry.

Finally he put in a call to God. When God got on the phone, he asked, “God, why do women cry so easily?”

God said: “When I made the woman she had to be special. I made her shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, yet gentle enough to give comfort. I gave her an inner strength to endure childbirth and the rejection that many times comes from her children. I gave her a hardness that allows her to keep going when everyone else gives up, and take care of her family through sickness and fatigue without complaining. I gave her the sensitivity to love her children under any and all
circumstances, even when her child has hurt her very badly. I gave her strength to carry her husband through his faults and fashioned her from his rib to protect his heart. I gave her wisdom to know that a good husband never hurts his wife, but sometimes tests her strengths and her resolve to stand beside him unfalteringly. And finally, I gave her a tear to shed. This is hers exclusively to use whenever it is needed.”

“You see my son,” said God, “the beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart – the place where love resides.”

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