RBWords - Volume 30 - Number 3: March 2017
Something to Think About
RBWORDS - VOL 30 - NO 3 - MARCH 2018
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT -
As I write this, I am in Leavenworth, KS, just north of Kansas City, KS, to preach a retreat for the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth. The retreat is entitled: THIS IS MY BODY and it began on Palm Sunday and will end on Easter Sunday. When I give retreats for sisters at the “motherhouse” I try to read the history of the congregation so that I can refer to it occasionally in my presentations. These sisters came here from Nashville in mid-nineteenth century. What they went through to get established here is the stuff of heroism, but their story is like so many of the pioneering religious women who put their bodies on the line to bring the gospel to what was then a vast and unknown territory.
It is Holy Week and Jesus’ words, “This is my body,” are more than what is said at the Eucharist. In the Gospel According to John, the washing of the disciples’ feet is featured at the Last Supper instead of those words, but the command is the same, to do this in memory of Jesus. Holy Week is special but it serves as an intense reminder of Jesus’ example that we are called to follow the rest of the year. He gives his body (his whole self) in bread and wine, washing the feet, enduring the pain and suffering of the cross, and in rising again from death. If we would follow in his steps and be “the Body of Christ” we will have to do the same as he. If we get too caught up in Easter bunnies, bonnets and egg-hunting, it is easy to forget what Holy Week means. I pray we can all remember and live what Jesus did and continues to do for us. Have a Blessed Holy Week and Easter. Proclaim it: “The Lord is risen! Alleluia!” IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
SCHEDULES AND EVENTS -
March began with me in South Florida, preaching the last of three parish missions in that region. I returned to Lubbock for a couple of weeks before heading to Leavenworth by car.
On Easter Monday I will leave Leavenworth and drive south to Heber Springs, AR, for a brief visit with friends from grade school and high school days whom I haven’t seen for many years. From there I will head to South Louisiana to baptize Jacob Francis Baker on Saturday, April 7, before hearing back to Lubbock. On April 10 I will fly to California to preach a parish mission after which I will visit with a couple whose wedding I celebrated in 1982! I’ll be back in Lubbock April 23 and life will get calmer then. It has been a busy first four months but I’ll be back to a one-a-month schedule for the rest of the year (I hope).
IT HAS BEEN SAID: I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
From St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
<< Previous Date [Back to List]
Next Date >>