Author Archives: Friar Musings

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About Friar Musings

Franciscan friar and Catholic priest at St. Francis of Assisi in Triangle, VA

The Passing of Pope Francis

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The rite confirming the death and the placement of Pope Francis’s body in the coffin took place on the evening of Monday 21 April in the ground-floor chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. The official declaration of death was read aloud. The act was validated by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church. The ceremony lasted just under an hour. Seals were also placed on the papal apartment on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace and on the apartment on the second floor of Casa Santa Marta, where the Pope had resided.

The Holy See Press Office announced on today that Pope Francis’ funeral Mass will take place on Saturday, April 26, 2025, at 10:00 AM in St. Peter’s Square. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals, will preside at the Mass, which will be concelebrated by Patriarchs, Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, and priests from across the globe. The Eucharistic celebration will conclude with the Ultima commendatio and the Valedictio, marking the beginning of the Novemdiales, or nine days of mourning and Masses for the repose of Pope Francis’ soul. The late Pope’s body will then be taken into St. Peter’s Basilica and then to the Basilica of St. Mary Major for entombment.

Image credit: Vatican News

A Life of Lasting Joy

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In the gospel reading today we encounter a well known scene. It is Sunday morning in the first light of the day, the third day since the crucifixion. Mary Magdalene is there to complete the burial rituals to honor the corpse of Jesus – only to discover an empty tomb. She was already grieving, carrying that pain and loss until the completion of the Sabbath, and now this – someone has taken the body of Jesus; a final insult and desecration. It is too much. She is in tears.

She encounters two angels who ask her why she is crying. There is no reaction to the encounter itself. She is taken in her grief. She shows no concern for angels, but only asks where someone might have moved the body. They have no answer and so she moves on encountering a person she takes to be the gardener. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or Peter and the disciples later at the Sea of Galilee, she doesn’t recognize Jesus,

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Peace be with you

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This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. The gospel is taken from John 20:19-31, the scene in the Upper Room on the evening of the Resurrection. . 

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 (Jesus) said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

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Apostle Signs Nike Endorsement Deal

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Around Easter each year friends and family send me all kinds of Easter-themed images, memes, articles, and what-not. I am always amazed at the creativity and imagination of some folks, for example:

The (fake) Press Release from Nike:

JUDEA — Saint John the Apostle has reportedly signed a lucrative six figure deal with Nike following his win against Saint Peter in a footrace to the tomb of Jesus.

Saint Peter has continually maintained that it was not a race, and that they were just excited to learn if Jesus had indeed risen. However, that hasn’t put a stopper on Saint John’s growing fame as a sprinter. Nike decided to strike while the iron is hot.

“We’re proud to have signed John to an official endorsement deal,” said Nike CEO Tiberius Calceus. “We’re also excited to announce a collaboration with the apostle on the brand-new Nike Air John 1, the shoe for beloved winners. Run like John with a pair of Air John 1’s today.”

Image and text courtesy of Babylon Bee

Resurrection Faith

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Today’s gospel from St. Matthew  is familiar to all readers: Jesus has been crucified, died, and laid within a tomb guarded by soldiers and watched by Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary.” The Sabbath has passed and dawn approaches on the first day of a new week.

The gospel accounts of the empty tomb are fairly similar. Women (names and number of women differ) come to the tomb early on Sunday morning. The stone is rolled away and the tomb is empty. Some of the gospels have an angelic messenger who speaks to the women.

There is great diversity in the accounts of the appearances of the risen Christ. It is difficult to harmonize any of them. Perhaps there is a message in that: Our contemporary experiences of the risen Christ will differ. There are those who visibly see a white light and others don’t. There are those who experience Christ in a radical transformation, A “born-again” event in their lives. There are those for whom Christ has been such a reality throughout their lives that they can’t think of a moment when Christ wasn’t present to them or when there was a great turning point in their lives. How the risen Christ comes to people differ – then and now. Our stories about the risen Christ’s presence in our lives differ – and in that lack of uniformity there is witness to the breadth of humanity.  

The woman left the empty tomb “fearful yet overjoyed” only to encounter the Risen Christ telling them: “Do not be afraid.” A good message for us. Resurrection faith does not arise on the basis of evidence, of which the chief priests and soldiers had plenty, but on the basis of the experienced presence of the risen Christ, by testimony of those to whom he appeared, and by his own continuing presence among his disciples – on the Easter morning and in all the days since.

We need to be a people unafraid to proclaim a radical resurrection faith in the present, not just a historical event. We need to tell it with joy!

He is risen! Alleluia!

Image credit: Christ’s Appearance to Mary after the Resurrection | Alexander Ivanov | Russian Museum | PD-US

Chameleon of a Word

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Collaborate is a well known word. You can collaborate with your work project members and that is a good thing. You can collaborate with the enemy and that is not so good a thing. But that is not the “chameleon” element that captured my interest thanks to the good people at Merriam Webster’s “Word of the Day.”

The origin of the word “collaborate” comes from the Latin “com” meaning “with, together, or jointly,” teamed up with the verb laborare (“to labor”) to form the Late Latin word collaborare (“to labor together”) … ahhhh, excuse me….. wait a minute. What happened to the “m” in “com?” And that is the chameleon element.

The Latin prefix “com” has a habit of changing its appearance depending on what it’s next to. For example, if the word it precedes begins with “l”, com- becomes col-; if next to an “r”, become cor- as in corroborate.

Just an interesting tidbit from the world of words … which makes you wonder about “tidbit.” The primary mean of which is “a choice morsel of food” but can also “chameleon” its way to a choice or juicy tidbit of news.

The “bit” part comes the Old English bita (a morsel of food) which likely comes from the Middle Dutch bete or the Old Norse biti. But what about the “tid” part? That is less clear. The best guess of the etymologists is that is come from titmouse. Which is an interesting word since it is not a mouse at all, but a small bird the size of a chickadee. The “mouse” portion is likely a derived from a linguistic variation, mose, referring any of various small Eurasian songbirds. That variation goes back to the Old English māse, derived from the Germanic *maisōn- which has nothing to do with the modern French word for house.

I should probably stop there lest I be lost in the never ending origin of words.

We mourn his passing

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This was the pontiff who took the name “Francis” in homage to Catholicism’s most iconic and beloved saint, the “little poor man” of Assisi; the pope who rejected the marble and gold of the Papal Apartments in favor of the Domus Santa Marta, a modest hotel on Vatican grounds; the pope who returned to the clerical residence where he’d stayed prior to his election to pack his own bag and to pay his own bill. His pontificate that followed was consistent to its start.

May his soul and all the souls of the faithful rest in peace.

On the evening of the first day

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This coming Sunday is the 2nd Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. The gospel is taken from John 20:19-31, the scene in the Upper Room on the evening of the Resurrection. Our gospel contains the second and third appearances of the risen Jesus in John’s gospel. These three appearances take place in Jerusalem.  There is a fourth and final appearance of Jesus later in a section referred to as the “Epilogue” of John.  This appearance is at the “Sea of Tiberias” in Galilee (John 21).

In the Johannine narrative our gospel occurs on what has been a full day: “On the evening of that first day of the week.”  It was just that morning that Mary Magdalene had visited the tomb and confessed, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him” (20:2) – ironically echoing one the decisive misunderstanding of Jesus’ ministry: from where did Jesus come and where is he going (e.g. 7:33-36, 8:21-23).  Mary became the first disciple of the good news of the empty tomb conveying the word to Peter and “the one whom Jesus loved.” Slowly the implications of the empty tomb and the burial linens come to the disciples and they begin to understand – each in differing ways and to varying degrees. The disciple whom Jesus loved “saw and believed” (20:8), however “they did not yet understand the scripture that he had to rise from the dead” (v.9).

At this point, it is perhaps that their faith is as complete as faith in the empty tomb can be, but as many commentators have noted, to assign to the disciples a full belief in the Resurrection is to rush the story. Resurrection faith begins when Mary encounters Jesus in the garden and he is revealed as the Risen Christ and Good shepherd – he knows his sheep by name and they respond to his voice (10:3-4, 12,16, 24; cf Is 43:1). In telling Mary “stop holding onto me” (v.17) Jesus lets Mary (and the reader) know that the unfolding of the events of the hour are continuing.

In the course of these posts we will consider the key words/phrases of “peace”, “sent”, “he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the holy Spirit”, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” and more

Image credit: Maesta altar piece, Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308, Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana del Duomo, Siena | Public Domain

A Story in Three Acts

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It seems to me that if we have been attentive and following all the events of Holy Week, it is possible to discern a play written in three acts. The curtain rises with a prelude: an intimate act of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet. An act rich in meaning and done in love. Then begins Act 1. It is a scene worthy of a large screen. Palm Sunday as the disciples and believers welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, the royal city, the long-awaited Messiah King.

Act 1 continues with a quiet scene, away from the bustling crowds of Passover, with a last meal with his closest friends and disciples. It is then, at the most sacred table fellowship of the Jewish faith, that Jesus shows the disciples the meaning of the proto-Eucharist just celebrated. On bended knee Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. It was an embodied parable of what it means to be a Eucharistic people: love and service. As the curtain falls on Act 1 and when we consider the meaning of Act 1, it is clear, it is love portrayed.

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Easter Sunday – The Empty Tomb

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While the details within and among the gospels vary, all record that Jesus’ body, after his death on the cross, was laid in a tomb provided by Joseph of Arimathea. All four gospels then come to their crowning point in the account of the Resurrection, but each in its own way. They all agree that women came to the tomb:

  • “After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning” (Matthew 28:1)
  • “When the sabbath was over…Very early when the sun had risen, on the first day of the week” (Mark 16:1-2)
  • “But at daybreak on the first day of the week” (Luke 24:1)
  • “On the first day of the week…early in the morning, while it was still dark” (John 20:1)

All agree that the Sabbath was complete and it was the first day of the week – Sunday in the Christian reckoning. One might notice that the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all report that the sun was rising in the dawn of this new day, however, John reports that it was still dark. One needs to remember that John uses “dark” to describe unknowing, unbelief and things similar rather than time of day. In the Johannine gospel “unknowing” is an apt description of Mary Magdalene and the disciples.

If you would like to read more about the Johannine narrative of Easter Mornring, click the button below

Easter Morning – the Empty Tomb

Image credit: Canva | George Corrigan | CC-0