In Genesis 2 we read the very human descriptions of the role of humankind: “The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it.” (Gen 2:15) Seems as though our first “vocation” is as gardener. Gen 2:8 specifically calls it a “garden.” And the “chief gardener” could be found here and there in His garden: “the LORD God walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the day.” (Gen 3:8)
In today’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene encounters a person she thinks is a gardener. Actually, she’s not wrong. St. Gregory the Great in his sermon on this gospel wrote: “Perhaps this woman was not as mistaken as she appeared to be when she believed that Jesus was a gardener. Was he not spiritually a gardener for her when he planted the fruitful seeds of virtue in her heart by the force of his love?” Continue reading
Next Sunday is the 
Something I received from a parishioner that you have probably already seen, but in case you have not, I pass it along.
“After the Sabbath” (Mt 28:1), the women went to the tomb. This is how the Gospel of this holy Vigil began: with the Sabbath. It is the day of the Easter Triduum that we tend to neglect as we eagerly await the passage from Friday’s cross to Easter Sunday’s Alleluia. This year however, we are experiencing, more than ever, the great silence of Holy Saturday. We can imagine ourselves in the position of the women on that day. They, like us, had before their eyes the drama of suffering, of an unexpected tragedy that happened all too suddenly. They had seen death and it weighed on their hearts. Pain was mixed with fear: would they suffer the same fate as the Master? Then too there was fear about the future and all that would need to be rebuilt. A painful memory, a hope cut short. For them, as for us, it was the darkest hour. 
This Easter Vigil, the “homily” is presented in a different way. We chose to have an introduction before each Old Testament Reading that began to thematically weave together the homily message and then conclude during the homily proper. The picture above is our church during the procession of light. A reminder of the richness of the Vigil liturgy. 
It has been a long week of preparing for the Triduum. In normal times, the staff and volunteers are knowledgeable and dedicated, plans were made well in advance; the Triduum happens with good work and not a lot of “who-what-when-where.” In normal times. These are anything but. This year was learning to live stream, work on audio enhancements, lightning, and so much more – all of which was new to us. Live streaming means that you also have to work out new means and pathways of communication and connection with the parishioners. Social networking was already part of our tool-kit, thinking through how to use all the channels in the best way possible for 
The weekly bulletin and this column are a good thing. I enjoy writing; I enjoy the process of thinking about what I want to write, starting to write, and then sometimes watching the column take on a new direction of thought. Now and again by inspiration or necessity, I might write a whole month of columns or more at a go. Late in the month of February, I had produced pastor columns for the first weekend in March (First Sunday in Lent) all the way through and including Easter Sunday. Check that off the “to-do list.” Then life changed as the world declared a pandemic, the churches closed, and the world found out it was a lot safer to be at home. Some columns did not need to be redone: Unmasking (March 15) and the two columns on “Habits of the Heart” (March 22 and 29). When I made the decision to stay with them and not rewrite them in the light of these pandemic days, I thought that they were still appropriate to the moment at hand. In looking at the columns again this morning, it was a good decision. 
One of the most daunting single verses in Scripture is “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Mt 5:48) In the Greek the word used is to be teleios just as our God in heaven in teleios. In our spoken English we take “perfect” to be mean without mistake, without blemish, spot or stain. The challenge comes in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount when we have just been told how to live and understand the commandments, how to live more deeply and more fully. But even if we accept the challenge, we know there are limits to our humanity. We are going to fall short. We will not be perfect. 
friarmusings 