April 02, 2020 (Fifth Thursday in Lent Memorial Feast of St. Francis Paola )
Parish Update
The Mass readings of the day remind me of that well known play Julius Caesar by the famous play write Shakespeare. In the play Caesar is dead and Marc Antony, grief stricken for his friend, gives one of the most famous stirring funeral orations in history. He says of Caesar, ‘the good that men do is oft interred with their bones’. Antony reveals what he and many believed in his time. Perhaps what many also hold to be true in our time. The belief that when a person dies only their bones remain. A life that dies is gone forever. Death is the complete extinction of the person. No future life awaits, no heaven, no soul joins with God. This is Antony’s grief. Death is the end. Death has taken his friend. Total extinction. A person’s life and all their good deeds will be forgotten and buried forever. It is a dark and depressing view of the future that holds no future. However when Jesus stands before the people and speaks, unlike Marc Antony, he tells a story with a future. He says ‘whoever keeps my word will never see death’. Jesus is saying to us today that the physical mortal death of the body does not mean the death of a person, the death of a soul, the death of any life. He is saying and promising a very different future. We rise and we join with God and our loved ones. All that is good is recalled and remembered forever. Marc Antony did know about the resurrection of the body. Had he known he would not have said ‘the good that men do is oft interred with their bones. He would not believe he would never see his friend again. We know about the resurrection. When Jesus defeats death on a Cross and rises from the dead. The resurrection is also foreshadowed in the first reading today when God establishes a covenant with Abraham and promises him and all future generations the “land where you are now”, for a perpetual holding, and I will be your God. The land is that perpetual place in our souls that unites with God. It is that place in our lives that remains faithful to God forever. And God remains faithful to us. It is the soul that rises to be with God forever. It is the soul that never tastes death for all the good deeds it has accomplished in this world.
Parish Messages:
Thank you to all who have signed up to help CARE FOR NEIGHBOURS TEAM. I am beginning to receive calls for help. I appreciate those who have been assigned to a neighbour. Keep contact with them.
Mass today was offered for the souls of Iole Innocente & Jerry DiLoretto. It was also offered for Peter the uncle of Fred Willemsma who passed away in Netherlands last evening.
Pray Rosary at 4 PM in your homes offering prayers for the sick, and afflicted, our nurses and doctors, and an end to the pandemic.
All mail drop off at the Rectory mail box kitchen door. Place any prayer requests, messages, letters.
Dry food items for food pantry can be placed in the grey bin outside office entrance doors.
Reminder this Sunday at 9 AM the Mass will be live streamed. Instructions are posted on the Parish Website https://holyrosaryguelph.ca under the “Masses” header on the home page of website. A link to a recording of the previous Sunday Mass is also available in the same location.
Courage everyone. Pray. With my blessing.
Fr. Vernon P. Boyd S.J.
Pastor
Holy Rosary Parish, 175 Emma Street, Guelph, ON, N1E 1V6
519-822-4701 x 22 www.holyrosaryguelph.ca
