Fr. Don’s Weekly Letter ~ 17 August 2025

Dear Good People of Saint Bernadette,

Have you ever daydreamed of living your life in reverse? You’d watch the weight of the future retreat as you walked back into the past, living each year in reverse order: growing younger, having family and friends restored to you, erasing mistakes.

There’s something delightful in the dream, however impossible or improper it might be. Indeed, that an adult would entertain the notion of going backward through time suggests the presence of Adam’s fall in our lives, of original sin. We know that hope does disappoint; we’ve seen it happen. The wisdom of age tells us that we have wandered, lost the way, become alienated from some source of renewal and delight. Why not go back?

In the movie “The Passion of the Christ” (2004) a line of Scripture is used out of context and, in that act of artistry, reveals the deepest of truths. Here’s the scene. Mary sees her son Jesus fall under the weight of his cross. She remembers running to her child when he fell. Despite the crowd and his captors, she races to her adult son. Raising his bloodied face from the earth, she offers the greatest of comfort, though it is only the words, “I am here.”

Jesus sees her and, short of breath, responds, “See, Mother, I make all things new.” That’s nothing less than inspired. Why?

Because what we call the Way of the Cross is Christ striding through time, Christ aging in the course of a few hours, Christ trampling toward death, making his way to the farthest reach of human sorrow, of our estrangement from God. If the old world, the one in which you and I were born, was one of sin, of alien-
ation, of aging and of death, Christ walks the way of the cross so as to claim it back for God.

In the mystery of his Incarnation, God the Son comes to die. God takes all that is ugly and old and rotten in this world and draws it into himself. Here death dies. Here the old gives way to the new. Here hope is reborn. This is why Saint John brilliantly records Christ speaking of his passion as his hour of glory.

With equal artistry and genius, Pope St. Leo the Great spoke about the deepest meaning of the Mass, of our very liturgy, when he wrote, “And so what our redeemer made evident (in his presence among us) has passed over into the sacraments (Tr. LXXIV, 2).”

In the Mass, the world is young again. In the liturgy, the Word is spoken with a freshness that does not age. In the Eucharist, bread and wine, given to us centuries long past, become food for our journey together. In his body and his blood, like a woman giving birth, Christ makes all things new.

As we enter into the next few weeks coming up on Parish Life Weekend, I ask that everyone seriously consider how important – and vitally necessary – is the life of our worship and community. Liturgy is work, liturgy is life, and everything we do afterward flows from Jesus in his body given and shared, so that we might give and share ourselves.

Make a commitment to this holy and joyful endeavor of being in communion with God and each other, and dream of how we, as the Saint Bernadette Family, in the middle of such noise and chaos, can become like little children again. Jesus wasn’t speaking figuratively: he tells us what can happen if we become like little children, because to such as these, the kingdom of heaven belongs.

Commit to this vision. The world is watching. Our neighbors are watching. Being a follower of Jesus is not political, or being better than everyone else. It is Jesus in his humility and innocence living in you. If we truly live our joy, faith will become irresistible to everyone we encounter.

The Lord be with you.