The first reading this weekend, from the Acts of the Apostles, gives two responses that reveals the transformation that only comes with living in Christ, living a life of the Spirit. We are told by the author, St. Luke, that the Apostles were arrested by the Sanhedrin because they continued to preach Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. Peter simply responds, “We must obey God rather than men.” He is showing us here what it looks like when one possess the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, in particular the gift of fear of the Lord. Fear of the Lord is not being afraid of the wrath of God, meaning how His justice may come upon us due to our sin. If one has fear of the Lord, they are more concerned with the demands that comes with living as a Christian more than anything else. Christians have a certain responsibility because they have been washed by the Blood of the Lamb in Baptism. Part of this responsibility is serving God and not the world, as St. Peter, the first pope, shows us here. The world only has a temporal stake on us, but God has an eternal one.

Today is the 2nd Sunday of Easter, better known as Divine Mercy Sunday. In the year 2000, at the canonization Mass for St. Faustina, the saint to whom Jesus revealed that He wanted the Sunday after Easter to be dedicated to His mercy, St. John Paul II declared the Sunday after Easter Divine Mercy Sunday. Jesus told St. Faustina that on this day the floodgates of His mercy are open to all sinners open to receiving it.

Today is the greatest celebration in the Christian calendar, as we celebrate Easter, or Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Due to hindsight, we know that Jesus rises from the dead. This can prevent us from experiencing the true joy that comes from this day. Jesus’ Resurrection is the joyful surprise of the Gospel, as not even His closest friends expected it to happen. As we go through life we can caught up in routine. We can get weighed down with our expectations, that as adults we think we wisely call “realistic,” are in actuality really boring and unimaginative. So we journey through life getting more jaded and sad as the years pass by. Echoing the Book of Ecclesiastes we start thinking that there is nothing new under the sun.

This weekend is Palm Sunday. It is a very special day that many look forward to each year. For Palm Sunday Mass we get to literally enact what we read about in the Gospel. As the people, including children greeted Jesus with palms, we, too, use palms to help us spiritually enter into the celebration.

By now most of y’all have probably noticed a difference in the music at Mass since Lent began. I’m not talking about the Gloria or Alleluia not being sung. I am referring to the increase in silence in the Liturgy. The Church calls for more solemn music to be played during Lent, but also more silence. One of the things the Church asks us to do is to only play instruments to support singing. In other words, no instrumental music is allowed during Lent. The Church wants silence during Lent.

This weekend we hear the Parable of the Two Sons, or the Parable of the Prodigal Son as it is more widely known as. This parable is so rich and so deep, that it could be talked about for a week long retreat. Here are two important things about this parable. The first is that the father in the story runs to his lost son when he sees him. The father does not wait for the son to reach him, or act like he doesn’t see him. When the father sees his son, he immediately runs to him out of love for his son.