SOMERVILLE – Students and their families, together with the faculty and staff of Immaculate Conception School, recognized the service and sacrifice of law enforcement at its annual Blue Mass, celebrated this year on April 21 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Somerville.

Long ago, I learned to always follow my spiritual director’s advice, even if what he asks me to do may be a little odd. So, when I had casually mentioned that the following Sunday I was planning to go down to the shore for the afternoon, he asked me to do a spiritual exercise on the beach. It involved a rosary and a teaspoon.

St. Mary Magdalene, the first to encounter the Risen Lord, is called “the apostle to the apostles” since she was the first to proclaim the resurrection of the Lord from the dead. Traditional Christian art and iconography portrays her in many ways, but it is not uncommon to see her depicted with a small egg in her hand.

The events commemorated during Holy Week stand at the very heart of our faith. It is in the death and resurrection of Jesus that Paschal Mystery – the mystery of human salvation - is accomplished, opening for us the hope of heaven through faith, conversion, and the sacraments.

My grandfather was blind. Whenever the family got together for Sunday dinner, I was given the responsibility of walking him from his chair in the living room to the dining room table. The distance was only a matter of feet, but I could have been a mile as far as I was concerned. I was a small boy then and my grandfather was very tall, well over 6 feet. He would take my hand and the long journey to the table would begin. I became very aware of the small but potentially dangerous obstacles along the way, the edges of carpet, a newspaper left on the floor by a recliner. Once I got him to the table and in his chair, he would pull me close and pat me on the head as his way of saying thank you. I just breathed a sigh of relief that I got him there safely.

In 1888, a man picked up a newspaper and was shocked to see his own obituary in the headlines. It was an error, of course. His brother was the one who died, but the newspaper mistakenly ran the story about him. However, he was even more shocked when he read in his obit that he had made his fortune by finding new ways to kill people. It was true; he was a wealthy munitions manufacturer, the inventor of dynamite in fact.

A few years ago, a Franciscan Sister of the Renewal attended a baptism I celebrated with another sister from her community. Both sisters were in their early 30’s and missioned in the South Bronx to work with the poor.

When you look at the monstrance, what do you see? You see the Sacred Host, the Real Presence of Jesus, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, in the Eucharist. But on the altar, the Lord seems inactive and immovable. I assure you He is neither. In this sacrament, He continually pours Himself out in love for you and for the world He came to save.

In the early centuries of the Church, the forty days before Easter were known as the “Purification and Enlightenment”. It was the time when the catechumens (those preparing for baptism) underwent a period of intense spiritual discipline and moral self-examination in preparation for their baptism at Easter.

This Wednesday, February 22, is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. We are blessed this year to welcome Bishop James F. Checchio to our parish for Ash Wednesday. Bishop Checchio will preside and preach at the 4:30 pm Liturgy of the Word.

On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake devastated large areas of central Turkey and northwest Syria. The death toll has surpassed 21,000 and continues to climb. The earthquake is the worst to strike Turkey this century. Later that day, the region experienced a second magnitude 7.7 quake.

We are once again entering into Catholic Schools Week, which gives us a unique opportunity to renew ourselves in the distinct mission of Catholic education but also to celebrate the many ways which that mission is already being lived out in our parish’s schools.

Every once in a while, I get into a “get rid of the clutter” mode. I was recently making my way through a closet, garbage bag next to me, when I found a card my mother had sent me shortly before her death in 2002. It was signed "Always Love and Prayers, Mom.” I decided to cut the signature from the card and place it in my Breviary, my prayer book, as a memento. But, “Always Love and Prayers, Mom” also summarizes Our Lady’s role in my life and in the lives of all who believe.

On Christmas Eve in 1968, Apollo 8 was in orbit around the moon. It was the first time in history that human beings could look back at our planet from an entirely new vantage point and see it for what it is: a “pale blue dot," as astronomer Carl Sagan called it, afloat in the infinite ocean of space.

Much has been made in the last several decades about the decline of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Our elders will tell us about the days when people would quite literally line up to celebrate the sacrament and now, well maybe not so much. That may have been true once, but I don’t believe it is true anymore. I have been so encouraged by the many people who are “lining up” again to encounter the mercy of God in the sacrament.

I love Advent. But I also find it to be one of the most frustrating seasons of the entire church year. Each Advent, I make a promise to myself to create quieter spaces in my life for prayer and reflection on the Word so that I can be more attentive to Christ. But that never seems to happen.

Most of us are familiar with the basic details of the life of St. Augustine of Hippo, the “bad boy” who became a saint. In case you are not, let me give you a brief sketch of his early life.

Somewhere around the year 1400, a custom was introduced into the papal coronation ceremony. As the new Pope was being vested in the robes of his office, flax was set on fire in a small bowl and its smoke wafted under his nose. A simple priest or monk stood next to him and whispered in his ear in Latin, Sic transit gloria mundi, meaning, “thus the glory of the world passes away.” It was a reminder to the new pope that all the pomp and pageantry of the papal court was nothing, the political power of his office temporary, and that he must seek for himself, and the Church he was called to lead, those things which eternally endure.

While preparing a short reflection for this past week’s memorial of Pope St. Gregory the Great (Sept. 3), I came across a quote from him that got me thinking. Toward the end of his life, Gregory wrote these words: “Perhaps it is not difficult after all for a man to part with his possessions, but it is certainly most difficult for him to part with himself. To renounce what one has is a minor thing, but to renounce what one is, that is asking much…”

I read a short reflection on humility this past week that frankly astonished me; it was that good! It was written by Jennifer Hartline, an army wife and mother of three.