From my house office window Saturday morning, I observed a wonderful sight – numbers of people who would stop by the Holy Family Shrine in front of the church for a few minutes of prayer and then go to the Madonna nearby, amidst a patch of lively daffodils to do the same. Some would have their dogs with them. Yes, the Church is still alive despite the locked doors of the church.

This was what Pope Francis celebrated Friday at St. Peter’s in Rome. It was a hauntingly beautiful service where he would bless Rome and all the world with the monstrance, praying we might be delivered form this plague. He saluted the ordinary people of the world, often forgotten, “who without any doubt are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time – doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, care-givers, providers of transportation, law-and-order forces, volunteers, as well as priests, nuns and others.”

He added “We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us now called to row together, each of us in need of comforting each other.”

This past Sunday’s gospel (5th Sunday of Lent) was a clear call to all of us – like Lazarus – to come out form the fear that hobbles us.

I’ll let the writer, John Dear, say it for me:

“We hear directed to each one of us Jesus’ words to Lazarus: “Come out.” Come out from the gridlock of hopeless sadness. Unwrap the bandages of fear that impede the journey, the laces of the weaknesses and anxieties that constrain you. Reaffirm that God unties the knots. Jesus is the resurrection and the life.  With him, joy abides in our hearts, hope is reborn, suffering is transformed into peace, fear into trust, hardship into an offering of love. And even though burdens will not disappear, there will always be his uplifting hand, his encouraging work saying to all of us, to each of us: “Come out! Come to me! Do not be afraid.”

Let us do just that as we look to next week, Holy Week – so different from any other ever. 

I will have another Flocknote and reflection at the end of this week.

Msgr Paul Enke

P.S. In your charity please pray for the happy repose of the soul of parishioner Joan Hughes. A graveside service will be conducted by Msgr. Enke at St. Joseph cemetery, Newark.