Daily Mass - Easter Monday

What a joy Easter is, in spite of everything. Next week, on Monday I hope, I shall begin a regular parish praying of the Liturgy of the Hours, with the Office of readings and Morning prayer at 9.00 and Evening prayer at 18.00. It begins in church with just me, of course, but I hope that, when things have returned to normal, some of your may join me, too, just before the daily Mass. In these strange times, when bishops and priests are increasingly asking us to develop our liturgical lives at home, the Liturgy of the Hours is not a bad place to start. Long ago, in the years following the liturgical changes, the Church authority even made this office of prayer available to us in our own languages, to help us take it up in community, when in the past it had been only in the Church's language: in Latin. The texts are readily available online, most simply at the Universalis page. The Universalis service is also available as a smart-device application (check your device's app store), if you're happy to pay a small fee. If you would like, you could say the prayers yourselves at home, at the hours I've mentioned above (9.00, Office of Readings, and Morning Prayer; 18.00, Evening Prayer), so that we're all saying the same prayers at the same time, although we can neither see nor hear each other. You don't even have to know how the hymns go; simply sing them on a single note throughout.

Mass today was offered for a private intention. The first reading this week has moved from the prophecies of the Old Testament to the fulfillment of those prophecies in the growth of the newly-born Church, as given by Saint Luke's history in the Acts of the Apostles. On Pentecost Sunday, Saint Peter boldly sets forth to the surprised people in Jerusalem, who have just seen the Apostles talking loudly and volubly in various languages, what theologians call the kerygma: the first announcement of the core belief of the Church.

"'Men of Israel, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man duly accredited to you from God; such were the miracles and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves well know. This man you have put to death; by God’s fixed design and foreknowledge, he was betrayed to you, and you, through the hands of sinful men, have cruelly murdered him. But God raised him up again, releasing him from the pangs of death; it was impossible that death should have the mastery over him...  God, then, has raised up this man, Jesus, from the dead; we are all witnesses of it. And now, exalted at God’s right hand, he has claimed from his Father his promise to bestow the Holy Spirit; and he has poured out that Spirit, as you can see and hear for yourselves.'" - Acts of the Apostles, 2: 22-24, 32-33

Yes, what a joy Easter is. We look at these wonderful stories from a long distance in time, but sacramentally we are right there and we may have a mysterious understanding of being in that first community of faith, for we are united with them now as always in the most holy Sacrament of the altar. Find the daily Mass readings at the website of the American bishops, and daily watch the story of the early Church unfold.