Catholic TV Mass Online May 19, 2019: Fifth Sunday of Easter

Presider: Fr. Matthew Widder Parish: Holy Name of Jesus, St. Clement & St. Dominic Choir: St. Joseph Choir The Lord be with you. And with your spirit A reading from the Holy Gospel according John. Glory to you o Lord. When Judas had left them, Jesus said, "Now is the son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and God will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. One of the parishes that I'm at is a parish that's especially loved by young couples preparing for marriage and it actually draws young people in that are preparing for marriage because one particular trait that the church has. It has a very long aisle to walk down. A very long aisle. And we think of that image of a marriage and walking down the aisle, is there any more vision of hope and love than to see a bride and her father walking down the aisle towards her spouse waiting by the altar, and as the bride and her father walk down, they pass through all the people that in some ways have had a part in their lives and many times the bride is walking down and they have a bit of bashfulness with all the eyes on them and their overwhelming beauty and then to see the husband greet his spouse to be and that sense of that embrace and that sense of love. And it's interesting because the image that God continues to go back to again and again in the bible is that of marriage. And we hear it again at the end of the bible in the Book of Revelation that there is a new city, a holy Jerusalem coming out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Because that walk down that aisle, the walk down of the bride towards her husband waiting, that's the walk that each and every one of us are on. Jesus Christ is waiting at the front for each and every one of us and as we walk through this life, we're walking first and foremost towards him. That relationship, that engagement is unbreakable in baptism, when we say yes to Jesus and he says yes to us and that union with us and God will be one in heaven. One in heaven. And we think that of all the times we walk down the aisle, we walk down the aisle to receive Jesus in Holy Communion, we meet our spouse, Jesus Christ. We walk down the aisle perhaps a little bit more slowly to go to the sacrament of reconciliation to meet our Lord Jesus there as well. Every time we reach out and we pick up the bible, we encounter our spouse Jesus and we make that union known every time we pick up the rosary, we make that union come alive. Each time we reach out to someone in need we meet our spouse, Jesus Christ. All of us are preparing and we're walking down the aisle on this side of things toward Jesus waiting for us in heaven. And we pray for the grace to persevere in walking towards Jesus of falling in love first and foremost with him. Entrance: I will Lift Up Your Name