Shining Splendor: The Easter Candle

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 8, 2023 |

On Saturday of this week “the night will be as clear as day.” No, there is no nocturnal phenomenon to anticipate. Rather, in Catholic churches the Paschal candle will be lit, letting Christ shed “his peaceful light on all” during the Easter Vigil. The solemn night of the Easter Vigil floods the assembly with sensory images. Our eyes adjust from darkness to the light of a single flame on the Paschal Candle. Our eyes adjust again to the brightness and beauty of the faces illuminated by each one’s individual candle.

Our olfactory sense is also stimulated by incense and the beeswax from which the Paschal Candle is made—the pure beeswax symbolizing the sinless nature of Christ whose body was formed in the spotless womb of the Immaculate Virgin.

The sublime poetry of the Easter Proclamation, or Exsultet, heard only once a year is a chant containing metaphors and images so rich that the imagination is swept up in the “evening sacrifice of praise,” the “Church’s solemn offering.” (Usually a deacon has the honors of chanting; however, he can pass on the privilege. This year the deacon’s daughter will remind us to use our “full hearts and minds and voices” to “praise the unseen God.”)

The shining splendor of the Easter candle, blessed by the Exsultet, creates a feast connecting heaven and earth. As Hippolytus (3rd century) claims, “The Pasch came from God, came from heaven to earth: from earth it has gone back to heaven.”

Let Us Imitate Our Mother

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 7, 2023 |

The Blessed Virgin was a woman of sorrows. She suffered hearing Simeon’s words that a sword would pierce her heart. Mary suffered in the flight to Egypt, on the day Jesus left for school and the house seemed so empty, when rumors claimed Jesus was “mad,” when mother and Son met on the via crucis, their compassionate eyes allowing the other to share the pain. The Son, Mercy Itself. The woman of sorrows, the Mother of Mercy.

Let us imitate our mother by meditating on the words of Saint John Henry Newman: “Let us copy her faith, who received God’s message by the angel without a doubt; her patience, her obedience. . . her meditative spirit. . . her fortitude, whose heart the sword went through; her self-surrender, who gave him up during his ministry and consented to his death.”

Jesus’ Favorite Prayer Spot

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 6, 2023 |

The evangelists occasionally show us Jesus getting away from it all, finding a spot to commune with his Father. On the night before he died, he crossed the Kidron Valley to pray, to agonize with his Father. “Ah, Gethsemani, my favorite garden! Thank you for the rest and calm you’ve given me after hot afternoons of teaching or disputatious hours  with leaders. This is the last night I will seek your olive trees that have known the crush of the press as I will soon know. I will miss you. But I need you now. I cling to you. Support me, as I pray, “Abba! Abba!”

Rejoice in the Lord Always

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 5, 2023 |

Saint Paul tells us to rejoice always in the Lord. The Church sets aside two days called Rejoice Days—Gaudete Sunday in Advent and Laetare Sunday in Lent. Two days to remind us that there is reason to rejoice despite war, poverty, mass shooting, and weather disasters among many other things that make us question “Rejoice?” The answer lies in the prepositional phrase “in the Lord.” Down through the centuries of suffering we have reason to rejoice. We are the Church. We are Christ’s Bride. We rejoice in Christ. Always.

Ritual Is Not Routine

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | April 4, 2023 |

There is no week of the year more replete with rituals than Holy Week. Rituals are not routines, even when we have memorized the gestures and words.  When ritual is done well—and that’s why lectors and singers practice—it helps us transcend our limits in sensing God’s presence. Ritual also strengthens community in its praise, hopes, sorrows. Although the actions are done over and over, the gestures are what it means to be a baptized Catholic. When spouses kiss, it’s not routine. In the same way, our gestures of Sign of the Cross, genuflection, bowing, reciting, singing are not routine; they are transformative as they shape and deepen our spiritual lives. We transcend our capacity to know God’s unending love for us through the gift of simple signs and saving responses and song. Give your full attention to these rituals that connect us to God and one another.

“He Prayeth Best, Who Loveth Best”  

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 29, 2023 |

Have you checked your Lentometer lately? You know, the gauge indicating the number of good deeds, the depth of your prayer, and the difficulty of your fasting throughout the 40-day season. If you’re reading this toward the end of March and feel good about your Lenten practices, congratulations! If you feel the Lentometer shows you were a bit lax, that’s OK. It’s OK??? Well, we’re in the home stretch to Easter. Holy Week is the first week of April. Our following of Christ takes a different path. While prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are fine 365 days of the year, they are not the prime focus of Holy Week. The week beginning with Palm Sunday moves the focus from ourselves and our Lenten practices to our Crucified and Risen Lord. This holiest of weeks has little to do with refraining from eating Easter candy early. We focus on the redeeming acts of Jesus Christ: his passion, death, resurrection. The liturgical services are very rich in meaning, ritual, and symbol. You don’t want to miss any of them. Where else would you want to be on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil? Your presence at the services, walking the Via Crucis with your Master, is the best way to pray and the best way to love.

Rowing toward Heaven

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 24, 2023 |

The crew team at Notre Dame Academy in Toledo achieved a record for rowing a stationary rowing machine for the greatest number of hours ever recorded. It may be a long time before their record is broken, because they rowed 40 more hours beyond the previous record. While I know nothing about rowing, I know an Egyptian proverb that goes like this: “The rower reaches the shore partly by pulling, partly by letting go.”  When we try to achieve a goal, we may “row, row, row our boat,” but that’s hardly “gently down the stream” as the song claims. Perhaps our goals and achievement depend a bit more on letting go. Dogged determination has its place—and certainly helped the crew achieve its goal—but sometimes letting go and traveling “merrily, merrily, merrily” may let us see that “life is but a dream.”

As we journey this Lent to the Easter shore, we may be advised to pull back a little, rest our good works and sacrifices, and gently turn toward prayer, spiritual reading, and reflection.

Blinded by Assumptions 

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 19, 2023 |

At this point in Lent we read about the blind man whom Jesus cured. The blind man’s neighbors assumed the parents must have been sinners that God punished their son with blindness. Jesus claimed, “Not true.” And then the Pharisees “proved” Jesus was a sinner, because he cured on the sabbath. Two innocent people were accused because of others’ assumptions, those of the Pharisees blinded to reality by seeing only what they wanted to see.

I can assume many things, but are they reality? Am I blinded because I don’t know the back story? It may look as if people are lazy, inconsiderate, greedy. But before I catch myself judging, I remind myself there may be a back story. Maybe the person has a health issue, an urgent need, a higher value than what I imagine. As I push my judging attitude aside to give room for kind thoughts, I hear Jesus say to the believing blind man: “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind” (Jn. 9:39).

Storing Up Treasures in Heaven

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 5, 2023 |

Perhaps we may consider God to be like a Big Banker in the Sky. You know, make sure we have a lot of revenue for our afterlife. And Lent is a good time to increase our heavenly bank account with more church attendance, fasting and almsgiving. All this is well and good. After all Jesus said, “Make your practice to store up heavenly treasure” (Mt. 6:20). Great advice! But Jesus gives many other pieces of advice both stated and lived. Jesus’ relationship to his Father was one of “Not my will, but yours be done” (Lk 22:42). From his Incarnation and birth to his passion and death, Jesus didn’t seem intent on storing up. Instead, he was always giving away. Cynthia Bourgeault writes, “It was not love stored up but loved utterly poured out that opened the gates to the Kingdom of heaven.”

Astounding Miracle

By Sr. Mary Valerie Schneider | March 2, 2023 |

Recently I heard a talk from a parishioner. Let me share it.

Nick loved skydiving. He and his buddies would regularly take the jump. Planning to join his buddies for their usual thrill, Nick decided not to participate when his father told him this story: “Even though I am a Jehovah Witness, Mary appeared to me. She said I had to tell my son that he should not go up in the plane. He should not skydive as planned. To make sure the message would be believed, I traveled across a couple states to visit my son.” Believing that his father had actually seen the Blessed Virgin, Nick complied with his father’s wishes. On the day of the intended skydiving, Nick heard on the radio that there was a terrible accident at the place where he and his buddies decided to meet. The three buddies enjoyed their usual thrill. The fourth man, who had taken Nick’s place, was given Nick’s parachute. The parachute did not open.