To celebrate St. Patrick this weekend, I thought we would start with a little Irish humor…. Paddy  lived alone in the countryside with a wee dog that he loved and doted on. After many long years of faithful companionship, the dog finally died, so Paddy went to his parish priest:

"Father, my dear old dog is dead. Could you be saying a Mass for him?"

Father replied, "I am so very sorry to hear about your dog's death. But, unfortunately, I can't say Mass for the poor creature..."

Paddy said, "I understand, Father. I guess I'll go to the Protestant church down the road; no tellin' what they believe... Do you think $500 is enough to donate for the service?"

The priest turned back around. ”Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Why didn’t you tell me your dog was Catholic?!"

The lesson in today’s Gospel couldn’t have come at a better time of year. After a brutal winter, we see signs of new life and new growth all around us. Some of the plants we thought were dead are coming back, aren’t they? Slowly but surely green buds are emerging on the bare stems. Today we heard Jesus’s words “If a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it will bear much fruit.” You might wonder what this means. It is not a tutorial in growing wheat. No….Jesus is talking about himself. And just like He did in other parables, He used simple things that his listeners would understand. His words in today’s Gospel actually predicted His coming death on the cross. His death would lead to new life, not only for Him but for everyone who believes. New life and redemption….that is what we are talking about today.

The Japanese have a pottery art form called Kintsugi. It is the art of embracing imperfection in pottery. When a beautiful piece of pottery breaks, most people would think it is useless and throw it out. In Kintsugi, however, the pieces are actually fused back together with gold. The resulting piece has gold veins running throughout and is considered equal, if not more beautiful than the original. We are like this pottery. There may be things in your past that you would give anything to undo. Some of you might feel broken, powerless and trapped by that past. The truth is, we cannot go back and relive the past. Sin cannot be undone. But with God’s grace we can be remade, even better than new. We can be remade like that beautiful piece of Kintsugi art. This is what we cling to. This is what Jesus, by His death and Resurrection, has made possible for us. You are not owned by your past. I repeat….you are NOT owned by your past, no matter how painful it may be.

You know, our period of preparation for Easter is quickly drawing to a close. Soon, we will enter Holy Week during which we contemplate Jesus, his arms outstretched on the cross, embracing our world. He knew the suffering that was ahead of him yet he accepted it.

Let us learn from Jesus to place our trust in God. As we watch his death on the cross let us unite our suffering and trial to his and allow him to lead us through the hard times so that we can be remade in his image and inherit eternal life.