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Eastertide,
Year C, Readings & Homilies
2nd
Sunday of Easter (C)
3rd Sunday
of Easter (C)
4th Sunday
of Easter (C)
5th Sunday
of Easter (C)
6th Sunday
of Easter (C)
The Ascension
of the Lord (C)
7th Sunday
of Easter (C)
Pentecost,
(Year C)
Acts 5:12-16. This shows the high regard in which the
apostles were held by the ordinary people of Jerusalem, and the many
cures they worked on behalf of those sick in body or in spirit.
Rev 1:9-13, 17-19. On the island of Patmos John speaks for
the risen Christ who lives on among the communities of believers.
He writes an encouraging message for the churches of his locality.
Jn 20:19-31. By seeing and touching the wounds of their risen Lord,
the apostles, and especially Thomas the doubter, are cured of their
unbelief, to call out "My Lord and my God!"
Theme: Belief and doubt are natural bed-fellows. By submitting
to the requested test, Christ pardons Thomas' doubt. We should not
be afraid to question our faith, in order to understand it better.
For the Homily
Now many signs and wonders were done among
the people through the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's
Portico. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held
them in high esteem. Yet more than ever believers were added to the
Lord, great numbers of both men and women, so that they even carried
out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in
order that Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he came by.
A great number of people would also gather
from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented
by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.
Let Israel say, "His steadfast love endures
forever."
Let the house of Aaron say,
"His steadfast love endures forever."
Let those who fear the Lord say,
"His steadfast love endures forever."
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Save us, we beseech you, O Lord!
O Lord, we beseech you, give us success!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of
the Lord.
We bless you from the house of the Lord.
I, John, your brother who share with you
in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance,
was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the
testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard
behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, "Write in a book
what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna,
to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."
Then I turned to see whose voice it was
that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and
in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed
with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. When I saw
him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand
on me, saying, "Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,
and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever;
and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. Now write what you have
seen, what is, and what is to take place after this.
When it was evening on that day, the first
day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had
met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them
and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed
them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they
saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be
with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he
had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive
the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven
them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one
of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples
told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them,
"Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my
finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not
believe."
A week later his disciples were again in
the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut,
Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."
Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands.
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."
Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to
him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have come to believe." Now Jesus
did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not
written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to
believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through
believing you may have life in his name.
Acts 5:27-32, 40-41. The apostles
were put on trial because of their preaching of the Gospel. But they
are willing to suffer for Christ's sake.
Rev. 5:11-14. Glimpses of the heavenly liturgies are
a feature of the book of the Apocalypse, here in praise of Christ
crucified and the risen.
Jn 21:1-19. The risen Jesus appears to seven of his apostles on
the shore of the lake of Galilee, and confirms Peter as chief pastor
of the church.
Theme: Peter and the other apostles were commissioned by
Christ to be fishers of men. The miraculous catch of fish in today's
gospel reminds us that we ourselves may have other fish to catch for
God.
For the Homily
When they had brought them, they had them
stand before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying,
"We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here
you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined
to bring this man's blood on us."
But Peter and the apostles answered, "We
must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors
raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God
exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Saviour that he might
give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses
to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those
who obey him."
When they had called in the apostles, they
had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name
of Jesus, and let them go. As they left the council, they rejoiced
that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of
the name.
I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn
me up,
and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life from among those gone down
to the Pit.
Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful
ones,
and give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment;
his favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!
O Lord, be my helper!"
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of
many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the
elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,
singing with full voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory
and blessing!" Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth
and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing,
"To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing
and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" And the four
living creatures said, "Amen!" And the elders fell down
and worshiped.
After these things Jesus showed himself
again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself
in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called
the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two
others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going
fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you."
They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did
not know that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to them, "Children, you
have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." He
said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and
you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able
to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom
Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon
Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was
naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the
boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the
land, only about a hundred yards off. When they had gone ashore, they
saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said
to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught."
So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large
fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many,
the net was not torn.
Jesus said to them, "Come and have
breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who
are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took
the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This
was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after
he was raised from the dead.
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus
said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more
than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I
love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second
time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"
He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus
said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time,
"Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because
he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he
said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love
you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell
you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to
go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out
your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take
you where you do not wish to go." (He said this to indicate the
kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to
him, "Follow me."
We pray:
- for a share in the living faith of Peter
and the Beloved Disciple.
- that we may be caught in the net of God's
grace, and drawn to his boat.
- that those the world deems "queer
fish" may also experience God's mercy.
- that our greed will stop threatening
those many species of sea creatures that God so generously gave us.
Acts 13:14, 43-52. Everywhere they go, Paul and Barnabas
preach the Gospel first to the Jews, but afterwards to godfearing
pagans, who receive it with gratitude and joy.
Rev. 7:9,14-17. In praise of the early martyrs, who came
triumphantly through times of great tribulation and persecution. They
owed their victory to the care of Christ, the Good Shepherd.
Jn 10:27-30. Christ is the true Shepherd, knowing us personally;
and no one will snatch from his care the sheep that the Father has
given him.
Theme: We celebrate Christ our Good Shepherd. Hearing his
voice in the proclamation of the gospel, we follow him by living the
gospel.
For the Homily
They went on from Perga and came to Antioch
in Pisidia. And on the sabbath day they went into the synagogue and
sat down.... When the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews
and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke
to them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.
The next sabbath almost the whole city
gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds,
they were filled with jealousy; and blaspheming, they contradicted
what was spoken by Paul. Then both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly,
saying, "It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken
first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy
of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord
has commanded us, saying, 'I have set you to be a light for the Geniles,
so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'"
When the Gentiles heard this, they were
glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined
for eternal life became believers. Thus the word of the Lord spread
throughout the region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high
standing and the leading men of the city, and stirred up persecution
against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their region. So
they shook the dust off their feet in protest against them, and went
to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy
Spirit.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is he that made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.
After this I looked, and there was a great
multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the
Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried
out in a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who
is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels
stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living
creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped
God, singing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving
and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen."
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying,
"Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?"
I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he
said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal;
they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship
him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on
the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst
no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for
the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he
will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe
away every tear from their eyes."
(And Jesus said:) "My sheep hear my
voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life,
and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.
What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can
snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one."
We pray:
- that our pastors may lead their flocks
by word and example.
- that we may hear and recognise the voice
of the Good Shepherd and follow him.
- that we may resist the temptation to
condemn those who differ from us.
- that with God's help there may eventually
be one flock and one shepherd.
Acts 14:21-27. Paul and Barnabas complete the first mission
by retracing their steps and encouraging the little faith communities
which they had founded.
Rev. 21:1-5. One the final scenes of the Apocalypse, this opens
with the vision of a new world, and the splendour of the new, heavenly
Jerusalem.
Jn 13:31-35. At the last supper with his apostles, Jesus emphasised
a new commandment - to love one another as he had loved them.
Theme: Christ's last message to his disciples was to love
one another. Two thousand years later there is too little evidence
that this message has taken deep root. Only love will make the whole
of creation new.
For the Homily
Then they asked for a king; and God gave
them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned
for forty years. When he had removed him, he made David their king.
In his testimony about him he said, 'I have found David, son of Jesse,
to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.'
Of this man's posterity God has brought
to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised; before his coming John
had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of
Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he said, 'What do you
suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I
am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet."
"My brothers, you descendants of Abraham's
family, and others who fear God, to us the message of this salvation
has been sent. Because the residents of Jerusalem and their leaders
did not recognize him or understand the words of the prophets that
are read every sabbath, they fulfilled those words by condemning him."
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and his compassion is over all that he has made.
All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord,
and all your faithful shall bless you.
They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom,
and tell of your power.
To make known to all people your mighty deeds,
and he glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures throughout all generations.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the
sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming
down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home
of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they
will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe
every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying
and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."
And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making
all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words
are trustworthy and true."
When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now
the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.
If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself
and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only
a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so
now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.'
I give you a new commandment, that you
love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one
another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if
you have love for one another."
We pray:
- for a renewal of our hope, that Christ
will "make all things new."
- that we may be recognisable as Christians
by our love.
- that all rival Christian churches may
be reconciled.
- for AIDS victims that they may receive
the loving care they need.
Acts 15:1-2, 22-29. Many Gentiles had accepted Christianity;
but the big question: how much Jewish law and traditions so these
converts need? The problem was solved by a Council.
Rev. 21:10-14, 22-23. This, from near the end of Apocalypse,
gives a majestic picture of the new Jerusalem, hhe deavenly Church
of the future, when God's Kingdom will come in all its glory.
Jn 14:23-29. This contains yet another portion of Christ's farewell
discourse at the last supper. It is dominated by the thought of his
imminent departure.
Theme: We celebrate Christ's ascension to his eternal glory
in heaven in hope that where he has gone before us, we will one day
follow to live forever.
For the Homily:
Then certain individuals came down from
Judea and were teaching the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised
according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." And after
Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul
and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem
to discuss this...
Then the apostles and the elders, with
the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among
their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.
They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers,
with the following letter: "The brothers, both the apostles and
the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria
and Cilicia, greetings.
Since we have heard that certain persons
who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have
said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have
decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you,
along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives
for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We have therefore sent Judas and Silas,
who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For
it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no
further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has
been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled
and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will
do well. Farewell."
May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us,
that your way may be known upon earth,
your saving power among all nations.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you.
The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, has blessed us.
May God continue to bless us;
let all the ends of the earth revere him.
And in the spirit he carried me away to
a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming
down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance
like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great,
high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on
the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites;
on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three
gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve
foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles
of the Lamb. The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold
to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare,
its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his
rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal.
He also measured its wall, one hundred forty-four cubits by human
measurement, which the angel was using. The wall is built of jasper,
while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the
wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper,
the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth
onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl,
the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the
twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of
the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold,
transparent as glass I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is
the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of
sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and
its lamp is the Lamb.
Jesus answered him, "Those who love
me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come
to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does
not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is
from the Father who sent me. "I have said these things to you
while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind
you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace
I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let
your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard
me say to you, 'I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved
me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father
is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs,
so that when it does occur, you may believe.
We pray:
- for a renewal of generosity in our world,
in place of the national and personal selfishness that so often prevail.
- for our local parish community, that
it may be a sign of light and love to others in our area.
- for those who have wandered away from
God, that they may rediscover the richness of faith and prayer in
their lives.
- for any who find religion a burden, or
who burden others with false and misguided religious claims.
The Ascension of the Lord (C)
Acts 1:1-11. Before leaving, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit
to his apostles. Now that he is no longer bodily present, it is up
to them, and us, to give God's witness to the world.
Eph 1:17-23. For Paul, the ascension was God raising Jesus to the
heavens, and making him head of the Church and Lord of all creation.
Lk 24:46-53. Jesus interprets of his death and resurrection. He
promises the Holy Spirit to his followers and commissions them to
preach salvation to all the world.
Theme: Christ's ascension to glory in heaven spurs hope that
where he has gone we will one day follow, to live forever with him
in the kingdom of our Father.
For the Homily:
Why He had to Go
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote
about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day
when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through
the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
After his suffering he presented himself
alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during
forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with
them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for
the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what
you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will
be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
So when they had come together, they asked
him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom
to Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times
or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will
be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth." When he had said this, as they were watching,
he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
While he was going and they were gazing
up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They
said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?
This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come
in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
Clap your hands, all you peoples;
shout to God with loud songs of joy.
For the Lord, the Most High, is awesome,
a great king over all the earth.
God has gone up with a shout,
the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
For God is the king of all the earth;
sing praises with a Psalm.
God is king over the nations;
God sits on his holy throne.
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation
as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened,
you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are
the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what
is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according
to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ
when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand
in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power
and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this
age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his
feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which
is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
He said to them, "Thus it is written,
that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third
day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed
in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses
of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised;
so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from
on high."
Then he led them out as far as Bethany,
and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing
them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they
worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they
were continually in the temple blessing God.
We pray:
- that though absent in body, Jesus may
always be with us in spirit.
- that one day we too may follow him into
the kingdom of our Father.
- that we may be reunited with our departed
friends in heaven.
- that the faithful departed may be reunited
with the ascended Christ.
(If Ascension is celebrated on this day,
the readings for Ascension are used.)
Acts 7:55-60. The heroic death of the first martyr,
Stephen. Like Christ, Stephen died forgiving his killers; and Saul,
the future St. Paul, was among them.
Rev. 22. The time will come for God to reward his servants.
Christ will give eternal life to all those who have followed him.
Jn 17:20-26. This is part of the great prayer Jesus made during
the last supper on behalf of his future disciples. He prayed speciallly
for unity among us.
Theme: We pray for the unity of all Christians, as Christ
prays in today's gospel. All of us, clergy and faithful, need to examine
honestly our attitudes towards the scandal of Christian disunity.
For the Homily:
Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed
into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right
hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"
But they covered their ears, and with a
loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him
out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their
coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning
Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then
he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold
this sin against them." When he had said this, he died.
The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad!
Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation
of his throne.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
and all the peoples behold his glory.
all gods bow down before him.
For you, O Lord, are most high over all the
earth;
you are exalted far above all gods.
"See, I am coming soon; my reward
is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha
and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the
right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
"It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel
to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the
descendant of David, the bright morning star." The Spirit and
the bride say, "Come." And let everyone who hears say, "Come."
And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the
water of life as a gift. The one who testifies to these things says,
"Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
"I ask not only on behalf of these,
but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,
that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,
may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have
sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that
they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they
may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have
sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire
that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am,
to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before
the foundation of the world. "Righteous Father, the world does
not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me
I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that
the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."
We pray:
- for unity among all those who profess
to be followers of Christ.
- for forgiveness for the wrongs committed
against others in the name of religion.
- for tolerance and respect for those who
differ from us.
- for all who worship God, in whatever
way, that our worship may increase our sense of the unity of the whole
human family.
Rom 8:8-17. In baptism the Christian has symbolically "died"
to his former sinful side in order to lead a new life in the Spirit
of Christ. The presence of this Spirit is the guarantee of his future
resurrection. He also gives us a personal sense of God as our Father.
John 14:15-16, 23-26. The Spirit of truth will dwell in those
who love God and keep his commandments. To display our Love of God
through our actions is the challenge of today's Gospel.
For the Homily: Same as for Year A
Those who are in the flesh cannot please
God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the
Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of
Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the
body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies
also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors,
not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh- for if you live
according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put
to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led
by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive
a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received
a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is
that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children
of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs
with Christ-if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be
glorified with him.
"If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. "I
will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while
the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live,
you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father,
and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep
them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by
my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them." Judas
(not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will reveal
yourself to us, and not to the world?" Jesus answered him, "Those
who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we
will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love
me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine,
but is from the Father who sent me. "I have said these things
to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and
remind you of all that I have said to you.
Eastertide, Year C, Homilies
When the car was opened the man was found
dead, but the temperature of the car was only about 56 degrees. Officials
found that the freezing mechanism was out of order and that there
was plenty of fresh air available. Although there was no physical
reason that they could find for the man had died. It was concluded
that he had died because he had believed that he would die.
My friends, what you believe to be true
affects you to the core of your being, it shapes you and makes you
what you are, - it either blesses you because it opens you up to the
power of God, - or it afflicts you because it blinds you to what you
could be and what God is trying to do for you.
Another story, this time a fable, that
goes like this:
Once upon a time a man found the egg of
an eagle. It had been abandoned for some reason by its mother, but
as it was still warm the man took it and put it in the nest of one
of his backyard chickens along with the other eggs that were there
being brooded upon.
After a period of time the eaglet was hatched,
and along with the other chicks from his nest began to go about the
backyard doing what the other chicks did. He scratched the earth for
worms and insects. He looked for the corn that the man would throw
into the yard. He clucked and cackled as best as he could, and as
he grew, he would, like the other chickens, thrash his wings and fly
a few feet in the air.
Years passed in this way and the eagle
grew old. One day he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless
sky. It glided majestically among the powerful wind currents, soaring
and swooping, scarcely beating its long golden wings.
The old eagle looked at it in awe and asked
"what is that?"
"That is the eagle, the king of the
birds," said one of his neighbours. "He belongs to the sky
and to the high places. We belong to the earth, we are chickens."
The old eagle knew this was true, and so
it was he lived and died as a chicken, for that is what he believed
he was. Think my friends of what happened to the disciples after the
first Easter morning, after they finally accepted and believed in
the resurrection that Christ had told them about.
They came out of the upper room where they
had huddled in fear, and they went to the ends of the earth, and they
created a mighty church despite the efforts of Emperors and Princes
to stamp it and them out of existence.
They went from being people afraid of dying,
to being people who offered their lives to help others come to the
faith, and hope, and joy that they had.
Like Paul - and others who have since believed
- they were transformed and changed because of the resurrection and
their conviction that it was for them that it occurred.
The disciples were changed by their faith
in the resurrection and in the God who brought it about: they were
given power to heal and to help others. power to conquer their own
fear and despair and power to defeat the fear and despair that afflicts
others.
This is what the resurrection is about,
what our faith is about.
God can bring back to life that which has
died, God can bring good out of evil, love out of hate, and hope out
of despair.
This is what we believe; and what we believe
makes a difference.
A certain kindergarten teacher was telling
her students the story of Jesus. In her class was a little boy who
came from a non-Christian family. He was paying close attention to
the story because it was all new to him. As the teacher told how Jesus
was condemned and nailed to the cross to die the boy's countenance
fell and he murmured, "No! That's too bad!" The teacher
then went on to tell how on the third day Jesus rose from the dead
and came back to life. The boy's eyes lit up with delight and he exclaimed,
"Totally awesome!" On Good Friday we heard the story of
the suffering and death of Jesus. Like the little boy many of us felt
like "No! That's too bad!" Today we hear the rest of the
story and again with the little boy we can now exclaim "Yes!
Totally awesome!" Today we can again sing "Halleluiah"
that we have not sung all through Lent. This is the day the Lord has
made; let us rejoice and be glad (Psalm 118:24).
Why do we rejoice today? We rejoice because
our faith in Christ has been vindicated, truth has triumphed over
falsity, justice over injustice and tragedy has turned into comedy.
It is like watching one of the episodes of Batman. First you see an
innocent and helpless victim being attacked, robbed, kidnapped, assaulted
and tortured by a wicked assailant. And we feel so bad seeing the
triumph of the bad guy. Then, almost at the point where the victim
has given up hope and is at the point of death, down from the skies
comes Batman to the rescue. He battles and defeats the bad guy and
rescues the innocent victim. And we feel happy inside at the triumph
of justice.
The story of the suffering and death of
Jesus on Good Friday is the story of the triumph of falsity over truth,
of injustice over justice, of evil over goodness. Jesus was falsely
charged of crimes he did not commit, and unjustly sentenced to a death
he did not deserve. His good friend betrayed him, his trusted companions
deserted him and his number one man denied him. The people he loved
demanded his crucifixion and chose to have the bandit Barabbas released
in his place. It is a story of betrayal and lies, dishonesty and meanness,
unfaithfulness and wicked violence directed against an innocent and
apparently helpless victim. All this comes to a head on Good Friday
when we see Jesus scourged, mocked, led on the death march, nailed
to the cross where he dies after a few hours and hastily buried in
a tomb. If that were the end of the story that would be a bad story,
a tragedy. But glory be to God it is not.
Death is not the end of the story. There
is one more chapter. This is the most important chapter because, as
the saying goes, they who laugh last laugh best. And in the last chapter
of the story of Jesus we see him rise from the dead in all glory and
majesty. He is vindicated. His enemies are shamed and confused. Jesus
regains his eternal glory with the Father. He is the Lord who will
prevail over all humankind, his enemies included. For us his embattled
followers this is good news.
It is good news to know that truth is immortal.
We can suppress Truth, accuse it of being a lie, condemn it, torture
it, kill it, bury it in the grave but on the third day Truth will
rise again. Remember this and do not give up on Truth even when everybody
seems to give up on it. Do not give up on Truth; do not give up on
Justice. Do not give up on doing what is right. True will always be
true. Just will always be just. Right will always be right even when
the world around us would have it otherwise. We must learn to believe
in the sun even when it is not shining, knowing that by and by it
will shine again. It is the end of the story that counts. That is
why the church asks us today to rejoice and be glad. Even when we
are going through difficult times: through betrayal, unjust discrimination,
lies, misrepresentations; even when the enemy seems to be winning
the battle in our lives. Today Christ has won. And we know that in
Christ we shall overcome. Halleluiah, Praise the Lord!
2nd Sunday of Easter (C)
(Acts 5:12-16 - Rev 1:9-13, 17-19 - Jn
20:19-31)
"You believe because you have seen
me. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." The
lack of faith in the resurrection of Christ by the apostle Thomas
has given him a certain character in the minds of people ever since
the events of today's gospel. The phrase, "a doubting Thomas,"
has become part of everyday language right up to this day. But the
truth is that the reaction of Thomas to what took place on that first
Easter day was not much different from that of the other apostles.
They all, more or less, became disillusioned about Christ when they
saw him being led away to be crucified. When he was buried in the
tomb their hopes were buried with him, and when the news broke that
he was risen again, they all disbelieved it. The last ten verses of
St Mark's gospel tell us quite clearly that such was the case.
When Mary Magdalene hurried back from the
tomb with the news that Jesus was alive, and that she herself had
seen him, they did not believe her. When the two disciples, who had
seen him while journeying to Emmaus, returned to Jerusalem and related
what had befallen them, neither were they believed. They were all
unprepared for the marvellous Easter morning happenings, and were
caught completely unawares by them. St John, in his gospel, recounts
how he and Peter ran to the tomb, when first they heard that the body
of Jesus was no longer in it. John arriving first looked in, but did
not enter until Peter also had reached it. For the moment, the reaction
of Peter to the empty tomb was solely one of astonishment, "for
as yet they did not realise the meaning of scripture that Jesus should
rise from the dead," John says. Nevertheless, things began to
happen in John's mind.
If the body had been stolen, why did the
robbers leave behind the grave-cloths in which it was enwrapped? Moreover,
these cloths were not thrown aside in a heap. They were lying in a
regular arrangement, still folded, as if the body of Jesus had simply
evaporated from within them. Slowly the significance of what he saw
in the tomb began to dawn on John's mind, and to quote his own words,
"he believed." Love is blind, it has been said, but it was
Mary Magdalene, who loved Jesus so much, who was the first at the
tomb, the first to see the risen Jesus, the first to be convinced
that what she saw was a living being and not a ghost. As well, it
was John, the disciple whom Jesus loved and who loved Jesus in return,
who was the first apostle to believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.
But as to the others, we find, in those verses of St Mark, how Jesus
rebuked them for their obstinacy and incredulity in the face of the
Easter Sunday occurrences.
When finally they believed in the resurrection
and their doubts had been resolved, those of Thomas nevertheless continued
unabated. Thomas had made the mistake of withdrawing by himself, remaining
apart from the community of Christ's followers, and so he was not
present when the others received the grace of faith once more. It
is a warning to all of us, here and now, that we should never withdraw
from the worshipping Christian community. Otherwise, God's grace may
well pass us by too. The response of Thomas, when confronted with
the risen Jesus, has a message for us also. When Christ allowed himself
to be touched, and the wounds on his body to be probed, the doubts
of Thomas melted away, and his heart was so full of love and emotion
that all he could say was "My Lord and my God," words that
signified not only his belief in the Resurrection but also his being
convinced of the divinity of the risen One.
God grant that every time we come together
to worship and pray, we may find ourselves strengthened in our faith
and union with our risen Saviour, even as Thomas was. Strange as it
may seem, we should be grateful that Thomas and the other apostles
were so reluctant to believe in Christ's "resurrection. Such
had been their familiarity with him, that despite all the miracles
they had witnessed they could not bring themselves, before his death,
to accept fully that he was by nature a truly divine person. Indeed
his death seemed to offer proof of their estimation of him. It took
impressive evidence to make them change their minds on this. The fact
that they were slow to do so, that they were fearful of being deluded,
makes the basis of our belief in the resurrection that much stronger.
For what happened on the first Easter morning was, and still remains,
a pledge of our own resurrection as well.
Today's gospel describes one of the more
significant appearances of Jesus after his resurrection. Remember,
he spent forty days with them, because it was of central importance
that they know, beyond all doubt, that he had, indeed, overcome death,
and that he was, indeed, alive. Thomas, like many of us, just refused
to believe until he got some proof, or until someone convinced him
that it was true. This is his big moment. Jesus was more than willing
to oblige, because, once again, I stress that Jesus didn't want any
of them to be in any doubt. They were to be his witnesses throughout
the world, and they could hardly give any great credible witness if
they themselves were unsure.
We are all familiar with Commissions and
with Boards of Enquiry. Let's suppose that, back then, there was one
set up to enquire into the whole question of whether Jesus had risen
from the dead, and was really alive. There would be a judge on the
bench, and there would be advocates for and against the subject of
the enquiry. Witnesses will take up most of the enquiry's time. Mary
Magdalene is called. She had known Jesus for several years, and was
one of his inner circle of friends. Her evidence was laughed out of
court, because, when she met him after his resurrection, she thought
he was the gardener! The next group of witnesses were even more ridiculous,
and unworthy of belief. They claimed that an angel had told them that
Jesus was alive! This was getting both unbelievable and ridiculous
at the same time. The next two told how they had travelled with him
to Emmaus, and they thought he was a tourist from elsewhere. When
asked if they recognised him, they said they finally did so when he
broke a piece of bread! This was turning into a complete farce! And
then came Thomas. He looked around at the legal eagles, the scoffers,
and the cynics. Then he spoke. "I know how you feel, and what
you must think. I was exactly like you.
There was no one could convince me that
Jesus had risen from the dead, and was, indeed, alive. I demanded
proof, and I got that proof." He then proceeded to tell them
what had happened to him. Thomas turned out to be the only credible
witness in that room to the fact that Jesus had actually risen from
the dead.
There are many gems in today's gospel.
We notice that the apostles were still in hiding, because they were
afraid. Once Jesus appeared among them his first words were "Peace
be with you." His mission was continuing. He showed them his
wounds, to reinforce the reality of his presence, and he repeated
the greeting "Peace be with you." Jesus understands the
apostles" anxieties, confusion, and bewilderment at all that
was going on, and he was extremely patient with them, and sensitive
to them. Certainty and faith don't go together, because if you have
one, you don't need the other. The Apostles were caught somewhere
in the middle. Up to this time they had lived with certainties. Jesus
was the Messiah, the long wait was ended, and the good days were coming.
Now all that had been was stood on its head. Oh, yes, he was now appearing
to them here and there, now and again, but it would take much more
than that to rebuild their shattered dreams.
In the midst of today's gospel, we could
easily miss one important point. Jesus breathed on them, as a symbol
of giving them his Spirit, and immediately, he asked them to forgive
others. I have often heard this quoted as part of the church's teaching
on Confession, or the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as it is now called.
I don't accept that as valid. I believe Jesus is saying simply something
like the following: "you are the one that was hurt. The hurt
came through you, so the forgiveness must go back through you. If
you refuse to forgive, you are blocking my forgiveness to that person.
When I forgive you, I do so in the expectation that you will forgive
others. I taught you a prayer in which you ask my Father to forgive
you as you forgive others. Please don't get in the way of my forgiveness
of others. You ask me to make you a channel of my grace. I certainly
wish to make you a channel of my forgiveness. If you forgive, you
yourself are forgiven." Is it possible that there is someone
who is dead for years, and who is not yet fully within the presence
of God's glory, because I still have unforgiveness in my heart towards
that person? I don't know the answer to that question, but I believe
it is a question that should be asked.
Thomas asked for a sign, and Jesus was
quite prepared to meet him where he was at. This was not just to indulge
Thomas, because he was stubborn, but also to assure him, because he
was unsure. Thomas was honest, and he was in touch with his feelings.
He was not prepared to go along with something that seemed totally
crazy, just because other people told him. He was unsure, he was confused,
he was hurting deeply. He obviously loved Jesus, and, because of what
had happened, he was totally distraught. So what! The others had seen
Jesus, but what help was that to Thomas? It is obvious, also, that
Jesus loved Thomas, and he understood him more than anybody else.
If Thomas wanted a sign, then Thomas would get a sign. Once he had
witnessed the sign, a prayer came from the depths of his heart "My
Lord, and my God," and this is a prayer that is used to this
day.
Faith is a funny old thing, if I may use
the expression! Unlike Thomas, we have not seen, and yet we are asked
and expected to believe. At least that is what it looks like on the
surface. In reality, that is not so. I can get all the proof I want
that Jesus is alive and well, and living in me, if I myself am alive
and well, and living in him. I am living thousands of years later,
Pentecost has happened, and the message of the gospel, and the person
of Jesus has been debated and written about in every language on the
globe. What signs do I want? What signs do I need? The atheist would
believe if you could furnish the concrete facts, and satisfy the arrogance
of pride, that needs to subject everything to the microscope of its
inspection, and to be given its approval. Faith requires a generous
dose of humility, and a large amount of common sense. Every time I
buy a car, every time I enter an operation theatre, every time I board
an aeroplane, I continue to make acts of faith in someone or in something.
Without faith, I would end up doing nothing. No one would get married
if they didn't have faith in themselves, in each other, and in the
love that binds them.
We are a resurrected people. In simple
English, Jesus took on human nature, with all its weaknesses of sin,
sickness and death; these were nailed to the cross with him; they
died with him; and now they are no longer enemies of destruction,
but can be turned into opportunities for good, for wisdom, for compassion,
and for faith. When I say that Jesus took on human nature, I mean,
of course, that he took on your human nature, my human nature, the
nature of the person in front of you, and that of the person beside
you. We become a resurrected people when we accept the simple fact
that, yes, Jesus did overcome death, that He is much alive, and that
we share in the results of that victory when we trust Jesus to affect
those results in us. We ask him for that full and abundant life that
he came to offer. We take him at his word, when he tells us that "They
who eat my body, and drink my blood, have everlasting life, and I
will raise them up on the last day." All Jesus asks is that we
believe him. "The sin of this world is unbelief in me. When the
Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on this earth?'
Have you ever wondered why we observe Sunday
as a holy day rather than the Sabbath (Saturday) even though the Ten
Commandments says "Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy"
(Exodus 20:8)? The gospel readings of the Sundays after Easter give
us the answer.
The gospel writers were not particularly
interested in telling us the precise day of the week in which many
of the events they recorded took place. With one exception. In the
public ministry of Jesus they often told us that many of the healing
miracles of Jesus took place on the Sabbath day. By this they meant
to say that Jesus did not really observe the Sabbath commandment to
the letter. Again, as soon as Jesus dies and rises from the dead we
do not hear about the Sabbath any more. Instead we begin to hear about
the first day of the week which is Sunday.
It all began on Easter Sunday. Jesus rose
from the dead on the first day of the week, Sunday, and appeared on
the same day to Mary Magdalene and the other women, to the two disciples
on the road to Emmaus, and to the gathering of the apostles. He did
not appear to them again until "a week after," i.e., the
following Sunday. Without exception, all the recorded appearances
of the risen Lord to his followers took place on no other day of the
week than Sunday. This made the group of believers set Sunday apart
as the day when the risen Lord comes to be with his people gathered
in worship to share with them the word of life and to break bread
with them. Gradually they began to regard Sunday as the dies Dominica,
"the day of the Lord" (Revelation 1:10). After the Lord's
ascension into heaven, the disciples continued to gather together
in worship on Sundays, in expectation that the Lord Jesus would come
spiritually to be in their midst and fellowship with them as he had
promised.
In today's gospel we read about the appearance
of the risen Lord to the assembly of the apostles on the day of resurrection
and a second appearance a week later. The second appearance focuses
on Thomas who was not present with the rest of the apostles when Jesus
appeared among them. Where could Thomas have gone? We do not know
exactly but as soon as he comes back the other disciples tell him
that they have seen the Lord. Could it be that when they heard that
Jesus had risen from the dead, that he, Thomas, went out on his own
to seek him out? Perhaps he went to the houses of Jesus' friends,
to the house of Lazarus, Martha and Mary in Bethany, to the village
where they ate the last supper. He was seeking Jesus alone while Jesus
was with the assembly of his followers. Could that be the evangelist's
way of telling the reader that encounter with the risen Lord is something
that happens not so much in the privacy of the individual's religious
initiative and practice as much as in fellowship with the community
of believers?
So the following Sunday Thomas is there
fellowshipping with the rest of the community. Jesus appears as usual
and Thomas experiences the desire of his heart and exclaims: "My
Lord and my God" (John 20:28 ). From now on, Thomas would not
lightly absent himself from the community Sunday worship.
Do we have to look far to see the Thomases
in our midst today, men and women who deep down in their hearts seek
the risen Lord, but seek him outside the worshipping and believing
community? They try to draw near to God by engaging in all sorts of
self-imposed devotional exercises. Religion, they say, is personal,
and they are right. But religion is also communitarian, and this they
need to learn just as Thomas learnt.
Jesus in today's gospel commissions the
apostles to forgive sins. This is a function that can be exercised
only where there is a believing community, or else each of them would
be absolving their own personal sins. Today's Thomases often do not
appreciate nor have recourse to this avenue of reconciliation with
God and with the community that is affected by our sins. May the success
story of Thomas help us all to appreciate the important role of the
church and the sacraments in our spiritual quest and in our service
of the risen Lord.
3rd Sunday of Easter (C)
(Acts 5:27-32, 40-41 - Rev. 5:11-14 - Jn
21:1-19)
Ichthys: A Profession of Faith
The Big Catch
By the Lake-shore
God's Passionate Forgiveness
Help My Lack of Love
"The true Christians entire life is
a holy longing," St Augustine used to say. The true Christian
is continually on the move, not so much physically however, but inwardly,
in the heart. In today's gospel reading, we find that after the events
of the first Easter Sunday, although the small group of Apostles had
moved back to Capernaum and to their fishing in the Sea of Galilee,
their hearts were not fully in what they were doing. Their days were
spent in a holy longing, and in expectation too, on account of what
Jesus had said to the women when they were returning from the empty
tomb, "Go and tell my brothers that they must leave for Galilee;
there they will see me." And then, when they must have been utterly
disheartened with their work - they had laboured all night, we are
told, and caught nothing - at a moment when they least expected him,
there Jesus was standing on the shore waiting for them, in the half-light
of the early morning.
It is a reminder also to us that, in moments
of desperation, Christ is ever close at hand, for he has promised
to be with us always to the end of time. The night's labour by the
disciples is suddenly rewarded with a huge haul of fish, something
so extraordinary that John realises it must be the Lord who caused
it. Throughout the long night prior to this they had been toiling
in vain, and in the space of a few minutes Christ brings success for
them, as well as warmth and food, and a reawakening of their hopes
in him. Mention of fish and bread prepared for them by Christ introduces
a Eucharistic note. It calls to mind the miracle of the loaves and
fishes whereby Jesus fed the multitude. This perhaps in John's gospel,
in a symbolic way, supplies for the account of the institution of
the Eucharist at the Last Supper, as recorded by the other three evangelists,
an event which is not mentioned by John. Indeed, as a matter of interest,
on the large host used in this Mass there is the outline of a fish,
and the Greek word for fish, ichthys, is written over it.
That word was especially linked with Christ
after his death by Christians of the early centuries. The five letters
in it are the initials of the five Greek words that form the phrase
"Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." The account of Jesus'
appearance, quite possibly, leads to an explanation as to why this
strange last chapter was added on to John's gospel, either by the
evangelist himself or one of his disciples. It was clearly intended
to refute any claim that the appearances of the risen Christ were
mere hallucinations. For no vision, or spirit, or ghost could point
out a shoal of fish from the shore, or light a charcoal fire to prepare
a meal. The risen Lord was clearly a real person, but a person who
had conquered death and come back. The whole chapter is a reminder
to us too that Christ is waiting to come to us in Holy Communion,
and ready to give on a spiritual level, all he had to offer to the
Apostles on that special morning.
But we must be eager to draw near to Christ,
as was Peter when he waded ashore to meet him; we must be respectful
to the sacrament we are celebrating, as was Peter in clothing himself
before encountering Christ; and we must have faith, like St John when
he said, "It is the Lord." The whole gospel story shows
the wonderful consideration and tenderness of Jesus, as he looked
after the bodily needs of the disciples, wearied and spent after their
night on the lake. It is a vivid illustration that even after his
resurrection Christ was still abiding by what he said while on earth,
"The Son of man came, not to be served, but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:4). And now from the
shores of eternity Jesus stands calling us also. He has prepared an
eternal banquet for us, and if we now strive to remain close to him
spiritually, then when life's journey is over, we will behold him
face to face, as did the Apostles.
If only we have faith meanwhile, we will
be assisted on our pilgrim way by the one who walked on the waters,
who rebuked the wind and the waves, who multiplied the loaves, who
turned water into wine, who made the blind see and the lame walk,
who entered through closed doors, and came and vanished at will. May
the risen Christ remain with each of us evermore, filling our hearts
with a longing for our heavenly home, until the dawn of eternity breaks
and all the shadows of this earthly life melt away (Cant. of Cant.
4:6) and in the company of the angels and saints we can enjoy the
vision of the glorified Christ as he really is.
Fish are funny creatures. They are always
so busy and yet so pointlessly busy. Ever on the move, they flit about,
dashing and darting hither and thither, full of agitation and enthusiasm.
How easily they are alarmed by every ripple, every shadow on the water!
Always keyed-up, on the alert, so ready for the unexpected, and yet
so easily duped. So quick to react to the first rumours of danger
and yet so easily caught.
There is a certain "fishiness"
about us to. We are after all the fish Christ sent Peter out to catch.
Like fish, we are immersed in a sea of troubles and distractions,
easily alarmed and agitated by every ripple of excitement, every shadow
of doubt that crosses our paths. We expend so much energy on trivialities.
We daily so dangerously with temptations, and allow ourselves to be
hooked to so many creature comforts from cigarettes to status symbols.
It is little wonder that Christ showed a marked preference for fishermen
when he chose his first apostles.
Today's miracle is also the miracle of
our lives. Christ, through his church, has thrown his net over us,
a net of grace. Christ says:
"The kingdom of heaven is like a net
that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind."
And like a fisherman's net it remains unseen beneath the surface.
And we are drawn into it, in spite of life's storms and currents and
baits with their cunningly concealed hooks. And even in spite of our
own struggling.
The miraculous catch of fish recorded today
recalls that other big catch to which Christ compared the kingdom
of heaven. We may be keen judges of the world and its ways. We might
well be accurate in our judgement of individuals. We may be keen assessors
of those whose behaviour falls short of the demands of the gospel.
But we cannot have but a miser's notion of the sufficiency of God's
grace. There is no telling what size the catch will be until the net
is finally drawn in at the end. Like this miraculous draught, it may
well astonish even the most seasoned of fishermen. Who knows what
queer fish will be caught there sputtering and gasping at the size
of God's mercy? The "big catch" is Christ's answer to those
prophets of gloom who would put so many outside his reach.
Today's gospel gives us yet another graphic
account of an encounter between Jesus and his apostles after his resurrection.
It is as if he doesn't miss a chance to meet them, so that they will
have no doubt whatever that he is, indeed, risen from the dead. Today
we have another miracle, involving a catch of fish, we have the human
touch of Jesus, preparing breakfast for the apostles, and we have
the healing of any scars Peter may still have borne because of his
earlier denial of Jesus.
There is a certain Irishman who is at the
top of his profession as a film star, enjoying worldwide acclaim.
One of the things for which he is noted is the fact that he never
misses a chance to return to the area in which he grew up. When we
returns, he becomes a local again. He attends the local games, and
joins the local fishermen. In a way, this helps to make him more REAL.
In many ways, in today's gospel, even after his resurrection, Jesus
is back among the old familiar scenes. He cooks a meal for his friends,
he filled their boats with fish, and he ensured that he was accepted
and loved as someone who loved them and cared for them.
Jesus was the meeting place of the human
and the divine. Human powerlessness, when brought to him, was turned
into power, strength, hope, and conviction. If we were to take the
gospels literally, Jesus was a carpenter, and Peter and Co. were the
fishermen. They failed miserably, and so it was left to Jesus to fill
their boats. It was many years earlier when Mary was told that "nothing
is impossible with God." Jesus is Emmanuel, "God with us."
Sometimes we are pushed to the point of utter failure and despair
before we are prepared, ready, or humble enough to let him into the
situation, and let the miracle happen.
Having Jesus cook breakfast for the Apostles
is a lovely human touch. It is hard to imagine or to remember that
this is the same Jesus who carried a cross to Calvary. We often use
the phrase "some things never change," and St Paul tells
us that "Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and always."
Just because he has overcome death, and now enjoys the freedom of
a life in which death is no longer a threat or a reality, he still
retains that lovely human touch, that down-to-earth relationship with
those whom he had already called his friends.
For the ordinary punter among us, Peter
is probably one of the most appealing of the apostles. He certainly
comes across as being the most human, and, in the best sense of that
word, the most ordinary. Just think of the following two points about
Peter. When Jesus first saw him, we are told, that "Jesus looked
at Peter," and then he told him that he would be the rock on
which he would build his church. Later, when Peter denied Jesus, and
ran away, we are told, once again, that "Jesus turned and looked
at Peter." The thing that struck Peter was that the look had
not changed. It was still a look of genuine love, and of friendly
invitation. No wonder Peter went outside and wept his heart out. That
is the origin of his beautiful words in one of his letters "Always
have an explanation to give to those who ask you the reason for the
hope that you have." Peter had earlier boasted that, though the
rest might deny Jesus, he certainly would not. Now it is Confession
time for Peter! "Peter do you still think you're the greatest?"
That, of course, is not what Jesus asked him. Jesus had shown that
he still loved Peter, and he needed Peter to declare where he stood.
If Peter were burdened with guilt, he would hate himself, and, therefore,
he would not be in a proper frame of mind to receive love and forgiveness
from anyone else, including Jesus.
One point that can go unnoticed in today's
gospel is that, despite everything they had been through, the apostles
had returned to work, and had decided to get on with it. It is impossible
for us to imagine what must have been going through their minds during
those days. Life, however, has a way of marching on. It was like the
shepherds at Bethlehem, where, it can be presumed that, after being
to see the sign that the angel spoke of, they probably returned to
their task of minding their sheep. On Thabor, when Jesus was transfigured,
and was seen in resplendent glory, Peter wanted to stay there. Jesus,
however, had a job to do, and they had to come down off the mountain,
and get on with it. While they return to the normal work-style, however,
because of their experience, something deep within has changed, and
nothing is exactly the way it used to be.
Those of us who were brought up on religion
may find it difficult to be constantly conscious of the humanity of
Jesus. He came to join us on the journey, and he wants to travel every
step of the road with us. He wants to be involved in all that we are,
and in everything we do. Throwing a few fish on a barbecue is not
something extraordinary. And yet it is this common touch that Jesus
wants us to allow, and to expect in our lives. He doesn't want to
be listed under "Emergencies Only," to be called on when
the boat's going down.
As you listened to the gospel, did you
notice that Peter never actually apologised, or said he was sorry.
In a movie some years ago, there was a line "Love means never
having to say you're sorry." While this can be true, it could
also be said that "Love means saying you're sorry even when you
don't have to." Jesus said about the woman washing his feet with
her tears "Many sins are forgiven her because she loves much."
Paul tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. Peter could confess
his sin, he could grovel, and beg forgiveness, or he could open his
heart, ask the Lord to look within, and see that he really did love
Jesus. Peter was direct and uncomplicated. He spoke from his heart,
and he knew that Jesus loved him. Because of his failures, and the
many ways in which he got it wrong, Peter was ideal to be put in charge
of others. Earlier, he had recoiled at the idea of Jesus washing his
feet, but, once he understood the meaning of what Jesus was doing,
he was totally open to whatever it took to be one of Jesus' disciples.
Because he couldn't afford to point a finger at others, or to condemn
others for the weaknesses of their humanity, he would have the necessary
compassion to be a leader. To be a leader, in the mind of Jesus, was
one who was prepared to be of service to others.
There is one little item in today's gospel
to which I have not yet referred. At the end of the gospel, Jesus
indicates to Peter the kind of death he would die to glorify God.
What did Peter do? He turned to John, pointed to him, and asked Jesus
"What about him?" Good old Peter! The everyday human being
right up to the last! Jesus is a personal God. He speaks to you. He
asks "who do you say that I am? Do you love me? Will you also
go away?" His words are spoken to you. Have you ever listened
to a homily, and you wished that such-a-one were here to hear this?
Live and let live is a wise bit of advice. Each of us must take responsibility
for ourselves. When you go out of here today, think of some one thing
you will do today because of the fact that you were part of this worshipping
community now.
Often this Gospel is used as an occasion
to prove the Church's control of the forgiveness of sins and even
to demand more frequent confession. The Church, in this perspective,
has a monopoly on forgiveness and must be stern in its use. Patently
this narrowly circumscribes the passionate forgiveness of God which
Jesus came to reveal. God may be generous with forgiveness, it is
implied, but the Church cannot and should not. Yet the story of Thomas,
immediately after suggests that such an interpretation of the words
of Jesus missed the points. To forgive is not a right to be jealously
guarded, but an obligation to be exercised generously. We do not earn
our own forgiveness by forgiving others. Rather we manifest the generosity
and implacability of God's forgiveness of us.
Once upon a time there was a man who counted
carefully all his grudges. He remembered all the cruelties of the
school yard, the taunts from his class when he did something well,
the feather-brained irresponsibilities (as he saw them) of the young
women he had dated, the dishonesty of his business associates, the
insensitivity of his wife, the ingratitude of his children. So many
people had done such terrible things to him that he figured that there
had to be a conspiracy. Who could have organized such a massive conspiracy?
Only God. For some reason, maybe it was his face, God did not like
him. This was unfair, but what could he do. If God had a grudge against
him, that was God's privilege. But then he had the right to hold a
grudge against God. So he died lonely and isolated, hated (he thought)
by everyone who ought to have loved him. I have a grudge against You,
he told God on first meeting. So what, God replied. I don't have a
grudge against you, so forget about it! Then God showed him the people
at his funeral Mass. All the people who had injured him were sobbing
in church. Do you think maybe you missed the point, God asked.
Some people refer to the gospel story we
just heard, Jesus' conversation with Peter by the Sea of Tiberias,
as Peter's Conversion. Others call it Peter's Confession. Peter's
Confession is appropriate whether we understand confession to mean
a declaration of faith or an admission of guilt. It is easy to see
Jesus triple question to Peter "Do you love me?" and Peter's
triple answer in the positive as Peter's confession of faith in Jesus.
What is not so easy is to see how this dialogue represents Peter's
confession of guilt. To see the penitential aspect of what is going
on here we need to read the story in the original Greek.
Did you ever wonder why Jesus had to ask
Peter three good times if he loved him? We can see here a correspondence
with Peter's triple denial of Jesus. But that is not all. In English,
when Jesus asks "Do you love me?" and Peter responds, "Yes,
I love you," it all sounds right. But in Greek we find that Peter
is not exactly responding to the question Jesus is asking him.
In Greek there are three different words
translated by the one English word love. There is eros, which means
sensual or erotic love, the kind of love that leads to marriage. Then
there is philia, meaning pragmatic love, the admiration and devotion
we have for a worthy person or thing, such as love for a hero, love
of parents, and love of art. Finally there is agape, which means self-sacrificing
and unconditional love, even for a person who may not deserve it and
when there is nothing tangible to be gained. The nearest everyday
example I can think of is the love for a cat. Dogs have a way of returning
affection and being useful to the owner, but cats are something else!
You know the joke about the difference
between a dog and a cat. A dog looks at his owner who feeds him, protects
him, and cares for him, and says to himself, "He must be a god."
A cat looks at his owner who feeds him, protects him, and cares for
him, and says to himself, "I must be a god." This is not
a propaganda against cats. On the contrary, it is a compliment to
cat lovers for their selfless and unconditional love for these undeserving
creatures. The clearest example of the self-sacrificing and unconditional
love we call agape is found, however, not in the cat-human relationship,
but in the love that Jesus has for us, which made him give up his
life for us undeserving sinners.
Back to the gospel story. Jesus asks Peter,
"Agapas me? Do you have agape for me?" meaning "Do
you love me in such a manner as to sacrifice your life for me."
Peter knows that he has not lived up to this standard of love. He
knows that he disowned Jesus in order to save his life. So what does
Peter answer? He answers, "Philo se. Yes, Lord, I have philia
for you," meaning, "Yes, Lord, you know how much I deeply
admire you and how devoted I am to you." You see why it is a
confession of failure? Peter is saying to Jesus, "Yes, I love
and admire you, but no, I have not been able to love you with a self-sacrificing
love as you demand." So Jesus asks him a second time whether
he has agape for him and Peter again replies that he has philia for
him. Finally, unwilling to embarrass him further, Jesus then asks
him "Do you have philia for me?" And Peter answers "Yes,
I have philia for you." Jesus accepts Peter the way he is. Even
his philia is good enough.
The Peter we see here is not the loud-mouthed,
boastful man who thought he was better than the other disciples but
a wiser, humbler man who would not claim more than he can deliver.
Peter's confession here can be likened to that of the father of the
possessed boy who confessed to Jesus, "I believe; help my unbelief!"
What Peter is saying is "I love you, Lord; help my lack of love."
In our worship services we often sing hymns
that profess our love for Jesus. Think of "O, How I Love Jesus"
or "O, the Love of the Lord Is the Essence." Peter challenges
us today to realise that hymns like these only tell half of the story.
The other half is that there is a part of us that does not love God,
that denies the Lord when our life, our future or our well-being is
at stake. Peter's example invites us to bring this negative side of
us to God for healing. So today, let us join Peter in his confession:
"I love you, Lord; help my lack of love."
4th Sunday of Easter (C)
(Acts 13:14, 43-52 - Rev. 7:9,14-17 - Jn
10:27-30)
Apostolic Urgency
Shepherding The Flock
Caring for the Sheep
Aspects of Discipleship
God is faithful
During this period following on the Easter
celebrations, there is one thing that the liturgy readings try to
impress upon us, and that is the zeal and urgency the Apostles showed
in preaching the good news about Christ. They disregarded every attempt
on the part of the Jews to put a stop to them. Death threats did not
deter them, and whether people accepted their message or not, they
appeared to be driven on by an inner Godgiven sense of mission to
hand on to everyone their faith in Jesus. This weekend every year
is set aside as a time of prayer for vocations to the priesthood and
the religious life, and we must bear in mind that the idea of vocations
and that of handing on the faith are closely linked. We might from
time to time ponder over the question: "Why did God create us?"
The answer has to be that God is love, that God is goodness, and love
and goodness are only meaningful if they are communicated to others,
if there is someone else to be loved and to experience that goodness.
The Holy Spirit poured out his graces and
gifts in abundance on the members of the early Church, and they in
turn felt compelled to share them with others. In season and out of
season, as St Paul puts it, the Apostles and those close to them preached
the marvellous news about the salvation won for the world by Christ.
And with the departure through death or old age, of these disciples,
from the scene of this activity, there was no scarcity of people to
take their place. It is this willingness on the part of chosen members
of a community, to devote their whole lives to the task of spreading
the gospel message, that marks the depth and the quality of the Christianity
which is practised within that community. There is no doubt about
the quality of missionary zeal among the first members of the early
Church, nor indeed that of the Irish people during the golden age
of Irish monasticism, when throughout Europe monks and missionaries
from these shores spread the Christian ideals of love of God and of
living together in harmony and peace.
If here and now we ourselves are found
wanting in these ideals there is one thing we can and must do, and
that is pray. People only pray for things they really want, such as
health, success, secure employment, provision for their children's
future.
But it is possible to enjoy all of these
and yet be conscious of a profound emptiness in one's life, for we
were intended for something greater than these passing attainments.
God has created us for himself, to be the recipients of his love and
goodness for all eternity. This surely is something worth praying
for, as are the vocations of those God chooses as his special agents
in helping people attain their destiny. Not only is it important to
pray for these, to think and talk about them, but they are so vitally
necessary as to urge parents to encourage sons and daughters to consider
seriously the option of a vocation within the family.
It is within the context of family that
most vocations are nurtured. The famous French Jesuit, scientist and
philosopher, Teilhard de Chardin, once said, "I come from a family
where I became who I am. The great majority of my opinions, of my
likes and dislikes, of my values and appreciations, of my judgments,
my behaviour, my tastes, were moulded by the family I came from."
For this reason parents remain, and always will remain, the first
and most important teachers of the faith to their children. In fulfilling
this role they should strive to make prayer, daily family prayer,
a natural part of life within the home. By so doing, they will most
certainly be sowing the seeds of those vocations which in the providence
of God will be necessary to minister to the spiritual needs of the
next generation. Such vocations, however, must also be seen in the
context of the whole spiritual life, the spiritual values, the spiritual
aspirations of the community in which they are nurtured.
Each one of us here present can truly say,
"as God called the Israelites of the OT to be his special people,
just so has he called me. So what I do, what I am, concerns other
people to as great an extent as it does myself." Therefore, on
this special Sunday, each one should feel in duty bound to ask God's
blessing, so that generous souls may not be wanting in the apostolic
work of teaching and preaching to all nations. Christ's injunction
to his disciples was quite explicit, "Pray ye therefore the Lord
of the harvest, that he may send labourers to his harvest" (Mt
9:37).
Some years ago I was making a television
documentary in Spain. Ours was a small company with little resources.
Time was money, so we had pack lunches
rather than sit-down restaurant meals. Once on the road from Madrid
to Salamanca we stopped somewhere in the high sierras to escape the
midday sun and eat our sandwiches in the shade by the side of the
road. The landscape was mountainous and bleak, bereft of all signs
of human life, with scarcely any vegetation. Lizards scuttered under
rocks beneath our feet. While we munched our sandwiches, contemplating
this scene of desolation, a shepherd with a flock of sheep appeared
in the distance coming in our direction. Soon, a second shepherd appeared
on the opposite horizon, also approaching us. Eventually, their paths
crossed in front of us, a short distance from where we sat. The two
shepherds stopped to exchange some pleasantries or more probably information
as to where the best grazing might be found. It was a truly biblical
sight. We could have travelled all the way back to Palestine in the
first century. While the two shepherds chatted, their two flocks mingled.
There must have been several hundred sheep in each flock. I remember
thinking to myself, "There's going to be one helluva problem
separating that lot when the time comes to move!. That was a few minutes
later. The shepherds shook hands and parted, each going in the opposite
direction, without as much as glancing over their shoulders. Each
strode ahead purposely, carrying his staff, like a Moses in search
of the Promised Land. I heard them whistle and call out in Spanish
something I did not understand and all without even breaking their
stride. The great mass of sheep disentangled itself in minutes, each
following its own shepherd, and I was left gazing once more at a desolate
panorama.
I think I learnt more scripture in those
few minutes than in all my seminary courses. Nobody told me then that
sheep were led from the front, not driven from behind. The only sheep
I ever saw in the west of Ireland where I grew up, were the flocks
driven into town to the fair. And they were always followed by loudly
cursing farmers wielding sticks and barking dogs snapping at their
heels. Woe betide the unfortunate sheep who strayed from the straight
and narrow. He was shown no mercy by farmer or dog. It was a style
of behaviour, mirrored by those other pastors in my childhood, who
bullied and browbeat their flocks for the glory of God and their eternal
salvation. They too wielded the big stick, beating the bushes to drive
out courting couples and frighten the recalcitrant sinner into submission.
But then, they too, might never have learned that sheep are led, not
driven. Their scripture studies seemed to have ended with the Old
Testament. In school, too, the big stick was the primary educational
tool. The past so often dissolves into idyllic rosiness. Memory is
highly selective. How easily we forget the little boy who feigned
sickness at home to escape punishment at school or wet his pants on
the way there in anticipation of the wrath to come, because he hadn't
done his homework or got his sums right.
"Sure it did us no harm" they
say now. In a world awash with drugs and crime, the temptation to
"bring back the big stick" is enormous. Politicians are
woo'd by the growing constituency of the old and the frightened, who
believe their security can only be assured by more police on the street
and stiffer penalties in the court. Right-wing parties have made spectacular
advances. The death penalty has been re-enacted in all but two states
in the United States. Yet the explosion in the prison population everywhere
continues to be out-run only by the galloping crime statistics. Some
people never get their sums right. It did not work in the past. It
doesn't work now. There are countries, even in the twentieth century,
where thieves are punished by having their hands cut off. Yet there
is no evidence to show that the crime of robbery is diminishing in
these countries. Some of the biggest thieves of all are politicians
and top business executives as the recent mani puliti (clean hands)
investigation in Italy and the spate of sackings, resignations and
imprisonments of government ministers in England and France have shown.
If there is an answer to corruption in
our time, I think it is the one which has never been tried, the one
proposed in today's gospel:
The sheep that belong to me listen to my
voice;
I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life; they will never
be lost and no one will ever steal them from me.
This is what is normally called Good Shepherd
Sunday, a day when we pray especially for vocations to priesthood
and Religious Life. Today's gospel states clearly just how much we
mean to Jesus, and how he takes full responsibility for looking after
us. He tells us that we are safe, really safe, when we are in his
care.
Some years ago, a book was written, and
later made into a movie, called "Not Without My Daughter,"
which describes how a mother travelled to the Middle East to get her
daughter back, after she had been abducted, and brought there by her
Arab father. It is a gruelling story of hardship, danger, and many
narrow escapes. There was something within the mother, which drove
her to face up to, and to go through any and every obstacle to retrieve
her child. She had already been given custody, but the father had
kidnapped the child, and had escaped out of England. The whole story
is about the love within the heart of the mother, which drove her
to attempt the impossible, and to go through whatever it took, to
get her daughter back. To read today's gospel message certainly comes
alive in the story of this mother, who was literally prepared to die,
and did actually narrowly escape such a fate on several occasions,
in her determination to rescue her daughter.
Knowing Jesus and knowing about him are
two different things. One is mental or academic knowledge, while the
other is experiential knowledge; it is something, which I myself have
experienced. In today's gospel, Jesus says that his disciples know
his voice, they know exactly what he is saying, and they obey him.
God is Father, and he has given Jesus responsibility
for all his children. Jesus takes this responsibility seriously. He
accepts full responsibility for us, just as the role of being a shepherd
included his willingness to die in protection of the sheep entrusted
to him. The people who listened to Jesus were conscious of the role
of a shepherd, and of the strong bond that developed between a shepherd
and his sheep.
Unlike the ordinary shepherd, Jesus tells
us that no one will take his sheep away from him. The Father, who
entrusted the sheep to him in the first place, is infinitely powerful,
and those who are under his protection have no need to fear. If God
is for us, who can be against us?
I come to know about Jesus by reading books,
listening to sermons, studying theology, etc., I come to know him
when I fall on my knees before him, and accept him personally into
my life. From that first Christmas night until now, there have been
many a home and many a heart closed to him. I open my heart, invite
him in, because I am a sinner and he is a Saviour, who came looking
for shiners. Nothing dramatic happens. I just continue, day after
day, to say "Yes" to him, and then, one day, I realise the
miracle has happened. The coin has dropped; the lights inside have
come on, and now I know what no book or sermon could ever tell me.
There are people who just don't want to
go near a doctor. There comes a time, however, when I have no choice.
I realise the seriousness of my situation, I accept that I have no
option, and I agree to do whatever it takes to remedy the problem.
Coming to accept my sin and brokenness is not easy. Part of sin is
that it tends to blind me to its existence. Jesus said that the Spirit
he would send would be a Spirit of Truth, who would lead us into all
truth, and the truth would set us free If Jesus is to be a Good Shepherd
for me, then I must be willing to follow him. Following him implies
several steps. Firstly, I must get to know exactly what he has to
say to me. This is much simpler than it may seem. We have all heard
sections of the gospels read. I must ask myself honestly when I have
actually listened. I can reflect on what I hear, I can ask the Spirit
to touch my heart through the word that I hear. All of this is part
of what is usually called Incarnation, when the word becomes flesh;
when the word that I hear becomes part of the person that I am.
We are all familiar with points in our
lives when we didn't have any great sense of direction. We weren't
sure which direction to take, which decision to make. This is where
Jesus as Shepherd comes in. "They who follow me shall not walk
in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Lord, lead me
in your ways, and guide my feet into the ways of peace...
Let me ask you a straight honest question:
Is your Christian belief of such a nature that it involves a personal
relationship with Jesus, and, therefore, gives you a deep sense of
personal security? Read today's gospel again. Do you actually feel
safe in the care and in the promises of which Jesus speaks today?
Where does the Father come into all of
this? "The Father and I are one," says Jesus. What is your
image of God? Have you fully embraced the concept of being a child
of God, which makes Jesus your brother? That is a profound thought,
and it cannot or must not be passed over lightly. Reflecting on all
of this is real prayer, and that requires time and space in my day.
Mrs Thompson was a primary school teacher
many years ago. As she stood in front of her 5th class on the first
day of school, she told them a lie. She looked at her pupils, and
told them that she loved them all the same. But that was impossible,
because there in the front seat, slumped across the desk, was a little
boy named Teddy Smith. Mrs Thompson had watched Teddy the previous
year, and noticed that he didn't play much with the other pupils,
that his clothes were messy, and that he constantly needed a bath.
He also could be quite unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs Thompson
would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red
pen, making bold X's, and then putting a big letter "F"
at the top of his papers. Part of her work was to review each child's
past record. She deliberately put Teddy's off till last. However,
when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise. Teddy's first
grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child, with a ready laugh.
He does his work neatly, and has good manners. he is a joy to be around."
His second grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is an excellent student,
well liked by his class-mates, but he is troubled because his mother
has a terminal illness, and life at home must be a struggle."
His third grade teacher wrote" His mother's death has been hard
on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much
interest, and his home life will soon effect him, if some steps aren't
taken soon." Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote. "Teddy
is withdrawn, and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't
have many friends, and he sometimes sleeps in class." By now
Mrs Thompson realised the problem, and she was ashamed of herself.
She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents,
wrapped in bright paper, and beautiful ribbons, except for Teddy's.
His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy brown paper that he
got from a grocery bag. Mrs Thompson took pains to open it in the
middle of all the other presents. Some of the children started to
laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones
missing, and a bottle that was one quarter full of perfume. She stifled
the children's laughter when she exclaimed how beautiful the bracelet
was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrists.
Teddy stayed backed after school that day, just long enough to say
"Mrs Thompson, today you smelled just like my mother used to."
After the children left, she cried for nearly an hour. On that day
she quit teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Instead, she began
to teach children. Mrs Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy.
As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she
encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy
had become one of the smartest children in the class, and, despite
her lie that she loved them all the same; Teddy became one of his
teacher's "pets." A year later, she found a note under her
door, from Teddy, telling her that he was the best teacher he ever
had in all his life.
Six years went by before she had another
note from Teddy. He said he had finished his Leaving Cert, came third
in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in all
his life. Four years later, she got another letter, saying that, while
things were tough at times, he'd stayed on in school, and would soon
graduate from college with the highest of honours. He assured Mrs
Thompson that she was still the best and most favourite teacher he
ever had in all his life. Four years later, another letter arrived.
This time he explained that after he got his bachelor's degree, he
decided to go a little further. Once again he said she was the best
and most favourite teacher that he'd ever had. This time his name
was a little longer. It was signed Thomas Smith MD. In another letter,
he said he had met this girl, and they were going to get married.
He explained that his father had died some years previously, and he
was wondering if Mrs Thompson might agree to sit in the place at the
wedding that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom. Of
course, Mrs Thompson did. And guess what? She wore the rhinestone
bracelet, with the stones missing. And she made sure she was wearing
the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last
Christmas together. They hugged each other, and Doctor Smith whispered
in Mrs Thompson's ear, "Thank you, Mrs Thompson for believing
in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important, and showing
me that I could make a difference." Mrs Thompson, with tears
in her eyes, whispered back, "Teddy, you have it all wrong. You
were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't
know how to teach until I met you."
The Easter cycle continues to evoke a number
of important themes connected with Christian discipleship. The first
reading from Acts highlights the connection between our Christian
faith and the responsibility of sharing the gospel with others. We
are shown in this reading that the gospel is inherently universal,
meant to cross boundaries of race and culture. At a time when there
are so many impenetrable boundaries between people - economic, social,
racial, political, sexual - it is crucial that Christians be reminded
of the boundary-breaking nature of the gospel. The Lord calls all
to salvation; all are his children.
This note of universalism is reinforced
in the reading from the book of Revelation. The martyrs who have remained
faithful to Jesus are drawn from 'every nation and race'. Giving one's
life in the cause of justice has no colour barrier. This reading,
too, reminds us that the destiny of humanity envisaged by the gospel
is not a grim one. Resurrection means the cessation of pain and tears.
Our God will bring us to the complete fulfilment of our hopes.
John's Gospel uses a remarkable array of
images and metaphors to describe Jesus and his relationship to the
believer, The image of 'Shepherd' may be a distant one for modern
urban dwellers and so some imagination is needed to find the values
it intends to convey. The Gospel stresses the bond between the Shepherd
and the sheep. Be-cause the shepherd protects and nourishes the sheep,
they trust him and follow him without fear. The evangelist applies
this to the faith-relationship between Christ and disciple. Through
faith in Jesus, the believer will come to experience the ultimate
possibility of human existence, union with the Father. Faith should
bring unshakeable confidence; there is no need for anxiety because
'there is no snatching out of his hand'. The Gospel offers the homilist
the chance to reflect on the ultimate meaning of our faith. Christian
faith is not to be 'pie in the sky, by and by'; we live in an imperfect
world and have responsibilities to it. Authentic faith does not paper
over that reality. But the ultimate grounding of our existence is
the simple fact of God's unbreakable love for us, a life-giving love
revealed in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In the sureness
of that faith we can find hope and energy to live out our Christian
commitment in the world.
'Father,' asked the little boy, 'can God
whistle?' I replied that the Bible tells us that he can. God suddenly
shot up a few notches in the lad's estimation. The prophet Zechariah
(10:8) once said that God will whistle to his scattered people and
gather them in. They had scattered because they had no shepherd. The
shepherds of Israel had been unfaithful to their mission. In contrast
God proclaims his abiding faithfulness, He himself will take over.
God fulfils his promise by sending his Son.
Jesus often illustrated his teaching by
referring to shepherds and sheep. He sees himself as the Good Shepherd
foretold by the prophets. Today's gospel considers the relationship
between Jesus the Good Shepherd and the sheep.
The imagery is old. The message is topical.
It is relevant to us. By faith we accept Jesus, Our relationship is
a deeply personal one. The bond of love uniting us is based on the
love that unites the Father and Jesus. Our new existence is founded
on God's unbreakable love and faithfulness.
In order to gain eternal life - the ultimate
benefit of our new existence - we must listen to Jesus and obey him.
The alternative opening prayer puts this in practical terms. We have
to 'attune our minds to the sound of his voice'. We have to allow
him to 'lead our steps in the path he has shown',
We could reflect on whether we are doing
that. Self-centredness can make us deaf to the voice of Jesus. Timidity
and human respect can cause us to wander into easier paths than the
one he has traced. Pressure to abandon Christian principles is inevitable.
There is no need for anxiety. God is faithful. He will not allow us
to be tempted beyond our strength. No one can drag us away from him,
The Father has entrusted us to his Son. The same God who displayed
his unbreakable faithfulness to Jesus by raising him from the dead
will also raise us by his power.
The Israelites were the first to experience
the joy of being God's chosen people. Gentiles too are invited to
accept that enviable status. The good news is offered to all who are
prepared to accept it. Faith is the basic requirement.
Paul and Barnabas 'spoke out boldly'. They
made an impact. A courageous proclamation of the gospel to our contemporaries
can be as fruitful now as it was in apostolic times. All the baptized,
particularly those who are confirmed, are bound to spread the faith.
Laity as well as priests and religious are in the service of the Risen
Lord.
Recent popes have often urged us to grasp
the opportunities for evangelisation which are offered to us. Are
we doing so? How many evils persist in society simply because good
people say nothing and do nothing? A breviary hymn of Eastertide (no.25)
spells out what is expected of us by the Risen Lord:
Now he bids us tell abroad
How the lost may be restored
How the penitent forgiven
How we too may enter heaven.
John's magnificent vision depicts the happiness
of heaven. Our departed sisters and brothers, many of whom suffered
persecution and martyrdom, now see God as he really is. They rejoice
in his presence in satisfied love. We are still on our pilgrim way.
The resurrection gives us firm ground for hoping that we will eventually
share their happiness. Even now we are united with them in the communion
of saints. The liturgy we are celebrating and the heavenly liturgy
portrayed by John form two parts of one canticle of praise. We offer
it through the glorious and triumphant Christ to 'the one who sits
on the throne'.
Eternal life is new life. It is incapable
of being marred by the vicissitudes and hardships experienced in earthly
life. Persevering obedience to the voice of the Good Shepherd is the
proof of our love. Only those who persevere in faith and love will
enter eternal life. We must persevere in fidelity to him who is faithful.
Overcoming Discouragement
Never Been Tried
About to depart
Mother's Day )
"We have all to experience many hardships
before we enter the kingdom of God." This was the warning of
Paul and Barnabas to the people of Antioch. Yet, we are told earlier
on that the two apostles were filled with joy when they were driven
out of Antioch (Acts 13:52). If you read the first book in the New
Testament to be set down in writing, St Paul's First Letter to the
Thessalonians - written, by the way, at least twelve years before
Mark's gospel, and close on twenty years before the Acts - you will
find Paul warning his Christian followers in Thessalonika about the
difficulties that lie ahead. "Affliction is bound to come our
way," he warns, "we must expect to have troubles to bear"
(1 Thess 3:3f). Indeed, Paul himself was to become the persecuted
confessor of Christ - a "vessel of election," that is elected,
or called, to suffer, and so bear witness, in his own life, to the
sufferings of Christ.
However, the apostles did not want their
listeners to dwell on this theme of suffering in any kind of morbid
way. Their purpose, at all times, was to put fresh heart into the
disciples, to encourage them to persevere in the faith, just as Paul
urged the Thessalonians to comfort one another, to sustain each other's
hopes of the eternal vision of God. "All things work together
unto good, for those who love God," were his words of consolation,
later on, to the Christians in Rome (8:28). We can always be certain
that our God is the God of love, and God himself tells us, in today's
gospel reading, to allow this love to give direction and shape to
our lives. Indeed every single chapter in the New Testament carries
a special message from him to us; and ever so often it is similar
to that contained in the words of Christ to his Apostles at the Last
Supper; "Let not your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust
in me" (Jn 14:1).
We see this exemplified, in a concrete
way, in the encounter of the risen Christ with the two disciples,
weighed down as they were with gloom and despondency, while walking
to Emmaus, on that first Easter Sunday. "Their eyes, as yet,
were kept from recognising him," we are told. When questioned
as to what they were discussing between themselves, and why they were
so downhearted, they endeavoured to explain their grief by giving
an account of the tragic things that had taken place in Jerusalem,
during the previous days. But their companion's amazing response to
all this was by way of a simple question. "What things?,"
he asked them. It is difficult for us to begin to understand this
kind of innocence on the part of Christ. It belongs to the mystery
of what the French dramatist, poet, and diplomat, Paul Claudel, called
"the eternal childhood of God." For that brief question,
"What things?," conveys the impression that so perfectly
has Christ passed into the freedom, and joy, and glory of his Father,
that he scarcely remembers the cruel and terrible journey he had travelled
in arriving there. There are no dark clouds on God's horizon, nor
any sorrowful memories weighing upon the mind of God.
The disciples at Emmaus were led gradually
to make an act of faith in the risen Christ. While he remained visually
present to them they had failed to recognise him. When the moment
of recognition did come, St Luke says that "he had already vanished
from their sight." In other words, it was not by the sight of
their eyes, but rather by the response of their hearts that Christ
made himself known to them. "Did not our hearts burn within us
as he talked to us on the road," the disciples said in retrospect.
When the true follower of Christ comes to celebrate the Eucharist,
his/her primary purpose should not be to complain, or even to ask
for graces, but rather to render thanks to God.
Yet the dialogue of the hidden Christ with
the disciples of Emmaus is renewed, to a certain extent at every Mass.
Like the two distraught disciples, we often find ourselves saying
to our hidden Lord during the moments after Holy Communion, "Do
you not know, Jesus, what things I have been going through?"
Then he amazes us with his answer, "What things have you been
going through?" And in the light of what took place on that first
Holy Week, he proceeds to tell us, just as he did the two disciples,
that the sufferings and anxieties of this present life are not to
be compared with the glory that is to come, when God will wipe away
all tears from our eyes, and death shall be no more, nor mourning
nor crying shall be any more, for the former things will have passed
completely away.
I was following a course in communications
some time ago.
As now seems customary in these courses,
we were divided into small working groups, with about half a dozen
people in each group. There was a young man assigned to my group,
who was handicapped and confined to a wheelchair. I was the only priest
in the group. After lunch on the first day, he asked me would I assist
him to the toilet. Somewhat chuffed that he had asked me, I cheerfully
grabbed the handles of his wheelchair and steered it along the corridor
towards the toilet. When I got there, I opened the door and carefully
wedged the wheelchair in. I was about to turn away and wait for him
outside when he motioned me to stay. To my horror, I discovered that
my services were required for the whole operation. I was almost overcome
by an attack of nausea. It had never occurred to me that handicapped
people cannot accomplish such basic and intimate chores as "calls
of nature" without the assistance of others. For the rest of
that week I was to remain his chosen assistant. On the final night,
we all went out to celebrate in the local pub. You can imagine how
much my services were in demand by the time my friend had reached
his third pint. I don't think I learned much about communications
that week but I did get a new insight into the expression "intimate
friendship."
The gospel denotes a totally different
phenomenon. The more traditional word "charity" is probably
a better description of it. It is the greatest of the three great
Christian virtues and unquestionably the hardest to practise. Above
all, making heroic sacrifices for people for whom you have not the
slightest tinge of affection. Or even, perhaps, for whom you feel
a deep revulsion. Like Damian of Molokai, who spent his life among
the lepers, caring for them, and contracted leprosy himself. A more
modern example would be looking after some one who is dying from AIDS.
Opinion polls the world over place Mother
Teresa of Calcutta at the top of the list of those whom people most
admire. Imagine what it would do for Christianity if she represented
the rule rather than the exception.
By this love you have for one another,
every one will know that you are my disciples.
The opposite, unfortunately, is more likely
to be the case. For the last twenty-five years, Belfast, in the world's
press, has become almost a synonym for hate among Christians. Yet
it is reputed to have the highest practising rate in the world, both
for Protestants and Catholics. Someone once said: "The tragedy
about Christianity is not that it has failed, but that it has never
really been tried." For that, you and I have much to answer.
Jesus is about to leave his disciples.
It is part of a greater plan than he cannot explain to them, or they
could possibly understand. However, he simplifies it by giving them
one simple instruction: they are to love one another, and, in this
way, they will belong to him, and will be seen to belong to him.
In our own ways, and in our own days, most
of us have sat by the bedside of someone who is dying. Dying is something
that I have to do, and no one else can do it for me. Even if the room
is full of people, and they are holding my hands, mopping my brow,
and whispering prayers to me, death is a journey that I must take
alone. In many cases death is followed by a legal declaration of what
is to be done with what personal possessions and effects are left
behind. In today's gospel, Jesus makes an open and personal declaration
of his legacy to them. His legacy is one of love, and this is something
that they must share with one another. He himself must leave their
sight, but all that he is, and all that he stands for, will remain
with them. That is the great scandal of so many Christian churches
seen to be fighting over who has, or who has not, the entitlement
to that legacy of love. "My Church has a greater share of his
love than yours" is one way of defining the differences that
separate the Christian churches. I fact, some churches would claim
a total monopoly of that love, to the exclusion of all others.
In today's gospel, Jesus is caught in the
middle between two loyalties, which, of course, are not at all opposed
to one another. To do the Father's will, he must face death, and complete
his mission. Death was not part of God's original creation, so through
his death and resurrection, when he will be seen to have overcome
death, Jesus would remove death as an evil, and turn it into a blessing.
He himself was going to cross through the Red Sea of death into the
Promised Land, and so come into his glory.
When Jesus had achieved that victory, he
could then send the Spirit on his apostles, so that they could live
as he lived, and follow the way he had gone. For them he was the Way,
and to follow him meant to walk in the light, rather then stumble
around in the darkness. He had returned to the Father, who is Love,
and their love for each other would point to the direction in which
their lives were taking them.
In a way it is sad that Jesus depends on
our love for each other as proof that the Father sent him. In other
words, he entrusts the credibility of his mission to the witness of
our lives. When the early Christians came on the scene first, they
were an unusual bunch, and not easily understood. They spoke about
following a leader who had been executed as a public criminal, whom
they believed was now alive, and that he was the Messiah, God's Chosen
One. In one way this was a laughing matter. On the other hand, however,
the others watched their behaviour, and the only comment they could
make was "See how these Christians love one another."
When we think of the witness of the lives
of some self-proclaimed Christians down the ages, who continue to
murder and destroy others in Jesus' name, it becomes more than a scandal.
The title "Christian" should be used with great delicacy
and reverence. I could be a pagan and be a nice person. I could be
a Muslim and do the praying and fasting. To call myself a Christian
is to open myself to the work of God's Spirit, so that Christ is formed
in me. This enables me to become Christ to others, and that, in turn,
leads me to see Christ in others.
There is a branch of theological science
today called Eschatology. It has to do with the future, like death,
heaven, etc., which really are present now, but not fully. It implies
a time of waiting for the fulfilment, but it also includes the hope
of that fulfilment. Jesus told his disciples that they could not go
with him. Later on, he told them that he was going to prepare a place
for them, and that he would come and bring them, so that where he
was they also would be. How do you feel, and what are your thoughts,
when you sit alone, and reflect on the possibilities of the future?
Do you find that the words and promises of Jesus enter into such reflections,
or do you just drift towards fear, and being uncomfortable; something
that drives you back to distracting activity?
Love is a gift. In other words, by myself,
I just don't have what it takes to love others in the way Jesus speaks
of here. Love is a gift of the Spirit. The expression of that love
is witness to the presence of the Spirit. As Christians, we are called
to be witnesses. I cannot give what I do not have. The feast of Pentecost
is in sight. This is our annual reminder of the beginning of the church,
of the beginning of that Christian witness to love, which was characteristic
of the members of the early church.
On a human, practical, down-to-earth level,
there are people in the lives of most of us, whom we find it impossible,
or well nigh impossible to love. Here is the kernel and the acid test
of the whole Christian mission. Don't forget, Jesus even asked us
to love our enemies, and many of us find it almost impossible to love
some of our friends! If I am willing to go to the heart of the Christian
message, and not just see it as some sort of a-la-carte menu, then
I come face to face with the simple fact that I don't have what it
takes to be a Christian. To accept this simple fact is a moment of
profound conversion. Now I am ready for Pentecost; for the miracle
that would enable me to follow the example of Jesus, who prayed for
the people who were killing him.
I heard of a young doctor, married, with
three young children. He was in his late twenties when he discovered
he had a virulent form of cancer, and his life was going to be cut
short. Up till then his mind was filled with all his hopes and dreams
for his children. He would always be there for them. He would watch
them play games, attend all school concerts, would be there to ferry
them to scouts, girl guides, etc. Now, to his horror, all of that
was to be taken away from him. He was shattered, and was totally unable
to come to terms with what was happening.
One day as he lay in a stupor of pain,
confusion, and desperation, he came up with a plan that others might
consider crazy. He got a few C-90 tapes, got a tape-recorder, and
began to pour his heart out on one tape after another. He told his
children how much he loved them, how it broke his heart to leave,
but how he prayed that he might still be always there for them. He
told them of his dreams for them, how proud he was of them, and how
important it was for him that they took good care of their mammy.
He talked about the goods and the bads
of growing up; how some lives get messed up, and others evolve in
a healthy and life-giving way. He warned them of the dangers, and
he gave advice about how to avoid the pitfalls. He filled several
tapes. There was not a surplus word, because every word came from
his heart. At that time the children would be unable to listen to,
or understand the contents of the tapes, but he would give them to
his wife, and she would judge when the right time was for any particular
part of the tape to be played.
The doctor died, and that was about twenty-five
years ago. His children have grown up, gone to college, established
their own profession, and all three have children of their own now.
The one stabilising factor in their most formative years was the long
hours spent listening to their dad's tapes. By now, the tapes are
worn thin, and copies have been made to pass on to the next generation.
In today's gospel, and in his long discourse
at the Last Supper, Jesus has left us with many many C-90 tapes!
This familiar Easter season gospel is from
the long Last Supper discourse of John's gospel. When we hear it in
the days after Easter, we are reminded once again of the paramount
message of Jesus: Love one another. Jesus showed his love for his
disciples and for us by remaining true to his mission, teaching them
of God's love for them. They are to follow his example, loving one
another and also loving others as Jesus did. They, too, are to glorify
God by this love.
COMMENT:
Today happens to be Mother's Day in the
United States, a day someone once referred to as the one cultural
Holy Day in our country. In many churches, a mother from the congregation
is asked to reflect on her experience of motherhood. Unfortunately,
this practice often leads to increased anguish for the childless women
in the congregation - those who are unmarried and would like to be
married, and those who are having difficulty becoming mothers. It
also ignores the challenge of Mother's Day for the men in the congregation.
I suggest that instead of reflecting on
the experience of motherhood, the celebrant, or the woman reflector,
speak of the experience, shared by all - women & men, young and
old - in the congregation, of being mothered. And, since it is the
month of May, it is appropriate to consider that Jesus, like all of
us, shares in that experience. Perhaps a specific example of how a
mothers action influenced the speaker just as Mary undoubtedly gave
examples of love to Jesus.
This is a story about how one mother's
love has influenced not only her children but also her grandchildren
and even her great-grandchildren. Once upon a time there was a Mom
with two daughters. The Mom, born in the 1890s, was the daughter of
two Irish immigrants, both of whom died when she was only 14. She
attended two years of the Sisters' School for secretarial training,
worked for many years as a secretary, married in the late 1920s and
gave birth to two daughters in the 1930s. Though this mom's reading
was, for the most part, confined to a few womens magazines, cookbooks
and the "Irish Funnies" the death notices, she recognized
the importance of reading and early on began to encourage in her daughters
a great love of reading. They have fond memories of the new book as
part of Santas gift. After the guests went home on Christmas night,
the girls would read their books. Then the next day they would read
each others book. A family trip to the downtown shopping center always
included a stop in the book department of the major department store
and the purchase of two books. Reading good books became second nature
to the daughters. And, over the years, one daughter passed this love
of reading on to her children and today to her grandchildren. Christmas
would not be Christmas unless each child and now each grandchild received
a book. And each time she buys a book, the daughter remembers, with
gratitude, the gift of her mother's love.
6th Sunday of Easter (C)
(Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 - Rev. 21:10-14, 22-23
- Jn 14:23-29)
Consolation
The Knowledge that Counts
Saying Goodbye
The Listening side of Love
Community of Relationships
Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert,
died in 1861. He was only forty-two. Victoria was fiercely attached
to him. Historians tell us that at the moment of death, she was so
overwhelmed by grief that she let out one long wild shriek that rang
through the rooms of Windsor Castle. Nearly forty years later - and
this is what's interesting - the rooms in which he died were kept
locked by Victoria. Nothing was touched, nothing changed. Victoria
had given orders that her husband's clothes should be laid afresh
on the bed every evening and that fresh water should be poured in
the basin as if he were still alive! There was a side of Victoria
that never got over his death. Deep, deep down, she was inconsolable.
I've told you that story because I want
to talk briefly today about consolation. You know what it means; but
I was surprised only the other day to stumble on its origins. The
word "console" comes from two latin words - cum meaning
"with;" solus meaning "alone." So to console is
to be with the lonely. And consolation is what lonely or troubled
people feel when we give them support.
If you want to be a source of consolation
for others, the most important thing is to be a sympathetic presence.
Notjust to be there but to be sympathetically there. Those of you
who have been sick or bereaved know the difference it makes when somebody
makes contact or when people rally round; they don't cure the sickness
or bring the dead to life but they lighten the burden because they
don't leave you on your own. Then when we're trying to console somebody
who is really troubled, part of being sympathetically present is to
be a good listener. When we lend an ear we lend a hand. There's no
point in going into a hospital and telling the patient about your
own symptoms. Two fellows came to visit me once when I was sick, sat
one on each side of the bed, asked me how I was, didn't wait for an
answer, told me I was looking great and then spent half an hour exchanging
their own symptoms across my prone body. It was like being at a tennis
match. But neither side was winning, it was deuce all the time. And
there's not much point either in telling someone who is troubled or
depressed: "Get a hold of yourself - snap Out of it - pull yourself
together." Very often people who are troubled cannot find consolation
on their own; they need the support of family, friends, neighbours
and may need professional help in the end. But for consolers, the
best thing is to let people talk, try ourselves to listen and to offer
a word of support, understanding or encouragement whenever we feel
that's wise. In 1953 an Anglican priest buried a girl of eighteen
who had committed suicide. At her inquest the coroner had suggested
that she mightn't have done it if somebody had been around to listen.
So the priest decided to use his London telephone to listen to people.
In a little while he got helpers and that's how the Samaritans were
born. So a Good Samaritan is not just a charitable person. A Good
Samaritan is a listener as well.
One final point. It seems to me that there
is only one person in the whole world who is there for us all the
time, at the end of the line all the time, and that person is Our
Lord. And one of the wonderful things about Easter is that the Risen
Lord is there for each one of us now. He keeps telling us to come
to him: "Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened,
and I will give you rest" (Mt 11:28). He repeats it again today:
"Peace I bequeath to you. My own peace I give you - a peace the
world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hears be
troubled or afraid" (Jn 14:27). Whatever the trouble in your
life, whatever the outer turbulence, you can create a core of inner
peace by spending time on a regular basis with Our Lord. But that
won't happen unless we set time aside - every day - top priority!
I've let it slide myself over periods, and when I start to build up
again, I really look forward to the special time that's spent with
him. If you haven't been making time for him and yourself please think
about it, and start doing it. The Nigerians have a lovely proverb:
"Hold a true friend with both your hands." In his case let
it be like that (outstretched). And like this (joined in prayer).
One of the great libraries of present times
is the British Library in London. If all of its books were to be arranged
on one continuous shelf, that shelf would stretch approximately from
Malin Head in northern Donegal to Kinsale on the south coast, and
every year which goes by a further eight miles of new publications
would be added on. Never has the human race had more knowledge available
to it; never has it had more understanding of the universe, of the
forces that govern the environment, and with advances in communication
technology most of this will soon be accessible to people in their
own homes at the press of a button.
Yet despite all this there is abroad also
a tremendous sense of helplessness, of being at the mercy of powers
outside oneself, of being monopolised by richer countries, by international
business cartels, by far away centres of oftentimes bureaucratic control
that can change one's way of life and of earning a living, and that
with no hope of redress for those affected. Regardless of the advances
in knowledge, there is a growing sense of uncertainty, even disenchantment,
about where we are going, about the goals we should be striving for
in life. So many people suffer from depression, isolation, lack of
self-esteem, the futility of much of modern pursuits, the difficulties
of just getting by, the obsessive scramble to get on in the world
by fair means or foul, the sheer revulsion before the endless accounts
of cruelty and horror which the media love to dwell upon.
When such a climate prevails, there is
one factor being overlooked, and that is the fact of God. "Whoever
walks in darkness, and has no light shining for him, let him trust
in the name of the Lord, let him lean on his God," was the remarkable
advice of the prophet Isaiah (50:10) to the people of his time, and
how true it is today. Lean on God, hang on to God. So-called liberals
in our age, while denying the freedom of choice they proclaim, would
like to have a situation enforced whereby God would be shut up in
his churches, and mention of divine principles banned in the life
of society, as well as in the place where we prepare our young for
society, in our schools. But, not only is God a fact of religion,
he is also a fact of life, and indeed a fact of human history, since
he assumed human nature. And as Scripture rightly points out (1 Cor
2:11+), the depths of a man can only be known by his own spirit, not
by any other man, and in the same way the depths of God can only be
known by the Spirit of God, and those whom the divine Spirit teaches.
Left to one's own natural resources, one
is utterly incapable of learning anything about the Spirit of God.
During this period of the liturgical year we keep on reminding ourselves
that our eternal salvation has been gained through the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ. Christ is not to be sought in the realm of the dead;
he is living, he is with us. And if Christ is on our side, what need
we care who is against us. In its infancy, the future of the Church
was bleak indeed, for not only was its existence threatened by the
Jews, but the pagan gentiles also were determined by every means to
put a stop to it. We find St Paul giving his followers encouragement
in words which are addressed to us as well across the centuries: "Just
as you trusted Christ to save you, trust him too for each day's problems;
live in vital union with him. Let your roots grow down into him, and
draw up nourishment from him. See that you go on growing in the Lord,
and become strong and vigorous in the truth. Let your lives overfow
with joy and thanksgiving for all he has done. Make sure that no one
deceives you or takes away your freedom by some second-hand, empty,
rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead
of on Christ" (Col 2:6).
In those early days people believed that
the earthly scheme of things pre-existed in heaven, and so the new
Jerusalem, God's new plan for the salvation of the world, would descend
from heaven to earth. This work was to begin with the Annunciation
to Mary by the archangel Gabriel, that God's Son would become man.
And the Assumption of Mary into heaven is God's guarantee that his
plan for the salvation of each of us will only be fulfilled when we
too are taken up from earth to heaven. We should therefore keep our
gaze ever fixed on this eternal goal, and be mindful also of the plans
God has for each of us, and of the reward he has prepared for those
who love him.
To speak a foreign language well, one needs
to think in that language. Most beginners tend to translate from their
mother tongue. I remember when I first started speaking French and
I squirm now at the thought of what the unfortunate natives were subjected
to. I was spending the summer working in a parish in the suburbs of
Bordeaux. On one occasion I was invited out to dinner by a family
in the parish. At one point during the meal, Madame offered me a second
helping, which I declined. I should have said, Merci, non. J'ai bien
mange. (No thank you. I have eaten well.) Instead. I used an expression
which was commonly used in Ireland on such occasions and translated
it literally into French. "No thanks. I'm full," I said.
There was a sudden burst of laughter from the younger members of the
family which earned them a stem rebuke from Maman. Later I discovered
the reason for their amusement. Their priest-guest had just informed
them that he was pregnant. "To be full" was a local expression
to describe the state of pregnancy.
French is a more precise language than
English. It often has two words, where English has only one. "Goodbye"
is a case in point. The French use Au revoir for those everyday temporary
separations, while Adieu is reserved strictly for final definitive
departures. There is no English translation but it means roughly "until
we meet in heaven." Life is a succession of Adieus. The number
grows with the passing years. Our past is peopled with faces that
once were dear to us. Some, like our parents, died. Others moved away
out of our lives never to reappear again. Sometimes their names crop
up in conversation and we say, "I wonder what became of so-and-so."
They probably make the same remark about us occasionally. Life is
a series of little deaths until our own death which for us will be
the last great Adieu. Paris must be the capital of goodbyes. People
live there for a while and then move on and settle down elsewhere.
With all its charm, it doesn't seem the kind of city where people
strike roots. More a temporary haven for nomads. The modern world
is becoming more and more like Paris. It is said that Americans change
home on average every four years. More often than you and I change
our cars. And in this, as in so many other facets of life, we are
all becoming more and more Americanised. Our "goodbyes"
are growing at an ever accelerating rate.
We are, as never before, a pilgrim people.
We need faithful friends who travel with us. In today's gospel, Jesus
is alerting his disciples to his imminent departure, his ascension
into heaven. He doesn't say Adieu but Au revoir. "I am going
away and shall return." We never say goodbye to God: He always
goes with us. It is striking to note how immigrants who leave their
families, friends, language and cultures and settle, often penniless
and in a hostile environment, on the other side of the globe, begin
by building houses of worship. Such was the case with the Irish in
the second half of the nineteenth century in America or Australia.
Such is the case today with Muslims from North Africa and elsewhere
building mosques in France. God is all they have left to cling on
to. It is a striking proof that God has kept his promise to be with
us always. He will always keep his side of the bargain. It is up to
us to keep ours. And when we come to the end of our pilgrimage here
and have to make our last goodbye, it will be literally Adieu, i.e.
"to God."
If we love God, we will do what he tells
us to do. If we do what he tells us to do, God will make his home
in us; all Three Persons of the Trinity. Love is what brings heaven
down to earth. Peace is what flows from love, when my relationships
are the way they ought to be.
Obedientia, the Latin for obeying, literally
means to hold one's ear against. The first rule of the road that we
all learned was "Stop! Look! Listen!" Before you cross the
railway tracks, stop and listen. There may be a train coming. If you
hear a train coming, you will obey that reality, and wait until it
has passed. During the years in which I was involved in teaching,
I was quite familiar with the child who kept getting it wrong, who
continued to be called to the Principal's office. Allowing for deliberate
cussedness, the main reason for this repetition of problems was that
the child hadn't really listened. What had been said on previous occasions
had not sunk in. Just because I had said the words didn't automatically
mean that those words were listened to. If, however, I could gain
the confidence and respect of the pupil, I would have some chance
of being heard. We all have people in our lives that get our full
attention, just as there are others to whom we don't really tune in.
They prattle on, and our attention is elsewhere. This can mean that,
because they are not really important to us, what they have to say
is not important either.
Faith is a response to love. There are
people I do not trust, because I have no reason to believe that they
have my best interests at heart. Don't ask me to trust God until you
have clearly shown me that God loves me first. "In this is love,"
says John, "not that we love God, but that God first loved us."
When that simple truth makes its way through my head, when I know
it, down into my heart, when I believe it, it may eventually make
its way down into my feet, when I act upon it. Faith is love in action.
If I have a block of ice, a snowball, and
a fist of hailstones, all I have is water in different forms. God
is love, and each Person of the Trinity represents a particular expression
of love. The Father's love is creative, and it never becomes destructive.
The Son's love is redemptive, and there is nothing in us that is beyond
the scope of his redeeming love. The Spirit's love is renewing, recreating,
making complete in us what was begun by the Father, and reclaimed
or redeemed by Jesus; and there is no human weakness where this love
cannot be seen and experienced as Power.
"I am leaving you with a gift - peace
of mind and heart." What a beautiful promise, what a special
gift. Peace is not the absence of war. It is the presence of something
real and tangible. It is something I can experience, and it results
from having my relationships the way they ought to be. I will deal
in greater detail with this later.
We are all familiar with invitation cards
that have RSVP on them. The person is looking for a response from
us. Every word that Jesus speaks is calling for a response. A rule
of thumb is to learn to listen, and then listen to learn. Otherwise
what Jesus is saying will go completely over my head. Scripture tells
us that the word of God does not return to Him until it has achieved
what it was intended to achieve. It always gets an answer, even if
the answer is no. Jesus said "I will not judge them. The word
I have spoken will judge them. If I had not come and spoken to them
they would have an excuse for their sin..."
My response must be practical; it must
entail doing something. Believing something up in my head is nothing
more than mental assent. Knowing that Jesus is God is not faith. Satan
knows that. Faith is not up in the head; it is in the heart, and it
eventually makes its way down into my feet. It is only then that I
will be prepared to step out, and act on the direction given me by
Jesus. The message of the gospel is simple, definite, and direct.
There is not one "maybe" or one "might" in all
the promises of Jesus.
"Remember what I have told you..."
Jesus must go so that the Spirit can come to complete his work on
earth, and bring us the fullness of grace. It is the work of the Spirit
in us that enables us to respond to the call of Jesus. There are two
parts to the journey of salvation. Jesus travelled the first part
on our behalf and the Spirit leads us through the final part. We cannot
travel any part of either journey on our own. The gospels speak of
Jesus being led by the Spirit. In almost every sentence in today's
gospel, Jesus is speaking about the Father and the Spirit. What's
involved here is our full sharing in the life of the Trinity.
Today's gospel is a teaching. Supposing
I was to read it slowly once more, or give it to you to reflect on
for a while, what do you think would be its most important teaching
for you? There is great emphasis on obedience, on doing what Jesus
tells me. This is the proof that I love him, and that his message
is getting a response from me. Coming to Mass here today is one of
the ways in which you respond. The real response, of course, is in
the heart. It is not what I do, but why I do it. I do it because Jesus
asked me to do it. This has to do with forgiveness, charity, prayer,
and how I treat my neighbour.
John's Gospel displays a much more developed
theology than the three synoptic gospels. However, it was still written
early in the so-called sub-apostolic time. The remarkable fact is
not that there is a strong theological slant to it. Rather it is surprising
how relatively early in the history of the early Church a strong Trinitarian
perspective has emerged. The trajectory towards Nicea and the other
early councils has already been set, though the elaborate explanations
have yet to appear. Associated with God even by the time of St. John
are Jesus, and the Father, and the Paraclete, the advocate, the teacher,
the protector, the guarantor of the peace that Jesus has given.
Already we have hints that God is a community
of relationships, that there is so much knowledge and love in God
that the knowledge and love explode into distinct personages. This
truth is revealed to test our faith, not to provide theologians with
raw material for their speculations (though there is nothing wrong
with that), but to dazzle us with the brightness of God's glory, the
power of God's knowledge and the passion of God's love. The use of
the word "spirit," a translation of the Hebrew word Shekenah
hints at a maternal protection in God because the word is feminine
in Hebrew - and was used in Hebrew folk religion as the name of Yahweh's
consort. St. John had no thought of such matters, yet the gender of
the noun might well be part of the meaning "in front of the text."
Once upon a time there was a high school
with serious problems. The students (all boys, needless to say) were
out of control and over the top. They smoked, they drank, they did
drugs and all on the school campus. They hassled teachers, they shouted
racial epithets at basketball games, they spread graffiti all over
the school walls, the cursed at school administrators, they fought
in the corridors. The religious order which ran the school had a long
history of imposing discipline by physical force. The headmaster was
a tough man who had struck terror into the hearts of the students
at other high schools. They laughed at him. When he hit a student,
the student hit him back. The student was expelled of course, but
disrespect for the administration, the faculty and everything about
the school continued unabated. So the order brought in one of its
younger members to be the new head master. Veterans in both the order
and the school ridiculed the appointment. The new man was nice enough,
but he wasn't tough. The school required a hard man instead the new
head master was gentle, kind, even tempered, almost, said some of
the worst cynics, womanly. Well, he wandered kind of aimlessly around
the school, talked to the students, stood in the corridors looking
kind of confused, laughed at their jokes and told jokes that they
laughed at (even though they didn't quite understand him literate
wit). Before anyone knew what had happened he had charmed even the
wildest of the hoods. The word went out that the new headmaster was
like totally cool. The school settled down to mayhem no worse than
that any all-male high school. You catch a lot of flies with honey,
the new headmaster said.
Acts 1:1-11 - Eph 1:17-23 - Lk 24:46-53
St Luke in his account of Our Lord's Ascension
into heaven, is attempting to put into words what in effect is beyond
words, to try and describe an event which really defies description.
For the Ascension, or to give it a more meaningful title the Exaltation
of Christ, will always remain a mystery to us while we are in this
life. We find confirmation of this from the response the Ascension
evoked in Christ's closest followers. Our natural reaction to the
thought of a final separation of the risen Christ from his disciples,
is that for them this must surely have been the saddest of occasions.
Indeed we might well see advance confirmation of this as well in the
words addressed to the apostles by Jesus, at the Last Supper, "Now
I am going to the one who sent me. Not one of you has asked, "Where
are you going?" Yet you are sad at heart because I have told
you this." (Jn 16:5+). However, when the last parting, at the
Ascension, really does take place, amazingly, we read how the disciples
retured to Jerusalem, not only with no great signs of grief, but rather
as the gospel of St Luke states, "with great joy" (24:52).
What was it, we may well ask, which made
that final separation an occasion, not of sorrow, but of great spiritual
rejoicing and enrichment? Of course we can say that for the apostolic
group it was inevitable that the time would come when Jesus' stay
on earth, in visible form, would cease. St Luke sees this occurring,
not at the moment of death, nor even that of the resurrection of Christ,
but with his Ascension into heaven. The days when their faith depended
on the flesh and blood presence of Christ were now over. Indeed because
of the appearances to them of the risen Christ, that faith was raised
up to a new plane; for they were slowly convinced that Jesus was living
in a mysteriously new and wonderful manner beyond the portals of death.
From here on they felt that they had entered
into an entirely new union with the One who, because of his Ascension,
had passed beyond the limits of time and space, and was exalted and
confirmed in glory, in the presence of the Father, henceforth and
for ever. Putting aside selfish considerations, the disciples rejoiced
for the sake of Jesus, the suffering Servant of the Lord, rejected
and put to death as he had been by his own people, but now vindicated,
in this wonderful manner, by God. So the Ascension was a happy ending
to that period of terrible self-sacrifice he had willingly taken on
himself. But equally the Ascension marked a beginning also. Very soon
it would usher in a new era, and the supreme indication of this would
be the presence of "God's Spirit," referred to also as the
"Spirit of Jesus." The Holy Spirit will be both in the Church
and in every individual member of the Church. So would be fulfilled
the promise of Jesus at the Last Supper, "I will not leave you
orphans, I will come back to you" (Jn 14:18). We find Peter himself
acknowledging the truth of this in the first great Pentecostal sermon
he addressed to the people: "God raised this man Jesus to life,
and all of us are witnesses to that. Having been raised up to the
right hand of God" - in other words, having ascended into heaven
- "he has received from the Father the Holy Spirit. and what
you see and hear is the outpouring of that Spirit" (Acts 2:32+).
The disciples then returned to Jerusalem
after the Ascension, rejoicing in the knowledge that nothing, either
in life or in death, "could ever come between them and the love
of God made visible in Christ Jesus, our Lord" (Rom 8:39). Christ
would be the final and definitive revelation of God for the whole
world thereafter. And, as it was while he was on earth, so now that
he is exalted in heaven, he is still the comforting friend of all
who call upon him, whether in life or in death. For to die is not
to go out into the dark; it is to go to the one who up to the end
of his life demonstrated his love for each and every person that he
met while on earth, and even to a greater extent thereafter, right
up to this present moment. Our prayer today should be that we, and
all who believe in Christ, may be found worthy to follow him into
the new creation of which he is the first member and guarantor, for
his Ascension is our glory and our hope, the thought of which should
lighten our burdens as we make our pilgrim way to the place in heaven
he has gone ahead to prepare for us. And from the final page of the
New Testament (Rev 22:12), Christ reassures us, "Very soon, I
shall be with you again, bringing to each and every one the reward
they deserve."
In today's gospel Jesus gives his final
message, his final instructions, his final promise, and his final
blessing to his apostles. It is obvious that they believed they would
see him again, because they were filled with great joy, and their
hearts were bursting with prayers of gratitude.
One of the special blessings I have had
in life is that I got to work with the terminally ill, the aged, and
the dying on many occasions. There is nothing more touching or edifying
that to be with someone who knows where she's going. To hear someone
speak with assurance, peace, and calm, about the fact that she is
about to take her leave of her family and friends, and go on to the
third and final stage of life, can be moving. To be present with the
family members who are also on the same wavelength is even more moving.
To them it is Au Revoir and not Goodbye. The person is not going away,
but is simply going ahead. At an earlier time in the gospel story,
Jesus tells his apostles ties they are sad to think that he is about
to leave them. He went on to explain to them why he had to leave,
and why it was for their good that he was leaving. He was going, so
that the Spirit could come to complete his work. Apparently his words
sank home, judging from the reaction of the apostles in today's gospel,
when Jesus did finally leave them.
Jesus said that he came to do the Father's
will. That was the one thing that kept him going, and that he kept
his mind on. He had a mission to accomplish, "and how can I be
at peace until it is accomplished?" That mission was now complete.
Even on Calvary Jesus prayed "Father, I have finished the work
you gave me to do." He could now return in triumph, and the third
and final part of God's creative plan of love could begin. The first
part was creation itself, which was God's great expression of love.
When we messed up that one, Jesus came to present a mission of mercy,
of salvation, of redemption. When he had completed that, the Spirit
would come, and like the breath of God entering the clay at the moment
of human creation, we would be renewed, reborn, recreated. God's plan
would be completed.
Jesus knew his apostles only too well.
They were ordinary weak human beings. He advises them to stay in Jerusalem,
and not leave until the Spirit came. The implication here is that,
if they go off on their own, they are sure to get it all wrong. He
tells them that they will be filled with power from heaven. If you
throw your mind back to the Annunciation, you will remember that Mary
was promised that the power of the Most High would overshadow her.
Only God can do God's work. Therefore, those whom God uses to do his
work must be filled with his power, live and work through his power,
and depend totally on that power.
Before leaving them, Jesus blessed them.
They were, indeed, truly blessed. Even though the Spirit had not yet
come, they were already filled with hope. Their hearts were filled
with prayer and praise. They seemed to have crossed the bridge from
fear and a lack of faith, into a quiet conviction that the Lord would
fulfil his promises to them. Once again, referring to Mary, Elizabeth
told her "All these things happened to you because you believed
that the promises of the Lord would be fulfilled." When the Spirit
would come their mission would begin.
In Luke's account of the Ascension, we
are told that, while the apostles stood looking up to the heavens
after Jesus, angels appeared to them, and told them not to be looking
up there. Jesus ascended into heaven all right, but he is also to
be found all around us, especially in the poor, the suffering, the
marginalised, and the downtrodden. The apostles were to look around
them, and concentrate on life down here. The role of the Christian
is not to work to get to heaven, but to do everything possible to
get heaven down here. There are people around me living in hell. Make
me a channel of your peace. It is much more difficult to get heaven
into people than to get people into heaven!
Jesus is our Moses, leading us into the
Promised Land. He tells us that he will come and bring us, so that
where he is we also will be. He says that he will never abandon us.
When he was on this earth, he was Saviour. He wasn't yet Lord, because
he had not yet achieved the victory, and overcome all the power of
the evil one, and all the effects of original sin. Now, however, when
he returns in triumph to his Father, he will become Lord, and his
Kingdom will be established. "All power is given to me in heaven
and on earth... His Kingdom is identified in three simple ways. Jesus
is Lord, the power to live in the Kingdom is the Holy Spirit, and
all of God's children have equal access to that Kingdom. The most
disabled person on this earth is here with as much right as the greatest
genius that ever lived.
Jesus calls himself The Way. Notice he
doesn't say that he is one of the ways. He is the way, and there is
no other. He asked us to follow him, and, if we did that, we would
not walk in darkness, but would have the light of life. Following
Jesus includes following him through the gates of death into the fullness
of life. It is only when I reach that third and final stage of life
that I will become all that God created me to be. If you waken up
some morning and discover that your life is exactly the way it should
be, don't move, just wait for the undertaker! You have arrived, the
journey is complete, and all the promises of the Lord will be fulfilled.
There is a story told about a small town
in Germany that was severely blasted during the last war. Some years
later, the buildings were restored. One of the buildings was the town's
cathedral. When the renovation was completed, it was noticed that
a large figure of Christ the King, which stood in front of the cathedral,
was still not repaired, when both hands had been blown off in the
explosion. When there was no sign of it being repaired, some people
went to the parish priest to enquire if he had any plans to repair
the statue. He surprised them all by saying that, no; he was going
to leave the statue exactly as it was. He explained that, when Jesus
ascended into heaven, he took his body with him. He asked us to provide
the body (church?), and his Spirit would provide everything else.
He would not replace the hands on the statue, to remind people that
Jesus has no other hands but ours, when it comes to continuing the
building of his Kingdom here on earth.
Father Carmelo
www.holynamewahroonga.com.au)
The production and writing of vision and
mission statements are at present part of the order of the day for
any organisation. This is a good exercise. It is good both in its
results but I believe even more in the process through which the consultation
moves to produce the end result. Without full awareness and without
writing anything down I know all of us are constantly considering
our personal vision and mission. We reflect on who we really are,
on the changes taking place in us from day to day and on what are
our aims. Often then we try to translate our aims into actions reflecting
how we are to go about achieving our dreams and aspirations. Our unwritten
vision and mission statements are constantly with us and are constantly
being revised and refined. Our diocese has produced a vision and mission
statement and now we are looking at a plan for the future to fulfil
them. It is important to pray and participate in the stages of on-going
consultations.
Today, on the feast of the Ascension of
the Lord the litugy of the Word puts before us a message about vision
and mission. We have a vision and a mission statement about being
a Christian. Both statements are extraordinary simple. We know both
so well that while we may unconsciously live by them we may never
reflect on them.
The vision statement is contained in one
word in our first reading of the Liturgy of the Word. St Luke addresses
his second volume, the first being his gospel story, to Theophilus.
It is possible that Luke dedicated his work on the Acts to a friend
by that name but there is here a wise literally devise. The Greek
name Theophilus is made up of two words meaning "Friend of God."
What a vision that is for our life journey! How satisfying it will
be for me if I were to live with the full knowledge that God chose
me as his friend? What a great thing it will be for me to experience
my friendship with him? Much has been written about friendship and
who a true friend is. It may be helpful if in the coming week we were
to reflect on our friend and see what that person means to us and
what our love for each other means. Sometimes we use the term "friend"
loosely. Some people say, "I have heaps of friends," when
they mean something quite different. In the Book of Bible Wisdom we
read this about friedship. "May your acquaintances be many but
let your friend be one, and test him as gold is tested in the furnace"
I believe that the search for a friend is a lifetime search. It may
even require an eternity. Then a friend who is as precious and enduring
as gold is to be tested in the furnace of love. Sometimes I even wonder
if a friendship of this nature is possible. But there are examples
in history of such friendship as that between David and Jonathan,
Basil and Gregory and Alexander and Dionysus These friends were lifetime
friends, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, in richness
and in poverty. Maybe these words taken from the marriage vows tell
us something about our one real friend. A true friend, and there is
no friend unless a true one, just as there is no best friend except
a best one, is strong to support us and at the same time makes himself
or herself totally vulnerable both in the giving and the receiving.
He forgives again and again, understands, and walks the journey day
in and ay out, in sunshine and in rain. So a life's vision of being
a friend of God is a wonderful vision indeed. From the way we have
described friendship God has offered all that is possible for friendship.
What is required is our response. It is possible for us also because
even in our sinfulness and weakness we can still resolve to remain
friends with God. In my striving to be a theophilus I find strength
in the answer Peter gave Jesus after the resurrection. Aware that
he had betrayed Jesus and being pressed by him for an answer to the
question thrice repeated "Peter do you love me" he answers,
"Lord you know all things, you know I love you." Accepting
my sinful humanity I can still have a friendship with God as my Christian
vision of life.
Later on in the same introduction to the
"Acts of the Apostles" we find the mission statement. It
is wonderful to reflect and contemplate this friendship with God.
However, contemplation without action becomes stargazing. Two angels
say to the apostles and to me this morning "What are you doing
here looking up into the sky?" Why this question? I observe we
always want to tell others about our friend, about the mutual closeness
we experience. Secure in our mutual love, we, many times, share our
friend with others. Our mission statement is to do precisely this.
Following Jesus' injunction we are to go and share the good news of
God's friendship with us and his readiness to offer it to all who
want to share in it. So our vision and our mission almost become one.
Vision with Mission is navel gazing and mission without vision is
an exercise in futility. Vision without mission is a brain without
a heart and mission without vision is a heart without a brain
The beautiful poetry of Paul's words to
the Ephesians we read today makes a fitting end to our reflection.
It is the vision splendid! "May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glory, give you a spirit wisdom and perception of what
is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of him. May he enlighten
the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his call hold
for you" This call is the call to friendship, O Theophilus. Then
the last sentence of the gospel for today gives us the description
of our mission "they going out, preached everywhere, the Lord
working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied
it."
7th Sunday of Easter (C)
(Acts 7:55-60 - Rev. 22:12-14, 16-17, 20
- Jn 17:20-26)
May They All Be One
Get Out and Do Something
Did Jesus Think of Us?
In 1989, France and indeed the rest of
the world, celebrated the bicentenary of the French Revolution. That
happening, just over two hundred years ago, was probably one of the
greatest milestones in history. It is probably true to say that it
gave birth to the modern democratic world. But the French Revolution
included many events which even the French would like to forget and
certainly contributed nothing to the advance of civilisation, such
as the execution of the king or the Reign of Terror. When you look
at two neighbouring countries, Britain and France, with approximately
the same population, which were in fact traditionally what the French
call "frères-enemies', both are equally democratic today, while
England retains her monarchy and some aristocratic institutions, such
as the House of Lords. And even though it was bitterly opposed to
the French Revolution, it has, like everywhere else, been transformed
by it.
The precise event itself which opened a
new chapter in our history took place between the 20-26 August 1789.
It was in fact "The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen" to give it its full title. It was the charter of a new
age. It is a short document, with not many articles, which can be
summed up in that marvellous slogan which became the catch-cry of
the Revolution, "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." Had
the Revolution produced nothing else but that slogan, it was guaranteed
to win the minds and hearts of future generations. Liberty was defined
as the right of the individual to act freely, provided he did not
harm another.
Since then, what we now call civil rights
have had a long and difficult birth. The American blacks only achieved
theirs in the sixties, under the leadership of Marlin Luther King,
who paid for them with his life. Those of their colour in South Africa
had to wait another thirty years before apartheid was dismantled and
Nelson Mandela had paid a ransom of twenty-eight years in prison.
There were other martyrs, too numerous to mention in the Gulag Archipelago,
who did not survive to see the Berlin Wall collapse and the establishment
of civil liberties in the Soviet area. There are many places still
in the world where the message of the French Revolution has not yet
penetrated. But at least now civil rights are firmly on the agenda.
If they too wish to join the club, and there are now compelling economic
reasons for doing so, they must first improve their record in human
rights.
In today's gospel, Christ makes his farewell.
It takes the form of a prayer for his disciples:
Holy Father, I pray not only for these,
but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May
they all be one. Father, may they be one in us, as you are in me and
I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.
He could see the history of his followers
as clearly as we can see it today, with all the bickerings, dissensions,
schisms and religious wars, leading eventually to the break-up of
Christianity. So his final prayer for unity. Tragically, his followers
wanted to impose uniformity instead.
At the time of the Revolution, Irish bishops
were warning their flocks not to be contaminated by what they called
the "French disease." They were wasting their breath. It
was contagious. It was only at Vatican II that the Church finally
took the revolutionary creed on board, with its decree on religious
freedom. At the opening of that Council, the great Pope John XXIII
quoted an ancient maxim which had long since, unfortunately, fallen
into disuse:
In what is doubtful, freedom.
In what is essential, unity.
In all things, charity.
In her eagerness for uniformity rather
than unity, the church, like so many secular regimes, has often sacrificed
both freedom and charity. That particular temptation is something
that the Holy Spirit would want us to seriously re-think, as we celebrate
the energy that God breathes into our world.
The Gospel today is taken from the Last
Supper Discourse of Jesus, a discourse which provides the author of
the Gospel with an opportunity to spin out at great and powerful length
his theme of the unity between Jesus and the Father and our resultant
unity through Jesus ( to whom we are united) with the Father. While
the discourse is a theological reflection on the revelation of the
nature of God which Jesus unveiled, it is nothing more than an attempt
to plumb the depths of the good news which Jesus preached - We are
inextricably united to God and we can never be separated from God's
love, a love in which both the maternal and the paternal are combined.
Once upon a time Mollie Whuppi discovered
she had a real problem with the girls basketball team at Mother Mary
High School. Mollie, as everyone knows, was class president, student
body president, captain of the volleyball, basketball, and chess team,
prefect of the sodality (they still had one at her school) and had
the best grades in her class. The president of the high school often
said that she was delighted that Mollie permitted her to remain in
office. To which Mollie goes, "like REALLY!" Well Mollie
did make mistakes. As her boy friend Joe goes, "she's like occasionally
in error, but NEVER in doubt."
WELL, the problem on the team was the poor
kids that never played - the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth players
on a team which had only nine really good players. Well, pretty good.
So since the games were always close these other players never got
in. And when Mother Mary would win close games against schools like
Lord Jesus High and all the crowd went wild and hugged those who had
played, they ignored the tenth and eleventh and twelfth players.
These young women were good sports and
never complained, but one day Mollie noticed how silent and sad they
were down at the end of the bench. So she goes to the coach, "We
have to do something about them." The coach didn't understand
(often times they don't, you know). If those girls played, they'd
lose. Well, Mollie wanted to win as much as anyone (maybe a tad more).
But she didn't like those sad faces on people she liked a lot.
So what did Mollie do? She organized a
party at her house for all the basketball team (Absolutely no BOYS
permitted) and praised the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth players for
their hard work and good sportspersonship, and gave each of them a
totally neat blouse she had found at the mall. There was a lot of
weeping and hugging. And no more long faces. And Mollie goes to Joe,
like we really have to take care totally of everyone!
The movie, Message to My Daughter,
was the moving story of Miranda, a completely disoriented teenage
girl who saw the world as "meaningless, cruel and stupid."
Miranda did not know her mother. She died when Miranda was only two
years old. She felt unloved and was incapable of loving anyone. Then
she discovered some tapes on which her dying mother had recorded a
"message" for her. As she listened to the words of her long-dead
mother, she realised that she was not the unloved child she thought
she was. Her mother had thought of her and had loved her tenderly.
This discovery brought about in her a complete change in the way she
saw herself and the world around her. She was finally able acceptance
herself and put her life together again.
When we read the gospels and the promises
of Jesus to his disciples, do we not sometimes wonder whether Jesus
actually thought of us, or whether he only had in mind his disciples
who were right there before him. Today's gospel passage is unique
in the sense that this is the only place in the gospels where we get
the assurance that Jesus thought not only about his immediate disciples
but about us as well. The rendering of John 17:20 in the International
Children's Bible brings out more clearly the point we are making:
"I pray for these men. But I am also praying for all people who
will believe in me because of the teaching of these men."
It makes a lot of difference for us to
know that Jesus thought of us, that he had us in mind as he died and
gave his life for the salvation of the world, that he actually prayed
for us. We know that God always hears the prayer of Jesus. So, if
Jesus prayed for us we would like to know what it was that he prayed
for us about. What Jesus asked the Father in our behalf is basically
one thing: unity.
Father, I pray that all people who believe
in me can be one. You are in me and I am in you. I pray that these
people can also be one in us, so that the world will believe that
you sent me (John 17:21 ICB).
Jesus' prayer for Christian unity is much
more relevant to the church in the modern world than it was to the
church of the early Christians. The church of the early Christians
knew nothing about the great walls of division separating Christians
from Christians today. The fragmentation of the Christian church in
our time has been described as a scandal to the world. How can Christians
preach love and forgiveness to the world when they cannot love and
forgive one another? How can Christians preach reconciliation and
peace in the world when they cannot be reconciled and live in peace
with one another? Lack of unity among Christians remains one of the
greatest obstacles in the way of Christian witnessing to an unbelieving
world. No wonder Jesus prayed that we all may be one "so that
the world will believe."
Jesus went on to say, "I have given
these people the glory that you gave me. I gave them this glory so
that they can be one, the same as you and I are one" (John 17:22
ICB). In other words, Jesus has bequeathed glory to the church. But
this glory can only manifest itself when the unity among Christians
reflects the unity between Jesus and the Father. Lack of unity takes
away from the glory which Jesus intended for the body of believers.
Finally Jesus prayed for us so that the
love with which the Father has loved him may be in us (v.26). The
unity for which Jesus prayed is a unity based on divine love. It is
a unity that is possible only with the love of God in us. It is not
a unity based on human wisdom, on power or on diplomacy. It is not
a unity of uniformity or a unity which deprives others of their individuality
but a unity in the essentials, that makes room for diversity. The
famous saying that goes back to St Augustine is a good guide for the
church as it works it way slowly toward the unity for which Jesus
prayed: "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty; in all
things, charity."
As we wait and pray for a rekindling of
the fire of divine love in the hearts of the faithful at Pentecost,
let us all resolve, in our own little ways, to work for the realisation
of the full unity of all Christians for which Jesus prayed. And the
best way to work for this unity is to live in the love of God and
our neighbour.
Rom 8:8-17 - John 14:15-16, 23-26
See also Years A, B
Birthday of Faith
Please read the instructions
The wonderful feast of Pentecost is really
our birthday, for it calls to mind the beginning of our role as God's
chosen people, chosen not on account of any merit on our part, but
by reason of God's mercy, in order that the power of God may become
more manifest in our weakness. In the Book of Revelation (5:9+) a
hymn is sung in praise of the Lamb of God, because by his blood he
has purchased people for God from every tribe and language and nation,
and made them a line of kings and priests to serve our God and rule
the world. So as true followers of Christ we are a kingly people:
in us and through us the reign of grace is made visible before the
world. We are a priestly people: through us Christ continues to offer
spiritual worship for the glory of God and for the salvation of all
mankind. We are a prophetic people: we listen to the word of God and
to the Spirit stirring within us. We are given an understanding of
the faith and the grace of speech, so that the power of the gospel
might shine forth in our daily lives. But we must listen, if we are
to have that grace of speech.
This is precisely what the apostles and
disciples did, and were granted at the first Pentecost. They listened
to the Holy Spirit, who revealed to them, in a new light, all that
they had experienced and learned about Jesus. This revelation became
a burning force within them, compelling them to speak out about it.
They became like Jeremiah, the reluctant prophet, who used to say:
"I will not think about the Lord, I will not speak in his name
any more. But then there seemed to be a fire burning in my heart,
imprisoned in my bones. The effort to restrain it wearied me, and
I could not bear it" (Jer 20:9). Likewise, Peter and John were
to say before the Sanhedrin: "We cannot promise to stop proclaiming
what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20). To understand the imagery
of Luke's account of all this in the Acts , we must try and grasp
his purpose. He wants to convey the idea of a new covenant being set
up between God and mankind. He draws on the Exodus account of the
establishment of the Sinai Covenat, when the mountain was entirely
wrapped in smoke and the Lord descended on it in the form of fire.
Likewise, those in the Upper Room heard what sounded like a powerful
wind - wind was always associated with the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Noise filled the entire house and tongues of fire appeared also. These
were indications that the Chosen People of the new alliance with God
had come into being.
In the gospel of today, St John's account
recalls for us the story of Elijah (1 Kings 19), who was so dispirited
by the opposition which he encountered in his fight against the worship
of pagan gods that he wished he were dead. He was told to go to the
mountain of God, Horeb or Sinai. And standing in a cave he heard a
mighty wind go by, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then came the
sound of an earthquake and then a fire, but neither was the Lord in
these. Finally, there came the sound of a gentle breeze, and hearing
it he covered his face with his cloak. And the Lord spoke to him from
out the breeze, and entrusted him with a mission. The morale of Christ's
apostles, at this juncture, was also low. For fear of the Jews, they
had locked themselves in the Upper Room. Then Jesus appears in their
midst; he breathes upon them and they receive the Holy Spirit. As
with Elijah, they also have a mission given to them. Just as the Lord
had breathed the breath of life into Adam's nostrils, so making him
the firs living human being of creation, so with the breathing of
Jesus upon the apostles, which makes them part of a new creation.
In fact the activity of the Spirit is a continuation through them
of the mission of Jesus.
That special gifts had been granted to
the specially chosen followers of Jesus became obvious to those who
were not members of that group. This was necessary to show to the
pagans, and unbelievers among the Jews, that the truth of the Christian
religion was being confirmed by God. The event as described by John
is not a once-and-for-all event. Rather does it describe an on-going
process. Christian beliefs and traditions have their enemies in our
own time as well. But we should not despair, for the divine presence
is always ready to come to our aid. Jesus and the Father continue
to communicate the Holy Spirit to all those entrusted with a mission
by God to this day. We too can be drawn into the Pentecostal experience
provided that we keep our hearts open to what the Spirit is telling
us, and offer ourselves as willing propagators of his designs.
In today's gospel, while renewing his promise
to send the Holy Spirit, Jesus always stresses obedience as a condition
for receiving that Spirit. "As the Father sent me, so I am sending
you." "I came to do the will of him who sent me. If you
love me, you will work with me."
I remember doing some sort of intelligence
test many years ago. We were presented with a page of questions. On
the top of the page was one simple instruction "Please read all
questions before you begin to answer." The natural tendency of
many, of course, was to look at the first question, answer it, and
continue down the page. You can imagine how they felt when they came
to question 12, which said "And now, having read all the questions,
please do not answer the first eleven!" It pays to do what you're
told...!
Original sin was a refusal to obey. Humans
had decided that their way was best, and human pride rejected divine
love. Satan (then called Lucifer) was the first to refuse to obey.
In the story of the Fall, he figures largely in getting Adam and Eve
to follow his example. The life of Jesus would be one of total obedience,
"even to death on the cross." This way, he would remove
the damage of original sin, and restore humanity to its proper relationship
with the divine, as creatures before the Creator.
Jesus lays great emphasis on obedience.
His reason for coming was to do the will of his Father in heaven.
He calls on us to obey him, just as he obeys the Father. "As
the Father has sent me, so do I send you." He promises the Spirit
to those who obey him. If the Spirit is going to inspire, guide, and
teach, then, of course, we must be ready to follow. We are told that
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, down to the Temple, etc.
I cannot be led if I am unwilling to follow.
Jesus links up his work with the initiative
of the Father, what he himself has undertaken, and what the Spirit
will do to complete that work, when Jesus' task is over. The story
of salvation is the story of the Trinity, offering us a share in the
life of the Divinity. To bring us into obedience is to restore us
to the family of God, and completely reverse the effects of original
sin.
Jesus was sent by the Father with a message,
and our salvation depends on us listening to, and following that message.
The first step is the coming of Jesus. The second step is the message
he gives. ("Jesus came to do and to teach'). The final part of
the programme of salvation is the coming of the Spirit. "That
we might live no longer for ourselves, but for him, he sent the Holy
Spirit, as his first gift to those who believe, to complete his work
on earth, and to bring us the fullness of grace."
It is vital for us to hear the message.
"They have ears, but they hear not..." With the message
comes the grace to respond to that message. His message is of such
a nature, that it can only be heard with the heart. "Unless you
become like little children..." His message is of such a nature
that it will never make sense to the intellectual and the worldly-wise
The message of Jesus is compared to a farmer going out to sow seed.
He throws the seed in all directions, and lets it fall where it will.
It is only when the Spirit comes that the conditions will exist for
the seed to grow. It is the Spirit who will provide the spring conditions
in our hearts, enabling the seed to sprout, take root there, and produce
fruit that will remain.
Here is a thought that merits some reflection:
I have to learn to listen, and then I can listen to learn." It
is not easy to listen. Some people are so much better at listening
than others. It is a decision born out of love to decide to try to
really listen to others. Real prayer is "Speak, Lord, your servant
is listening," rather than "Listen, Lord, your servant is
speaking."
Keeping his commandments has to do with
loving God and loving others. It is the balance between the vertical
and the horizontal. God doesn't want to hear me say to him'I'm sorry,
I love you, thank you, etc.." unless those around me hear it
first. Jesus is clear and definite when he speaks his message. "If
you forgive, you are forgiven. If you show mercy, you will receive
mercy. If you show compassion, you will receive compassion. Judge
not, and you will not be judged. The measure you use to give to others
is the measure used in giving to you..."
There was a young lad one time that decided
to become a saint. He went down to the library, and got several books
on the lives of the saints, in the hope that he might find one who
could be his role model. He actually chose St Simon Stylites, one
of the most unusual saints in the calendar. Simon lived many centuries
ago, and the story is that he lived on the top of a high pillar in
the middle of the town square. What drew the young lad to select him
was that, well, if you're going to be a saint, you might as well get
as much publicity out of it as possible! I mean, everybody in town
knew Simon, and everyone knew he was a saint, despite the fact that
if he were alive today, he'd probably be locked up!
The problem our young friend had was that
there was no pillar down in the middle of the town square. He opted
for humble beginnings, so he got a chair in the kitchen, and stood
on it. Shortly after that his mother wanted to get to the sink, so
he had to move his chair. Then it was his sister trying to get to
the fridge, and he had to move again. Shortly afterwards, his brothers
came in the back door, bumped into him, and knocked him off his chair
onto the floor. Eventually, he had to abandon his efforts, and, as
he put the chair to one side, he declared with complete conviction
"No, it's not possible; it's just not possible to become a saint
at home'!
The reality is that it is not possible
to become a saint anywhere else! Bloom where you're planted, just
as the seed of Jesus' message must grow in the heart in which it is
planted.
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