April 26, 2015

4^th Sunday of Easter B

Acts 4: 8-12; 1 John 3: 1-2; John 10: 11-18

The Gospel is about: laying down our lives! “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” I say so simply… I don’t do that…I don’t lay down my life for anyone. I have no association with sheep. The immediate thought that comes to mind is what was the point of a shepherd laying down his life to protect the sheep if the shepherd died? Am I missing the meaning of Jesus’ message? What is Jesus calling me to be? What is He calling me to become?

All four Gospels use the metaphor of Jesus as the Good Shepherd…and Israel is His ‘flock’. I refer back to Psalm 23…The Lord is my Shepherd” for reflection: … Is the Lord my shepherd? Do I allow Him to lead me or do I NOT like to be beholding to anyone? And Jesus says that He as the ‘shepherd’ lays down His life for me and all. Does this mean that I have to be willing all the time to do the same? This is certainly admirable…but laying down my life, like the martyrs? I always wondered if I would be willing to be a martyr. Before I was ordained, I was fascinated with reading the lives of the North American martyrs especially two Jesuits: Isaac Jogues and Jean de Brebeuf. I never thought that I had the courage to be tortured and be killed.

When I begin to think in this direction then I feel that I must be missing something from the text and teaching of Jesus. In the Holy Land, the picture of grazing sheep is seen outside of the cities…and the shepherd close by. Actually I was fascinated by the sheep dog keeping the sheep all together. The shepherd’s number one job was protection from wild animals and thieves. It seemed that the sheep knew that their welfare depended on staying close. They didn’t have to worry; the shepherd protected them and led them to areas to graze.

I can readily see Jesus using this image and showing the contrast between God and Himself as being the trustful and reliable guides whereas the Pharisees and Scribes, (the hired hands) had no lasting loving commitment to the people they were ‘suppose ‘ to take care of. While they were intense on enforcing the laws and duties, they were not concerned with caring for the sick and helping the lame and defending the powerless members of society. They were concerned with themselves. Am I this way?

It is very interesting to get to the core of what Jesus is saying today. John uses the Greek word to describe the shepherd to ‘lay down his life.’ But the essential meaning of ‘lay down’ is ‘to give…to place…to put.” The shepherds were to be people who daily gave their lives to the flocks, to place their life, to put their life at the disposal of the sheep. There were no days off. The sheep somehow sensed that they could depend on the shepherd in any trouble. Hired substitutes did not function in the same way. They gave SOME of their time and a CERTAIN portion of their skill to the job. But they didn’t give their lives because they just couldn’t love the sheep in the same way the shepherd did.

In my life I have experienced many examples of people living challenging and taxing lives with love: to live daily for another person as to die for that person. THIS is what I feel is the message of the Good Shepherd for myself and everyone today. God sent Jesus to teach…to live…to show God’s love and to save us from not only our sins but from ourselves. That God’s love and His grace is given so that I can continue to GIVE…to PLACE…to PUT my life at the disposal of those God has placed in my life…and I am to LOVE. Each person by virtue of baptism, is called to share the Good news of God’s love and live the Gospel. Each is called to imitate Jesus. THIS means that what we say should be true…our lives should be full of compassion and concern for others.

Living the Word…Scripture Reflections and Commentaries for Sundays and Holy Days says this of today’s Gospel: “A moment’s reflection, however, allows us to grasp Jesus’ point. True leaders, ‘good shepherds,’ are those who seek not their own well-being and flourishing, but the well-being and flourishing of those who are entrusted to their care. While we may not have a lot of contact with shepherds, we can think of many instances of people laying down their lives for others. Any parent who has walked the floor in the middle of the night with a sick or fussy baby knows what it means to lay down one’s life. So too, any child who cares for an aging parent with patience and forbearance knows what it means to lay down’ one’s life. Any employer or supervisor who stays late at the office figuring out how to tweak the budget, or who forgoes a bonus in order not to have to lay anyone off, knows what it means to lay down one’s life. All of these involve a kind of dying to oneself so that others might have life in its fullness.” I am honored to know so many people who do this all the time.

Today is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” It is a day that all Christians are is challenged to look into their hearts and judge the generosity of their service to the people around them. I am called to imitate Jesus…each person is called to imitate Jesus. EVERY person possesses the sacred dignity of being a child loved by God, and is called to serve in that capacity, especially to the hurting and those who can’t survive on their own…to care for all who are vulnerable and in need. Am I living my life as a Christian…am I working the way a Christian needs to work?

Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet wrote this about working with love: “All work is empty save when done with love. And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from you heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work, and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms from those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half of man’s hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wind. Work is love made visible.”

I am called to make God’s love visible so I reflect on:

• Pray the ‘shepherd’ passages: Psalm 23; Ezekiel 34; Micah 5: 3-5; Jeremiah 23: 1-4; Luke 15: 1-7. What deep feelings do these evoke? How can these texts touch my life?
• Gandhi was inspired by the figure of Jesus. Many who are not Christians hear and model the teachings of Jesus. Do I learn from them?
• Look around and see the many ways in which lives are placed at the service of others: parents’ care of children; acts of kindness of co-workers, compassion for those who are ‘like sheep without a shepherd.” Do I learn from them?

Sacred Space 2015 challenges each one

“’One flock, one shepherd.’ God thinks big. The divine project is to gather in everyone at the close of human history.

This makes me look at awkward people in a new way—they are to be my eternal companions! Does it make me look at myself in a new way? Would I make a pleasant eternal companion if I died today?

April 19, 2015

3^rd Sunday of Easter

Acts 3: 13-15, 17-19; 1 John 2: 1-5; Luke 24: 35-48

What an unbelievable series of events the followers of Jesus had been through. On Thursday, probably late afternoon, the apostles and some others had gathered for what has been known as the ‘Last Supper.’ Then they were led by Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane, a few miles away where Jesus prayed. The soldiers were led by the chief priests and elders to this peace place of prayer and apprehended Jesus and brought Him to the High Priest. In less than twenty hours, Jesus would be tried falsely, brought to Pilate and Herod, tortured, beaten, crowned with thorns and led the few mile trip to be executed on the Holy Cross and died for you and me and everyone. These followers, these believers…what was going through their minds? How were they feeling?

One emotion that has been going through my mind, maybe because of my Irish background, is the feeling of embarrassment and sorrow. All of the twelve had run away in the Garden. Where did they go? Did they go back to the Upper Room…? Maybe some did just to feel safe with each other and to process what happened. How did they feel? I would have felt tremendous embarrassment for running away, I would need to be forgiven for this horrendous action of myself. After all of Jesus’ teaching on ‘turning the other cheek’ on ‘loving even all your enemies’ on realizing from Jesus’ teaching and example that God loves me all the time, I HAD been scared and RAN. No excuse…my parents taught me from the early years that I had to apologize…I had to ask for forgiveness. But in the meantime, I have been ‘beating myself up’…how could I have rejected and betrayed the only person of total love I have ever known? I’m sure these thoughts in varying degrees occupied the apostles.

What is definite is that their Master was dead and gone forever. It’s not that Jesus didn’t say what would happen, He did…but the disciples didn’t understand this…how could they…this had never happened before. Today, Jesus comes again and says “Peace be with you”. He does not say, ‘Why did you leave me…why are you so thick-headed…why didn’t you believe in me…why…why…why? He shows them His wounds. He says, “Have you anything to eat.? In John 21: 1-14, Jesus shares a meal with His disciples. One of the customs of the Arab world is that sharing a meal indicates forgiveness…everything is whole again. The Resurrection appearances symbolize that the Church will continue to experience Jesus’ presence in its Eucharistic gatherings. Peace and forgiveness are the prime gifts of the Risen Jesus. Jesus set the direction for us in the Lord’s prayer” “Forgive us our debts (Luke 11:4) as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12).

Fr. John Donahue S.J. in Hearing the Word of God states: Years ago Fr. Edward Schillebeecks suggested that the appearances of the risen Jesus brought to the disciples a profound experience of forgiveness. All the Gospels depict the flight of the disciples and the denial of Peter. Paul was changed from persecutor to apostle by the grace of the risen Christ, and Jesus, the brother of the Lord, who was not a follower of the earthly Jesus (Mark 3:20; 6:1-6), became a leader of the Jerusalem church. The peace that the risen Jesus brought was a release from the shame and failure of Jesus’ first followers, which transformed them into missionaries and martyrs.”

In the first reading from Acts, Peter is going to the temple to pray when he encounters a crippled beggar and heals him. This area in Solomon’s Portico was frequented by rabbis who would preach there to the people. Peter speaks identifying the God of Israel as the same God who has glorified Jesus, “the author of life you put to death” (Acts 3:15). Peter is not condemning but offering forgiveness. He recognizes that they acted from ignorance and he continues to offer them an opportunity for repentance. Throughout the Acts, the Jews and their leadership receive the same offer. Though some join the Christian movement, most do not. The second reading from John states that everyone has an advocate in Jesus who has saved all from their sins. “”Jesus Christ the righteousness one, He is expiation for our sins, and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world.” Alice Camille in Exploring the Sunday Readings states, “So when we come upon passages like this one in the Bible, it makes us pause. Jesus makes the supreme sacrifice on the cross, not merely for those who will one day believe in Him, but for the whole world. Jesus is truth personified, yet His truth is not narrow. He does not come to condemn the world but to save it—which means that to Jesus, the quest to reconcile the world to God is not a process of elimination but one of profound inclusion and relentless hope. If there are folks who seem totally lost to us—and there always are—all the more reason to pray for their rescue!” SO denial, rejection, sin are not the final word. The resurrection is victory over these deadly elements in everyone’s life.

So why do I continue to do the things that I do…the sins that lead me astray from God? One of the great theologians, Fr. Karl Rahner in The Content of Faith wrote: “We are always tempted to stay in sin because we do not dare to believe in the magnificent love of God, and because we do not want to believe that God will forgive us our sins.” This love touched the denying Peter, the doubting Thomas, the disciples who fled in the garden and to myself. This love and ‘irrational forgiveness’ remains every moment of my life and everyone’s life the enduring gift of the risen Christ. And the promise is life forever with God in heaven for those who believe and keep the commandments.

• I have experienced God’s surprising, forgiving love so many times and I have never NOT BEEN FORGIVEN. I review these priceless moments with God’s help.
• Jesus asks me today, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts?”
• Alice Camille says to Contemplate a crucifix. Quietly consider those who are ‘enemies,’ personal or global. Imagine that Jesus willingly died for them.”
• Jesus obediently and willingly shared our human nature, even to the point of death. What does this tell me about who God is?
• How consciously do I relate keeping God’s commandments with nurturing my relationship with God?

Sacred Space 2015 helps today,

“The Greeks thought that only the soul survived after death. But Luke emphasizes that the risen Jesus is the same as the man who walked our earth. His wounds are still showing. The real Jesus is indeed back with His friends, and doing all He can to help them to believe. Only then can they be ‘witnesses of these things.’

The faith of the disciples is based on the fact that Jesus is with them again. But He seems to have forgotten their sins! Now they must forget the wrongdoing of others against themselves. The world would be transformed if we all did this.”

April 12, 2015

2^nd Sunday of Easter

Acts 4:32-35, 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31

Jesus gave His followers, the apostles and each one of us the supreme law of love: Matthew 22:37 – “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love you neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

In the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy Moses told the people, “These then are the commandments, the statues and decrees which the Lord, our God, has ordered that you be taught to observe in the land into which you are crossing for conquest.” And he continues three verses later: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Jesus included the love of neighbor, Moses didn’t.

Today Luke in the Acts of the Apostles described how this love was lived out in the early years of the Church, “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common….there was no needy person among them…for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need.” (Acts 4:32)

My living Jesus’ Law of Love always comes down to am I living love as Jesus intended me to live it? Am I loving? Am I compromising my loving? Am I determining who I should love? How can I love in this world that is unloving? Does it matter if I am loved, if I’m not, do I have to love those that don’t love me? YES! I’m thinking back to when I was young and I wanted to know what to do or how to act and my mother would say, “What did your father tell you?” If I went to my dad with the same situation he would say, “What did I tell you to do.” In the gospels a young person came up to Jesus and asked what the greatest commandment was and Jesus gave the Law of Love. So it comes down to, am I loving as Jesus told me? I guess I don’t want to be that inclusive or that loving, but it is what I am called to do, actually it is a command; I am commanded to love.

The Gospel helps me in Jesus’ two appearances after the Resurrection. It’s Easter evening, the disciples are gathered in the upper room. The doors are locked, the blinds or coverings on the windows are closed, they are afraid. They are hiding in darkness; in John’s gospel darkness is often associated with a lack of faith. LACK OF FAITH, that’s an interesting word to bring into my following Jesus’ love commands. Jesus’ very first words in both appearances are, “Peace be with you.” Fr. John Donahue S.J. a New Testament scholar comments on today’s gospel in Hearing the Word of God. “Jesus’ first word is ‘Peace,’ the biblical opposite of fear, not conflict, and a word that is closely associated with other biblical motifs such as justice, mercy, and loving kindness (Hosea 2:22-23). Here and in the ’doubting Thomas’ incident when Jesus shows his wounds his disciples recognize him. The symbolism is powerful. The risen Christ is the crucified one; Christ’s presence among the community of believers is recognized by his wounds. This is the Johannine version of the Matthean presence of Christ in the suffering and marginal people of the world (Matthew 25: 31-46).”

How interesting, Jesus comes and shows them His wounds, His suffering. Doesn’t this tell me that like my Savior, I am going to suffer and be wounded because I am not loved or my loved is not received? And what am I to do…forgive…just as Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34).

In the first appearance Jesus tells the apostles, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” Fr. Donahue adds a very interesting commentary on this, “Though later Church teaching sees this gift manifest in the sacrament of reconciliation, its original meaning is wider. The community of disciples is to be a community of forgiveness that sends sins away (the literal meaning of ‘forgive’) and holds in check its destructive power.” It’s so easy to come to the Sacrament and confess my sins and I am forgiven. But do I forgive? Most often my sins are a reaction to me being hurt or not appreciated, or a need I have is not fulfilled and I react in some sort of anger or getting even. I want forgiveness, I ask for forgiveness in the sacrament but I’m not forgiving the person who hurt me. AM I even praying for them? I am called, I am commanded to be Jesus every moment. How am I doing?

Fr. Donahue concludes his commentary on today’s readings, “These readings, along with the passages from Acts and 1 John, offer, a dense collection of motifs for prayer and preaching. By his resurrection Jesus fulfills his promise not to leave his followers orphans (John 14:18) and to bring them the fullness of joy (15:11). His followers share in the very same mission that he received from the Father. With the gift of the Spirit, a disciple of Jesus (ME) is to be the continuing presence of God’s love in the world. Generations who walk in faith without ‘seeing’ are ‘begotten of God’ and more blessed than those who have seen and believed. This faith enables them to live as a community of ‘one heart and one mind,’ the classical description of friendship, which is cemented by concern for the poor and needy. The resurrection proclamation is not simply the victory over death or the promise of eternal life, but a summons to live as a community led by the Spirit, practicing forgiveness and resistance to evil, which takes shape in bonds of friendship that reach across the great economic divide between wealth and poverty”.

I am called, I have been chosen specifically to be Jesus in this world I’m living at this time. It’s not about me; it’s about God first loving me and gifting me so that I can pass on the gift of God’s love. There are good times, there are bad times but the end times promised are the eternal times with God if I am faithful in following Jesus.

So I reflect on:

• I imagine myself huddled in fear with the apostles and I see my Creator and Redeemer, what do I ask for?
• I look at the areas in my life where I am being challenged to forgive, what gift am I asking the Spirit for?
• When have I needed Christ to show me His wounds?
• Forgiveness is one sign of the risen Christ. ‘Forgiveness is the way to experience the peace and joy of Easter. It is a way to meet Christ in one another. Forgiveness binds a family and a community together. How am I doing on forgiveness?’

Sacred Space 2015 says,

“Are the doors of my heart locked? Do I not expect Jesus to show up and visit me? Am I afraid—afraid that my well-ordered ways of thinking and doing things might be turned upside down if I let Jesus in?

Jesus, batter my unyielding heart and break down my defenses and come in.”

April 5, 2015

Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord B

Acts 10: 34, 37-43; Colossians 3: 1-4; John 20: 1-9

It is Easter, let us rejoice and be glad! I take some moments to review my ‘discovery’ of what Easter is.

Growing up in Central New York, Easter ‘kind of’ meant the beginning of spring. Mom and Dad and the five siblings all had shopped for their ‘Easter clothes’. I’m not sure how much choice we had in them, but they all came with mom’s final approval. On Easter we wore them and it didn’t depend on what the weather was like. We had specific instructions, not to get them dirty or messed up and we wore them for the whole day. So I felt that Easter was special because we got dressed up, had special church ceremonies, had a special Easter feast of food, starting with ham and all its trimmings plus two of mom’s special homemade pies. Easter was a celebration of family and faith. I remember them now in a different way, since four of us have passed and are with the Lord. It is a day to rejoice, remember and be grateful for the love of my parents and siblings who have helped me develop into the person I am. They have helped me find the Lord and realize His love for me at all times. It is Easter, let us rejoice and be glad!

I looking now at a painting of Les Disciples depicting Peter and John running to the tomb. Their looks show worry, apprehension, confusion, doubt and at the same time some sort of expectation. Yes the Lord has risen, let us rejoice and be glad. I find it quite interesting that none of the Gospels describe the actual Resurrection itself. Jesus is placed in the tomb, and the next ‘fact’ is that on coming to the tomb it is ‘empty.’ Jesus is risen, as He said. What was the actual Resurrection like, the scriptures never say. Fr Demetrius Dumm, a very holy biblical scholar in Flowers in the desert, a spirituality of the Bible states, “It was a tremendous eschatological event—a kind of explosion on the frontier between time and eternity. It was both historical and metahistorical: in time and beyond time. Its deepest meaning can be perceived only through the eyes of faith and, once perceived, it reveals the meaning of human existence with a clarity that had never existed before. The path of Jesus, a path of loving service, is not the folly that it seems to be, for it leads to eternal life. And the path of selfish pursuits is not the wisdom it seems to be, for it leads to defeat and frustration.”

When Jesus raised Lazarus, He came out of the tomb wrapped in burial cloths. Jesus burial cloths are left behind. Faith is now not in the corpse but in the totally new life, the resurrected life, the promise of life to all who are faithful, the hope that each person lives with. When Mary sees Jesus, she is told to ‘stop holding on’…the earthly relationship is over…but God is with us in a totally new way as each of us continues life on earth and wait to experience the new resurrected life in heaven. Looking at the different parishes I have served and at the different images of Easter...they all speak of new life. From Easter bunnies and chicks, colored eggs, and new clothing to spring bursting into bloom in all its beauty…the cycle of death to life, new life affirms the resurrected plan of God. ‘It is Easter let us rejoice and be glad’. But it still could mean just the fascination with the beauty around us and not be in touch with the beauty within that is the meaning of Easter.

Mary Magdalen who is reported in all the gospels as the first at the scene is not convinced that Jesus rose. The same is true of Peter as is seen in John’s Gospel today. John says that Peter saw: he saw the empty tomb, he saw the burial clothes, but he doesn’t say that he believed. Then John tells us, “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that He had to rise from the dead.” That gift is available to each person now, who can read and discover that God loves each person, always has, and is always with each person, leading them to their heavenly home, the purpose of their existence.

Easter means that I have to say ‘Yes’ and repeatedly say ‘Yes’. Say ‘Yes’ to the presence and love of God in my life. Say ‘Yes’ to God who raised Jesus who is the sustainer of all things and the power behind nature to renew itself. It means saying ‘Yes’ to Jesus who ‘sacrificed’ Himself in love to the Father’s plan for creation and became for every person of all time the sign of God’s love. Easter is saying ‘Yes’ to the hope of Easter, but more especially a concrete message to each person about how that hope is to realized. It is saying ‘Yes’ to the cross: Jesus suffered and died, each of us suffer, especially the pains of proving the extent and depth of our love for God who loves us so that we can rise to a new level of being. Saying ‘Yes’ is so hard; it’s not what my selfish humanity wants to do. Yet it is the way that Jesus showed me in His total love. It is Easter, let us rejoice and be glad!

It is about me saying ‘Yes’…how am I doing with this? Where is my doubt? Where is my hesitation? Am I afraid? Many years ago I read one-time United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold Markings. I found it a tremendous testimony of a meaningful life. His often quoted celebrated lines put this ‘Yes’ bluntly: “I don’t know Who—or what—put the question; I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone—or Something—and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self- surrender, had a goal.”

Thomas Merton in what is known as The Road Ahead puts it in a Christ mode, “My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this, You will lead me by the right road though I may seem to know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Mother Teresa’s Easter Message in Love: a Fruit always in Season brings this message to today. “Easter Sunday ‘He has risen’ Alleluia! May the joy of the risen Jesus Christ be with you. To bring joy into our very soul the good God has given Himself to us. In Bethlehem, ‘joy’ said the angel. In His life, He wanted to share His joy with His apostles ‘that My joy may be in you’. Joy was the password of the first Christians. Saint Paul—how often he repeated himself: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice’ (Philemon 4:4). In return for the great grace of baptism the priest tells the newly baptized: ‘May you serve the Church joyfully.’ Joy is not simply a matter of temperament in the service of God and souls. It is always hard—all the more reason why we should try to acquire it and make it grow in our hearts.”

It is Easter, let us rejoice and be glad!