Unless A Grain Of Wheat…. Each day, as I drove to the parish where I served, I encountered folks driving into our property to exercise-either in the pool or in our SilverSneaker program that is in our home. I was reminded of the saying…No pain, no gain! Those who come to exercise forge ahead with the painful task because their desire for the end result is stronger than their impulse to avoid pain. In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of different kinds of pain. There is the physical pain of his crucifixion, alluded to when he speaks of his being “lifted up from the earth.” He also speaks of the pain of dying, of losing our life, of serving him by following him. In all this pain, the focus is not on the suffering, but on the fruits that come from being faithful. The dying grain “produces much fruit”; losing one’s life now “preserves it for eternal life”; serving brings “honor.” In all these examples, Jesus does not so much emphasize the pain, but the gain. [Liturgy 2015] By dying to self for the good of others we come to new life. Giving ourselves for the sake of others is never easy. Sometimes it even makes demands on us that seem impossible. Both the gospel and second reading make clear that Jesus did not want to suffer. Gospel: “I am troubled now . . . save me”; second reading: “he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears” to his Father. We hear a similar plaintive cry when Jesus prays to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking his Father to save him from the cup of suffering he must drink. Jesus, however, taught us the most important lesson about the paschal mystery: death (self-giving) is the way—the only way—to fullness of Life. The dying itself is a gift and grace because it is a harbinger of new Life. Our glorification is in the very dying because in dying we fully identify with Jesus, who passed through death to risen Life. So will we. Opportunities for dying to self, losing life for the sake of others, and serving Jesus in others are abundant; we need only to see them and respond. For example, parents giving time and energy to help their children grow; employees speaking the truth even when there is personal cost; neighbors responding to the needs of the poor. The glorification we receive for being other-centered is given to us even now in the joy that comes from deepened relationships, from seeing the relief and gratitude of others, from our own satisfaction for having acted like Jesus. In such faithful discipleship, we grow toward the ultimate glorification of eternal Life. Adapted from Renew Internal Year B
Passion Sunday We cry this day, “Hosanna!”, but unlike the people of the city of Jerusalem of long ago, we need not ask, “who is this?” This is Jesus, the one who models for us the mystery of life: dying to self so that we may be exalted, raised to new life. This week we celebrate in pointed liturgies the meaning of our whole Christian living: dying to self so that God can raise us up too. This dying can be as simple as setting aside time to participate in all the Triduum liturgies or as demanding as to recognize what in our lives we still need to abandon to be exalted as daughters and sons of God living new life. Perhaps what we need to abandon is a habit of thinking of ourselves and our own needs first, ahead of others. Perhaps it means not making ourselves the center of attention. Perhaps what we need to abandon is a lot of clutter we’ve accumulated that can tend to take our minds off what is really important. Perhaps we need to abandon the frenetic pace of our lives and cut some things out so we can concentrate on our loved one more or help those in need. In all, what we give up, what we abandon, leads to a new lease on life. Most important, it leads to new and deeper relationships and richer experiences. With Jesus, we pray, “into your hands….”
Receive The Holy Spirit Pentecost, coming in late May or early June, was likely a very beautiful day, without even a stray cloud in the blue sky. The Festival of Weeks, or Pentecost, was a joyous celebration of the spring harvest. Jewish people from all over Israel and many foreign lands came to Jerusalem. Peter and the rest of the disciples were at the Temple bright and early. The day was probably very still, since Jerusalem summers are not windy. The huge crowd at the Temple by 8 or 9 a.m. expected nothing unusual. But . . . suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting! Then divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Pentecost didn’t end when the wind died down and the flames evaporated into the air. It went on. It affected a man like Paul, striking him to the ground on the Road to Damascus and blinding him for three days and nights. It gave a man like Peter courage, converting him from betrayer to preacher. The Spirit inspired women like Phoebe to move from silence to bold speech for Christ. What might we learn from these three about the power of the Spirit to transform minds and hearts? Sometimes the Presence of the Spirit is expected only in terms of the extraordinary. However, the Spirit is also manifested in simple daily experiences , for example, forms of service, peace and forgiveness. The Spirit is also manifested in our courage to embrace dying to self! This dying to self can be so simple as taking time to sit down with people we love and trust to talk things out when life seems not to be going well, offering forgiveness to someone who has hurt us, reaching out with a smile or a word to someone who feels tense and fearful. In all of this we deepen our experience of the gift of the Holy Spirit and peace.
In Christ Alone! When someone whom we love dies, we begin to tell stories about them. The memories of the things they said, the images of the way they looked and acted, flood our minds in the midst of our grief. The stories begin to take shape very soon and they may live on with great vitality. In the beginning, when the grief is still fresh and raw, the stories remain inside of us. It hurts too much to express them aloud. But eventually they are spoken, and in their speaking we begin to find healing. In our Gospel today, we meet meet Mary Magdalene and two of the disciples – Peter and ” the one whom Jesus loved” – as they come to the tomb on their early morning pilgrimage . It is difficult to know exactly what they were thinking, but they must have been deeply shaken by Jesus’ violent death. The stories must have already begun to take shape in their minds and hearts. Perhaps they were still too frightened, and too overwhelmed, to utter these stories aloud, even to one another. After all, it had become dangerous to be associated with this Jesus of Nazareth. But, in the midst of their grief and fear, the memories of who he had been and of what he had done, of the ways in which he had engaged their deepest hopes, must have cascaded over them like a powerful waterfall. [Living Liturgy 2010] Today, rather than trying to understand, let us simply run so that we can enter the mystery and embrace it. As we rejoice in the risen life of Jesus, we are confronted with the cost of the Resurrection – self-emptying for the sake of others. Let us be the Resurrection! Musical Reflection
The Tender Mercy of God The first part of our Gospel leaves a lot of room to fill in the blanks! We don’t know anything about the two tragic events reported in the gospel. Jesus uses these events as teachable moments. These events involve tragic death, and Jesus uses these tragedies to make absolute that unless we repent, we also will die! Then, using the parable of the fig tree, Jesus reveals the patience of God with us, despite our slowness to repent.This is God’s work of mercy; to take what is almost dead and coax it to new life. [Living Liturgy 2010] Standing secure in the graciousness of the new life God offers us does not mean that we don’t need to cooperate with God to cultivate and fertilize our spiritual lives. God waits for us to bear fruit. God waits each and every day of our lives for us to bear fruit. The Good News is; God never gives up on us. All we need to do is respond by dying to self and God brings forth new life in us. Musical Reflection
Love As I Have Loved Today’s gospel begins with God, not us. It describes in sweeping detail the unparalleled, intimate relationship to which the Father and Jesus invite us: chosen by them, given a share in their joy, called friends by them, told everything by them, appointed by them to bear fruit, and given whatever we ask in Jesus’ name. In response, we are to incarnate this divine-human relationship in our relationships with each other: “love one another as I love you.” God’s love is so freely and lavishly given. In turn, we are to empty ourselves and give that love to those we meet. We are not to love on our terms; we are to love as Jesus has loved us. This love is demanding; this is the only love that brings us lasting joy. Yes, the command is simple: “love one another.” The demand is imposing: lay down our lives. Keeping God’s commandments is laying down our lives—we surrender our will to doing God’s will and in this is the dying. Caring for and reaching out to others is laying down our lives—also a dying. Doing the little things every day not because we have to but because we see the other as the beloved of God is dying. We choose all these and other ways of dying because we know this is love and love is risen Life rising to kiss us with a share in divinity. And our joy is complete when we love in this way—as Jesus loves us.
Transfigured I confess I’ve always puzzled over how to bring this particular story alive. For it’s not as though this is something that happens every day. In fact, many of us would assert that we’ve never experienced anything quite like this moment in time where a few chosen disciples join Jesus on a mountain top. Where they witness him in conversation with prominent figures from their faith history. Where they see Jesus’ appearance change in a way that could not be duplicated on earth. And where they hear the very voice of God declaring Jesus’ identity. It’s no wonder Peter attempts to bring it all back down to earth by offering to build some dwellings for them. On the other hand, it’s also no wonder Peter wants to capture this moment, hoping to make it last just a little while longer… I’ve always puzzled over how to bring this story to life. For I, like most of us, don’t spend a lot of time on the mountaintop. Most days while I won’t puzzle over who Jesus actually IS, I will spend considerable energy trying to see him at work in the world. And yet, much like those disciples, I have had those moments of being so privileged to see the past meet the present in such a way that the future somehow holds more promise. Where the light of Jesus is shining but it’s also marked by a kind of cloud of mystery which reminds us this is not of our doing. Moments when I have, in fact, been able to recognize the hand of God all over them. Perhaps you have, too. The face of a newly engaged person shines with joy. The face of a child who has accomplished a difficult task glows with pride. The face of a person who has made a difficult choice to do what is right against all odds reflects peace. These are all visible expressions of transfiguration, although fleeting ones. The transfiguration the disciples witnessed on the “high mountain” was also fleeting: they came “down from the mountain.” At the same time, this transfiguration foreshadowed the theophany of an eternal glory: Christ risen from the dead. Jesus’ theophany of transfiguration and risen Life continues in us in the world today through our participation in the paschal mystery, the dying and rising mystery of Christ. This participation requires of us the same dying to self Jesus embraced. We must set aside our own agenda to pay more attention to the needs of others. We must be generous in recognizing and complimenting the good others do. We must be inclusive in accepting those who do not look or think like we do. These actions are fleeting, but they portend what is everlasting. Experiences of transfiguration help us see beyond what is here and now to what will be—our eternal share in Christ’s risen Life. transfigure us, O Lord by Bob Hurd on Grooveshark
Doing The Will of God In the parable of the Two Sons, another parable unique to Matthew’s Gospel, the father calls one son first to go work in the vineyard. He refuses, but later relents and goes to work. The second son placates the father with a quick agreement to go and work but he never actually goes. Then Jesus asks, “Which of the two did the will of his father?” He tells a story and then asks the listeners to answer a question. The answer seems straightforward on first glance. The first son did the father’s will. But with a second glance, we see that both sons brought dishonor to the father, the first by his words, the second by his deeds. Neither son was in the right. One had the words, and the other had the deeds. We remember from Matthew’s conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount that merely saying the right words does not ensure entry into the kingdom of heaven. Active obedience to Jesus’ teachings must be present Matthew probably meant his community to hear this parable as a summons to the Jewish leaders of their day to imitate the first son and join them in believing in Jesus. He also meant it as a nudge to those Christians who had initially said ‘yes’ and then wavered. Some people struggle to ever make a commitment in the first place, but once they do, are able to muster the discipline and enthusiasm to honor it. Others seem to have less trouble coming to a decision, but then have trouble following through. Many of us fall somewhere in between. Learning God’s ways and changing may, indeed, be a slow and practiced way of life for all of us. Dying to self means our yes is yes and our no is no. To all of us imperfect disciples, Jesus addresses the question, “Which of you is doing the will of the Father?”
Jerusalem, Behold Your King Comes For most of us, Holy Week unfolds like many other weeks: work, school, preparing meals, doing laundry. Palm Sunday begins an unusual week – a week – concentrated in a few days on the ultimate meaning of our lives. We are invited this week to reflect on these questions: Why are we here? What have we been called to do? What are we willing to die for? We have journeyed from Ash Wednesday to this day. This week, we will experience the last hours of the life of Jesus. We must slow down and make choices so that this week does not go by without our taking time to enter into its meaning. In our Gospel today, even in the midst of great suffering, Jesus extends his compassion to others, so total, that he willingly empties himself to the point of death. As we enter this week, let us pray that our self-emptying for the good of others will be so total. We celebrate in the liturgies of this week what we live every day – all the dying to self that characterizes our faithful discipleship. The triumph of this week is in doing our tasks with joy, being kind to those around us [even those cranky folks], meeting setbacks as paths to learning. Then, with Jesus, we can commend ourselves into God’s hands. Jerusalem, My Destiny by Gary Daigle, Rory Cooney & Theresa Donohoo
Who Do You Say I Am? I don’t know exactly how many times in the four Gospel accounts of the New Testament Jesus asks other people to follow him. But it’s well more than 20. The whole question of “Who is willing to follow Jesus Christ?” is pretty much the defining question of Christianity. Some may ask it personally of you : “You mean you believe all of this stuff about forgiveness, and loving enemies, and this resurrection from the dead?” However it’s worded, the whole matter of following Jesus is central to living the Christian faith. The question becomes, “What does it actually mean to follow Jesus, especially in modern times, or in middle- or upper-middle class North America?” If you’re going to take the words of Jesus seriously – those ones about “losing your life for his sake” and “denying yourself” – well, what’s your life going to look like? What does it mean to follow Jesus in your life, and in these times? In our Gospel, Peter recoils at Jesus’ revelation that as “the Christ” he must “suffer greatly…be rejected…be killed, and rise after three days.” Peter is so aghast at the words of Jesus about suffering and death that he fails to hear the most important part of the revelation about who Jesus is and what he is to accomplish. He fails to grasp that through death Jesus will be raised to new life. Today, Jesus asks us “Who do you say I am?” We may quickly answer, “You are the Christ.” However, we may hesitate when we hear Jesus say, “Take up your cross and follow me.” We must lose our life for the sake of others. this is the difficult lesson to be learned. We cannot avoid dying to self if we wish to rise to new life with Jesus. How do we die to self? We must die to our way of thinking [taking the easy way of self-interest,] and embrace how God thinks [carrying the cross of goodness, justice, integrity]. Or we must empty ourselves for the good of another even when we are tired or frustrated or don’t like the other person in need. On our own, living the paschal mystery would be just about impossible. Why we can embrace te dying is because Jesus has already shown us the way. The only way to follow Jesus is to die to self.
Fruit of the Vine How disappointing it is to work hard at something, only to have it go wrong and have no god outcome happen. Students might spend hours studying for an exam, only to discover the have studied the wrong questions. A worker puts in long overtime hours on a project, only to have the manager scuttle the project. How disheartening this is for us, and how often it even results in our hesitating to work so hard the next time. God is amazingly resilient despite human forces and frailties that constantly thwart the divine plan for our salvation. Nothing, not even sparing the life of the divine Son, deters God from offering us a rich heritage in divine life itself. For our part we are to be faithful tennants who rejoie in our heritage and acknowledge that we have been given far more than we expect or deserve. What is the fruit we are to produce? The fruit of the kingdom is the life God offers but the only way to produce that fruit is to die to self. The kingdom involves our rooting out anything that keeps us from growing in relationship with God and hearing God’s word, our dying to self so that we can do God’s willl. As faithful tenants we plant seeds of encouragement and hope, we water the growing fruit with prayer, we fertilize it with reflection on God’s word, we cultivate it by good works and we celebrate its abundance by sharing it with others. We are heirs to more than our rightful share. We receive an inconceivable heritage, abundant life that cannot be pressed out.
Why Have You Abandoned Me? We cry this day, “Hosanna!”, but unlike the people of the city of Jerusalem of long ago, we need not ask, “who is this?” This is Jesus, the one who models for us the mystery of life: dying to self so that we may be exalted, raised to new life. This week we celebrate in pointed liturgies the meaning of our whole Christian living: dying to self so that God can raise us up too. This dying can be as simple as setting aside time to participate in all the Triduum liturgies or as demanding as to recognize what in our lives we still need to abandon to be exalted as daughters and sons of God living new life. Perhaps what we need to abandon is a habit of thinking of ourselves and our own needs first, ahead of others. Perhaps it means not making ourselves the center of attention. Perhaps what we need to abandon is a lot of clutter we’ve accumulated that can tend to take our minds off what is really important. Perhaps we need to abandon the frenetic pace of our lives and cut some things out so we can concentrate on our loved one more or help those in need. In all, what we give up, what we abandon, leads to a new lease on life. Most important, it leads to new and deeper relationships and richer experiences. With Jesus, we pray, “into your hands….”
Discipleship – At What Cost? What do you find hard to let go of? What sort of things make it hard for you to be a disciple? In today’s selection from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus laid out three “trip wires” for discipleship: attachment to family, the hard consequences of discipleship, and attachment to possessions. All three have a caveat. If someone cannot detach from family or possessions, if someone cannot live out the consequences of Christian life, he or she “is not able to be my disciple” Attachment to family came first. For, place in family defined place in society. Jesus did not condemn society or the clan system that built it. He simply used a Semitic idiom of extreme language to make his point. When he said “hate,” Jesus was not talking about emotional revulsion and physical distance. He was talking about spiritual detachment, the ability to put God first (before relationship or self-interest). Indeed, spiritual detachment requires one to die to self-interest and let God be Lord of one’s life. Without such detachment, one does not have the ability to truly follow Jesus. Next, Jesus spoke of carrying one’s cross. We sometimes reduce the meaning of this phrase to our personal struggles. For early Christians, however, this phrase had a far more literal meaning. As Jesus went to the cross, his followers could taste death for their devotion to the Master. Jesus, then, told his audience they must accept that palpable danger. If they did not, they did not have the ability to be a true disciple. Third, Jesus turned again to the notion of attachment. This time, he addressed the subject of possessions with two parables. The first parable involved a farmer constructing a silo (i.e., a “tower”). Without the money, why should a farmer rush to build a silo that will stand only half-finished? If that happened, the farmer would look like a fool. The second parable spoke of a king planning strategy against a belligerent opponent. Can the king win the battle against an army twice the size of his own? Or should he sue for peace? In either case, the message of Jesus rang out clearly. Stop! Think long and hard about Christian discipleship before a decision is made. Divided priorities drain the ability of the person to be a disciple. We all have possessions, relationships, or ideals we guard zealously. Like Jesus’ challenge to his audience, he asks us if we can stand back and view them in the bigger picture. Before we grab these things, people, or causes and hold them close, can we ask God how important they are and what priority we give them? Can we look to God first and put everything else second?
Choose Not the Higher Position According to scripture, our social aspirations betray the placement of our hearts – with God, or with false idols. In a passage unique to Luke, Jesus, in our Gospel today, insists that, contrary to everything society tells us, we should not try to “keep up with the Joneses.” Rather, we should keep “down” with those in need, “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” and rejoice when they cannot repay us, “for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous”. Jesus uses two familiar social situations – dining at table and guest invitation lists- to teach us about knowing our self in both our gifts and limitations. The first parable about wedding guests invites us to reflect on knowing ourselves in relation to others. We are invited but it is God who invites. Our relationship with God is as those who are poor; we cannot buy our place in heaven. It is in God’s choosing us that we share in divine riches and sharing in God’s life. If this is how God relates to us, then this is how we relate to others. The second parable invites us to reflect on how we wish God to relate to us. No one is excluded from the banquet. Neither should we exclude others from our attention and service. We are called to extend ourselves to all others, regardless of social or economic class , religious affiliation or gender. We give ourselves over for the good of others.
Who Will Be Saved? “Who will be saved?” If you Google the question, there are pages and pages of search results and books galore trying to distill the answer! Many of the entries try to streamline the response! Our Gospel for this Sunday makes it very clear who will be saved. Jesus makes it very clear, that the journey to Jerusalem, the journey of salvation is very demanding and always requires dying to self. During Lent, we sang a song penned by Rory Cooney entitled, Jerusalem, My Destiny. Part of the refrain contains these words: I have fixed my eyes on your hills, Jerusalem, my Destiny. Though I cannot see the end for me I cannot turn away. We have set our hearts for the way; this journey is our destiny.Let no one walk alone. The journey makes us one. Jesus walks the journey with us and shows us the way to what we desire most in our lives – life with God! Our salvation is not without cost! Being a disciple means daily dying to self and living for the sake of the other – seeking reconciliation with another; accompanying a dying spouse or parent; reaching out in compassion to a neighbor in need. The journey makes us one. Who will be saved? The one who looses their life for the sake of the other.
Cost of Discipleship Sometimes I need a push to dive into something demanding, be it an unpleasant task, a tediously long and boring job or just motivating myself for a variety of tasks. Motivation and persistence do not come naturally to many of us. When I diet I figure that a good way to cut calories and lose weight is to begin early in the morning and skip breakfast and follow a diet from these fat flusher diet reviews. However, everything I read tells me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast gives me the personal jolt I need to get myself going with work or whatever; a balanced, nutritious breakfast also jolts the metabolism and gives off energy. After the resurrection, the disciples need a jolt. They cannot return to their former way of living. They have encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry. Now they encounter the risen Christ and are invited to share in his ongoing ministry. This Sunday’s gospel is one in which the word “breakfast” occurs . It is early in the morning—“already dawn.” The right time for breakfast with all its advantages. The disciples have been out fishing and, upon returning to shore, Jesus asks them, “have you caught anything to eat?” Their answer was a simple, unqualified “No.” No fish, no breakfast. Not so! Jesus invites them, “Come, have breakfast.” It is as though Jesus knows the disciples need a jolt—they need to be tugged out of their familiar routine and transformed. They need the spiritual nutrition of encounter and belief for them to declare their love and follow with fidelity. [Living Liturgy 2013] When I diet I figure that a good way to cut calories and lose weight is to begin early in the morning and skip breakfast and follow a diet from these fat flusher diet reviews. However, everything I read tells me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast gives me the personal jolt I need to get myself going with work or whatever; a balanced, nutritious breakfast also jolts the metabolism and gives off energy, resurge is the perfect vitamin supplement to use on a daily basis while trying to lose weight. After the resurrection, the disciples need a jolt. They cannot return to their former way of living. They have encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry. Now they encounter the risen Christ and are invited to share in his ongoing ministry. This Sunday’s gospel is one in which the word “breakfast” occurs . It is early in the morning—“already dawn.” The right time for breakfast with all its advantages. The disciples have been out fishing and, upon returning to shore, Jesus asks them, “have you caught anything to eat?” Their answer was a simple, unqualified “No.” No fish, no breakfast. Not so! Jesus invites them, “Come, have breakfast.” It is as though Jesus knows the disciples need a jolt—they need to be tugged out of their familiar routine and transformed. They need the spiritual nutrition of encounter and belief for them to declare their love and follow with fidelity. [Living Liturgy 2013] This gospel details the transformation made possible by the risen Christ. The Resurrection transforms the way things are. The risen Christ transforms the way we are, enabling us to obey his ongoing invitation, “Follow me.” We are fortified by Jesus’ risen Presence, by his invitation to follow, by his own love for us that transforms our love into faithfulness and fruitfulness. Risen Life fortifies us for the transformation needed on our discipleship journey of seeing-believing. Risen Life is given to us by Christ, but we must also seek it. Risen Life is a gift, but we must also grasp it. The Gospel for this Sunday is about a journey but the end is not something I would choose. As I reflected on our Gospel I was reminded of the following quote from a book I read early in my spiritual journey – “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” With these words, in The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave powerful voice to the millions of Christians who believe personal sacrifice is an essential component of faith. Jesus is determined to journey to Jerusalem. This might seem like a pleasant trip, until we realize that the journey to Jerusalem is really a metaphor for his passion, death and resurrection! As disciples, we are invited to join Jesus on this journey to new life. The challenge of this Gospel is to accept the cost of discipleship – to accept dying to self that is necessary to following Jesus and to cooperate with him in establishing God’s reign. Frustration and fatigue, disappointment and rejection can stop us dead in our tracks. Even so, Jesus is very patient. giving us the strength we need to continue the journey. This strength comes from the love and support of family and friends, through learning to let go of less important things, by experiencing the good of our self-giving. The Good News – rely on Jesus who has promised to be with us to the end of our journey.
Who Do You Say that I Am? Anyone involved with youth knows that the question of identity is the question for them. They are trying to find out who they are in terms of talents, career choices, how they relate to others. All of this is a positive step in maturation during which they identify their strengths and weaknesses, consider their gifts and bond with others who help them in this somewhat painful process. When asked about who they are, no one would answer in terms of pain, suffering or death. In our Gospel today, Jesus asks a similar question about his identity. When Peter answers, the Christ of God, little did he know that implied suffering greatly, being rejected and being killed! This is the way Jesus becomes who he really is – the Risen One. When we think Jesus’ mission we usually think of his teaching and preaching, his healing and working miracles. Bur underlying these activities is his suffering, death and resurrection. And so it is with us. We are called to daily take up our cross; to die to ourselves and to care for others. Following Jesus has its cost. We save our lives by losing them. Self-giving is life-giving.
Pentecost Pentecost! The celebration of… what? Flames on heads? Speaking in tongues? The blessing of the Spirit on individuals? Although Pentecost was originally a festival celebration of the wheat harvest in ancient Israel, and of the giving of the law which defined Israel as a nation, for Christians it is known as the time when the power of the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, and is sometimes called the birthday of the church. In that sense, Pentecost, which can also refer to the entire 50 days between the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, is the celebration of the formation of the church as corporate body. Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to guide his disciples, just before he ascends to heaven, is sealed with the arrival of the Spirit on Pentecost. The Spirit of God has, of course, been present since the beginning of creation, but the event of Pentecost marks the moment when the Spirit works to mediate the presence of the Risen Christ to the church community. Pentecost, then, is more about the corporate body of the church than about the spiritual presence of God to individual believers. The Spirit is now available to guide the church in its mission to bring the Gospel to the world. The effect on the disciples as they receive the Spirit is interesting in this respect. They begin to speak in languages other than their own, with the crowd who gathers hearing the disciples speak in their own language. This is the reversal of what happened with the curse of Babel, which resulted in confusion and lack of understanding between peoples. Rather, at Pentecost, all are made able to understand the message of the Gospel, and are drawn into the church through the power and understanding given by the Spirit. What should this mean for us today, as a people of the Spirit? By this indwelling of the Spirit, we ourselves become advocates of God’s presence for others. It maybe as simple as a reassuring touch or a helping hand. It might be a sacrifice of time in volunteering for a task that needs to be done for the good of all. In all, we are called to die to ourselves in order to be the true presence of Christ for others.
A New Commandment There is a literary device novelists, playwrights and screen writers sometimes use known as a flashback. A flashback fills in details that are helpful to us, the viewer or reader, to understand the unfolding story and/or to remind us of previous incidents. Today’s Gospel functions as a flashback for us. The context is Jesus’ farewell discourse which really happened before Jesus’ passion, death and Resurrection. Now we read these words after those events and hear his words in a new light. It is only in the Resurrection that we begin to understand Jesus’ final command: “love one another as ‘i have loved you.” This commandment to love one another requires a new way of living our lives for the other without counting the cost; dying to self for the common good. Our dying to self reveals the measure of our love for the other.
Known by the Shepherd My experience with sheep is limited. I have watched them grazing from a distance. I’ve walked among them on my uncle’s farm and found them skittish and aloof. I am allergic to wool. Most of what I’ve heard about sheep is unflattering. They are reputed to be stupid, lacking in initiative and likely to fall over cliffs or entangle themselves in brush. They are not playful. Lambs have a winsome charm, but the adult animal is a little boring. Rams are distinguished by their horns. Although there may be some variation in color, most sheep resemble every other sheep in the flock. To see one sheep is to have seen them all. And there is no such thing as an independent or self-made sheep. A sheep needs the shepherd to guide and care for it and – in dire straits – to rescue it. There is nothing sentimental about this relationship: for the sheep it is a matter of survival, and for the shepherd a matter of economy. The sheep are valuable property, not pets to be cuddled. In our Gospel today, Jesus names himself the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd knows his sheep as individuals. Each one is worthy of his care and attention. Today, let us rest a bit in what the Good Shepherd offers us when we live the paschal mystery. For all our efforts to dying to self for the sake of the other, they do not equal the gift of self that Jesus gives us. Let us rest a bit this Sunday, basking in Jesus’ care and protection, listening to his voice calling us to his loving embrace, This, too, is living the paschal mystery.
Gone Fishing! If you walk into my office you will find a small sign – “Gone fishing”. This saying can either be read literally, indicating that I have really gone fishing, or it may mean that I have taken a break from the demands of my ministry. In our Gospel today, little does Peter realize that his fishing trip will end up immersing him ever more fully in the demands of a different kind of work. It would seem that the disciples are missing the point of the Resurrection and how the Resurrection changes one’s life because Peter and the others revert back to what they know – they’ve gone fishing! The two scenes in our Gospel, the miraculous catch of fish and Jesus’ dramatic encounter with Peter capture two interrelated Easter mysteries- abundance of new life and love that overflows into following the risen Christ to the point of death. We give our lives because we have first been loved by God. Following Jesus isn’t easy for it means dying to self, even to the point of death for the sake of the other. We share in this new life only if we are willing to share in its cost -dying to self for the sake of the other. Let us take care that our actions announce God’s blessings and God’s care.
“Peace Be With You” This isn’t Ordinary Time but a season of purposeful time. On this Second Sunday of Easter, we continue to remember the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus and marvel in the light of the Risen Lord. As we do so, we find our identity, as the body of Christ. Eastertide is about the resurrection of Jesus; yes, but it also and perhaps especially about the new life he opens up for all in the body of Christ and the unstoppable mission on which he sends us as his disciples. It’s a mission of making sure the poor get good news, of releasing captives (and welcoming them back into our communities!), healing and restoring the sick, the lame, and the blind, witnessing to and joining the work of God’s kingdom whenever and wherever it may be found, and declaring God’s saving love and power that brings us into eternal life through Jesus Christ by our words and our actions. We haven’t seen the risen Jesus in person with our eyes, yet many of us believe. Many of us can testify that “the Spirit bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God.” Still all of us, at times; and some of us, nearly all the time, struggle with belief, just like Thomas in the story from John’s Gospel. This story comes as a radical shift in tone. This story is for those who haven’t yet believed or seen or felt something of the resurrection of Jesus. Three times in the Gospel the risen Lord addresses the gathered “Peace be with you.” What is this peace He brings? It is a peace that allays fears, empowers forgiveness and prompts us to accept that suffering and death is the doorway to new life. When we live this “Peace of Christ”, our lives are marked by self-giving, forgiveness and genuine care for the other – even our enemies. As we offer the “Peace of Christ” today, let us remember, we move from bright lights to shadows, from joyous determination to fearful confusion. And the good news in this story is that our risen Lord comes to us wherever we are, however we are, and brings us what we need to believe, never condemning us for our doubts but meeting us in them.
Isn’t This Joseph’s Son? One night, not so long ago, I was praying and asked to know where I was not one with God. The next day, a knock at my door and for the next hour, I found out where I was not one with God! Be careful of what you pray for! We find it easy to speak to people when we have pleasant things to say and they are obviously glad to hear them. On the other hand, we tend to shy away from delivering words of confrontation, criticism, challenge. Neither do we ourselves like to hear such negative remarks. Yet at the same time, we realize that growth often results from what we really do not want to hear. Our Gospel today challenges us to stand pat on the truth of God’s word even to stake our life on it. While the Gospel is always Good News, it is not always comfortable, because it stretches us beyond where we are right now. Our response can be amazement or fury, welcoming Jesus or expelling him from our midst, growing in discipleship or stagnating in narrowness. If the chatter at work grows uncharitable or coarse, do we have the courage to walk away? If prejudice exists among our friends and acquaintances do we have the courage to extol the dignity of the minority? Do we have the courage to place Gospel values before any others and are we willing to stake our lives on them? The real challenge comes when we are nudged to live the Gospel. What determines your response?
They Did Not Understand How disconcerting we find it when we need to tell another something of great importance and that person is clearly not listening! Their lack of response is hurtful and we experience personal rejection. Often we decide never again to confide anything of importance to that person. Not so with Jesus. The most important concern of his ministry was to help others to grow in new life and to accomplish this he had to suffer and die. The disciples don’t want to hear about. Jesus does not give up on them! Rather, he teaches them what he really is about. In his persistence, Jesus chose to die to self, become servant of all and continue to lead others to new understanding and new life. Jesus persists in teaching us with the same intensity. We hear his Word proclaimed, see his goodness in others. We take up our cross to follow him. In all of this, we are called to be persistent in dying to self for the good of the other.