OT XIII [C]: I Kgs 19:16b, 19-21; Gal 5:1, 13-18; Lk 9:51-62

Jesus is traveling to Jerusalem for the last time.  Along the way, he meets three men who have heard his call in their hearts. These encounters teach us three tough lessons about what it means to follow Christ. To follow Christ, we have to transfer our sense of security.  We have to relocate it from ourselves to God. We have to unlearn the lesson we have been taught our whole life long, to rely only on ourselves for success and happiness. We have to learn to rely wholly upon God, plugging all our efforts in life into his grace. This is what Jesus means when he says that "foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to rest his head."

Christ is trustworthy, but he is not predictable. When we follow him, we have to agree to go one step and one day at a time - he refuses to give us a full-life outline in advance. When we follow him, we have to stop pretending that we can keep our lives under control by our own efforts. By accepting Christ's friendship, we agree to follow him, to put our lives under his leadership.

The prophet Elisha gives us an eloquent example of this transferal of our security in the First Reading. When Elijah comes and calls him [Elisha] to become his successor as Israel's prophet, Elisha goes back home to tie up loose ends. And he really ties them up.

He was a farmer. His whole livelihood, his whole way of life, was linked to his farm. This was how he made his way in the world. Up until the time of his calling, this was the source of his security. But when God makes his will known, Elisha doesn't hesitate to break completely with that former way of life. He doesn't just leave the farm behind. He actually slaughters his most important farm animals and burns his most precious tools - offering them all to the Lord as a sign that from now on he will depend on God for his livelihood and his happiness. Not everyone is called to serve God in this way, by consecrating their lives completely to the Church. But all Christians are called to make a spiritual offering to God of our oxen and our plows, of those things, talents, or activities that we tend to depend on instead of God.

God can only fill our lives with the meaning and fruitfulness we long for if we put him first, trusting that he will lead us better than we can lead ourselves.

 

We live in a fallen world. When we declare ourselves to be citizens of Christ's Kingdom, in a sense, we lose our citizenship in this world; we become aliens, refugees waiting to return home to heaven, or, as sacred Scripture often affirms, pilgrims. This earth is no longer our home, and the closer we get to Christ, the more we realize it, the more we feel its sufferings and imperfections. Christ only reached Easter Sunday by passing through Good Friday, and Christians can expect nothing less.

Two young martyrs names are mentioned in the First Eucharistic prayer: Saints Perpetua and Felicity. Their lives are so challenging to any Christian of all times. Perpetua, a young noblewoman and her slave Felicity, were martyred for their faith in A.D. 203, under emperor Severus. At the time of their arrest, Perpetua had an infant son, and Felicity was pregnant and a couple of days before their martyrdom she also gave birth.

Prior to their arrest, the women had been studying the Scriptures and were preparing for baptism. They were baptized in prison by their teacher, who was imprisoned with them. Their prison warden was so inspired by their faith that he converted.

While she was in prison, Perpetua wrote about the circumstances leading up to their death in a diary that was later published as The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity – one of the earliest writings by a Christian woman. Perpetua’s mother was a Christian but her father was a Pagan.

In that diary she described: While we were still under arrest, my father out of love for me was trying to persuade me and shake my resolution.

“Father,” said I, “do you see this vase here, for example?”

“Yes, I do,” said he.

And I told him: “Could it be called by any other name than what it is?”

And he said: “No.”

“Well, so too I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.”

Despite threats of persecution and death, Perpetua, Felicity refused to renounce their Christian faith.

In her diary, Perpetua describes her period of captivity: “What a day of horror! Terrible heat, owing to the crowds! Rough treatment by the soldiers! To crown all, I was tormented with anxiety for my baby…. Such anxieties I suffered for many days, but I obtained leave for my baby to remain in the prison with me, and being relieved of my trouble and anxiety for him, I at once recovered my health, and my prison became a palace to me and I would rather have been there than anywhere else.”

Perpetua and Felicity were thrown into an arena of wild animals, but they were not killed. Tragically, the emperor Severus then commanded that they be put to death by the sword.

Persecution for religious beliefs is not confined to Christians in ancient times. Consider Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who with her family, was forced into hiding and later died in Bergen-Belsen, one of Hitler’s death camps during World War II. Anne, like Perpetua and Felicity, endured hardship and suffering and finally death because she committed herself to God. In her diary, Anne writes, “It’s twice as hard for us young ones to hold our ground, and maintain our opinions, in a time when all ideals are being shattered and destroyed, when people are showing their worst side, and do not know whether to believe in truth and right and God.” Perptual and Felicity did not have a long history of the Church before them only a little over a hundred years. How could two young mothers with babies not older than a couple of weeks say I love Christ more than my own life and my babies? Can you and I do that? Let’s think over it and check how strong our faith in Christ is.

 

THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST [C] (Gn 14:18-20, 1Cor 11:23-26, Lk 9: 11b-17)

The Solemnity of Easter was the revelation of Jesus as the Son of God and his oneness with God the Father. At the end of the Easter season we celebrated the Pentecost, the revelation of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity and His oneness with the Father and Son. Last Sunday we had the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, the worship of the One God in three different persons. And, today we have the Feast of the Most holy Body and Blood of Christ, honoring the sacrifice of Christ.

At the heart of the system of worship in the Old Testament is sacrifice: the offering to God of the best that humanity has to give Him. Much of the book of Leviticus is given over to setting out how the people of Israel are to worship God with sacrifice. Indeed, from the beginning of Genesis, the importance of right worship is a theme we find in the narrative: there is the story of Cain and Abel and the offerings they make, and we encounter too the slightly mysterious figure of Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, and his offering of bread and wine about which we read in today’s first reading. He is the first priest mentioned in the Bible, and he comes long before the Jewish priesthoods of Aaron and Levi are established. Melchizedek is therefore an example of religion before Scripture. Human beings existed long before recorded history; the stories in the Bible are actually very recent in the grand sweep of human existence. Melchizedek is a sign of God’s care for human beings before he chose his Chosen People. In Psalm 101, Jesus Christ is predicted — a king from before the dawn of time who will outlast time, and a priest from before priesthood whose sacrifice will end all sacrifice.

Alongside those texts which speak of the need to worship with sacrifice, we also find passages of the Old Testament which treat sacrifice as a much more ambivalent phenomenon. ‘I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,’ (Hosea 6:6), ‘the knowledge and love of God is greater than burnt offerings.’ In Psalm 49(50), animal sacrifice seems almost to be mocked: ‘Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?’ Sacrifice – the attempt to give anything, even what we hold most valuable, to God – is always going to fall short, because at the most fundamental level we don’t have anything to give Him which is not already His. Thus, one of the dangers of offering sacrifice is that we can think that, by giving God something valuable, we have in some sense ‘bought Him off’ and done our bit in relation to God, so that we can then act as we choose without further reference to Him. This is the attitude Isaiah criticizes when he says, ‘bring your worthless offerings no more’ (1:13), and ‘stop doing evil! Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor, defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow’ (1:16-17).

But if the offering of sacrifice is so problematic, or liable to misunderstanding as it seems to be from the history of the Old Testament, why is it nonetheless such an important element of the worship? In the context of today’s feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we can find part of the answer in the sacrifice of Christ, the perfection of humans’ worship of God. The Old Testament teaches us that sacrifice – despite the dangers of misunderstanding and abuse – is important because that helps us to understand what Christ does for us on the Cross. His offering, unlike human beings’ earlier attempts, really is perfect and sufficient, because the life he freely offers to the Father is the life he shares with the Father from all eternity, an offering more precious than the whole of the universe or anything in it and an offering which is as much the Son’s to give, as it is the Father’s to receive.

Because Christ’s offering is perfect, a worthy sacrifice to give to God, human beings, in Christ, can now offer truly acceptable worship to God. Not only has Christ offered himself, once for all, as a perfect and living sacrifice, but he has given us the means to participate in that sacrifice in a manner appropriate to our earthly life, allowing us – the Church, his Body – to offer his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to the Father under the appearance of bread and wine. The sacrifice of the Mass is the source and summit of our Christian life because it simply is the praise and worship of God in which the life of heaven consists. As the book of Revelation presents, there is a constant praise and worship of God by the denizens of Heaven.

The Eucharist follows this pattern. There is constant praise and worship of God for giving us a second birth through Christ who sacrificed himself for us and shares himself with us. How Jesus shares himself is well represented in the miracle of the Gospel today. Jesus took the loaves and fishes that the Apostles gave him, and he multiplied them.

We give to God simple bread and wine. Then, through the ministry of the priest, Jesus takes these gifts, blesses them, and transforms them into his very self, his real presence. Our offerings represent our lives and work. Our offerings are both the fruits of our labor, and the means by which we stay alive. He wants us to give him our lives, our work, our resources, our talents, our time, thereby our whole week’s life, every efforts our week becomes a sacrifice. He will transform what we give to him with his grace, and make them blossom in ways far beyond we could ever imagine. We should never live it as an empty ritual or dry obligation.

When we bring our everything to him for his blessing: Our sicknesses, spiritual and physical, he can bless us with healing, spiritual or physical, as he sees best for our souls. St. Cyril of Alexandria said. “The Savior will multiply the little you have beyond expectation.”

To give due honor to the Body and Blood of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament involves those ritual actions by which we express our faith in the real presence, like worthy celebrating the Mass, offering everything without restraint, taking time communicating with Jesus after the reception of the Holy communion, spending time before the blessed sacrament etc., but more than that, it involves living a life which expresses that mystery of God’s love for humanity through the Eucharist, we share. So, on this feast of the Eucharist, let’s ask for the grace to help us grow in appreciation of the most real presence of God among us.

 

 

Cycle [C] Ascension of the Lord

 Acts 1:1-11; Ephes. 1:17-23 or Heb. 9:24-28, 10:19-23; Lk. 24:44-53

Today we celebrate the "Ascension of the Lord" Jesus. The visible departure of the Lord concluded the Risen Jesus' sojourn on earth. This also marks the beginning of a new phase in Christ’s relationship to humanity. As his visible presence ends, his "spiritual presence” begins in the Church.

The disciples worship Jesus as Lord when his divine identity was finally confirmed through his Resurrection. His divine authority is revealed as he now departs to heaven, taking his proper place at the right hand of the Father.  How do we know he is at the right hand of God? We get references in two letters and also in Acts where Stephen sees Jesus at the right hand of God when he was being stoned to death.  The line from the Apostles' Creed “He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty” has both theological and practical implications. The “right hand” is seen as a place of honor and status throughout the biblical text. Therefore, it is affirmation that Jesus has equal status to the Father within the Godhead (Hebrews 1:3, 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22; Acts 7:55-56).

Jesus leads his disciples out of the city towards Bethany, and the word for ‘to lead’ that is used by Luke here is often used in the Old Testament to describe the Exodus from Egypt. Here we have the completion of Christ’s new Exodus which he had been discussing with Moses and Elijah during his Transfiguration (Lk 9:31). The location of the Ascension at Bethany offers a similar sense of closure to the Gospel story, for it was at Bethany that Jesus began his triumphal entry into Jerusalem the week before his Passion (Lk 19:28-44). The beginning of his triumphal entry into Jerusalem becomes the place of his true triumphal entry, as he ascends to heaven. The disciples return to Jerusalem with great joy, where they spent their days in the Temple, blessing God, almost a classic ‘happily ever after’ ending.

This feast is also a beginning as the disciples are given their new mission which will begin at Pentecost, the completion of the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, as he sends the Holy Spirit upon the apostles in visible form, impelling to their new task. In our First Reading from the beginning of Acts, we have the first hints of this new movement as Jesus tells the apostles that they will be his witnesses ‘in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). The response of the angels, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?’ (Acts 1:11) sounds a little like an attempt to cajole them into action: what are you doing standing around? There’s work to be done. The Ascension begins that movement from Jerusalem out to the furthest ends of the known world that we have been hearing about day after day as we read the Acts of the Apostles. The book of Acts gives the account of Jesus acting through His followers.

Jesus is alive and will live through us and manifest himself to others if only we become available to him as a medium for him. We have to become his hands and feet, and his tongue and face.  A preacher used to keep a pair of old leather gloves on his desk. Before he would go to preach he would put the old gloves on and flex it several times. Someone asked him, “why do you do that?” He said, “To remind me of this vital lesson, that the gloves are absolutely impotent and powerless until my hands slipped into it.”

 

God prepares us and works in us through His Word, prayer, Sacraments, and sometimes through suffering in our life to strengthen our will and form our character for his ministry.   

The Bible shows many examples. God spent 40 years working in Moses before He could work through him. At the beginning of his ministry, Moses was impetuous and depended on his own strength. He killed an Egyptian and had to flee Egypt, hardly a successful way to start a ministry. But during those 40 years as a humble shepherd in the desert, Moses experienced God’s working in his life, a working that prepared him for forty more years of magnificent service.

There are other examples. Joseph suffered for thirteen years before God put him on the throne of Egypt, as second to Pharaoh. David was anointed king when he was a youth, but he did not gain the throne until he had suffered many years as an exile. Even the Apostle Paul spent three years in Arabia after his conversion, no doubt experiencing God’s deeper work to prepare him for his ministry. God has to work in us before He can work through us.

Ascension does not just mark the beginning of the new story of the nascent Church, but also another new movement, the movement of the virtue of hope. Our hope of reaching our heavenly homeland is not something static, for, as the Collect of today’s Mass tells us, where the Head has gone before in glory, the Body is called to follow in hope. But our following of Christ cannot mean that we are like the men of Galilee standing and looking into heaven. Instead, our hope puts us on a pilgrim journey to heaven.

Let us be willing and ready to submit ourselves in the hands of God that He will work through us to spread the message of hope, the message of Ascension.

Ps. Next two Sundays I will be visiting Greece and there won't be any posting of homilies those Sundays.

 

Easter VI:C: Acts 15:1-2, 22-29; Rv 21:10-14, 22-23; Jn 14:23-21

 Today we are brought back to the night of the Last Supper. It is Christ's last meal with his closest followers. He wants to leave them a parting gift: Peace. "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you." What does he mean by peace? Not what we usually think: "Not as the world gives do I give it to you."Christ's peace is lasting. It is interior peace of  the heart, which overflows into peace in families, in communities, in entire nations. It is the peace that comes from knowing without any doubt whatsoever that we are loved by him and that whenever we offend him, he will always be ready to forgive us. Only because Christ has given us this peace, by giving us faith in his love, mercy, and mission, he can command us: "Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid." 

If our peace were based on anything else: popularity, wealth, comfort, or power, it would be unstable, because all those things are vulnerable to change. But Christ's peace isn't vulnerable, because it's based on his love, mercy, and his mission to us to preach the kingdom he established by his death and resurrection. When he established the kingdom he defeated sin and death and that is why every time Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection he greeted them peace. He brought us peace between God and between human beings. That is also why St.Paul tells us in Ephesians that Jesus is our peace. Therefore, we exchange peace soon after the prayer Our Father at the end of the Mass.

We have all heard the proverb, still waters run deep. It's true for lakes and oceans, but it's also true for the spiritual life. The deeper our friendship with Christ, the more stable our lives become. Even when storms come and make waves on the surface of the ocean, the depths remain calm. Christ wants us to learn to live a deep spiritual life, so that we can experience profound interior peace.

A few years ago the Vietnamese Cardinal Joseph Xavier van Thuan [twahn] died in Rome, exiled from his homeland. Everyone who knew him during the last years of his life was impressed by his interior peace and joy. He was someone who had found Christ's peace, the stability that comes from discovering and clinging to the deeper truths. Before his exile he was serving as Archbishop of Saigon. After the Vietnam War, when the communists took over both North and South Vietnam, he was arrested by the communist authorities. He spent the next 13 years in prison, as the communists tried unsuccessfully to destroy the Catholic Church in that country. Nine of those years were spent in solitary confinement, in gruesome conditions and horrible privations. At first the authorities decided to have only two guards watch over the Archbishop, so as not to risk contaminating too many young soldiers with the Archbishop's Catholic ideas. But after a month, Bishop van Thuan had made friends with both of them and taught them some Christian hymns and prayers.

The officials were forced to rotate guards every week in order to avoid such embarrassing conversions. But the rotation strategy backfired. The holy bishop radiated Christ's goodness so powerfully, even in the midst of his emotional and physical suffering, that he would win over his guards without even trying, sparking their curiosity and interest in his "secret" - that is, his faith. In the end, they went back to assigning two permanent guards. It was better to lose two than twenty. That's the kind of interior strength and peace of mind that Christ wants to give us.

Most of us probably don't experience this peace as much as we would like to. And yet, we do experience it. When life's storms come, we know where to go. We know that Christ is there for us with his peace. We can experience him and his peace in the Eucharist and in confession. We can run to his Mother, Mary, the Queen of Peace.

The best way to grow in our knowledge of Christ is through prayer. Sometimes our prayer life gets stunted because our concept of prayer is distorted; we think of prayer as merely "saying prayers." Prayer is much more than that. The catechism defines prayer as a "vital and personal relationship with the living and true God" (#2558). Prayer can take many forms, the most common of which is "saying prayers". But there is also Christian meditation, or mental prayer. There is the Rosary, which was John Paul II's favorite prayer. There is adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. There is the perfect prayer, the Mass.

 

Today, when Jesus renews his commitment to us, let's take up his offer of peace by renewing our commitment to get to know him better each day, by growing deeper in our prayer life.

 

 

Easter V [C]: Acts 14:21-27; Rv 21:1-5a; Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35

Today we are reminded of the fundamental pattern of Christian life: Cross and Resurrection. We have seen this theme frequently in recent weeks leading to Easter, but the Church wants us to look at it again. St. Paul describes the path to Heaven as hardship, but Our Lord in today’s Gospel calls it the moment of his glorification. When John in his gospel talks about glorification, he is referring to Jesus being crucified. As Judas goes out to betray Our Lord, the Lord says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” 

St Luke, the author of the First Reading from the Book of Acts, summarizes the preaching of Paul and Barnabas in one sentence.  'They strengthened the spirits of the disciples and exhorted them to persevere in the faith, saying, "It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.'" In other words, only through the Cross can we reach the Resurrection; only through self-sacrificing love can we experience true Christian joy.

St John in the Second Reading gives us the same message from the other direction. He paints a picture of heaven, where the saints live in perfect communion with God. The main characteristic of that life is that God "will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away." The old order is our life here and now in the pilgrim Church on earth. It will pass away; it won't always be like this. But for the time being, it's full of wailing and weeping, mourning and pain. This should be a big relief for us. It means that we don't have to pretend as if we have it all together. It means that God knows that life is messy, and that's OK. In the midst of the mess, he wants to teach us the art of living.

Our society is so obsessed with pleasure, comfort, health, youth, and appearances that sometimes even we Christians forget about that, and we start thinking that the only meaningful life is a painless life. The examples of the saints can remind us that, in fact, just the opposite is true: only through the Cross can we reach the Light.

Blessed Lydwina [LIHD-vine-ah] of Holland is a case in point. She lived in the 1400s. She was a pretty, vivacious 15-year-old, until she got into an ice-skating accident and ran into complications during her recovery. For the next thirty-eight years she never left her sickroom. God sent her a rare and gruesome cross: Her flesh began to rot. She had agonizing headaches, constantly recurring fits of vomiting, unending fevers, maddening thirst, spasms of pain in every part of her body - it was as if she were already decaying in the grave, while she remained conscious to experience it.

At first, she felt anger and revulsion at her suffering. But gradually she learned that God was asking her to suffer for the reparation of others' sins. Her confessor visited her frequently, taught her to meditate on our Lord's passion, and frequently brought her Holy Communion - which was her only food for the last 13 years of her life. As she recognized and embraced her life's mission, she began to add voluntary sufferings to the ones God had sent her (sleeping on boards instead of on a bed, for example). God rewarded her by giving her powers of healing (healing others, of course), and prophecy, and special visions. Lydwina's specific vocation was uncommon, but its pattern is the same for every Christian vocation, ours included: Cross and Resurrection; through the Cross, into the Light.

By saying, It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God, Paul was encouraging the Christians he converted to be courageous in suffering. Paul was stoned by the Jews and left for dead – then when he revives, he doesn’t go hide in a cave somewhere, but goes right back into city where people want him dead. However, in some cases when persecuted he goes to another town dusting off the feet. Now, is that courage or facing suffering, one might ask.

Courage sometimes means staying, and sometimes means going. The apostles fled not out of fear, but out of a desire for effective witness. Sometimes the most effective witness comes from staying and suffering – even dying. Sometimes the most effective witness comes from fleeing, and never returning. Sometimes – as in this case – the most effective witness comes from fleeing for a time, then returning. The concern of the true disciple is not how to avoid suffering – the concern is how to have the most effective witness.

This past Sunday several Catholic churches were targeted, vandalized, tabernacles stolen; one tabernacle was found in a Burger King. Why only the Catholic Churches were attacked in the light of the draft document leak from the Supreme Court? Because, the Catholic Church is the leading  champion of the unborn, and the life issues. Why doesn’t the Church keep quiet and not make people inimical to it? Well, then it would not be showing the way to the Kingdom of God. The Church would be only a secular organization like many other churches are trying to be. They may attract more people but they would not be showing the faithful the clear way to the Kingdom of God. The more challenge a Church faces in the world, the closer it is to the right teachings of the Bible. The way to the Kingdom of God is narrow.

When sufferings and oppositions come – Satan tempts us to back off, to back away from the church, to neglect meeting together. That is the worst thing you can do (and Satan knows it). When you act that way, you are playing into Satan’s hands.  John MacArthur said, If you always back off whenever you face opposition, you will never accomplish anything for God. For, Satan will always oppose any step you take in faith.

Jesus says, “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt 10:22).  Whenever we face suffering and challenges, let’s take comfort in the consoling worlds of the Lord: “In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart – I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

 IV-Easter-C: Acts 13:14, 43-52; Rev. 7:9, 14b-17; Jn. 10:27-30

 

One of God's favorite ways to describe Himself is by saying he is like a good shepherd. Jesus did so more than once, as he does in today's Gospel. 

In the Old Testament, the comparison is everywhere:

God chose shepherds to be the Patriarchs; he chose shepherds to be Israel's first kings; the prophets ceaselessly speak of Israel as a flock and God as their shepherd; the image returns again and again in the Book of Psalms, as in the beautiful expression from today's Psalm: "Know that the Lord is God; he made us, his we are; his people, the flock he tends." We are used to this image, but even so, the Church likes to remind us of it, frequently. Why? What is it about this image that God likes so much? 

Comparing God to a good shepherd can only happen in a religion that recognizes a special connection between the human person and God - for instance, that man is created in the image of God. Only then does the comparison make sense, because a God who is a good shepherd is a God who walks with his people and cares about their every joy and sorrow. That, Jesus tells us, is what our God is like.

The message of Christ's Passion is that our God is not a God who stays aloof from our suffering. He comes down into the valley of darkness, takes our hand, and saves us through our suffering.

One of the most well-known modern Christian poems expresses this closeness of God with memorable beauty and simplicity. You have probably heard of it. It's called "Footprints". 

It was written in 1936 by a girl named Mary Stevenson.

Mary had lost her mother at age six. She grew up in poverty and hardship as her father struggled to raise eight children during the Great Depression.

One cold winter's night when she was 14-years-old, she was locked out of the house.

As she sat shivering on the doorstep, she wrote "Footprints" on a scrap of paper.

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. / Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. / In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. / Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there were one set of footprints. / This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints. / So I said to the Lord, "You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. / But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there have only been one set of footprints in the sand. / Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?" / The Lord replied, "The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand, is when I carried you."

It's just a poem, just a story. But it rings true. 

Christ is our shepherd, and, as he reminds us in today's Gospel passage, if we trust in him, nothing, not even hardship and suffering, can "take us out of his hand".

Jesus says “my sheep hear my voice. Unfortunately, life in today's world is noisy, and it is not always easy for us to hear the voice of our good shepherd. We are bombarded with so many other voices, so many images, so many ideas.

Christ knows this, yet he still tells us, "My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me."

What gives Christ so much confidence in our ability to stay close to him and avoid the traps set by poachers and wolves? It is prayer, one of God's greatest gifts to us, and one that we often take for granted. Christ is always paying attention to us, just as a good shepherd pays attention to his sheep.

He is always speaking to us, just as a good shepherd walks ahead of his flock talking and singing, so they can hear him and follow along.

No matter how noisy, dark, or stormy it gets, he knows how to make his voice heard in our hearts. We can always tune into it - that's the gift of prayer. 

God is always tuned into our prayers. The server never goes down, the reception never goes bad: as soon as we turn the attention of our hearts to our good shepherd, he makes his voice heard. God is always online, waiting for us to turn our attention to him, so he can guide us to the meaningful life we long for. The sheep who wanders away and gets stuck in a ravine or attacked by wolves cannot blame the shepherd. Just so, when our lives don't fill us with the meaning we long for, before blaming Jesus we should take an honest look at our prayer lives: do we pray?  Do we strive to pray better? How long of a quality time do we spend in prayer every day?

Today, as Jesus renews his commitment as our good shepherd, let's renew our commitment to be his good sheep, to give daily prayer the place it ought to have in our lives.

 

 

 

Easter III-C: Acts 5:28-32, 40b-41; Rev. 5:11-14; Jn. 21:1-19

Today’s Gospel tells the post-Resurrection story of our merciful Savior Who goes in search of His band of disappointed and dejected disciples. The incident proves that Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances were not mere hallucinations. In the first part of today’s Gospel, [I read only the first part] the risen Jesus appears to His disciples and gives them a symbol of their mission in a miraculous catch of fish followed by a grilled fish breakfast prepared by Jesus himself. 

Chapter 21 of John’s Gospel shows Peter returning to his old way of life, trying, perhaps, to forget the disastrous events of the crucifixion of his master. Six other apostles join him:  Thomas the former doubter, the two hotheaded sons of Zebedee, the faithful and loyal Nathaniel, and two others who are not named.  Although John mentions that “it was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead” (v. 14), this is actually the fourth appearance.  The first was to Mary of Magdala (20:11-17).  The second was to the disciples without Thomas (20:19-23).  The third was to Thomas and the disciples (20:26-29).  This post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus reminds us of an earlier incident in his ministry, namely the call of Peter and the other disciples after their night of fishing in the Sea of Galilee.  (Fishermen often worked at night in order to be able to sell the freshest possible fish at the market in the morning). In both instances, Jesus asks the disciples to cast their nets into the sea a second time.   In both cases they catch a large number of fish, and in both incidents Jesus invites Peter to follow him. “The Fathers and Doctors of the Church have often dwelt on the mystical meaning of this episode: the boat is the Church, whose unity is symbolized by the net which is not torn; the sea is the world, Peter in the boat stands for supreme authority of the Church, and the number of fish signifies the number of the elect.

Scripture scholars have long wondered about the possible meaning of the count of 153 fish in the catch described in today’s Gospel. One speculation is that it refers to 153 fish found in the Sea of Galilee; another that the number symbolizes all generations of people. So that number represents above all the fullness of the Church. But it also represents the fullness of our own lives when we give them over to Christ. He fills our emptiness with his friendship. He gives us meaning and purpose. He fills our lives with wonder; he fills our lives with love.

give them over to Christ. He fills our emptiness with his friendship. He gives us meaning and purpose. He fills our lives with wonder; he fills our lives with love.

When the disciples follow the direction of Jesus, their nets are heavy with the catch of fish and when they reach the shore, they see fish already on the fire, and Jesus invites them to bring some of their abundant catch in a mutual gesture of sharing.

 

Jesus authenticated their work by adding to the meal some of the fish they had caught.  There is an Eucharistic overtone in this, but there is no mention

of the blessing or breaking of bread, both of which are part of the usual Eucharistic formula. In every Eucharist we have to bring our catch to add to the Eucharistic meal. When the offertory is raised in offering to the Father, the celebrant says the prayer, Blessed are you Lord God of all creation, through your goodness we have this bread and wine to offer, fruits of the earth and work of human hands… The offertory elements are brought forward by and from the congregation to the altar. In the beginning of the Church everyone brought their own bread and wine for the Eucharist and it ended up being some eating superior quality bread and others inferior and therefore, unanimity is brought when the Church started getting the bread and wine for the congregation from their finances, fruit of their labor. Besides the bread and wine we also need to offer our every joys and sorrows, every concerns and worries and the Father will accept them and transform them and give them back to us renewed and transformed as he does with the bread and wine. If we do not bring anything to we go without taking anything from. Often people complain saying I got nothing from coming to Mass; because we didn’t bring anything. So always bring some of our catch to the Eucharistic meal.

Jesus would challenge us today with words similar to what he said to Peter, 'Recast your nets Peter, and try again'. Peter failed the first time because he had been working alone without the help of Jesus. Many of us may well feel like Peter, we have been working all day and night and have caught nothing. We have been working hard on ideas with little or no success. We have been trying to improve our family relationships but not made any headway with it. We have been trying to improve the finances, but not much success. We feel down and perhaps it is because we have been working alone without Jesus in our lives. We have tried to do it all by ourselves and forgotten what Jesus said to his followers a few chapters earlier in St. John's Gospel, 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in that person will bear much fruit, for without me you can do nothing' (Jn. 15:5).