Category Archives: Inspiration

Life Comes from His Wounds

2nd Sunday of Easter: Thomas Doubts

For this week’s homily please watch the video below.

This is the Second Sunday of Easter. Notice we don’t say the Second Sunday after Easter. We say it’s the 2nd Sunday of Easter because Easter isn’t a one day feast. It’s celebrated every Sunday of the year. Every Sunday is a little Easter. After the yearly feast of Easter we continue to celebrate it for fifty days. Easter isn’t for one day.

Why do we celebrate Easter so extensively? Because the resurrection of Jesus is the center of our faith. It’s central to what we believe. We believe in God who created us and all things. We believe in Jesus Christ, who came among us, died and rose from the dead on the third day. That belief has tremendous consequences for us and for our world.

The story of Thomas the apostle in today’s gospel offers another reason why we celebrate easter as often as we do. Thomas was one of Jesus’ closest followers, “one of the twelve” who heard him teach and saw him work wonders, but Thomas won’t believe the others who tell him they saw Jesus, risen from death.

He’s deeply skeptical. You can hear skepticism in his words: “Unless I see the marks of the nails, and put my finger into the nailmarks, and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe.”

Certainly Thomas isn’t the only one who’s skeptical. You can hear skepticism in the way the other disciples after Jesus rises from the dead. Thomas represents human skepticism, the slowness of us all to believe, the distrust we all have. What’s unique about Thomas is he represents skepticism at its worst.

It’s all right to have some skepticism, you know. We shouldn’t believe everything we hear. We need to check things out. We have to make sure that facts are facts, we need a certain caution in life.

But Thomas’ skepticism seems more than the ordinary. He’s a strong doubter. Yet still, the next Sunday–notice it’s a Sunday–Jesus comes and says “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”

Thomas answer, “My Lord and my God!” That’s a beautiful act of faith.

What about us? We’re described in today’s gospel as “those who have not seen, but believe.” and Jesus called us blessed. Yet, we can relate to Thomas. In fact, we live today in skeptical times. We’re skeptical about politics, about our institutions, about our churches, about ourselves. There’s a deep distrust today in the way we speak and in the way we think. We’re wary of others, especially people different from us. It affects our faith too.

Yet, as he did to Thomas, Jesus never abandons us. He gives us the gift to believe. His mercy is always at work. He strengthens us when he comes in the signs of the Eucharist; he strengthens us through the faith we share with each other, week by week, day be day.

Our Sundays may not be the dramatic experience that Thomas had, but something happens here. Our Sundays are always little easters. Jesus come into the room where we are, with our fears and lack of trust. He tells us, as he told his disciples: “Peace be with you.” He shows us the signs of his love and enters our lives. Every Sunday is a happy Easter. Jesus gives us life.

The Easter Season:The Long Day

Tenebrae: Holy Saturday

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Today’s Tenebrae psalms (Psalms 15, 4, 24) speak of Jesus’ burial in the earth. He is the seed that falls to the ground, but he will rise and bring life:

“My heart rejoices, my soul is glad,                                                                                        Even my body shall rest in safety,                                                                                             For you will not leave my soul among the dead                                                                       Or let your beloved know decay.” Psalm 15

Jesus gives the gift of risen life, not only to humanity, but to the earth itself. “Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness.”“

It’s a gift we doubt is ours:

O men, how long will your hearts be closed
will you love what is futile and seek what is false"
It is the Lord who grants favors to those whom he loves. Psalm 4

The gates of heaven open to Christ, risen from the dead, they are lifted high for all he loves:

O gates lift high your heads, grow higher ancient doors,
let him enter the King of Glory.
Who is the King of Glory, the Lord the mighty and valiant,
the Lord the valiant in war! Psalm 24

Tenebrae for Holy Saturday ends with an ancient homily: “Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.”

“The earth trembled and is still…”

The Passion of Jesus is not only a human story; creation has part in it too. At his death “the earth quaked, rocks were split” Matthew’s gospel says. (Matthew 27,51) “From noon onwards darkness came over the whole land till three in the afternoon,” Matthew, Mark and Luke all say..

The sun that rules the day, the moon that rules the night respond as Jesus cries out in a loud voice and gives up his spirit. Artists through the centuries place sun and moon at the cross of Jesus.

Remember too blood and water, those great elemental realities blood that John’s gospel says flowed from the side of Christ when a soldier pierced his side. Water refreshed with contact with the Word of God; blood source of life for living creatures come from the side of Jesus. They also share in the mystery of redemption.

The homily for today says that Jesus at his death goes “to search for our first parent…to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve…I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by my own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. Rise up, work of my hands, you who were created in my image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.”

Artists from the eastern Christian traditon see the Passion of Jesus leading to a great redemption. Jesus does not rise alone, but humanity and creation itself will follow him.

St. Gabriel Possenti, CP: February 27

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St. Gabriel Possenti, was born on March 1, 1838, the 11^th child of Agnes and Sante Possenti, governor of Assisi, Italy. Gabriel was baptized Francis after that city’s famous patron. He had everything a privileged child might hope for.

In 1841, the Possentis moved to Spoleto and Gabriel fell under the spell of that city’s bright social world. Spoleto was influenced by the Enlightenment, a movement that preferred what’s new to what’s old.

Lively, headstrong, intelligent, he was educated by the Christian Brothers and the Jesuits. Popular, usually head of his class, he embraced the city’s latest fashions, plays, dances and sporting events. Gabriel was charmed by it all.

Yet, something else kept calling him. A year after moving to Spoleto his mother Agnes died. Her death and the death of two brothers and three sisters made him think seriously about life. A couple of times he almost died himself. He heard Jesus calling him to give up everything and follow him, but then the call seemed to fade away.

In the spring of 1856, a fierce cholera epidemic struck Spoleto and Gabriel’s favorite sister died in the plague. The tragedy overwhelmed the people of the city. They processed through the streets with an ancient image of Mary. They prayed that she intercede to stop the plague. They also asked her to help them bear their heavy cross.

It was a transforming experience for Gabriel, who was drawn into the presence of Mary, the Sorrowful Mother. He passed the familiar mansions where he partied many nights.. the theater and opera that entertained him so often. He realized what little they offered now. He took his place at Mary’s side and at her urging joined the Passionist Congregation.

In a letter home, Gabriel described his new life as a Passionist to his father: “I would not trade even fifteen minutes here for a year. My new life is invaluable. I would not exchange it for any amount of time filled with shows and other pastimes of Spoleto. Indeed my life is filled with happiness.”

Gabriel died on February 27, 1862 and was canonized in 1920. Early biographies of Gabriel, especially that of his spiritual director Fr. Norbert, highlight his faithfulness to his religious rule. They stress his acceptance of sickness and death. They also note his great devotion to Mary, the Sorrowful Mother of Jesus.

Less noticed, perhaps, is how Gabriel saw his life life answering the troubling times in which he lived. The Enlightenment was casting its spell on Italy in his day, threatening religious belief and church institutions. Yet, religious communities, like the Passionists, recovering from the Napoleonic suppression. were experiencing a surprising growth, sending missionaries to other parts of the world.

Gabriel would be aware that in 1845 John Henry Newman, the great English thinker joined the church. The Italian Passionist Dominic Barbari, who arrived in England a few years previously, received Newman into the church.

Newman’s writings, especially his University Sermons, describe the Enlightenment affecting England, but they could also be describing its affect on Spoleto, Italy, and young people like Gabriel. At the same time, Newman was an apostle announciing a “New Spring ” for the world. It was a world Gabriel must have seen as he entered the Passionists.

Gabriel is a saint for young people. They are looking for the pearl of great price in the times in which they live. May he help young people find it today. Interested in becoming a Passionist?

Lord God,

you hide your gifts “ from the learned and clever,

but reveal them to the merest children.”

Show your love to the young of today,

and call them to follow you.

Give them the grace you gave St.Gabriel,

grace to know you as good.

grace to judge life wisely,

grace to be joyful of heart.

Amen

Following Jesus Christ

St. Josephine Bakhita: February 8

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An heroic African woman from the Sudan, Josephine Bakhita was kidnapped by slave traders when she was 9 years old and forced into slavery for almost 12 years. Pope Benedict XVI wrote of her in his encyclical letter “On Hope” as an example of God’s gift of hope. “To come to know God—the true God—means to receive hope.”

“I am thinking of the African Josephine Bakhita, canonized by Pope John Paul II. She was born around 1869—she herself did not know the precise date—in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life.

Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who returned to Italy as the Mahdists advanced. Here, after the terrifying “masters” who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of “master”—in Venetian dialect, which she was now learning, she used the name “paron” for the living God, the God of Jesus Christ.

Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a “paron” above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person.

She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme “Paron”, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited.
What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her “at the Father’s right hand”. Now she had “hope” —no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Through the knowledge of this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free child of God.

She understood what Paul meant when he reminded the Ephesians that previously they were without hope and without God in the world—without hope because without God. Hence, when she was about to be taken back to Sudan, Bakhita refused; she did not wish to be separated again from her “Paron”.

On 9 January 1890, she was baptized and confirmed and received her first Holy Communion from the hands of the Patriarch of Venice. On 8 December 1896, in Verona, she took her vows in the Congregation of the Canossian Sisters and from that time onwards, besides her work in the sacristy and in the porter’s lodge at the convent, she made several journeys round Italy in order to promote the missions: the liberation that she had received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the greatest possible number of people.

The hope born in her which had “redeemed” her she could not keep to herself; this hope had to reach many, to reach everybody.” Benedict XVI “Spes salvi” 2007

Josephine Bakhita died February 8, 1947 and was declared a saint in 2000. She is the patron saint of the Sudan and victims of human trafficking. For more on her, see here.

St. John Bosco, January 31

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St. John Bosco, (1815-1888) was born in northern Italy, then experiencing the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. His father died when he was two and he was brought up by his mother who struggled financially raising him, yet took care he had a good religious and humanistic education.

At twenty, John entered the seminary and once ordained a priest he devoted himself to helping young men living in a society moving from farms to factories, from an apprentice-based economy to one based on machines. He provided for their education and spirituality. He was joined by Mother Mary Dominic Mazzarello who took on the education of young women.

As young Italians began to immigrate to other countries in search of work, John Bosco and his companions accompanied them to North and South America. The Salesian community he founded spread throughout the world as educators and missionaries.

The opening prayer for his feast calls John Bosco “a teacher and father of the young.” He believed firmly that young people needed a good educational formation, but he also believed they needed teachers who took a fatherly interest in them, as God is Father of us all.

“The young should know that they are loved,” he said. As a boy he himself knew what the loss of father meant. As a young man he enjoyed circus entertainers, so he knew we need entertainment. But he also said, “ I do not recommend penance, but work, work, work.”

“Let us regard those boys over whom we have some authority as our own sons. Let us place ourselves in their service. Let us be ashamed to assume an attitude of superiority. Let us not rule over them except for the purpose of serving them better.

This was the method that Jesus used with the apostles. He put up with their ignorance and roughness and even their infidelity. He treated sinners with a kindness and affection that caused some to be shocked, others to be scandalised, and still others to hope for God’s mercy. And so he bade us to be gentle and humble of heart.” (Letter, John Bosco)

The church must always look at the “signs of the times in the light of faith.” We pray for people like John Bosco to meet the needs of the young today.

The Numbers are Down:Mark 4:24-34

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Numbers seem to indicate power and popularity. We think that way; Jesus’ disciples must have thought that way too. In Mark’s gospel Jesus begins his ministry in Capernaum before an enthusiastic crowd. At the end of his first day, the whole town gathers at the door of Peter’s house and word reaches out to other towns and places that a prophet has come. The numbers go up. (Mark 1, 21-34)

But then enthusiasm dies down as Jesus’ authority is questioned. Religious leaders from Jerusalem and the followers of Herod Antipas cast doubts about him. His own hometown, Nazareth, takes a dim view of him.. Gradually, Capernaum and the other towns that welcomed Jesus enthusiastically turn against him. His numbers go down.

Why are the number going down, his disciples must have wondered? It didn’t make sense. Jesus’ answer comes in Mark’s gospel today. God’s kingdom is coming; God is at work in the world, but human beings are mostly unaware of it:

“This is how it is with the Kingdom of God;
it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land
and would sleep and rise night and day
and the seed would sprout and grow,
he knows not how.
Of its own accord the land yields fruit,
first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.
And when the grain is ripe, he wields the sickle at once,
for the harvest has come.” (Mark 4, 28-34)

Great power is at work in the scattered seed, but we know little how it grows. The seed takes time, with its own law of growth; a great harvest will come, but still there’s mystery we don’t see. We sleep.

Meanwhile, we worry about numbers. Why are growing numbers giving up going to church or synagogue? Why are there so few vocations to our religious communities? So many of the good things in this world seem to be diminishing.

What can we do? Look into the signs of the time. Treasure the seed we have. Scatter it as we can. Be patient as we sleep. The Kingdom of God comes.

The Land Where Jesus Lived

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“To what shall we compare the Kingdom of God,
or what parable can we use for it?” ( Mark 4, 30) Jesus turned to the land where he lived and the life around him to answer that question.

So what was the land where he lived like? It was a land of olive trees near Bethany outside Jerusalem, but if you went eastward to Jericho and the Dead Sea, it was mostly a barren desert. Then, from Jericho to Galilee the land turns from desert to lush farmland. A changing land.

Jesus experienced a changing land from Nazareth to the Jordan River and then the Sea of Galilee. Like us, he was influenced by the place and life around him.

In a book written in the 1930s Gustaf Dalman, an expert on the geography and environment of Palestine, observed that when Jesus went from the highlands of Nazareth, 1,100 feet above sea level to the fishing towns along the Sea of Galilee, 680 feet below sea level, he entered a different world.

For one thing, he ate better – more fish and nuts and fruits were available than in the hill town where he grew up. He looked out at the Sea of Galilee from the towns he visited. Instead of the hills and valleys around the mountain village of Nazareth, he saw a great variety of birds, like the white pelicans and black cormorants challenging the fishermen on the lake. He saw trees and plants and flowers that grew abundantly around the lake, but not around Nazareth.

Instead of the chalky limestone of Nazareth, Jesus walked on hard black basalt, which provided building material for houses and synagogues in the lake region. They were sturdy structures, but they were dark and drab inside. They needed light. Light on a lampstand became one of his parables. (Mark 4,21)

Basalt also made for a rich soil where everything could grow. “… here plants shoot up more exuberantly than in the limestone district. Where there are fields, they yield a produce greater than anyone has any notion of in the highlands.” (Dalman, p123)

The volcanic soil on the land around the lake produced a rich harvest. The Jewish historian, Josephus, praised that part of Galilee for its fruitfulness, its palm trees, fruit trees, walnut trees, vines, wheat. But thistles, wild mustard, wild fennel grew quickly too and could choke anything else that was sown. The land around the Sea of Galilee was fertile then; even today it has some of the best farmland in Palestine.

The weather in the Lake District was not the same as in the mountains, warmer in winter, much hotter and humid in summer, which begins in May. “It is difficult for anyone used to living in the mountains to work by day and sleep by night…Out of doors one misses the refreshing breeze, which the mountains along the lake cut off…one is tempted to think that Jesus, who had settled there, must often have made occasion to escape from this pitiless climate to his beloved mountains.” (Dalman, p. 124)

You won’t find these observations in the gospels, of course, but they help us appreciate the world in which Jesus lived and the parables he drew from it. He was influenced by where he lived, as we are.

And what about us? What wisdom do we draw from the world we live in? What do we see day by day? What’s life like around us? We’re experiencing climate change now, aren’t we? It’s going to influence our spirituality, how we see, how we live, how we react to life.

May we gain wisdom from our time and place.

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The Victor's Place

Some homilies, scattered thoughts, images from the Passionists: : whatever the days bring. Follow me on Twitter @vhoagland.

Category Archives: Inspiration

Life Comes from His Wounds

2nd Sunday of Easter: Thomas Doubts

The Easter Season:The Long Day

Tenebrae: Holy Saturday

St. Gabriel Possenti, CP: February 27

Following Jesus Christ

St. Josephine Bakhita: February 8

St. John Bosco, January 31

The Numbers are Down:Mark 4:24-34

The Land Where Jesus Lived

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