For this week’s homily, please watch the video below.
4th Sunday of Easter: the Good Shepherd
2 Replies
The Conversion of Paul
Saints show us our capabilities, how far we can rise, from the depths to the heights. That’s why the church recalls the conversion of St.Paul a number of times in the church year. Today we hear it as part of our readings from the Acts of the Apostles. As he readily acknowledges, Paul rose from the dust and became a powerful force in his church and in the world through God’s grace.
St. John Chrysostom says of him: “Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what we really are, and in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue a human being is capable. Each day he aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardour and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him. He summed up his attitude in the words: I forget what is behind me and push on to what lies ahead. When he saw death imminent, he bade others share his joy: Rejoice and be glad with me! And when danger, injustice and abuse threatened, he said: I am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution. These he called the weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from them…
The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ.”
May God raise up the Paul in us.
Speak Now to God
Here’s St. Anselm, whose feast we celebrate today, calling himself a “little man” seeking God:
“Little man, rise up! Flee your preoccupations for a little while. Hide yourself for a time from your turbulent thoughts. Cast aside, now, your heavy responsibilities and put off your burdensome business. Make a little space free for God; and rest for a little time in him.
Enter the inner chamber of your mind; shut out all thoughts. Keep only thought of God, and thoughts that can aid you in seeking him. Close your door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek your face; your face, Lord, will I seek.
And come you now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek you, where and how it may find you.
Lord, if you are not here, where shall I seek you when you are absent? But if you are everywhere, why do I not see you present? Truly you dwell in unapproachable light. But where is unapproachable light, or how shall I come to it? Or who shall lead me to that light and into it, that I may see you in it? Again, by what signs, under what form, shall I seek you? I have never seen you, O Lord, my God; I do not know your face.
What, O most high Lord, shall this man do, an exile far from you? What shall your servant do, anxious in his love of you, and cast out far from your presence? He is breathless with desire to see you, and your face is too far from him. He longs to come to you, and your dwelling-place is inaccessible. He is eager to find you, but does not know where. He desires to seek you, and does not know your face.
Lord, you are my God, and you are my Lord, and never have I seen you. You have made me and renewed me, you have given me all the good things that I have, and I have not yet met you. I was created to see you, and I have not yet done the thing for which I was made.”
3rd Sunday of Easter: Listening to Jesus
For this week’s homily please watch the video below.
Weekday Readings: Second Week of Easter
APRIL 11 SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER (OR SUNDAY OF DIVINE MERCY)
Acts 4:32-35/1 Jn 5:1-6/Jn 20:19-31
12 Mon Easter Weekday Acts 4:23-31/Jn 3:1-8
13 Tue Easter Weekday [Saint Martin I, Pope and Martyr]
Acts 4:32-37/Jn 3:7b-15
14 Wed Easter Weekday Acts 5:17-26/Jn 3:16-21
15 Thu Easter Weekday Acts 5:27-33/Jn 3:31-36
16 Fri Glorious Wounds of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Acts 5: 1-7/Jn 20: 24-29
Easter Weekday Acts 5:34-42/Jn 6:1-15
17 Sat Easter Weekday Acts 6:1-7/Jn 6:16-21
The church grows gradually after the resurrection as the followers of Jesus meet him, but they’re slow to believe. The Apostle Thomas is an example of their skepticism. The week’s gospel readings from John introduce us to another group slow to believe– people like Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus by night. A supposedly well-informed religious person, Nicodemus only understands Jesus Christ slowly.
Our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles describes the witness of the apostles in the temple after the Holy Spirit comes upon them at Pentecost. “Uneducated, ordinary men,” the temple leaders call them, but they continue to proclaim boldly God’s mighty works in Jesus Christ. Told to end their witness, they cannot. “It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.” They’re persecuted, yet the number of believers grows.
Monday’s reading from Acts describes the apostles’ return “to their own people”, believers like them who recognize they’re being persecuted as Jesus was. They pray, and the Holy Spirit tells them to continue “to speak the word of God.” Those who follow Jesus experience what he did.
On Friday we begin reading about the miracle of the loaves from John’s gospel, chapter 6, an important reading for the Easter season. The reading, continues into the following week; the mystery of the Eucharist has a major place in the Easter season. It’s a sign the Risen Jesus remains with us.
On Friday, the Passionists celebrate the Feast of the Glorious Wounds of Jesus Christ. The easter season is a time to see glory in wounds.
Readings for the week here.
Morning and Evening Prayers, Week 2, www.praydaybyday.org
Children’s Prayers: http://www.ourchildrenpray.com
Accounts of Jesus’ Resurrection
Easter Appearances of Jesus
Rembrandt’s Crucifixion
Another Crucifixion
Father Rick Frechette from Haiti offered refections on the Sunday Gospels during Lent on this blog. Days before Palm Sunday, a friend and employee at the hospital he attends was shot and killed outside the hospital gate. On this Good Friday he offers this reflection:
“Even though the sun was shining, there were the thick, dark, heavy, invisible clouds of evil overhead,
mocking both the light of day, and the light of God.
This was true both for him and for HIM.
There were expressed threats to kill both HIM and him, uttered in public and private places.
Bad words can pierce ones head worse than a bullet, which at least finishes you off in a matter of minutes.
The words of hate and threat linger, brood and multiply, in the mind and heart, spreading like cancer, and they twist joys into anxieties and confidence into dread.
For HIM the words caused no less than the sweating of blood.
For him, the words caused both fear and a furor.
As for the onlookers, they had lived with killings and threats for so long that one more violent death could not possibly interfere with enjoying a last piece of bread, or delivering the bawdy punchline of a joke they were in the middle of, when the shot was fired.
The onlookers had seen many crucifixions on the hill, they were all the same.
They had seen many gunshot dead in the streets, they were all the same.
“Been there, done that. Next.”
But this is not true for little onlookers, children for whom violence sets their gaze, and their hearts, rigid.
How can we soften them?
It was the hour of first vespers, for Palm Sunday 2021.
I was at his funeral, and preparing for HIS week of Holy Memory.
For HIM, the hammer set to the nail was an announcement. Those closest would hear it.
Some would shiver- would you have shivered?
For him, the announcement was a thunderous crack, when the small metal lever struck the bullet. I was near enough to hear it, but I couldn’t.
I was lifting a box of medicines, in front of a large screeching fan.
But as chickens scatter by any blow, some towards and some away
and since our eyes are finely tuned to movement much more than to acuity,
the sight of our staff running in all directions dropped my heart to my feet.
And I ran, heart-footed, toward, and not away.
Chicken, I am not. At least not totally.
For HIM, a lance in the side was the finale, the outflow of the remaining life blood and water.
For him, the side was torn open wide by a flying mini spear.
“We need to cover him. GET A SHEET!”
The children on the street will see a red spotted cloth, rather than his empty eyes and generous entrails.
Long ago, there was nothing to cover HIM, high on the cross.
Two of us preach.
Fr Fitho speaks first, and my eyes wander.
Not for lack of interest in his moving message away from revenge and toward placing confidence in God’s justice,
but because it was impossible not to lock my eyes on the faces of his four small children, in their grief, of his wife on the floor, of his white haired mother lamenting in heart wrenching rhythms’
My turn to preach came.
Full heart, useless tongue.
For him there were two priests, each a one-time preach.
For HIM, preachers have spanned twenty centuries and counting.
My words came out as they wished, my eyes spoke more to the eyes of others, well known to me, whose presence at the funeral prayers was a tortured reliving of that day, many years ago, when they lost their mother or father in this dreadful, public way.
Pie, Jesu.
My eyes locked with all of these eyes, looking for viridans (greenness) deep within- known from ancient times as the very first life sign of life.
It is there but dimly lit.
“Lead kindly light amid encircling gloom, lead thou me on.”
For HIM, there were few eyes to look into.
Most were not there to pay respects but to be amused.
If they had iphones they would have filmed and posted, with smiling selfies.
Others there were functionaries. Like the doorkeeper in NY who recently closed the door on the elderly woman being attacked for being a foreigner.
But present there for HIM, most beautifully and meaningfully, three Marys and a John.
They radiated viridans through the deepest sorrow and grief, as HIS viridans receded.
Yes I see it in their eyes. Alleluia! Strange how I can be happy for a minute at such a moment.
Viridans.
I will start visiting them in their homes, these very days, in the name of HIM who, Isaiah promised “will not quench a dimly lit flame.”
When we start by protecting the failing flame through friendship, we prepare the way for God to do a great work.
Lightening the load, enlightening the heart, is holy and luminous work.
About HIM, there was a (motive-minded) posting on the Cross
“The King of the Jews”
When this was challenged, Pilate retorted
“Quod scripsi, scripsi.”
About him, there was a (motive-minded) posting on facebook by his killer
“Old men don’t strike old men”
which was challenged with
“Old men don’t kill old men!”
answered with silence.
But in fact, neither are old.
(Ironically, at this point of writing, I just ran out and delivered a baby in the hallway, having heard the screams. Enter, stage right, a new life overflowing with viridans)
Joseph and Nicodemus took down HIS body, bathed and anointed it with wonderful oils,
to prepare it for burial.
Fr. Fitho and I lifted up his body, and sutured his shredded wounds back together.
As I held his hand away from his own wound as we worked, it was still warm in mine.
Viridans departs slowly, but finally.
HIS was Calvary.
So was his.
And so has Calvary marked ours lives in the strongest of ways, from COVID, cancers, car wrecks and chaos.
On Calvary we are in blessed company.
And the looking into the eyes has been through tablets and phone screens, on facetime and zoom.
We have been impoverished by the necessity of standing by the cross virtually, standing at the cross by proxy.
Such has been the lonely need for isolation.
But virtual light is better than none.
From the 10th verse of the 700 year old Good Friday Hymn Stabat Mater:
Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.
May the dim light of our hearts be powerful in the face of any darkness!”
The Passion of Jesus According to John
For a commentary on John’s Passion Story see here.
The Victor's Place 