Tag Archives: Easter season

The Easter Season

3 Replies

Spanish

The Easter season is a seven week period that begins with the Easter vigil and concludes with the feast of Pentecost. Most Catholic parishes give attention to the First Communion of children, but this season has a larger purpose:. it’s time for the whole community to be renewed in its faith in the Risen Christ.

“Blessed are they who have not seen, but believe,” Jesus said to his Apostle Thomas, a key figure in the Easter season. John’s gospel recalling the Risen Christ meeting Thomas is read on all three cycles for the 2nd Sunday of Easter. Jesus’ words to Thomas summarize this season: he blesses those who have not seen him.

We have not seen him as his apostles and other eye-witnesses have, but we’re blessed with faith, which is a way of knowing Jesus through sacraments and signs and, most importantly, through loving one another. Relying on the witness of his disciples, we know the Risen Christ in the church and its sacraments, particularly in the Eucharist, and in life around us.

Our faith needs strengthening, however, because our world questions this way of knowing the mysteries of God and Jesus Christ. We also find it hard to give our minds to great mysteries like this; so much else holds our attention. The Easter season brings a renewing grace to us.

Weekday Readings: Octave of Easter

Monday: Acts 2:14,22-23; Matthew 28,8-15
Tuesday: Acts 2, 36-41; John 20,11-18
Wednesday: Acts 3,1-19; Luke 24, 13-35
Thursday: Acts 3,11-36 Luke 24, 35-48
Friday Acts 4,1-12 John 21,1-14
Saturday Acts 4, 13-21 Mark 16,9-15

The weekday readings at Mass for the next 7 weeks of the Easter season come mainly from the Acts of the Apostles and the gospel of John. This is a good time to read the introductions to these books in the NABRE.

The Acts of the Apostles, the second part of St. Luke’s work, describes how salvation promised to Israel and accomplished by Jesus now extends to the Gentile world under the guidance of the Holy Sprit. The same book by which we understand how the church developed in the beginning can help us see how it develops today.

Luke shows the growth of the church from its Jewish Christian origins in Jerusalem to a series of Christian communities that point to Rome, the capital of the civilized world. As our church today continues to become a global church, what can we learn from Acts to help us understand and contribute to its growth in the world today?

The gospels for the octave of Easter are resurrection accounts from all four gospels. Written about 70 AD and after, they are later descriptions of the resurrection of Jesus. Earlier short statements about the resurrection– from the letters of Paul, for example– report the utter amazement of the first witnesses as they met the Risen Jesus and the difficulty they had describing him. He is beyond any experience his first disciples had or knew of.

The evangelists adapt the story of the Risen Jesus to the situation of the churches they’re writing for, which explains the differences in their accounts. They can also teach us about our own church and times. The gospels reveal what we can know about the resurrection, what it calls us to do and what we can hope for.

The Good Shepherd

3 Replies

“I am the Good Shepherd.” This is one of the names Jesus often used to describe himself and his mission. The Old Testament before him used this same image to describe God. So, Psalm 21 begins “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

During the Easter season the church favors portraying Jesus in symbolic ways: “I am the vine,”  “I am the Bread of Life,” and the description of him in our gospel: “I am the Good Shepherd.” That is because we know the Risen Christ now, not by seeing him, but in signs and symbols.

The Good Shepherd is a many-faceted image. On one hand, Jesus says he is the shepherd who goes in search of his lost sheep, and when he finds it he cradles it tenderly in his arms and brings it back to the flock. However far we stray, he will search for us and lead us back to the safety and comfort of his presence.

But the shepherd also leads his sheep and guides them through “a dark valley” into experiences and ways they cannot know. So, during the Easter season we read the story of the journey of the early church. Now, as then, Jesus is the shepherd leading his church into paths unknown, until finally she comes into “green pastures.”

He will lead each of us on our journey. Like sheep we feed intently on the small plot of life our eyes fall on. But the Good Shepherd is never far from us. No, we do not see him; but he is always near. We can trust him, “the shepherd and guardian of our souls.”

 

The Good Shepherd

Leave a reply

Sunday Reading: Fourth Sunday of Easter (C)
Acts 13, 14, 43-52
Revelation 7, 9,14-17
John 10-27-30

“The Father and I are one,” Jesus says in John’s gospel. The role given to God in the Old Testament –the Good Shepherd– is also his role. He guides humanity and the world to their destiny. He’s not the shepherd of one nation or small group. He’s not the leader of a small cult, a teacher among teachers. He is the Good Shepherd of all, who calls all to his flock and whose message is for all.

Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles describes a split in the church. As Paul and Barnabas preach in Antioch in Pisidia, Jewish Christians oppose the number of gentiles welcoming the gospel, and so limit the nature of the church. “We now turn to the gentiles,” Paul says. By this decision, the message of Jesus will be brought to the ends of the earth and the church takes on a more universal configuration. What configuration is our church taking today?

In the Book of Revelations John sees a “crowd that no one can number” standing before God’s throne, which is also the throne of the Lamb. “The Lamb will shepherd them” and “he will lead them to springs of life-giving waters, and God will wash away every tear from their eyes.” In Revelations, the Risen Christ reminds us to keep an eye, not only on the present, but on “what is to come.”