The great truth of Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit has the power to enlarge and expand the human heart.

 

PENTECOST  2023

 

On this Feast of Pentecost, we come with grateful hearts always giving thanks to the Lord our God for Father Bob as we celebrate his 95^th birthday and celebrate my 55^th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. What both Fr Bob and I are both well aware of; it is not our skill or talents that energizes; it is the grace of God working through us. It is the grace of Pentecost, the spirit of Christ Jesus, that energizes our unending desire to minister in the service of our faith communities.

We come with an attitude of gratitude, having no desire to retire. Rather, we have the desire to serve. We discover the love of God best when we seek to minister in the name of Jesus.

Today’s Gospel describes the three gifts that define the priestly ministry of Father Bob and I, and further they are three gifts from God that are to characterize our faith communities.

The first gift comes from the first words of the Risen Jesus to his disciples: “Peace be with you.”  The first message of the resurrection is peace. To disciples who were fearful and kept behind locked doors as their leader had been tortured and crucified, Jesus comes and says, “Peace. Everything is OK.”  The message of the Resurrection is that no matter what happens to us, the Father will not let defeat and death be the end. He will raise us up just as he raised Jesus from defeat to victory.

The Peace of the Lord for Fr Bob and myself has been an inner resource, the spirit of Christ that is within us that defines our faith and our discipleship that the Lord accompanies us in all circumstances and thus there is nothing to fear.

But this peace is not a peace of stillness; it is not a peace of sleep. Immediately after wishing the disciples peace, Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Peace is the first gift of the Resurrection, but mission is the second. Jesus gives the disciples and us a mission: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

We have the same mission today as Jesus had from His Father, to spread the good news of the Father’s love, of the Father’s compassion and mercy. Our mission, like that of Jesus, is to help establish the kingdom of God, a kingdom of justice, of peace and of love.

Even after many years of priestly between us, even though we could have retired some years ago, simply put, Fr Bob and I were ordained to carry on the mission that was given to Jesus and to all of us as the disciples of Jesus. Our mission continues to spread the good news of the Father’s love, compassion, and mercy.

The third gift of the Resurrection is the Spirit. Jesus breathes on the disciples and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  In John’s Gospel, we do not to wait for Pentecost. The Spirit is given on Easter Sunday.

 It is the Holy Spirit that gives us courage to take up the mission of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit that transforms us into the Body of Christ. It is the Holy Spirit that inspires us with love for all our brothers and sisters. It is the Holy Spirit that gives us the power to forgive each other’s sins.

We see how the growth of the Church took place with the influence of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles. The Book of Acts is the story of the incredible growth of the first Christian communities. The Acts of the Apostles is kind of like a Gospel of the Holy Spirit. In the first four books of the New Testament, we learn the Good News of what God did through Jesus Christ in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In the Book of Acts of the Apostles, we learn the Good News of what God did through the Holy Spirit.

The first and foremost attribute of the servant church in the Acts of the Apostles is its daring openness to the Spirit.  It is our prayer that we the Church make room for the release of the Spirit in the life of the community and the courage to act when it does. We are not to fall back into being the safe and self-absorbed church, but rather a place of miraculous hope and extravagant hospitality.

God chose a young virgin named Mary to bear God’s Son, and Jesus chose a bunch of Galilean fishermen to share in His ministry.  God chooses Father Bob and myself to proclaim the Good News of the love of Jesus to the faith communities of St Joseph’s and Holy Spirit. Further, God chooses you to hear and witness to His message of hope and promise and love in this place and in our world this day.

The great truth of Pentecost – for the first disciples and for us as well – is that the Holy Spirit has the power to enlarge and expand the human heart if we allow the Spirit of Jesus to grow and enliven us from within.

 

The great meaning of Pentecost is that it was time for God to be born again not in one body that was Jesus but this time in a body of believers who would receive the breath of life from their Lord and pass it to others. We see how the growth of the Church took place with the influence of the Holy Spirit.

 Defensive Christianity is not a Biblical idea. The posture of Christian disciples is not hiding in fear to protect ourselves. No, the disciples are sent to proclaim the Good News of the love of Jesus to one and all. St. Joseph’s and Holy Spirit are called to be sister parishes who help and serve and love one another.

Now more than ever, we invoke the Holy Spirit to wipe away the darkness of anxiety allowing us to be guided by the light of Christ and to trust in God’s promise of new life.

On this day of Pentecost, may we pray for healing and unity for our Church and our nation as we now come to the Table of the Lord. May we all commit ourselves to using our God-given giftedness in the service of one another.

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus' prayer to his Father: "I have finished the work you gave me to do."

 

Seventh Sunday of Easter A  2023

 

In today’s Gospel, we are entering upon very holy ground.  Throughout the Gospel of John, we see the compassionate heart of Jesus as He brings healing to sick people and food to the hungry.    In the Johannine Gospel, we find the love of God demonstrated and explained as nowhere else.  Then in John’s 17^th chapter, we are allowed to glimpse into Jesus’ very soul.

Perhaps we never get any closer to someone else than when we know about their prayer life.  As we eavesdrop on the prayer of Jesus in today’s Gospel, we are indeed entering holy ground.

The setting for this prayer of Jesus is the upper room on the eve of Jesus’s passion and death.  Jesus had just celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples and had washed their feet to give them an example of how they were to continue the mission of Jesus in the life of the Church.

Jesus’s impending death is not a disruption of God’s plan but part of God’s mysterious providence.  Jesus had accomplished His work, revealing the love of the Father for us.  Now it is the time to teach the meaning of that love by His willingness to lay down even His own life.  His dying is his greatest act of giving.

The Lord prayed for his disciples gathered around Him.  At the same time, he looked ahead to the community of disciples of all centuries.  In His prayer for disciples of all time, he saw us too, and he prayed for us.  He prayed that we be consecrated in truth.

“Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come.  Give glorify to your Son, so that your Son may glorify you…I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do…I have made your name known to those you have given me…They were yours and you gave them to me…Consecrate them in truth…I have made your name known to them so that the love with which you loved may be in them, and so that I may be in them.”

The prayer of Jesus to his heavenly Father was a prayer of gratitude that Jesus had finished the work that the Father had given Him to do.  He had made the Lord’s name known to His followers.

Jesus then prayed for us His disciples.  Jesus prayed that we would let God love us and live in us.  To do that, we need, first of all, to trust that God truly does love us.  As John says, we need to know and to believe in the love God has for us.  When we let the reality of God’s love for us sink deeply into who we are and what we believe, something dramatic happens.  We begin to love one another.  We become witnesses to God’s love by letting everyone else see what that love looks like when it is alive in a person’s life.   By being loved so deeply, we become lovers.  We become witnesses to the God whose love brings eternal life -- witnesses to the resurrection.

Jesus finished the work the Father had given Him to do.  What about us?  Do I have a sense of the work God has given me to do?  In other words, what is the purpose of my life.  As a parent, as a sibling, as a leader, as a parishioner, as a member of the community of the baptized, what is the work that God has given you to do.  We are very grounded in discipleship if we try to make the prayer of Jesus our own prayer.  This very evening, I invite you to reflect on the day and with a prayer of gratitude may we say in prayer that we have finished the work God has given us to do for this day.  If there is room for improvement, we ask for the Holy Spirit to be with us tomorrow.

Of course, it would be naïve to think that this is a simple process.  The first followers of Jesus knew all about the resistance to the extraordinary good news about God’s love that Jesus had brought to them.  They knew about the betrayal of Judas, about their own abandonment of Jesus, and about Jesus’ death on Calvary.  God created the world and everything in it good.  But in ways that are hard to understand, there is sometimes abandonment and betrayal of this goodness.  There is hostility and resistance in our world to the message of God’s love for us –  in the political warfare that takes place in the halls of our Congress, in the Church itself there can be hypocrisy and disillusionment, and in our personal and family relationships there can be too much brokenness.  We know all too well the demons we have within ourselves that keep us from witnessing to the forgiving love of God in all circumstances of life.

Jesus in His prayer to his heavenly Father prayed for us with the words:  This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ

What is so important for us as we seek eternal life with God is that eternal life is not just for the future:  it a gift partly given now in our faith.  To be in touch with Jesus is to be in touch with a rich and full eternal life.  Something is given which will last forever – the mysterious life of God.  We touch into that life in prayer.  We are enlightened by Jesus, the light of the world.

Being a witness to the resurrection is not just telling people what they can hope for after death.  Yes, such hope is so very important.   God will raise us from death to live with God forever. God’s love is stronger than death.   But being a witness to the resurrection begins in the here and the now.  Being a witness to the resurrection means letting people see in our lives what it looks like when we live in the God who is love.  It means making visible what happens when the God who is love lives in us.

John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus prayed for His followers.  He prays that His Father consecrate them in truth.  The truth he refers to is the truth of God’s love.  To be consecrated in the truth means being consecrated or made holy in God’s love.    God’s love is like the air we breathe – all around us, giving us life, sustaining us.    When we do this, we may experience some of the resistance and hostility that Jesus experienced, but Jesus has promised that God’s Spirit will be with us and will never abandon us.  This will enable us to be witnesses to God’s love even in a sometimes-hostile world.  Let’s trust in that love as we come to the Table of the Lord in  communion.

Have a Blessed Day.

 

:Do not let your hearts be troubled. Have faith in God; have faith also in me."

 

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER  2023  A

 

 

There is the story of a grandfather and his four-year-old granddaughter Emily.  As a way of blessing his granddaughter Emily, he gave her a jar filled with dirt.  He simply told her to put a bit of water on the dirt each day, and you will discover life in hidden and unexpected places, but you must be faithful to the practice of putting a bit of water on the dirt each day. 

 

After the first week, Emily told her grandfather nothing is happening.  He again encouraged her to be faithful to the practice of putting a bit of water in the jar each week.  The second week passed, and nothing happened.  Then in the third week, a couple of tiny sprouts began to emerge out of the dirt.  Emily was so excited and rushed to her grandpa to tell him the good news.

 

Grandpa then asked Emily how did this happen?  Emily said I put water on the dirt.  Her grandfather more precisely said that Emily was faithful to the practice of putting water in the jar.  Life happens in hidden and unknown places, in fact, life happens everywhere when there is faithfulness.

 

Listen again to the Gospel:

 

 Jesus said: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You have faith in God; have faith also in me.”  To calm our troubled hearts, we are to have faith in God and in Jesus.   Indeed, our troubled hearts will be calmed insofar as we are able to trust that Jesus goes with us in all experiences of life.

 

The message of the grandfather to his granddaughter was a message of the need for faithfulness.  The message of Jesus to us in today’s Gospel is also one of faithfulness.  Ultimately, more than any medication or any other quick fix, our trust in God’s faithfulness to us is the way we experience a calming of our troubled hearts.

 

The Gospel proclamation of Jesus:  DO NOT LET YOUR HEARTS BE TROUBLED is valid for all times and under any circumstances.  Every beating human heart knows what it means to be troubled.  Given the reality of the human condition, the struggle to live in an imperfect world, the conflicts that arise from different political viewpoints and clashing cultural values, there is much that can certainly trouble a human heart.

 

In preparing the funeral liturgy for a loved family member, this passage from John’s Gospel is often chosen.  There is a longing in the human heart to experience the words of Jesus:  Do not let your hearts be troubled.

 

Does this mean we will not mourn the losses of our lives?  Of course not!  Are we to sweep under the rug the pain of our lives?  Absolutely not!  We all need to play the deck that we are dealt.  As painful as any situation that we experience, the Word of God is proclaimed to us:  Do not let your hearts be troubled.

 

A cynic might say:  You’re not smelling the coffee, or the tire isn’t hitting the road if you are not overcome with the pain of life.

 

Jesus continues:  Have faith in God.  Have faith also in me.  The invitation to trust in Jesus is the profound truth of our lives.

 

The word of Jesus is not a shield that protects us from the problems of life like a mother would want to protect her child from any pain in life.  That shield does not exist.

 

What Jesus promises us is an inner resource that cannot be taken away.  What Jesus promises is that when we are in touch with the Spirit of Christ Jesus that is within us, we have an inner resource that enables us to mourn, to grieve, endure the crosses of our lives in ways that our hearts are not troubled.  Our hearts are not troubled because we do not face the cross alone, because we have a strength that we receive in Christ Jesus that enable us to affirm that our future is always full of hope.

 

 This Sunday’s Gospel, as is true for the following two Sundays, is taken from the Last Supper discourse of Jesus recorded in John’s Gospel.  The mood of the Easter season is shifting, and our Gospel reflections turn toward unpacking the resurrection in such a way that it leads to Pentecost, the coming of the Spirit, and our discipleship.  Yes, we continue to be challenged in the Easter Season to encounter the Risen Christ.  The Scriptures today invite us to do the works of Christ and to recognize Christ in the other.  The very practical challenge here is that our baptism plunges us not to only into a relationship with the Triune God but also with each other.  Yes, in encountering the Risen Lord, we are to treat others in justice, mercy, forgiveness, and love.

 

In the first Scripture reading from the Acts of the Apostles:  As the number of disciples continued to grow, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.  So, the Twelve called together the communion of the disciples and said we need to appoint others to respond to this need.  The point being it was not enough to say their prayers in a pious fashion to God.  The early Church found its identity and the meaning of the grace of baptism not just in belonging to God.  By belonging to God, we also belong to one another.  Their union as baptized believers superseded all their other differences whether of language, ethnicity, economic or social status.  In Christ, all had become Church and as Church we are to care for and serve one another without distinction.

 

In our parish life, may we have ministries that emphasize our service and care for one another.  As the community of the baptized, all of us, without exception, enter relationship with one another.  We are to serve the needs of one another.

 

As we reflect on the Scriptures, we express gratitude in the presence of the Risen Christ that is within us.  This inner resource enables us to live a life that is full of hope.  As we affirm the presence of the risen Christ that is within us, we are gifted with the vision to recognize Christ’s presence in the face of our neighbor.

 

 

 

I invite you to consider that there is a stranger in your life that is the presence of the Risen Lord.

 

Third Sunday of Easter  A  2023

 

In today’s gospel we have the story of two disciples who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus.  During their walk with the Lord, their eyes were closed from recognizing Him.  But later that day, when Jesus was at table with them, he took bread, blessed, broke it, and gave the bread to them.  At that moment their eyes of the disciples were opened, and they recognized Jesus just before he vanished from their sight.

 

The Easter story and the story of the Emmaus journey hover around us all the time.  It tells us that God never forces himself on us.  To repeat God never forces himself on us but joins us in a walk in the garden or visit of a friend or while sorrowing at the death of a friend or watching the beautiful scenery or reading a consoling letter from someone we love.  God speaks to us in the voices of those who are hurt or are sorrowful, the faces of the poor and the needy, in the victims of prejudice and the generosity of those who care, in an ordinary meal and especially in the Eucharist. Again, God speaks to us in the stranger and in the voices of those who are hurt or are sorrowful.

 

A story:  There once was a little boy who wanted to meet God.  So he packed some biscuits and some soft drink and started his journey.  When he had gone three blocks, he met an old woman sitting in the park just staring at some pigeons.  The boy sat down next to her.  He was about to eat, and he noticed the old lady looked hungry.  So, he offered her a biscuit.  She gratefully accepted it and gave him a beautiful smile.  He offered her a soft drink, and again she smiled at him.

 

They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word.  As it grew dark, the boy got up to leave but before he had taken a few steps, he turned and ran back to the old woman and gave her a hug.  She gave him her biggest smile ever.  When the boy reached home a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face.  She asked him what made him so happy.  He replied, “I had lunch with God.”  But, before she could respond, he added, “You know what?  She’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen!”

 

Meanwhile, the old woman also returned to her home.  Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face, and he asked, why she was so happy?  She replied, “I had lunch in the park with God.”  But before her son responded, she added: “You know, he’s much younger than I expected.”

 

Our God is a God of surprises, and our God is present to us when we welcome the stranger.

 

The Emmaus account is a recognition story, so to speak.  It depicts how the two disciples came to recognize the presence of the Risen Christ in their midst.  There were two key elements in the development of an Easter faith: hospitality to the stranger and the Eucharistic breaking of the Bread.  Insofar as we welcome the stranger in our midst and insofar as we live Eucharistic centered lives, we indeed will be Easter people who discover the many ways the Risen Lord is present to us in the stuff of life.

 

 

For the original disciples, the Risen Lord was present in their midst, and they did not recognize him.  From the Gospel account of the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, the key to finding Christ is to know where to look.  The two disciples had all the facts but none of the meaning. 

 

How about us?  Do we too have trouble recognizing the presence of the Risen Christ in our midst?  The message of this Biblical account is that hospitality shown to the stranger is a way of recognizing the presence of the Risen Lord.  I would invite you to consider that there is a stranger in your life that is the presence of the Risen Jesus.  Perhaps this stranger is asking us questions we would rather not hear.

 

Yes, we all have expected ways of recognizing God’s presence in our midst.  Jesus continues to make his presence known but often in ways we least expect.  May we not close down to the unexpected ways we encounter the presence of the Risen Lord in our midst.   

 

None of us has full control over the course of our lives.  The Lord comes to us as an unrecognized stranger.  The stranger in your midst may be a person or it may be a situation you would rather not have to face.  It can be a work situation, an illness, depression, or whatever cross you are facing in your life.

 

 

Back to the

Gospel account, the two disciples, in the midst of their discouragement and disappointment, said to the stranger:  “We had hoped that he would be the one to redeem Israel.”  The disciples were confessing their profound discouragement.  Their hopes were dashed when their leader was crucified.

 

How do we identify with those two disciples in which we too had hoped, and those dreams are shattered:

 

n  We had hoped our children will live out their faith in the same way we do.

n  We had hoped that our Church and government leaders would not disillusion us with how they live their lives.

n  We had hoped that violence and conflict would not continue to characterize our lives.

n  We had hoped all parishioners would be active stakeholders in the life of the parish.

n  We had hoped that Rochester would have more sunshine.

 

The original disciples did not understand the meaning of the suffering and death of Jesus.  They thought they were defeated.  They did not understand that death was not a defeat.  Rather, death was the way to us to share more fully in the Risen Life of Jesus.

 

Like the original disciples we too have difficulty in understanding the meaning of suffering, setback, and death in our lives.  It can seem like our dreams are shattered. 

 

 

I invite you to consider that there is a stranger in your life that is the presence of the Risen Lord.  Recognition does not come easily.  We gather in this Breaking of the Bread so that our eyes will be opened.  We gather in this Breaking of the Bread so that we can embrace unexpected strangers in our life -- whether it be a person or whether it be a situation.  The Risen Lord is to be found in all of life.  It is in hospitality shown to the stranger and in this Eucharistic Breaking of the Bread that we will know the joy of the Risen Lord in our midst.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give thanks to the Lord for His love is everlasting; His mercy endures forever.

 

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER  A  2023

 

From today’s responsorial psalm:  Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love is everlasting. His mercy endures forever.

In this Easter season, we gather in the mystery of the Eucharist to Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love is everlasting. His mercy endures forever.

St John Paul II declared the Second Sunday of Easter to be Divine Mercy Sunday. First and foremost, Jesus is the face of the Father’s Divine Mercy.  Today is the Day of Mercy -- Divine Mercy.

Last Supper account is the example of God’s divine mercy to us. And Jesus gives us the Sacrament of the Eucharist to continue God’s divine mercy to us.

From today’s Gospel, I invite you to consider the faith journey of the apostle Thomas on this Divine Mercy Sunday. The popular interpretation of Thomas is that he is ‘doubting Thomas’ -- seen in a bit of a negative light. I invite you to revisit this Easter gospel and see Thomas as a model of faith.

Thomas said before he could believe in Jesus’ resurrection, he must see the holes the nails made in his hands, put his finger into the holes and his hand into the great wound made by the centurion’s lance.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, my hunch is that we who are gathered today come from all over the spiritual landscape. There is a side of us that is doubting Thomas and there is a side of us that is believing, Thomas. Each one of us is unique. This is not by accident. It is by God’s design that there is no perfect cookie-cutter approach of the journey of faith for Catholics. We need to dispense with the myth that there is one size that fits all for us as Catholic Christians.

I suggest Thomas is teaching the important lesson that we must not separate the resurrection from the cross. We are the disciples of the crucified as well as the risen Lord.

We cannot live the life of grace, the risen life, authentically unless we bear in our bodies the wounds of the cross. What does this mean? This means being conscious that we develop the capacity to love and be loved only by dying to ourselves.  It is in the experience of our wrestling with the experiences of our life in which we struggle, in which we experience the cross in our life that will lead us to recognizing our need for the grace and the mercy of God. Our wounds are a constant reminder of our frailty, and that it is God’s grace that raises us up to new life.

Thank you, Thomas, for bringing honesty into our faith, for helping to acknowledge at times that there are areas in our life that Jesus is not yet Lord. Thomas did not pretend that he was better than he was. He began by wanting proof and ended by being glad of faith. He is the patron saint of transitions and steps in faith. Faith is a journey. He is the saint of faith in our times.

His parish community, so to speak, was the place he found faith, having lost it when he tried to go it alone. Then he came back to the community of faith and went on a journey of life that took him to martyrdom in India.

The journey of faith of each one of us is unique. But it is the plan of Jesus that we are better together as a parish community rather than as isolated individuals. This was the experience of the apostle Thomas, and I suggest that in this community may you experience again the merciful love of Jesus in the love we have for each other as a parish community.

We are called to move beyond a covid isolation and return again to community, to our community of faith. The mystery of the Eucharist for which we gather is meant to be experienced in the context of our faith community.

The Bible describes mercy as a gift of God, a gift that is to be given to those who need it. Establishing the abiding faithfulness of God, we the Church of the Holy Spirit are to circulate mercy, to pay it forward irrespective of deservedness, inviting one and all to experience the merciful love of Jesus.

We are to be the mercy of a loving and forgiving God. God wants us to help him bring the mercy and the forgiveness into our world.

We are to be the mercy of a loving and forgiving God. God wants us to help him bring the mercy and the forgiveness into our world.

Jesus is the model leader and spiritual guide. He is pleased to give Thomas the assurance he is looking for, and then challenges him to look forward to the day when he will believe without seeing – always in the Jesus who passes through death to resurrection.

Jesus on this Divine Mercy Sunday is pleased to give you what you are looking for in your journey of faith. Jesus does not want His Body, the Church, to remain in the tomb but always raise her up to new life. Each of us is not to remain in the tomb of our doubts, of our fears, of our anxieties.

Lord, we thank you for friends, leaders and spiritual guides who challenge us as Jesus challenged Thomas. But may we like Thomas know that we need to see the scars and the wounds for us also to believe in resurrection and new life. Thomas professes the true faith of the Church. We too must insist that the Jesus we follow is the true Jesus, the one whose risen body bears the wounds of Calvary.

Lord, forgive us that we want to help those in need without sharing their pain; we look for their resurrection but do not want to see their wounds.

We thank you for people like Thomas who will not let us away with easy solutions.  They insist that we must see the holes nails have made in the hands of victims, and only then believe that they have within themselves the capacity to rise to a new life.

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, may live in a state of thanksgiving for God’s redemptive mercy that is shared with each and every one of us. And may the Gospel we proclaim help us to recognize that scars are the pathway to our sharing in the Risen life of Christ. This was the journey of the apostle Thomas. It is the journey for each one of us.

Have a Blessed Day.

 

We are an Easter people, and Alleluia is our song.

 

EASTER  2023

 

Today is the day of Easter joy.   We proclaim the centerpiece of our Catholic Christian faith:  Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead.  Alleluia! Alleluia!  Today we celebrate the reason why we are a people of hope and new life.  Today we cast off fear and make a leap of faith.  Liturgically we light the Easter candle because we believe in the light that comes from the Risen Lord.  This Easter candle needs to be lit in the deep recesses of our hearts.

May we all be aware of how we encounter the Lord on this Easter day  -- as parents who bring their families to this Easter Eucharist, as Catholics who have participated in the other liturgies of Holy Week on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, as Catholics who may have not been in Church since Christmas day, as Catholics who are very distracted by the busyness of life, as Catholics who have recently experienced the death of one you  love or the pain of some significant brokenness in life, or as pilgrims who seek to come to the Lord more deeply in their lives. 

My hunch is that those of us who are gathered today come from all over the spiritual landscape.  Each one of us is unique.  This is not by accident.  It is by God’s design.  We need to dispense with the myth that there is one size that fits all for us as Catholic Christians.  May there always be considerable diversity in the ways each one of us encounters our loving God.  We are a big Church.  There is room for everyone.

In every way possible to say it, the Lord’s Easter message is that all are welcome; all are forgiven; all are invited to the Easter banquet.  Does this mean that anything goes, that our Church is a Church without rules or discipline?   Of course not.   It does mean that the Lord’s love and Risen Life is to be shared by all.  There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.  Yes, we do need to open ourselves to the forgiveness and reconciliation and love the Lord extends to us.  And as sure as the sun rises each day, when our hearts are touched by the love of Jesus, we are motivated to share this love with one and all.  

On this Easter day, I am grateful for all the resurrection moments I experience in the vibrant life of our parish community.

For me, I sense the presence of the Risen Lord when I hear crying in our Church.  This for me does not disturb my prayer, for I think there is no future to the Church if there is no crying.  Crying for me is a sign of family prayer as moms and dads are passing on the gift of faith to their children.  Thank you moms and dads for bringing your children to Church.

Another beautiful resurrection moment in our parish life is when our teens led us in prayer on the evening of Good Friday in the Seven Last Words Service.   For me, every Sunday at the 5:00 pm, our parish teens lift up their voices in the praise of God.  Their youthful faith is expressive of the presence of the Risen Lord in our parish community.  I am grateful for the faith of our parish teens.

I am grateful for all the young families in our parish who bring their children to be baptized, to make their First Communion, First Reconciliation, and then completing their Christian Initiation with the Sacrament of Confirmation.

 

I am grateful for our parish Triduum choir under the leadership of Susan Gividen who have inspired with the beauty of our sacred music.

In our Good Friday liturgy, I was inspired by the faith and hope of all who venerated the cross.  I saw a visually impaired mother who was led to venerate the cross with the assistance of her loving daughter; an elderly woman who approached to venerate the cross with the assistance of her walker; a grandfather holding his grandchild as they both the venerated the cross.  Indeed, these are people with deep faith.

I am grateful for all the wonderful families of our parish.  Recognizing that family life is not always perfect and in fact family is often filled with hicccups, I am  grateful for all the single moms and dads of our faith commmunity;  your presence in our faith community is a resurrection moment for me.   I grateful for the divorced and separated who are a beautiful and most important part of our faith community; I am grateful to those who are straight and for those who are gay.  The Lord’s Easter message is that all are welcome; all are forgiven; and all are loved.

 The Gospel is not merely a story in which we are offered the good example of a man who lived a life of love. It is much more, for it shows us that God has renewed the life of each one of us totally from within through the Spirit of the Risen Christ who now lives in us.  The Lord’s Easter proclamation is that I do not decide which lives have value and dignity; God does.

The love of the Risen Lord is meant for you, for the person sitting next to you, and for everyone.  What will it take for you to be convicted of the Easter message that Jesus seeks to fill this world with His love?  What will take for us to believe that God’s love will triumph over poverty, conflict, violence and war.

 

Lord, I pray, that in spite of our sinfulness, we will be signs of hope and love to each other and to the wider community as well.

Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.   May you too be very much in touch with how the spirit of the Risen Lord lives in your family and in our parish family.

We cannot celebrate Easter in one day; we will not come to faith in one Mass.  AS God’s Easter people, we make the journey together over the course of a life time.  Whenever and wherever we trust and hope in the light that comes from the risen Lord, our spiritual darkness fades away.  As surely as the dark of night gives way to the dawn, the Lord’s gift of Easter joy awaits you.

Have a blessed day.  Today is our day of Easter joy.

 

 

 

 

Jesus Christ, our King, is Risen,

 

EASTER VIGIL 2023

 

We began this solemn Easter Vigil with the lighting of the Easter Fire in the landscaped area at the front entrance of the Church.  From the Easter fire, we lit the Easter candle, the Christ candle – the light of the Risen Christ that overcomes the darknesses of our lives. 

After lighting the Christ Candle, we enter the Church in darkness.  It is the darkness of the closed up tomb where Jesus’ body lay on Holy Saturday.  The stone has been rolled in front of it.  No light enters.  It is utterly dark.

In our prayer, the darkness of the Church at the beginning of our liturgy speaks  to the daily reality of our lives at times.  This is where many of us live from time to time. Yes, there are times when we live between death and resurrection. It is the valley of grief and unknowing--for us as well as for the first disciples. On Holy Saturday we, and they, don't know what the future will bring. Whether the cancer will be cured, or we will love again, or find a job that fulfills our calling. It can be a  time of dark uncertainty.

Into the darkness of our lives, we proclaim the great Easter mystery that the light of the Risen Christ overcomes the darkness of our lives.  Susan Gividen proclaimed the Easter mystery in the singing of the Exultet.

Rejoice, heavenly powers!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor!

Rejoice, O Mother Church, exult in glory.

Sound the trumpet of salvation.

Jesus Christ, our King, is Risen!

Let this place resound in joy,

Echoing the song of all God’s people!

 

Then in the Liturgy of the Word,  we are swept though the landscape of our salvation history.

 

From the first Scripture reading, the creation account from the Book of Genesis,  "In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep..." In the beginning, all was a dark void. And in this empty tomb where Jesus was buried, we find the same reality--it is a dark void.  How many times will we find ourselves in that dark place? A place where any ray of hope is extinguished in the vacuum of fear, of not knowing, of total emptiness.

Darkness is shorthand for anything that scares me--either because I am sure that I do not have the resources to survive it or because I do not want to find out.

But in that place, somehow through the grace of God, we must be patient. We must wait for the wind of the Spirit, the "wind from God that sweeps over the face of the waters" to fan the dim embers of our faith.

"Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light.... God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."

You see, both darkness and light are part of the first day. Darkness and light are halves of every day ever since that first day. Darkness and light are essential parts of our lives. And when we find ourselves in that dark lonely place, we must remind ourselves of this truth. There will always ultimately be light in the midst of the darkness.

In the second Scripture reading from the Book of Exodus, as God leads Moses and the Israelites out of Egypt at night, the Israelites cry out to God in fear and uncertainty as they see the massive army of Pharaoh in pursuit behind them, while in front of them is the sea--they are trapped in the darkness of fear and faithlessness. "It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness!" they cry out. But Moses tells them, "Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today.... The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still."

It is so hard to keep still in the fearful dark, isn't it? It is so hard to trust that the wind of God's spirit will, finally, blow on the dim embers of our cooling faith.

Thanks be to God, the angel of God who was going before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from in front of them and took its place behind them."  The divine presence, the angel of God, glowing within the cloud in the darkness, blocks the oncoming threat of the Egyptian army. You see, there will always be light in the midst of darkness. God will show up at night. We have only to keep still.

Darkness is part of every day. But there will be light. What would our lives with God look like if we trusted this rhythm of darkness and light instead of fighting it?

Following this Liturgy of the Word, we will joyfully celebrate the Sacraments of Initiation with our RCIA candidates.  They have been on a spiritual journey all of their lives.  Some time ago, they have heard God’s call and enrolled in the RCIA program.  They have been praying and discerning, and we have been praying for them.

As a faith community, we rejoice with an Easter joy in welcoming our elect fully into the sacramental life of the Church, the mystery of the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.

The final movement of the great Easter Vigil is the Liturgy of the Eucharist. 

We gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.  In Eucharist, we are fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord.  We share in the mystery of the dying and rising of Christ Jesus.  As the community of the baptized and as a Eucharistic community, we proclaim that we are an Easter people and Alleluia is our song.