Claire Smith

Scripture:

Acts 17:15, 22 – 18:1
John 16: 12 – 15

Reflection:

“For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’” Acts 17: 28

Today we read Saint Paul’s speech to the Athenians in the Areopagus. The Areopagus was the meeting place of the members of the Council of Athens. So we can assume that when Saint Paul spoke some or most of the leaders of Athens were present as well as other citizens. The name means, rocky hill, and there are steps up to the top of the large rock. A person could then speak to the crowd below that would have gathered. In his speech, Saint Paul is appealing to the philosophy background of the Athenians, who are Stoics and Epicureans. He appeals to their understanding of creation and takes them a step further is saying that there is one God who is the creator and sustainer of the universe or cosmos. He uses a quote from a 6^th-century author, Epimenides of Knossos to support his point, “For ‘In him, we live and move and have our being.’” Some listen to what he has to say, and some chose not to believe when Saint Paul speaks of the resurrection from the dead. If Saint Paul were to give the same speech today from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, there would possibly be the same response. Some would believe, and others would be skeptical.

We have so many gods in our society. Those things that lead us away from God. Things that do not assist us in becoming the person that God created us to be. We can clutter our lives with so many things or activities we think we need to do. Keeping focused on what is true and right is a very difficult task in our modern society. The scriptures today help to keep our focus on God. In the Gospel of John, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. Opening our minds and hearts to the Holy Spirit will give us the ability to know what is true and right and will give us the graces to follow that truth. The catch is being open. God leads us in the direction we need to go.  We, for our part, place our trust in that direction as we listen through prayer, reflection, and others.

How is God living, moving, and being in your life?

Linda Schork is a theology teacher at Saint Xavier High School in Louisville, Kentucky

Acts 16:22-34
John 16:5-11

Reflection:

Everyone who has accepted or is discerning a call to serve as a minister in our church today should make it his/her priority to pray and reflect often on the Acts of the Apostles.  The good news that we hear from Acts on a daily basis during this post-Resurrection time serves to remind all of us of the joys and sorrows of ministering with and to the People of God.  The faith lived by the early disciples, the hope they found in the early church and the love for the risen Lord are gifts to us who serve 2000 years later.

When I read Acts and hear of the challenges, frustrations, blessings and conversions that are happening constantly in the lives of early Christians, my faith is buoyed and my spirit is nurtured. The accounts we here of the escapades of the disciples and early Christians serve to humble us and at the same time give us hope.

The experience of Paul and Silas in today’s reading as they encountered persecution and imprisonment followed by conversion of the jailer.  We all have many experiences of different persecutions and imprisonments in our daily encounters as ministers.  Our church seems rife with challenges that keep us on our toes.  On the other hand, the blessings that come with ministry are not unlike those that the early disciples enjoyed.

My early church professor used to remind us often of the longevity and tenacity of the Church of God in these words;

“We think we have problems in the church today, just look at the problems the early church faced over 2000 years ago!  And we’re still here today!!!!!

This Easter season has brought with it many joys especially in the celebration of the sacraments.  It is easy to rejoice with the faithful at Baptism, Eucharist, Anointing of the Sick, Confirmation, Mystagogia with the Neophytes.  Other days when the only too human side of church seems to be knocking down my door, one pauses to question the why and how of ministry and call.

In this regard, I’ll share a ‘God moment’ of recent past.  I love parish ministry with all its highs and lows and my prayer is one of gratitude.  Over the past months I have begun to question the call I received so many years ago.  I wondered if I was being authentic and faithful to that call.  Was there something else I was supposed to be doing?  I was frustrated and feeling a bit useless at times.  I kept praying and hoping for some direction.  Well, that direction came recently during the Sunday homily which had been about listening and receiving the Good News that God regularly dishes out if we remain open to hearing! The pastor ended this particular homily with this statement of faith:

“Jesus continues to call each of us AND Jesus promises to take care of us!!!”

This is good enough for me, how about you?!  Happy Easter Season!

Theresa Secord is a Pastoral Associate at St. Agnes Parish, Louisville, Kentucky.

Acts 16:11-15
John 15:26-16:4a

Reflection:

“I have told you this so that you may not fall away.”

The community of the evangelist John lived during turbulent, polarizing times when their faith was severely tested.  John wrote his gospel sometime after 85 AD, likely to a community undergoing a painful rejection and separation, exclusion from its life in the synagogue, from the broader Jewish society to which its members belonged.  This gospel may also have reflected a time of inner-Johannine community conflict, a controversy in which some disciples who had once believed in Jesus as Messiah were now abandoning the community.  In Jn 8:31, Jesus addresses “the Jews who had believed in him.”  Could they be the same followers who in Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse (Jn 6:2) had walked away in large numbers?  Whatever the state of affairs, the Johannine community was suffering through a severe crisis of faith.

In today’s gospel, John reminds his community of what Jesus said to his disciples.  Jesus warned that just as he would be rejected and put to death, they too would suffer similar trials.  Jesus quickly adds, however, that he would send the Holy Spirit — the Advocate — to bear witness to his salvific ministry.  His departure will signal for his disciples, not that his work has come to an end, but that it is now to be continued by them.  He will send the Advocate to be their strength, so that they too will bear witness to Jesus during times of trouble.

Jesus offers these words of comfort to the disciples standing before him, to John’s fragile community, and to us.  For most of us, our trials may not resemble the violent extremism of many parts of the world.  Ours may be a more subtle poison, an insidious wearing away at our faith through indifference, moral relativism, societal ridicule — especially those who have walked away from the faith.

But Jesus wants not only to comfort us.  He is exhorting us, inspiring us to hold to our beliefs, to continue witnessing to our faith, especially during troubled times.  The work of Jesus didn’t end 2,000 years ago.  That was only the beginning.  We are called to continue his work today.  The Advocate, the witness, will show us how to witness to the world.  And if we get shaky knees, if we slip and begin to lose our step, Jesus will say to us: “I have told you this so that you may not fall away.”

 Deacon Manuel Valencia is on the staff at Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

Acts 15:1-2, 22-29
Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23
John 14:23-29

Reflection:

Mutatis mutandis. This Latin phrase captures where we find ourselves in our Easter journey as reflected in this Sunday’s readings. Literally, this phrase means “things having been changed that have to be changed.”

Some things we believe are immutable, that is unchanging and unchangeable, permanent and fixed. Other things we know to be adaptable to time and circumstance. They evolve, they mutate.

In the aftermath of Vatican Council II, the rule about abstaining from meat every Friday was changed to abstaining from meat on Fridays in Lent. At our dinner table, my father, a man of deep faith and who loved to pose inscrutable questions at the dinner table (to the groans of his gathered children), asked: “This week we can eat meat. Last week we could not. Those who did eat meat last week sinned. This week we do not. Will God hold accountable those who were to abstain differently than us?” Groan! But I still remember this lesson: some things—even what seemed like immutable rules in those days—actually do and need to change.

By their very nature institutions—including families, churches, businesses, and cultures—codify certain values and behaviors so that they can be passed on to the next generation. This is what we mean when saying “This is how we do things around here.” The way we do things helps define us or distinguish us from others.

We can see in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles an intense debate about circumcision. Some saw circumcision as an immutable condition of belonging to this emerging Christian community. Others, including the Apostles, disagreed and rejected that condition.  In the gospel Jesus counseled his followers to keep discerning, promising that the “Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” And what was Jesus’ fundamental message? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.

This is immutable. Most everything else, mutatis mutandis.

Robert Hotz is a consultant with American City Bureau, Inc. and was the Director of The Passion of Christ: The Love That Compels Campaign for Holy Cross Province.

Acts 15:22-31
John 15:12-17

Reflection:

Measure of Love

Jesus said to his disciples:
“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:12

The Scriptures are all about the heart! The heart is talked about over 1000 times in the Bible! “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deut 6:5 The Hebrew is explicit. kôl is the word for all. Augustine’s beautiful quote gives us the force of kol. “Christ is not valued at all, unless He is valued above all!”

The total love of God is deeply fused with love for others. “This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. “ Mt 22:39 In John’s Gospel the ante is up much more when Jesus tells us that we must love others much more than ourselves. “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.” We must love others as Jesus loves them. To our weak human nature this seems impossible as Jesus gave His life for others in a most painful way!

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The measure of our discipleship is the measure of our hearts. Some time ago I had a “myocardial-perfusion-imaging-mpi-test “ a non-invasive imaging test where you can actually see your heart pumping away on a screen in real time. It was a scary but awesome experience for me. The great push of the preaching of Jesus is on the inside of the heart, rather than the outside of appearances.

“So you also outwardly (exōthen GreekNT) appear righteous to others, but within (esōthen Greek) you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. “ Mt 23:28. The inside is the heart. How much heart do I have on the inside (esōthen). Do I have the courage to look at my heart?

Fr. Bob Weiss, C.P. preaches Parish Missions and is a member of the Passionist Community in Louisville, Kentucky.

Acts 15:1-6
John 15:1-8

Reflection:

I visited the family vineyard in California many times. I remember one year the plan was to graft the Merlot into Sauvignon Blanc. The process was extreme. A group of men with saws came and cut the merlot off at the knees. The ground was scattered with beautiful gnarly, pieces of the original Merlot stock. They were gathered and burned.

A week or so after they made the original cut, they made a small cut on the Merlot stock and placed inside that cut a small sapling of the SavBlanc vine. A couple of months later the new SavBlanc vines were growing out of the Merlot stock.

This image is what I think of every time I read this gospel of John. A branch cannot bear fruit on its own.

Once we encounter Christ, once we place our fragile sapling of a person into the stock of the Lord, we are forever changed. He becomes the vine and we the branches. We understand that all the nourishment that we need to thrive comes to us from the vine, through the vine.

“Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit,
because without me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Kate Mims is the Retreat Center Director at Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center in Houston, Texas.