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Scripture:

Acts 6:1-7
John 6:16-21

Reflection:

Emotions drive the lives of many of us.  Sometimes they are of great benefit.  At other times, they are troublesome.  In today’s biblical readings, we see both sides of emotions displayed for our benefit.

The first reading from Acts is a post-resurrection incident.   We note emotions at work in the story.   An argument broke out between linguistic groupings in the growing church: the Greek-speaking and the Hebrew-speaking Jews, both converts to the Christian way.  There was likely more emotion involved in this dispute than anything intellectual.   It had something to do with the widows of each group being equally treated at the table. 

We note that this happened in the halcyon days of the Christian community, still basking in the warmth and joy of the resurrection of the Lord.  And it really didn’t pivot around a faith or theological issue.  It was a pretty human affair (we have prison riots in our day over food quality and distribution).  But we note how amicably it was settled, obviously in an atmosphere of prayer.  This is not to say that a bit of maneuvering didn’t occur amid the dispute.   The Apostles were quick to work their way out of this issue by proposing a new group to take charge of situations like this-what we today would call the deacons.   This left the apostles free to preach (and escape the household arguments), while it initiated a new and very helpful type of leadership within the church.  This illustrates the working arrangement between faith and human elements in the lives of believers.

The gospel too puts on display the inroads of raw emotion in our lives.   The emotion in this instance was fear-the apostles’ fear of being swamped in their boat as they attempted rowing across the lake amid a fierce storm.

Now, of course, this was a pre-resurrection event, unlike that described above, and it was a different kind of emotion.  But just as we are liable to argue among ourselves, so are we vulnerable to our fears, of one kind or another.   In this instance, it was a significant fear: that of drowning.  But once again a spiritual element appeared on the scene in the person of Jesus suddenly appearing before the struggling apostles, and He was walking on the water.  On first sighting Him, their fear was actually heightened, increasing from that of drowning to that of encountering a ghost.  But the combination of His presence and His calming word: "It is I.  Do not be afraid", dispelled their fear.

Emotions propel our lives.   As we hear in the scriptures today, they are the occasion for moving more deeply into our faith.  So long as they continue to do that for us, they are a blessing, not a liability.

 

 Fr. Sebastian MacDonald, C.P. is a member of the Passionist formation community at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago. 

 

Scripture:

Acts 5:17-26
John 3:16-21

 

 

 

Reflection:

In our readings for this Wednesday of the second week of Easter we discover a very interesting contrast between two wonderful invitations from the Lord.  One invitation is to live our faith in Easter joy and light.  The second is to do just what the apostles did: openly proclaim that Jesus is Lord and not fear the consequences.

In the Gospel from John 3: 16-21 we discover one of the most popular and summary expressions of our Christian faith: God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.  Surely there is no more clear and concise expression of the kerygma of the early Church than these few lines.  We learn that we are to proclaim this truth by living in the light which is where the truth may be found, not in the darkness where one finds wicked things that are inimical to truth and light.

But, as we discover in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, there is a price to be paid if we are to choose the light and live in it fully.  For the apostles it meant that they could no longer hide and live in fear; instead, they realized that they were called to leave their fear behind and go out into the light, into the temple area, and proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord.  A prison awaited them for their courage and willingness to openly proclaim their faith in the Risen Lord.

We are also called to live in the light and to proclaim our faith with no less courage and trust than the apostles themselves.  Will it cost us imprisonment?  Probably not, though there are some places in the word this very day where imprisonment and worse awaits those who embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior.  But there is a cost, nonetheless, and we are called to be heroic and refuse to live as anonymous followers of the Lord.  Each of us this very day is asked to consider what this means in our own life.  Go out and proclaim to all you meet that Jesus Christ is risen!  Go out and announce the good news that God has so love the world that he sent his son as our savior.  Go out and live in the truth, the light, so that your works may be clearly seen as done in God.  Go out and live in the light and proclaim the Good News!

 

Fr. Pat Brennan, CP is the director of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.

 

Scripture:
Acts 4:32-37
John 3:7b-15

Reflection:
We are many parts but we are all one body in Christ. As the disciples, while we all come from separate lives, our faith as Christians is our bonding agent. A strong part our faith that brings us together and sends us forth is that of evangelization.

Just like a machine, each part has its own purpose and job. For the machine to run like it should, every piece needs to work properly. The same goes for our faith community. Each person has his or her own way and call to spread the Word of God. Some through their daily jobs, ministries or in their own vocation of religious, married or single life. We have been given gifts by God to serve Him and each other here on earth.

What are these gifts that you have been given? How do you use them to serve?

We are called spread Christ’s love and mercy in the best ways that we know possible. That is what the disciples were called to do, to go out to preach to nations and tell the good news. This commonality of the call to evangelization for each person is something that binds us together and reminds us that we are not alone. The song by Marty Haugen "We are Many Parts", gives us a moment to reflect and consider that while we all have our own individual gifts and call, we are all connected to one another through love, faith and Jesus Christ. 

We are many parts, we are all one body
And the gifts we have we are given to share
May the Spirit of Love make us one in deed
One, the love that we share one, our hope in despair
One, the cross that we bear.

 

Kim Valdez is a Pastoral Associate at Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center in Houston, Texas

Scripture:

Acts 4:32-25
1 John 5:1-6
John 20:19-31

Reflection:

The power of the death and resurrection continues to unfold for us in this Sunday’s readings. As Ps 118 repeats again and again, "His mercy endures forever." What is more amazing than that "the stone which the builder rejected has become cornerstone." The Resurrection is the great reversal.

Defeat has become victory, not only for Jesus, but also for us. We need to remind ourselves day after day that "the victory that conquers the world is our faith". What is the core of our faith? It is that "Jesus is the Son of God".

In the Acts of the Apostles we see the amazing effects of this faith. "The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common." This is the garden of Eden time for the church. It couldn’t last. Soon enough the widows of the Greek speaking converts would complain about the unequal distribution of the food. Maybe what we have to hold on to today is the possibility of such an unselfish community.

Finally in John’s gospel we have the account of the first two Sundays after the death of Jesus, Easter and the following first day of the week. Jesus appears to the disciples as he had earlier promised: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them" (Mt 18:20). Whenever Jesus comes he imparts his Spirit, "he breathed on them". Lord, may I not be like Thomas who missed this experience of meeting you. May I always come to the community gathering on the first day of the week. Thomas had a second chance. "His mercy endures forever."

 

Fr. Michael Hoolahan, C.P. is on the staff of Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.       

Scripture:

Acts 4:13-21
Mark 16:9-15

Reflection:

In today’s reading from Acts, the religious leaders of the synagogue did not trust that God would reveal things about Godself to ordinary, uneducated people rather than working through the structures and hierarchy set in place for such purposes.  They did not believe these folks could have something valid to teach them about God, or that they could be instruments of God’s work. 

Unfortunately, these scenarios seem to run threadlike through the ages of our Church.  Too frequently, revelation is not trusted unless it comes through "proper" channels and from the top.  Whether originating in science, theology, or the sensus fidelium, the more unexpected and incisive something is, the greater the difficulty believing and accepting it.  Rather than shake up current beliefs, we rely on the past and revert to it for comfort and security.

Before being too quick to condemn these leaders, though, we must remember the Gospel reading, in which the disciples themselves didn’t trust a woman who said she’d experienced the Lord nor believe she could bring a message from God to them.  Further, they refused to believe two people from outside their ranks who encountered Christ.  They resisted any other channel than personal experience and direct revelation (which thankfully was eventually provided to them). 

It is reassuring to note that Jesus did not condemn the disciples for their hardness of heart and lack of faith.  In fact, after pointing it out, he sent them forth again to spread the gospel.  Their admonishment most likely served them well when they found themselves on the other side of the coin.  When the leaders of the synagogue refused to believe them, perhaps they felt a sense of compassion.  Having known the experience personally, having wrongly dismissed the revelations of others, they faced the opposition with greater calm and with the simple determination to press on without being deterred.

In truth, all of us have areas where our hearts have become hardened.  How often have I failed to believe because I don’t judge the source to be "worthy"?  How often have I dismissed those with less formal knowledge or experience as having little to teach me?  How many times have I engaged in a "discussion" about faith that is really an exercise in defending my own position?  How frequently have I missed a word from God because it was coming from an unexpected person or in a situation I didn’t anticipate?  Yet all things and all people can be used by God to bring new life if we are open to the surprising ways that God reveals Godself.

This, then, becomes my prayer through this Easter season:

May we open ourselves to God’s Spirit, who tries so hard to roll away the stones keeping us imprisoned and deaf to the life God offers.  

May we nurture the faith and honor the experience of those in our lives, discovering and learning from the gifts they hold. 

May we let go of our expectations and images of how God works, so that God can transform us in ever-new ways.  

May we open the murky tombs of our souls to the unexpected, so God can delight us with insights, grace, and yes, resurrection.    

And finally, like the disciples, in spite of our unbelief and hardness of heart, may we be worthy messengers, commissioned to go out and spread the gospel to the world.

 

Amy Florian is a teacher and consultant working in Chicago.  For many years she has partnered with the Passionists.  Visit Amy’s  website: http://www.amyflorian.com/.

 

Scripture:

Acts 4:23-31
John 3:1-8

Reflection:

As I write this reflection Easter has just passed, and today’s reading brings me back to the conversation my family had over Easter brunch.

 

For decades, members of my family have gathered for Christmas and Easter, as well as baptisms, first communions, marriages, and funerals. Like most families, we have laughed and cried together, kidded enthusiastically, debated passionately, and on those rare occasions in the past, gone home mad because we just couldn’t agree about politics.

But never do I remember us talking about God. Until this Easter. In response to a particularly evocative homily, we started to talk about our beliefs, doubts, questions, and experience of a Supreme Being, prayer, and the soul.  It became a very intimate sharing. We had the great good fortune to speak our hearts in an atmosphere of trust. Neither the struggling agnostics nor the believers among us were in danger of verbal harm; judgments were tempered out of love.

It was, for me, an experience of the Holy Spirit in our midst, enlivening and drawing us closer.

When I was a kid, like most children I had a pretty solid, albeit immature, picture of God and Jesus. The Holy Spirit was harder to understand. A bird? Who and what was the Holy Spirit all about? I knew that we believed in a Trinity but one of those "Persons" was a greater mystery than the others.

I didn’t really understand then that the Holy Spirit is the life-breath of the Church, and animates our spiritual family.  In today’s first reading we see the early Christians moved to speak their truth with boldness, the room itself shaking in a cosmic "yes" to their desire. And what we know from Jesus, and later, St. Paul, is that we are all invited into this new life, this new family, born of water and Spirit. We are never too old or too broken because: "What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit."

In our own intimate way on Easter Sunday, my family was pushing beyond our familial connection and reaching out to one another in spirit. We were more than children, parents, sisters, nieces, nephews or aunts; we were fellow spirits, journeying to find wholeness, seeking God, absorbed in Mystery. I saw each person in a new light. That was a moment of grace, I believe, sharing the way we did. It was the gift of the Resurrection, the breath of the Holy Spirit, urging new life on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

 

Nancy Nickel is director of communications at the Passionist Development Office in Chicago, Illinois.

Scripture:

Acts 3:11-26
Luke 24:35-48

Reflection:

Some years ago I heard a homily on Easter Sunday that began with a line that stays with me still. The priest said, "None of us has trouble believing in the Crucifixion; we know that humans do terrible things. But we have such a hard time believing in the Resurrection, forgetting, perhaps, the astonishing things that God can do."

The Gospel begins with a scene that feels very familiar to me and perhaps to everyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one – sitting together among family or friends, collecting like precious treasure the shared moments of life which feel so scattered in the harsh reality of death.  Bound by their experience and love for Jesus, how comforting it must have felt for the disciples to recall every detail of His fleeting life, and how pressing the need to preserve the memory of the journey they traveled together so it would not be lost forever.

The disciples’ hearts must have almost stopped when, lost in a reverie of the past, Jesus literally stands before them, wishing them "peace," allowing them to touch his flesh, asking them for nourishment for his body!  This is neither a distant God nor a dead man walking. This is a God of life, love and incredible intimacy. This is Jesus among us, compelling us not to look backward or toward the sky for God, but to look to the One who is in our midst, to the Jesus right before our eyes who is wounded, hungry and battered but who can also rise victorious to a new life.

Easter Sunday, of course, has passed, but Resurrection remains, and today’s readings for me are a reminder that, whether we can believe it or not, God’s astonishing work continues and we are today’s witnesses to the transforming power of His love.

 

Nancy Nickel the director of communications at the Passionist Development Office and she lives in Chicago. 

Scripture:

Acts 4:1-12
John 21:1-14

Reflection:

Pasta and Wine, that was the menu that advertised the Sunday-evening dinners of Ronda Giangreco, a wife, a journalist and a chef from Northern California. After being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Ronda decided to take on an old hobby of hers, her love for cooking and gathering people, in order to deal with this threatening disease. An e-mail blast went out to her closest friends. Little by little the guest list grew from 8 to 160 to her weekly evening dinners.  As treatment progressed and complications came about, her commitment to the Sunday Dinners was tested. One Sunday, after a bitter and unexpected visit to the ER, and with only four hours left, she was still able to pull it off. Dinner was served and her guests were taken care of. She was determined to cope with MS one week at a time. During her 52-week commitment of evening dinners, the table became more than just a meal for Ronda and for many of her guests. The simple act of serving a meal became a healing-balm not only as Ronda tried to adjust to living with MS but also for her guests who were dealing with losing homes due to the financial downturn, divorce, or other unfortunate situations.

In a very ordinary way Jesus also comes to his friends who have gone back home after the trauma of the Cross. As they did what they knew best, fishing, Jesus advises them and feeds them. The disciples would not dare ask him who he was for they knew it was he, Jesus, who had invited them to the table many times before.  As described by John the Evangelist, in such a plain and yet elegant setting, Jesus serves loaves and fishes on the shore of Sea of Tiberias (Sea of Galilee) as another Eucharistic Meal. In this encounter, as it has been before, the disciples are invited to the table as they are, with their fears, doubts, hopes and labor. Here, they are met by a compassionate meal presented to them by their Rabbi. In this humble and familiar way Jesus turns the ordinary of their life situation into a life’s mission. No longer will they be catchers of fish, now they will catch people by doing what Jesus did, by announcing the Good News of the Coming of God’s Reign and by inviting others to the Table where their life will be transformed.

Since 400,000 Americans suffer the devastating effects of MS, Ronda Giangreco, just like the Disciples, has seen the ordinary of her life be transformed into a life’s mission.  Ronda decided to share her experience of coping with MS in a book now titled "The Gathering Table: Defying Multiple Sclerosis With a Year of Pasta, Wine & Friends" and through her website (thegatheringtable.net). Her story is compelling and inspiring. She is hoping to travel around the Country to encourage those suffering with MS to find the healing power of "Coming to the Table".

As we continue to live in the splendor of Easter, we dare ask ourselves: How are we transformed by the table(s) that we share?  How do we invite others to the table? Which table(s) have we overlooked or ignored in our ministry or in everyday life?  Has the table become just a superfluous routine?

 

Hugo R. Esparza-Pérez, C.P. is member of Holy Cross Province currently working in Mexico.