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Scripture:

Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41
Revelations 5:11-14
John 21:1-19

Reflection:

"Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"  John 21: 15

"Do you love me?"  How many times have we asked this question, or have others asked it of us?  There is the delightful story that I am sure some of you received over the internet.   A young boy has been singing "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…" to his little baby sister whom his mother still carries in her womb.  A crisis occurs when his mother is told that her child will not survive, or if it is born, it will be seriously hampered for life.  She goes into the hospital and  gives birth.  The little brother wants to see his sister but the nurse  in charge of the  nursery  refuges to let the boy in.  The baby sister’s condition continues to get worse.  Finally, the mother yields to her son, dresses him in a green hospital outfit to sneak him in.  The nurse recognizes him and screams at the mother to get him out.   The mom stands her ground.   "That’s his little sister."  The little brother begins to sing, "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…"   The struggling little baby begins to quiet down.    The little sister responds to the love of her little brother.   The truth in this story is that the little girl continued to recover and grew up without all the projected limitations.

"Thanks for loving me!"  When did you last experience the love, the concern of your husband, your wife, your mom, your dad, your grandma, your grandpa, your brother, your sister, or a dear friend?  How can we forget those words, that touch, that hug, that loving look?  How can you and I have forgotten the time, the effort, the patience, the tears that came in an effort to help you and me move through a bitter, painful moment or time in our life?

"Do you love me?"  This Easter season gives us the image of Jesus resurrected from the dead.  Interestingly enough as we gathered for Mass on Easter we noticed that the crucifix over the altar had not been removed.  Nor will it be removed.  "Greater love than this no one has but that he/she lay down his/her life for their friends."    This is ongoing.  Jesus’ love is portrayed in his resurrected body.  The disciples see the wounds in his hands and feet and in his side.  These wounds he keeps.  What a great difference this means when we hear Jesus say, "Take up your cross and come follow me."  What a difference to know that we aren’t being sent ahead and he will meet us later.  He chooses to walk with us.  He lets us know very clearly that he will not abandon us.  No one can hold him back, or refuse to let him walk with us or sit beside us.  Somehow or other the pain, the sickness, the loss, the betrayal, the ridicule, the abandonment we experience is not overwhelming because He is with us. 

And so we welcome Jesus’ reminder: "As I have loved you, so are you to love one another."

Fr. Peter Berendt, C.P. is on the staff of Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center, Houston, Texas.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

I think it was St. Ignatius of Loyola who said that about 95% of the time we can come to know God’s will for us by using our mind, common sense and prudence.  In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the leaders of the early church have a problem.  The Greek-speaking widows in the community were being neglected by the Church.  The native born Jewish widows, born in the Holy Land and who spoke Hebrew were getting better treatment.  The apostles asked the Greek-speaking Jewish members of the community to seek out seven men, deeply spiritual and prudent, to oversee the care of these neglected widows.  Hands were imposed and thus began, in the early church, the office of the Deacon.

What an orderly and reasonable approach the apostles took to solving this problem.  They did not act as dictators.  They delegated the representatives of the Greek-speaking community to seek out the seven who would serve as deacons.

So, God can most often be found by using our intelligence and prudence and working with others in doing what God wants.  However, the gospel story today tells us that now and then God bypasses our part and works a miracle to get things done.  The apostles were caught in a storm at sea.  Jesus comes along and the next thing they know the boat is safely ashore.  Their brain thrust had nothing to do with the resolution of the problem.  They did not even have time to ask Jesus for help.   Problem Solved!

There is something about this approach that is quite humbling to the great management approach to problem solving that is so dominant in our world today.  No matter how good we might be at organizing our life, we need to always be ready for God to pull a big surprise on us.  Out of nowhere, we feel the thrust of God’s power pushing us forward.  Just recently this has happened to me and I am still wondering where God is taking me.  I just keep stumbling around until God can finally get my steps together and take me where he wants me to go.

We must never lose our ability to say "Abba".  With the trust of a child, we allow God to pick us up and take us where he wills.

 

Fr. Blaise Czaja, C.P. gives parish missions and retreats.  He is a member of the Passionist Community in Detroit, Michigan.

 

 

 

Scripture:

Acts 5:34-42
John 6:1-15

Reflection:

The story of Jesus feeding the multitudes is one that most of us learned as children. As a kid, I remember focusing on that miracle and wondering how the scene actually unfolded: were the disciples focused on the crowd, and when they turned back, a few baskets had been replaced by hundreds? Or, did Jesus keep reaching into the same couple of baskets over and over, with more and more loaves and fishes emerging like a magician pulling endless scarves from a hat? It was a mystery of epic proportions.

Later in life, the metaphor of the profound spiritual nourishment we receive through our relationship to Christ, the trust we can place in God to meet our soul’s deepest, most elemental needs, illuminated and enriched the story in a different way.

Today in reading the story, what strikes me is the sheer humanity of Jesus’ actions; the simple yet loving response of one human being to another’s need.  Jesus is also God, and I suppose he might have chosen to simply reverse the feeling of hunger-abracadabra-into a sense of fullness.  Or, he could have said, "Let me teach you to overcome your hunger with the power of thought." Even, "offer it up;" certainly an honorable sacrifice in many cases, but not what Jesus expected.

No.  He told the people to relax and allow him to feed their aching bellies. Is there any more human response than that? Any act more caring, attentive, or understanding than simply getting food into a loved one’s stomach who is hungry? Sharing a meal, of course, has profound symbolic meaning.  But this meal goes beyond symbolism.  We are being shown a very intimate reality: that Christ is not of the spirit world but is fully present in the details of our natural human existence. He is aware, compassionate and engaged in our humanness because flesh and spirit are not separate, but one.

And what are the reverberations in our world today? Where is Christ waiting to be fed, experiencing pain, hoping to be educated, needing to be uplifted? With the recent triumph of Easter, I am asking myself anew: how am I called to be more present to the details of my own and others’ lives, to elevate and celebrate humanity, to be aware, compassionate and engaged?

 

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

Scripture:

Acts 5:27-33
John 3:31-36

Reflection:

In our readings we are presented with the confidence, boldness, and enthusiasm of the first witnesses to the Resurrection of Jesus. Peter and the apostles throw down the gauntlet to the religious authorities when they declare "We must obey God rather than men". We cheer for them and their courage. However, it becomes more complicated when we look at the history of dissent in the church during these last two thousand years. Such a defense did not save Joan of Arc from being burnt at the stake. And certainly this argument did not go very far in defending Thomas More’s refusal to obey the Act of Supremacy in the time of King Henry VIII. Closer to home, and a little less momentous since it is not a matter of life or death, what do we think of dissent in the church today?  How far do I allow myself to disagree with a moral teaching of the church or a liturgical norm?  If I do, do I fall under the warning in our gospel reading: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him". 

I sometimes just don’t know. But I truly believe what the evangelist John also declared in speaking of God: "He does not ration his gift of the Spirit".

God does not partially give the Spirit, but pours the Spirit out on us as he did on Jesus. If I am attentive to the Spirit I will know when my dissent will separate me from Christ and the Church.

 

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

 

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

You can’t go home again, but you can be born again.  WHAT?!  YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN, a novel by Thomas Wolfe, tells the story of a man going back to his hometown, who discovers that people are jealous of his success.  Of all the people he thought would be happy for him, some of those he grew up with do not share his joy.  In one way or another, when we go back to our home area, our native place, there is at least a sense of wistfulness or melancholy as we think of what was, and grieve for those who are no longer with us.

But YOU CAN BE BORN AGAIN.  From the pages of the Chicago Tribune last week came a great Easter story.  April Dorsey, who had suffered from a severe crack cocaine addiction, was in the beginning stages of recovery. At St. Martin de Porres recovery center in the city, she had been clean and sober for a month.  She had gotten involved with the program’s Harmony, Hope and Healing choir, which goes around the area and provides music to schools and nursing homes a few times a month.  Dorsey, 50, told the reporter: "I feel like a newborn baby!" and "Everything is different to me now."  She has been born again, by the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.  Nicodemus, puzzled, asked Jesus in today’s gospel: "How can this happen?"  He wanted the rational, "scientific" proof that so dominates us in the West.   Jesus tells him "we know of what we speak and we testify to what we have seen."  In the Easter season God’s people testify in a special way to God’s way of doing things, to God’s plan…in our personal lives, the lives of our church communities and in the world.  

God’s plan is outlined for us in the first reading from Acts: "The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own…."  Being of one heart and mind in the family of the church or one’s individual family doesn’t mean authoritarianism.  Instead, the goodness that flows from the resurrection impels us to constantly look for ways of being and doing that respect and nourish all.  We grow in desiring God’s will to be done in all situations, great and small.  This demanding yet fulfilling Christian idealism frees us from the grave!  The narrow confines of self, of doing it my way, yield to "us", "God’s way" and the common good.  

Eastertime, the goodness of fresh spring growth and warming sun, touches even old bones and hearts and helps us to say, like April Dorsey: "I feel like a newborn baby!" 

 

Fr. Bob Bovenzi, C.P. is stationed in Houston, Texas.

 

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

When Jesus was alive, it seemed that the Apostles never understood his true mission.  They came to believe he was the Messiah but were blinded by their assumptions about what the Messiah was to be about.  They were thinking about an earthly kingdom and worldly power.  Jesus challenged them over and over to think beyond their preconceptions but they managed to cling to their expectations right up to the arrest and death of Jesus.  However, that experience dashed all their hopes and killed their tightly held expectations!  They ended up locked up in an Upper Room filled with fear and darkness.

The resurrection of Jesus caught them totally unawares and changed everything.  After a little confusion at the beginning few days, they quickly took up the new life and vision Jesus offered them.

In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles we see them carrying on the mission Jesus had given them with commitment and confidence.  The chief priests and elders had chastised and confined both Peter and John because they kept proclaiming that Jesus was alive.  Yet they were not intimidated or cowed.  They returned to their own people and affirmed that though "Herod, Pontius Pilate, together with the gentiles and the peoples of Israel" had "stood against the Lord’s anointed One," they themselves would continue "to speak the word of God with boldness."

The Word of God they continued to speak was not condemnation for the evil acts of the people and their leaders, but rather a word of healing, recalling the signs and wonders done through the name of Jesus.  The Word of God is a Word that brings life to those who hear it and take it to heart.  There is no place in the hearts of the early Apostles for revenge or recriminations.

As disciples of Jesus, we, too, are called to speak the Word of God to our generation.  To do so faithfully our hearts must also be filled with the same love and compassion that is so clear in the life of Jesus and the lives of Peter, John and the other Apostles.  May God continue to open our hearts to his Word of love so that we speak that Word clearly and boldly as did Peter and John.

 

Fr. Michael Higgins, C.P. is the director of lay formation for Holy Cross Province and is stationed at Immaculate Conception Retreat in Chicago.

 

Scripture:

Acts 5:12-16
Revelations 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
John 20:-19-31

Reflection: 

The first reading immediately following Easter Sunday presents to us an image of the early Christian community. The lectionary of readings are done in three cycles (A,B, and C) and this year we are reading from cycle C. however on the Second Sunday of Easter the first reading for each cycle comes from Acts and the readings all demonstrate a characteristic of the fledgling community that follows Jesus. The term Christian actually does not apply because at this point they still see themselves as a Jewish community that follows the ways of Jesus Christ so until St. Paul the Apostle develops the term "Christian" their earliest tag is actually "The Way." The characteristics that each cycle presents are as follows:

• Cycle A: Acts 2: 42-47 – dedication to prayer, common worship and communion
• Cycle B: Acts 4: 32-35 – All goods are held in common, communal living
• Cycle C: Acts 5: 12-16 – The power of healing to those that are sick and disturbed

I received a comment once that Jesus was not an agent of social change. To challenge society usually evokes and image of rebellion or some form of civil disobedience. In the Passion narratives that we just reflected on during Holy Week we are told about a social response to the threat that Jesus posed against the ruling classes of his day. Jesus lived with integrity to an alternative social vision. But to live with integrity meant that he had to be public in promoting and advocating for this other vision (the Kingdom of God.) If he had simply lived a personal vision in isolation he would never have been seen as a threat. His methodology for social change was not typical and that is what throws us off. His was not the standard of society so he did not employ violent insurrection (which may have disappointed some of his followers, especially Judas Iscariot) nor did he organize some form of direct action. Instead he was a public example and what he did organize was an alternative community. In the first reading we witness this public community (Peter, John and the Apostles are out in streets healing and preaching) engage in promoting this social transformation through this methodology of community organizing. They are organizing a community that prays, shares, and heals the greater society.

The second reading along with the Gospel passage remind us that any institution, including the Christian Church, needs to always re-evaluate itself from the dangers of corruption and the adoption of social rather than divine values. In the second Chapter of Revelations Jesus has John address the seven early Christian church communities. With many of these churches however Jesus points out forms of social deviation that has crept into them.  Ephesus and Sardis have lulled in their works of mercy, Pergamum has accepted heretical teachings, Thyatira has engaged in sexual misconduct, and Laodicea has been corrupted by its own affluence.

The formula for reform is suffering. In Revelations and in the Gospel Jesus demonstrates that purification comes through suffering. What is amazing to me is that the Resurrected Christ continues to bear the wounds of his suffering. This is the constant reminder that is needed to keep us on the social vision that we have been set out to build. Like Thomas we are reminded that the way to live our baptismal calling is to be ever present with the ongoing Passion and suffering that continues to be in our world. We are called to be in solidarity with all who suffer. If we stray from the suffering in our society, if we become lax in performing our works of healing and sharing then we will fall victims to corruption, then we will be the ones that will have to be purified.

In reflecting on the "signs of the times" it certainly feels that our Church is passing through such purification. This is an opportunity for us as it was for the seven churches of Revelations. Let us reflect on the vision of God’s Kingdom as lived and expressed by Christ and early community, and then let us reengage with our community of faith to be heralds of reform for this vision. 

 

John Gonzalez is the director of the North American Passionist Office for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation.  He lives with his family in New York.

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

"There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved."  These words of St. Peter, which conclude our first reading today, thrill and disturb, depending at what point in history you are living.  For centuries, Europe and America prided itself on being "Christian" and readily accepted this belief.  But how things have changed!  Today, as some call all people to a "New  World Order," they are demanding that we give up these divisive beliefs of uniqueness and all go into a psychotic regression where we fall to pieces.  The "Big Daddies" standing by will then take the pieces and build a unified, look-alike human family.  Have you ever heard of anything so sickening and lacking in Gospel truthfulness?

When the early Christians moved into the Roman world, they were confronted with the same issues.  The Romans prided themselves on knowing how to create a unity and peace amid very diverse peoples and beliefs.  When this small, strange group of people called Christians came along, the Romans had the solution.  Their God was given a space on shelf 17, in the 23^rd spot among all the other gods.  The Christians said, NO.  There is but one God and we believe in this one God.  This immediately made the Christians troublemakers, disturbing the wonderful order established by the Romans.  This, along with other factors, like charges of cannibalism at worship services, brought persecution upon them.  Judaism lived peacefully in the Roman world even though it believed in one God.  The Romans had great respect for antiquity, so the Jews were well tolerated.

The defenders of the early Church tried to show that Christianity was but a blossoming of this antiquity and bringing it to its fullness.  I am not sure how well they sold this to the Romans.

With the conversion of Constantine, the great Christian era began.  This need to defend your uniqueness in a very pluralistic world subsided, until recent times.

We live in a world of movement and sound, that gets bored with silence and permanence.  Jesus was born as an actual human being, into history, into time and said certain defined things.  How Boring!!  This can get old very fast.  Wouldn’t it be better to have a religion defined by myths, which can change by addition whenever you desire.  Religion should have the changeability of a snake that sheds its skin and gets a new one.  Jesus is the same, today, yesterday and forever.  That sounds like one of those old bodies found in the frozen glaciers of Alaska.  The frenetic nature of the modern mind, which gets bored with its own boredom, can find it very difficult to believe that Jesus is the only name under heaven by which we can be saved.  There must be many ways, doors through which we can enter, many vines to which we can be attached and draw our spiritual life!  Toleration is the great virtue of today.  Truth is all things, opinions, well tolerated and kept down with a heavy does of antacids or should we say, the lack of reflection. 

St. Paul tells us that Jesus ascended so that he can fill the whole world.  Our Risen Lord is not restricted to time and space but he fills the world, radiating his Holy Spirit, calling all people to God’s life and love.  There may well be many who do not know the name of "Jesus" but who feel and respond to the call of the Risen Christ, the King of the Universe.  They are saved through Christ.  Others may dislike the imagined arrogance of the Christians, telling them how they are saved but then just think of all the absolute statements they make that we must let be.  The unity that God seeks is the community of diverse peoples, living with and respecting each other in a loving way.  He is not seeking a unity that comes from the psychotic dismantling of humanity and a new putting together based on human greed and idolatry. 

 

Fr. Blaise Czaja, C.P. gives parish missions and retreats.  He is a member of the Passionist Community in Detroit, Michigan.