wpengine

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

"I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears." Ps 34: 5

I used to be really afraid, especially at night. When my kids were little, Jim traveled one week out of every month. Those weeks were very difficult because I didn’t get much sleep when he was gone. I would wake up in the middle of the night and feel the terror begin to take over. I would break out into a cold sweat and be paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t even reach the telephone to call someone to pray for me. It was no fun!

One night I even saw a shrouded figure standing at the foot of my bed. He said "I have total control over you. There’s nothing you can do." I was afraid to tell anyone what I had seen, because I thought they would think I was crazy. But finally, I told my bible study leader, and she started to teach me about spiritual warfare. She taught me that demons are real, and that there is a battle going on! I learned scripture verses that I could speak out loud when the fear would threaten to overcome me.

Verses like these:

"When I lie down I will fall peacefully asleep for You oh Lord bring security to my dwelling." Ps 4: 9 "Through the night watches I will meditate on You; that You are my help…My soul clings fast to You; your right hand upholds me." Ps 63 7-9

"I set the Lord ever before me; with Him at my right hand I shall not be disturbed." Ps 16: 8

Now when Jim was gone, I had a night light on, the radio tuned to a Christian station, and my bible open on his pillow, ready for me to grab and read if I woke up in the night. I was learning to trust the Lord and to believe that He really meant it when he said, "Be not afraid." I was confused though by the verse "Perfect love casts out fear." I thought I had to have perfect love, or I would always be afraid. But God showed me that He is the perfect love that casts out fear, so my job is to cling to Him. When I keep my eyes on Him and His word on my mind and in my heart I have victory over fear.

I am still tempted to be afraid, but I seldom fall into the trap. God’s promises are not just words. When we claim them for our lives we will see that they are true. Thank you Lord!

 

Janice Carleton and her husband Jim live in Portland, OR and partner with Passionist Fr. Cedric Pisegna in Fr. Cedric Ministries. Janice also leads women’s retreats. She is the mother of 4 grown children and grandmother of 2, soon to be 3. Visit Janice’s website at http://www.jcarleton.com/ or email her at janice@frcedric/org

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Now that Jesus’ credentials have been established by His rising from the dead, the church re-introduces us to some elements of His teaching, a second time around, on the supposition that we’ll appreciate them better this time (during the eastern season).  This seems to be the tenor of some of the biblical readings she presents us during this post-resurrection time, which, for the neophytes, just introduced to the church at the Easter Vigil, is called a period of mystagogy during which a deeper examination of the gospels is pursued.

So we join poor Nicodemus in the gospel account today as we struggle to grasp the tenor of Jesus’ remarks about being born again-apparently into a reality where the wind blows-a wind descriptive of the Holy Spirit Who can instruct us about Jesus’ identity as the Son of Man (twice mentioned here), especially established by His being lifted up (on the cross).  We’re duly instructed in all of this now.

This time around, Nicodemus (and we) may begin to get the idea Jesus is presenting about Himself.  We’re born again into a new level of understanding/mystagogy, and are now equipped to begin living a life like that described in the Acts of the Apostles today, a communal life of sharing, explicitly described here as their way of giving witness to the Resurrection.  Who knows?  Perhaps by this time Nicodemus had made his transition into this new Christian community, and was one of those sharing their possessions among those who had need.

If so, Nicodemus would have finally gotten Jesus’ message about being born again, and being sensitive to the blowing of the wind.  At this point, recognition of Jesus as Son of Man would have come spontaneously to him and his fellow-Christians in that early community.  This is the title by which Jesus wishes us to know Him.

 

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

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 4:32-35
1 John 5:1-6
John 20:19-31

Reflection:

The drama of Holy Week and Easter continues in our readings for today’s liturgy. A key phrase for me is taken from the second reading, the letter from St. John: "The victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who indeed is the victor over the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

Thomas, the apostle, believed in Jesus of Nazareth, his mission, his gospel, his work on earth. He probably believed that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, the one Promised by God, to bring salvation to Israel. In fact, Thomas loved Jesus so much that he was willing to go with him to Jerusalem and die with him. (John 11:16) Thomas got his wish. He followed Jesus to Jerusalem, was with him as Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, reclined at table with him at Passover and accompanied him to the Garden of Olives. Up to that point, Thomas’ faith in Jesus was absolute, unshaken and without measure.

Then his faith was tested, tested beyond his human endurance. The unthinkable happened. He stood in shock as Judas came with heavily armed guards to take Jesus prisoner, as he prayed in the Garden. His heart stopped. Fear for his life overcame him. The only thing he could think of was to run away, run away so fast and so far that they could not find him.

So where was Thomas all this time? Was he with family? Was he hiding out? Did he go back to his old ways before meeting Jesus? We know that he was not with the disciples when they came back to that upper room, as they gathered in fear for their lives, on that first Sunday night, when Jesus first appeared to them. As the days went by, he felt overcome with shame. He had allowed personal fear to triumph over his faith in Jesus. He needed to come back. He needed the kind of community that the first reading for today’s Mass describes, a community of believers of one heart and mind, a community where he could feel accepted and loved, even though he had sinned. He believed his friends, the apostles and the women followers of Jesus, was such a community. It took a while, but he finally went back and found them in the upper room, behind locked doors.

The community welcomed him with open arms. Then came the news: Jesus is alive! Jesus is raised from the dead, and has appeared to them, in the very room where he is standing! Jesus spoke of peace and forgiveness, and He gave them the power to forgive sins. Thomas did not know what to think. He hit a wall. He could believe in Jesus, the Master and Teacher, Jesus the Messiah. Could he come to believe in Jesus, as His Lord and God?

Thomas’ moment of truth came when he saw the wounded, Resurrected Jesus standing before him, wounds of death on his hands and feet and side, but now so healed that one could touch them, even caress them without fear of feeling the pain that open wounds bring. Thomas did not realize how wounded he was when Jesus approached him. He covered up his wounds of betrayal by focusing on the wounds of Jesus. As Jesus stood before him, Thomas took that leap of faith. No longer was he seeing Jesus the Man, Jesus the Master, not even Jesus the Messiah, but he was now seeing Jesus, the Son of God. He was no longer unbelieving.

Many of us identify with the "doubting" Thomas. We even take some pride in being one. When we find ourselves there, we may well be blinded to the Resurrected Jesus as He stands before us, His wounded hands and feet and side within reach. Thomas was not blessed because he remained unbelieving. Do we have the courage to go beyond our wounds and say to the Resurrected Jesus before us: "My Lord and My God?"

 

Fr. Clemente Barron, C.P. is a member of the General Council of the Passionist Congregation and is stationed in Rome. 

Scripture:

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

Reflection:

Dear Jesus, I can see and hear Mary Magdalene and the two Emmaus bound disciples being pushed aside by the Disciples.   To their excited report, "We’ve seen Him.  He has risen from the dead," they hear, "You’ve got to be kidding.  Jesus was killed.  He was buried.  That’s that." 

What a sad moment for me in Mark’s account to see You appear to the Disciples and scold them for their hardness of heart and refusal to believe.  Once again, You expose the Disciples, stretch them to the big picture: "Go now into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel, the good news, to every creature." 

What is so refreshing, Jesus, is that Peter, James and John, and the whole group will finally unlock the door of the Upper Room.  There will emerge a group of people who move beyond their fears and are willing to a person to lay down their lives for their belief. 

Jesus, during this Easter season of 2009 be with us as we allow the depth and consequences of what Your love embodies to grow within us.  Don’t let me or any of us go backwards.  It is today, this year as it continues to unravel that the consequences of my love, our love for You, for one another, and for our individual selves that will reveal the depth of who I/we are.

How easy it would be if I/we could just automatically have this happen.  The awesome truth is that we have the challenge to continue in light of Your life, death and resurrection to grow. 

I want to close this reflection with a quote from the Vatican II document on the Church.  It is so appropriate!

"The Church, ‘like a stranger in a foreign land, presses forward amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God,’ announcing the cross and death of the Lord until he comes (cf. 1 Cor. 11:26).  But by the power of the risen Lord she is given strength to overcome, in patience and in love, her sorrows and her difficulties, both those that are from within and those that are from without, so that she may reveal in the world, faithfully, however darkly, the mystery of her Lord until, in the consummation, it shall be manifested in full light."  [Dogmatic Constitution on the Church – Lumen Gentium, Chapter1, paragraph 8].

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

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. 

Scripture:

Acts 3:1-10
Luke 24:13-35

Reflection:

The joy, power, and wonder of the Resurrection are in every sentence of our readings. Peter’s words to the cripple beggar "in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk!" carry the conviction that the power of the Risen Christ is available to heal crippled limbs. The surprise and joy of the beggar leaping up and then "walking and jumping and praising God" as he accompanied Peter and John into the temple is our own experience of  the Alleluias of Easter.

Jesus met the two disciples on the road "and walked with them". We believe that as we journey Jesus will walk with us. The whole story of the Hebrew people from Abraham’s journey from Ur,  the going down into Egypt and then the  exodus out of Egypt and through the desert and into the promised land, the Exile and Return, all show the God journeys with his people. He overcomes the obstacles and invites his people to faith.

Finally the moment of revelation as Jesus "took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them". With that "their eyes were opened and they recognized him". So many meals with prostitutes and tax collectors, miraculous feedings of thousands, the Passover celebration in the Upper Room that becomes the first Eucharist, and now Jesus gives them himself sacra mentally and, no longer needing to be present, "he vanished from their sight". May we cherish the sacramental presence of Jesus as we go to the table to be nourished by the body and blood of Jesus.

 

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

Scripture:

Acts 2:14, 22-33
Matthew 28:8-15

Reflection:

Easter Monday (or Bright Monday, as our Orthodox sisters and brothers call it), continues the mystery of Jesus Risen, as we will celebrate this gift during the next 50 days.         

Some wise one once said: "Life is what happens to us when we’re planning something else."  Thank God for the interruptions of life! Sometimes we’re out of sorts if the doorbell rings during our favorite TV show, or if someone breaks our routine at work.  Yet how often interruptions prove not only necessary, but life-giving.  The story goes that as Michelangelo was working to raise the great obelisk that still stands in the center of St. Peter’s square, he had given strict orders that absolute silence was to be kept during the raising.  The penalty was severe, at least jail time, I believe.  As the great piece was being raised, a worker noticed that one of the huge ropes, from all the strain, had begun to smoke.  He yelled: "FIRE", another worker grabbed a bucket of water nearby, the fire was put out and the obelisk raised.  A timely interruption, to say the least.     

Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, going away quickly from the empty tomb, and intent on sharing the news with Jesus’ disciples, were Surprised by him on the way.  He will continue to surprise, break in on and interrupt hundreds of disciples after his resurrection.  God’s great project, raising Jesus from the dead is over!  The silence of Good Friday and Holy Saturday has given way to shouts and songs of Alleluia!     

By the way, the worker who interrupted Michelangelo’s work was given a tremendous bonus, where he did not have to work another day in his life.  Jesus, whose Resurrection not only interrupts, but changes forever life as it was, gives us the greatest gift, a share in his resurrected life forever.