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. 

 

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. 

  

Easter Sunday

 

Scripture:

Acts 10:34a, 37-43
Colossians 3:1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8
John 20:1-9

 

Reflection:

Early morning darkness; the stone removed from the tomb; burial cloths rolled up; Jesus "missing"…the Good News takes shape — and the rest is history!

Today, this Easter 2010, is a day of Life and Joy — a day in which God gives new meaning to all of our lives in the Resurrection of Jesus.  The tragedy of Jesus’ suffering abuse, crucifixion, and death is transformed by the gift of His risen Life.  With Mary of Magdala, Peter and John, we witness this new, risen Life, but still try to understand its deeper meaning.

The reading from the Acts of Apostles helps us as we recount Peter’s proclamation of "good news", making some sense of what has happened:  Jesus went about doing good, suffered much, was crucified and died, was raised by God from the dead — and then made himself known to his early followers who were (and are) to carry the message to others. 

New Life through the Resurrection of Jesus is our goal as 21^st Century followers of Jesus.  Our hope in the Resurrection of Jesus gives meaning and purpose to our lives which we celebrate in each Eucharist, but especially this Easter.  What Jesus did in his Paschal Mystery, he did for our benefit!  The challenges and misfortunes of our lives and our world are transformed in Jesus’ risen Life.

"Alleluia’s" now flow from our hearts and lips.  The words of the memorial acclamations from the Easter Eucharist take on new meaning as truly Good News for us and our world:  "Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again" … "Dying he destroyed our death, rising he restored our life" … "Lord, by your Cross and Resurrection you have set us free…"  We are the risen Jesus’ messengers in our day; Good News should radiate from our very being; we each are invited to be a living "alleluia" from head to toe (though at times our song might be a bit off key…)!

In the words of Psalm 118:  "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad!"  Good News, indeed…  The Word to remember is "Easter"!

 

Fr. John Schork, C.P. is the local leader of the Passionist community in Louisville, Kentucky. 

 

 

Holy Saturday

Scripture:

Ezekiel 36:16-17a, 18-28
Romans 6:3-11
Luke 24:1-12

 

Reflection:

What about today, the Sabbath, the day between that evening, (Jn 19:41), and that morning when Mary Magdala came to the tomb? Is this not a critical day in itself, a boundary, as it were, between the hideous, unthinkable that God is indeed vulnerable, incarnate, immersed in the contingencies of world and human affairs, and, the totally, loving Power greater than human that would restore life in the resurrected body of the Son of God?

In the words of the late theologian Alan E. Lewis, "The Christian story…pivots on the axis of Easter Saturday, that boundary between the cross and the empty tomb which reveals the even greater presence of God in the midst of a great absence: the plenitude of divine love’s resurrecting power manifest only in and through emptiness, negation and godforsakenness."

The Holy Saturday boundary enables us to contemplate the absolute freedom of God. "This is God’s freedom, to be not just our partner in eternity but our fellow creature in time, the fulfilling deity within the bonds of a truly finite life. God’s freedom to exist as a creature does not exclude a willingness to be the creature’s victim, to surrender to that opposition to God which characterizes human existence.

The consequence of this self-surrender of God is God’s suffering…a suffering even to death on the cross.  Why? Out of suffering a greater good, from the greatest Good -eternal faithful love in the Resurrection of the Crucified Lord.

Take time to reflect upon this Holy Saturday a critical day in the story of our redemption.

 

Fr. Alex Steinmiller, C.P. is president of Holy Family Cristo Rey High School, Birmingham, Alabama.

 

Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion

Scripture:

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42

 

Reflection:

As I was preparing to share my reflections with you on this Good Friday of 2010, I considered that of all the days of the liturgical year, this would be THE DAY to have you share your reflections on the Scripture of today’s Liturgical Celebration.  Throughout Lent 2010, our website has offered you special Lenten reflections via e-mail; and our website has continued to post reflections on the daily readings of the lectionary.  Surely, we have the means at our disposal to share some of our thoughts about the sacredness of this day.  Perhaps a Tweet, a blog, a Facebook comment, or an e-mail sent to a group of family or friends can become our own testimony to the journey we have made during Lent of 2010.

Today, Good Friday, commemorates the day on which Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross, and was laid to rest in the belly of the earth.  He had surrendered himself to the power of human sin.  Three days later, Jesus the Christ would be the Risen Savior who brings life eternal to all who believe in him and profess their faith in him.

This day captures the meaning of the life of Jesus as does no other.  On this day he most "perfectly" fulfills the mission given Him by His Father; on this day, he embraces the human race in the most intimate embrace possible, "there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (Jn 15:13)"

The first reading, from Isaiah 52 and 53, is the account of the "Suffering Servant".  The meek lamb being led to the slaughter, because "the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all".  He was "pierced for our offenses", but "by his stripes we were healed."  It is the paradox of vicarious suffering…that somehow, the suffering endured by one, brings the release from suffering for another.

On Easter Sunday, April 4, my family will celebrate the 13^th anniversary of my father’s death.  While Jose P. Carrillo would never have dared to compare his suffering from Parkinson’s Disease with the sufferings of Jesus, my mother, my brothers and sisters, were never far from that image during the last years of his life.  No longer able to do for himself, tense with non-responsive muscles, or twitching with involuntary contractions, my father mirrored the agony of Jesus on the Cross in a non-bloody sacrifice of his self to our shared mortality.  More reassuringly, after years of reciting his collection of daily prayers, novenas, and devotions, when he was no longer able to unwrap the rubber band from the worn prayer book stuffed with leaflets, he didn’t have to.  He knew that like the "good thief", Jesus would call him home to Himself.  The sufferings of Jesus freed my father from the sufferings of an all too mortal life.  "…he shall take away the sins of many and win pardon for their offenses."

The second reading, from the Letter to the Hebrews, contains the pearl of wisdom that echoes the theme of vicarious suffering.  "Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered, and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. (Heb 5:8-9)"  Don’t be misled by "perfect"; the translation is weak in capturing the meaning of "teleiotheis", which is not about divine perfection; the word is an expression of "telos", the "purpose" for which something exists.  The purpose of Jesus life and being is "savior", and once "finished"/"completed", he became the source of eternal salvation…."  Hence the richness of the final words of Jesus from the Cross (Jn 19:28): "it is finished/complete/perfect", again a form derived from "telos".  Jesus completely wraps up our human weakness, sinfulness and mortality in his saving-act, and completely frees us to achieve our own divine purpose.

If you are unable to participate in the Good Friday Liturgy, by all means take up the Gospel of John, and meditatively read the inspired Passion text in a prayerful setting.  Let the Holy Spirit of God draw you.  Give thanks to God for the gift of Jesus to us, and the gift of Jesus back to the Father.  "Greater love than this no one has, to lay down his life for his friends. (Jn 15:13)"

 

Fr. Arthur Carrillo is the local leader of the Passionist Community in Houston, Texas. 

 

Scripture:

Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14
1 Corinthians 11: 23-16
John 13:1-5

 

 

Reflection:

Tonight is a day of "re-membering". The community gathers to remember and celebrate the stories. Tonight we begin with the story of Exodus: The story of Passover, when the Angel of God passed over the doorway marked with the blood of the sacrificed lamb and

the marvelous works that God did for the chosen people in leading them out of Egypt, away from slavery and repression, through the desert of Sinai and into the promised land.

Remembering is the essence of the ritual.  It makes present in history the story and the promises. What God did in ages past for the chosen ones, God does now, for those gathered at the table of Eucharist.  The story continues in every generation.

On this night, we remember Jesus of John’s Gospel…it is simple… Jesus intends to show his disciples how much he loves them before he leaves them… so , reversing the relationships, He, the master, takes off  his outer garments, gets on his knees and, he the Master,  washes their feet.  …After washing their feet, Jesus reclines at the table… challenges the disciples and us saying: "I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do…" 

In John’s gospel there is no specific ritual of the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup at the Last Supper.  For John’s community and for all the church, getting down on our knees in humble obedience is remembering Jesus’ example of a lifetime of service and performing those tasks that are needed in the world. 

In our second reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he tells us to remember and to pass on what we have received from the Lord, exactly we have been given.  The words, actions and intent of Jesus are all important.  This is the core of our worship, our lives, our communities and our meaning as Christians.

With the Psalmist, today we respond:  Our Blessing cup is a communion with the Blood of Christ.  

As we reflect on the readings of this Holy Thursday, let us ponder deeply the questions and their meanings for our own lives now…

                        "Why is this night different from all others?"

                        "How am I being called to "wash the feet" of my brothers and sisters?

Marcella Fabing, ,csj, Christ the King Passionist Retreat Center, Citrus Heights, California. 

 

Scripture:

Isaiah 49:1-6
John 13:21-33, 36-38

Reflection:

Moses Mendelssohn, the great-grandfather of the famous German composer, was far from being a handsome man.  In fact, he was inflicted with a grotesque humpback.

One day when his family was visiting a merchant in Hamburg, Moses noticed the man’s beautiful daughter.  He fell hopelessly in love with her.  But she was repulsed by his misshapen appearance.

When it was time for him to leave, he gathered up all his courage to try to speak with her.  But this beautiful girl wouldn’t even look at him.  And this caused him much pain. After several attempts at conversation, Moses shyly asked, "Do you believe marriages are made in heaven?"

"Yes," she replied, still looking at the floor.  "And do you?"

"Yes I do," he replied.  "You see, in heaven, at the birth of each boy, the Lord announces which girl he will marry.  When I was born, my future bride was pointed out to me.  Then the Lord added, ‘But your wife will be humpbacked.’"

"Right then and there I called out, ‘Oh, Lord, a humpbacked woman would be a tragedy.  Please, Lord, give me the hump and let her be beautiful.’"

This beautiful girl looked up into his eyes.  Then she reached out and touched his hand.  Later she became his devoted wife.

The story reminded me of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

It was our infirmities (sins) that he bore, our sufferings that he endured." (Isaiah 53:4)

Indeed, Jesus took upon himself the infirmities of us all.  We who were once humpbacked with selfishness and sin have been made beautiful by the sufferings and death of Christ.

The apostle John would later write, "Love then consists of this: Not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us and sent his Son as an offering for our sins. If God has loved us so, we must have the same love for one another."  (1 John 4:10-11)

From the beauty God has bestowed upon us, we in turn are called upon to make our world more compassionate, more forgiving and more kind.

 

Fr. Alan Phillip, C.P. is a member of the Passionist Community at Mater Dolorosa Retreat Center, Sierra Madre, California.  http://www.alanphillipcp.com/