Friday of Fifth Week of Easter
Today's Scripture
Today's scriptures highlight authority and its role for Catholics. Some Christians criticize Catholics for having a system involving bishops, cardinals and the pope. Some Christians go so far as to suggest that even having clergy is a backward notion for Christians at all. After all, some say, if the idea is to love each other as Jesus says in today's gospel (John 15:12-17), can't we do that without a pastor or a pope 'telling us what to do"? Moreover, for those who find the idea of authority for Christians reprehensible, they find support in some of Paul's letters particularly in his letters to the Galatians where he emphasizes freedom and the fact that he has the gospel from God, not from humans (1:12).
Thursday of Fifth Week of Easter
In this 5th week of Easter, we are continuing to follow the adventures of the early Church and to muse on some of the conflicts and problems that they encountered in trying to figure out how to be Christians. This task became particularly difficult when it came to negotiating the acceptance of the Gentiles into this new faith. After all, although faith in Jesus was new, it was really a fulfillment of a very old faith – the Jewish faith, and the Gentiles as a group didn’t belong to the Jewish faith in any proper sense (although there were individuals who converted to Judaism).
Wednesday of Fifth Week of Easter
The Lord works in mysterious ways. The spirit is prompting us to make faith connections in ways that are often unpredictable. Yesterday I was in line at the grocery and the person in front of me was talking to the cashier about his faith. While witnessing, he gave the cashier a pamphlet from his church. The cashier thanked the man and put the tract aside and began to ring up my groceries. I asked the cashier if she wanted the pamphlet. When she responded she didn’t, I asked her if I could have it. As a church worker, I like to learn from the ways that other churches evangelize.
Tuesday of the Fifith Week of Easter
The responsorial psalm for today, Psalm 145, contains the antiphon, “Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom” (145:12). In the text of the Psalm, it explains who these friends are, God’s “faithful ones” (145:10). These faithful ones, the “friends” of the Lord, Speak of the might of the Lord (145:11), “Making known to men your might and the glorious splendor of your kingdom” (145:12). This is something for us to meditate on today. How can we make known to others the glorious splendor of God’s Kingdom? For, if we wish to be God’s friends, God’s faithful ones, this is something we should strive to do. Our very lives should make known to others the glorious splendor of God’s Kingdom.
Feast of Saints Philip and James, Apostles
Today in the midst of this Easter season we celebrate the feast of two of the twelve apostles – Philip and James. These apostles experienced Jesus first-hand; they lived alongside him. For us, living so many years after Christ, we might rightly envy their proximity to Jesus. But at the same time, we might also note that being close to Jesus did not always make things as easy for the apostles as we would assume.
Fifth Sunday of Easter
When I was reading the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles for today, what struck me was the way in which Paul and Barnabas encouraged the early Christian disciples. They said, “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (14:22). At first glance, this doesn’t appear to encouraging. But in reality, it should be. This is not the only place we find such a teaching in St. Paul; if we turn to his Letter to the Romans, we find the same idea in the eighth chapter. There, St. Paul explains that the sufferings we experience can bring us to Christ’s glory, and do not separate us from God, rather they tie us more closely to Him. It is precisely by suffering with Christ that we begin to share in His glory. It’s simply a fact that we can run from suffering, but we can’t hide. In the end, we will all experience hardship and suffering. And this is particularly the case if we decide to follow Jesus.
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
“All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of God,” announces the response of today’s psalm.. We hear these words today immediately after we hear the story of Paul and Barnabas and the great mission to the gentiles. Gentiles, that is non-Jews, were generally regarded by Jews as outside of God’s saving power. Therefore, Jesus’ universal call, including Jews and Gentiles, is one of the most distinctive things about Him. He came from the Jewish tradition and He’s very clearly rooted in it, but His mission is universal.
Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter
I think we live in a culture that thrives on opposites. We teach our children early on about opposites: light/dark, hot/cold, wet/dry, open/shut, and so on. We buy sweet n’ salty mixes at the store; we love to have our cold slushy milkshakes alongside crispy fries and hot hamburgers; we like a good love story about opposites attracting; and, let’s face it, our political system seems to thrive on having a good mix of opposition on the floor of congress (even as some decry the nation’s lack of unity.
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter
In the last four weeks since Easter, we have been following the story of the early Church. Recent readings have emphasized the importance of the inclusion of the Gentiles. But today we hear Paul preaching in a synagogue at the invitation of local synagogue officials. How interesting! Christianity was now unambiguously open to Gentiles in the eyes of the early Church, and yet, Paul had not given up on sharing the message of the Jewish Messiah with the Jews. Moreover, Paul and companions remained comfortable in the synagogue, which had been their place of prayer for their entire lives.
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Alleluia, Christ is risen! As the season of resurrection continues, we are reminded through today’s readings that God is Trinity. The readings affirm our belief in God who sent us Jesus and empowers us with the Holy Spirit us to let God’s way be known among all the nations.
Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Alleluia, Christ is risen! As we continue to celebrate Easter, we hear the story of the early Church. Last week we heard of Stephen’s martyrdom, and today we learn that some believers were scattered by the subsequent persecution (led by Saul, who became the apostle Paul after his conversion). The gospel message of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was so exciting and so joyful that these believers simply could not keep it to themselves. They fled persecution, but they continued spreading the word of this Messiah. They even began to share it with Gentiles, like the Greeks, who had not been awaiting a Messiah as had the Jews. And yet, through the grace of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit, these Gentiles also came to believe. We have this beautiful line from the Acts of the Apostles that, “it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26).
Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Alleluia, Christ is truly risen! We are now in the fourth week of celebrating Easter. In this season, we have been focusing on the joyfulness of Christ’s resurrection. For, while life is not all about joy, Christ’s resurrection is the greatest source of joy we could have. For our church this is so important that the celebration of Easter lasts longer than the penitential season of Lent.
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Christian imagery is rife with the imagery of sheep. In today’s readings, we hear in the psalm response that we are God’s people, the sheep of his flock (Ps. 100:3c). In the gospel reading, Jesus proclaims that his sheep know his voice and follow him. In the second reading from the book of Revelation, our imagery shifts so that God is not just the shepherd, but rather Jesus is the Lamb who was slain for us in the new Passover and final sacrifice.
Saturday of the Third Week of Easter
“As a result of this, many disciples returned to their former life and no longer walked with him” (John 6:66). Jesus’ revelation of Himself as the Bread of Life, the one whose flesh we must eat and whose blood we must drink to gain eternal life, was not easy to swallow (no pun intended). Indeed it separated the deeply committed disciples from those who were on board only insofar as Jesus’ teaching seemed acceptable. This particular teaching shocked the latter group (John 6:61) and they returned to their former life. In response to their shock, Jesus remarks His words are “Spirit and life” (John 6:63).
Friday of the Third Week of Easter
Today’s scriptures cause me to reflect on the fact that Christianity is quite a bit strange. What we celebrate during the Easter season – Jesus’ resurrection – is odd in itself, but then add in everything else we believe: the virgin birth, the ragtag band of followers that wander around Judea, the disciples that proclaim Jesus in the face of persecution and death, all the various permutations of Christianity that exist in our world today. In the words of one of my students, “Christianity is entirely weird” and that is sometimes a stumbling block for people who find the weirdness to be anti-rational. But perhaps it is also the very weirdness of the Christian story that can cause us to have faith, as well.
Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
In today’s reading from the Gospel of John, Jesus continues to emphasize what He has been explaining to the crowd and to His disciples in the Gospel readings this entire week: He is the Bread of Life. Those who followed Moses and who ate the manna in the wilderness all eventually died. Jesus informs His listeners that if they eat of the Bread of Life, i.e. if they eat Jesus, they will not die but have eternal life. Jesus explains that the bread of which He speaks is His flesh.
Wednesday of the Third Week of Easter
Sometimes the joy of the resurrection is harder to participate in when times get tough. When we are in the midst of facing the loss of job, or struggling through the pain a shattered friendship, or even journeying with a loved one who is near death, Easter joy might seem vanquished. We may not feel it, but these times are when the Lord is trying even harder to remind us of his desire to feed us and lead us to from death to new life.
Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
We are now at Tuesday of our 3rd week celebrating Easter. Our readings for these weeks have caused us to think about what happened after the resurrection – how the early Church lived and how the Church came to understand who Jesus was in light of his crucifixion and resurrection. Today’s gospel passage is an important piece to understanding Jesus. In fact, for the next few days we will hear these texts known as the “Bread of Life” discourse. Sometimes, we may be tempted to think that Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, leaving us alone on the earth that had once known his presence.
Monday of the Third Week of Easter
As we begin this Third Week of Easter, we are called to keep in mind the resurrected Lord and continue to live in the Easter joy – the knowledge of our salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As we have done all Easter season, we continue to follow the stories of the early apostles as contained in the biblical book called the Acts of the Apostles. This is the sequel to our gospel stories, providing us with some kind of sense of how Jesus’ disciples lived the Christian life after Jesus’ death and resurrection. This week Stephen will feature prominently in the narrative contained in Acts.
Third Sunday of Easter
Alleluia! Christ is truly risen! While most of the world has left Easter behind, we Catholics continue to celebrate the excitement and joy of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. This is our Third Sunday of Easter, and the Easter season is longer even than Lent – a good reminder to us of the importance of the resurrection for our Christian faith. The Christian life is not all about suffering or crucifixion. Ultimately, it is about resurrection, God’s victory over sin and death.