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Second Sunday of Easter April 7, 2024
Second Sunday of Easter
April 7, 2024
We have spent 40 days working to grow as we prayed, fasted, and gave alms. The hope is that we are changed by the experience.
Our first reading from the book of acts tells of a community which is changed by the experience of resurrection.
“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.”
We contrast this picture with the 12 disciples hiding in an upper room. They are full of fear after the resurrection. They seem to be the same as they were before the crucifixion. They are still full of fear and hiding out. Thomas takes a look at this crowd, and he is full of doubts, not in the resurrection, but in the status of the disciples. The resurrection is to have an effect on those who were the closet to Jesus.
These men are cowering in an upper room, (is it the same room as the last supper?), meanwhile it is the women who stood at the foot of the cross, it is the women who found the empty tomb on Easter morning. It is the women who are proclaiming the resurrection rather than hiding away in an upper room.
Where was Thomas the first time the resurrected Christ walked through the door of the upper room? Maybe Thomas was out looking for Christ or the woman who saw the empty tomb. Thomas was not cowering, he was active.
Luke in his gospel and his companion volume Acts of the Apostles is giving an example of what resurrection is all about. Thomas has doubts in the disciples, so he doubts their reports of the meeting of the resurrected Christ. Their actions do not match reports of seeing Christ. They don’t exhibit a new life due to the resurrection.
The goal of the resurrection is the image we found in the reading from Acts, unity. The disciples are united, but not as a community. They are united in fear. Soon the holy spirit will come and take away that fear. In the meantime, Thomas is there to challenge the disciples to proclaim the words “My Lord and my God.”.
Ash Wednesday March 5, 2025 In his book God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnequt tells the story of Mr. Rosewater who decides to give away the family fortune to those who are in need in Rosewater County. At one point a women who he helped out asks him to baptize her children. He tells his sister about this and she asks him, “what will you say at the baptism.” He responds: Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” Sometimes it feels that is what we have lost as a community, is the ability to be kind. I would like to suggest that for this season of Lent 2025 we all resolve to be kinder. Here are three ways we can accomplish this goal. (I need to thank Fr. James Martin for these suggestions.) First, don't be a jerk. You may be sick, tired, or upset about some minor catastrophe that happened at work or at home. That doesn't mean that you have to pass along your anger or frustration to others. Once I said to a friend, with mock seriousness, “My life is such a cross.” “Really” he said. “For you or for others?” While it is important to share your struggles with friends, you don't need to make others miserable. Second, honor the absent. Stop talking about people behind their backs. Few things are as damaging to our spiritual lives as denigrating other people. It's a serious lack of charity, and needless to say, it makes the other person feel terrible if they discover what you said – which they usually do. Third, give people the benefit of doubt. St. Ignatius Loyola mentions this at the beginning of his Spiritual Exercises. Whenever there is any doubt about what someone said or did, give them the “plus” sign. Being kind may be harder to do than giving up chocolate, but it's a lot more helpful to your spiritual life, - and for everyone else's.
8th Sunday C March 2, 2025 The book of Sirah is full of good advice. Today we hear "When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear; so do one’s faults when one speaks.” I am reminded of the words of Mark Twain, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." You may remember the movie Being There with Peter Sellers. Peter plays a man who took care of the garden on an estate. When his master dies, he leaves the estate to find a new place to live. His name is Chauncy, and he is the gardener. When he tells people who he is they think his name is Chauncy Gardner. Chauncy likes to watch TV, and he carries the remote control with him. He tells people” I like to Watch”, and he shares rules of gardening such as “there will be growth in the spring. He is mostly silent except for these comments and people think he is a genius. It has been said “we have one mouth and two ears which should we use most often?” This week we will begin the season of Lent. With Jesus we will enter the desert. This season of Lent can be a time to enter the silence. Deserts are quiet places. You may want to listen more closely to what God must share with you. In our well is our desert. You are invited to add to the desert by bringing in a rock. The rock will represent what Defect of Character you will try to get rid of in the season of Lent. (Place a rock in the well) In the gospel Jesus warns against pulling the plank in another’s eye and missing the sliver in our own. So often other people are like a mirror to us. What I dislike most in another is what I dislike in myself. We may ask ourselves “What is the plank in my eye that needs removing? And how will I remove it? We are given 40 days to consider how to remove this plank. Years ago, I was on retreat and at the end of the retreat they gave me a dare rock. A rock with the word dare painted on it. When we received the rock, they played a song from the musical Godspell. Where are you going? Where are you going? Can you take me with you? For my hand is cold And needs warmth Where are you going? Far beyond where the horizon lies Where the horizon lies And the land sinks into mellow blueness Oh please, take me with you Let me skip the road with you I can dare myself I can dare myself I'll put a pebble in my shoe And watch me walk (watch me walk) I can walk and walk! (I can walk!) I shall call the pebble Dare I shall call the pebble Dare We will talk, we will talk together We will talk (chorus) about walking Dare shall be carried And when we both have had enough I will take him from my shoe, singing: "Meet your new road!" Then I'll take your hand Finally glad Finally glad That you are here By my side By my side By my side By my side There is a lot in today’s scriptures to reflect upon for the next 43 days or so. Let us be silent and let the words of our God speak within us. In the next few days as we prepare for Ash Wednesday, we may want to consider what character defect I wish to address in this season. We place this upon a rock and give it to Jesus to bring with him into the desert and we pray he may take it to the cross so we may rise again on Easter Sunday.
7th Sunday C February 24, 2025 The scene in the first reading of today’s mass reminds me of the scene from the Broadway Musical Le Miserable where the policeman Javert is spared by the thief Jon Valjean and can’t deal with the debt he now owes to this thief. Before he takes his life Javert sings: Who is this man? What sort of devil is he To have me caught in a trap And choose to let me go free? It was his hour at last To put a seal on my fate Wipe out the past And wash me clean off the slate! All it would take Was a flick of his knife Vengeance was his And he gave me back my life! This is much the situation for Saul and David. David could have killed Saul, but he chose to spare his life. David had not heard the sermon on the plain in today’s gospel, but he chose to love his enemy, not to hurt God’s anointed one. Saul was the first king of Israel and when his kingdom was under siege by the Philistines it is a young shepherd boy who goes up against and slays the giant Goliath. Saul should be happy, but when the people begin to praise David over him, he grows jealous and seeks to kill David. The women sing words that hurt Saul: “Saul has slain his thousands, David his tens of thousands’ As Saul chases David, one day Saul goes into a cave to relieve himself and there is David hiding and he has the chance to slay Saul, but instead he cuts a tassel off his cloak. The second time David meets Saul is today’ s first reading. David has decided to love his enemy. He sees Saul as the anointed of God and deserving of God and David’s love. Loving one’s enemy is not an easy thing. We may not all have the kind of grievance David against Saul, but we all have men and woman who we find it hard to love. Love sometimes is a choice, we choose to love not because the other is loveable, but because they are created in the image and likeness of God and therefore deserving of our love, even if they don’t earn it. Choosing to love others may not change them, but it may change who we are. How hard it is to pray for one’s enemies. The prayers may stick in our throats, but in offering them we change our attitude toward them and the world. A challenge we are given is to see our enemy, as like us, created in the image and likeness of a loving God. There is a story told of the Christmas truce in the first world war. A group of British and German soldiers stopped the war for a time to celebrate Christmas. After this celebration many of them were unable to continue to fight. They had come to know the enemy as fellow humans and could not choose to destroy the men they came to know. If we turn on the evening news, we will hear much about violence and hate in our world. We can choose to contribute or look for other news of the kingdom of God at work around us. Looking for the presence of our God during hate and violence is a discipline. One, we develop over time. This doesn’t mean we deny the brokenness of our world, but it means we don’t choose to let that be the whole story. This week in the New Yorker Magazine I read a story about a deacon and a group of nuns who chose to visit women on death row in Texas. The women went into the prison full of fear and found they had much in common with the women on death row. They met them as fellow travelers and loved them as children of a loving God. The words of today’s psalm ring true: Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger and abounding in kindness. Not according to our sins does he deal with us, nor does he requite us according to our crimes. We are invited to imitate the attitude of our God. We pray for those who hurt us and let God be the one to judge them and punish them. We may not like it, but we may be surprised that the mercy of God extends even to those who hate us, or those who we think we hate.
in the "City of the Hills"
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