Keeping the Lord's Day with Burning Hearts

 

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

23 April 2023 – Holy Spirit Parish

Acts 2:14, 22-33

1 Pt 1:17-21

Lk 24:13-35

       Praised be Jesus Christ!

In the Alleluia verse we just sang: “Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us; make our hearts burn while you speak to us!” Alleluia! Alleluia!

Our Gospel today is about the appearance of Jesus, the Risen Christ, walking along the road to Emmaus with two disciples. It concludes: “So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, ‘The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!’ Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.” The encounter with Jesus and not just discussion or academic study is what enabled these men to sort out the tragedy of Calvary and the confounding news of the empty Tomb. “Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.”

       Traditional Catholic common wisdom teaches us that although it is good to know our faith chapter and verse, what is ultimately decisive is that we get out of bed on Sunday morning, every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, and move across the threshold to take our place at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

       One of the great puzzles of the Christian life is how we come to understand and personally embrace the conviction that being Catholic demands something of us, yes, something intellectual of us, but that we have to integrate that information learned in school or at catechism into our personal lives. For children, no one can substitute the role of parents in achieving that goal. Most people who fall away from the practice of the faith, who give no evidence of true belief, may have twelve years of Catholic school behind them or years of catechism classes. Most of them, when they abandon the practice of the faith, do not stomp away from the Church out of protest and shaking a fist in anger or disgust refuse to fulfill their obligations as Catholics. Rather the majority are those who just quietly drift away at some point after they leave their parents’ home. Confession even growing up at home never played a part in their lives, maybe the folks did not take them to Mass on Sunday, and then on their own they just stopped going to Sunday Mass all together.

       As I say, it could be that other than Catholic school, they had no witness to the faith at home from either parent or, as statistics claim, maybe their dads gave no witness of faith to the children and failed to support their moms’ efforts at raising the children Catholic. Miracles of grace do happen, but when they do they normally just underline how faith comes to be the center of our lives thanks to the witness of mom and dad.

       The Alleluia verse says, “Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us!” How do we come to understand the Scriptures and the importance of faith in our lives?

Obviously, being Catholic, being a true believer demands prayer and reflection on our part. At some point after the age of reason, we have to make the faith our own. There is a study element to the life of faith. The Gospel account of the discussion on the road to Emmaus is definitely part of what makes the basis for our profession of faith. Faith can’t really be an effortless or purely emotional thing. Nonetheless the point of our faith is not so much that we are always studying doctrine, although that is an essential part of what it means to be Catholic. The obligation to study our faith, to learn our prayers and our catechism is not so in a simply academic kind of way. Intellectual ability is not an essential requirement. A simple faith can be both beautiful and profound. Anyone can learn enough to come to the knowledge and love of Christ, because although what is taught about the Lord may be mysterious or maybe in some ways enigmatic, it is not an elitist thing. Even the simplest person can reach an appreciation of the love of God for us. If faith needs explanation, it is less for academic reasons and more for matters of the heart, matters of personal knowledge and love. The Missionaries of Africa (popularly known as the White Fathers) when they evangelized the former Belgian colonies of central Africa required four years of catechism and literacy before the baptism of adults. Knowledge is essential even if it was not enough to keep the genocide, Catholic neighbors slaughtering each other, from taking place in Rwanda. Rather, the issue for us when it comes to faith is that like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we need help sorting out the person and message of Jesus Christ. On our own we just don’t quite get it. Obedience to the two great commandments, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself, demand some thinking through on our part, they don’t just come second nature, because they demand sacrifices of us, sometimes even heroic sacrifices of us.

       And he said to them, “Oh how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

       We can no more drift through life, going with the flow, than did Jesus Christ. The Lord, in obedience to the will of the Father, offered Himself up for all of us on the Cross. He was lifted up in sacrifice upon the Cross for the sake of the salvation of the world. We have things to ponder and His loving witness to embrace. Continue in the glorious joy of Easter, allowing Christ to enlighten you and your family by His grace! Set your Sunday apart as the Lord’s Day to contemplate the Lord’s sacrifice and victory for our redemption!

       And he said to them, “Oh how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

“Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us; make our hearts burn while you speak to us!” Alleluia! Alleluia!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Mercy - the Forgiveness of our Sins

 

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

16 April 2023 – Holy Spirit Parish

(SUNDAY OF DIVINE MERCY)

Acts 2:42-47

1 Pt 1:3-9

Jn 20:19-31

Easter Victory! Easter Triumph! Easter Joy! Christ once slain now lives forever! Alleluia! Alleluia!

       From the texts assigned for the Liturgy of this Divine Mercy Sunday we read in the Acts of the Apostles:

       “And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

       Take two things from that short sentence! 1) Every day the Lord added to their number and 2) those who were being saved. This message delivered in the pages of the Acts of the Apostles seems somehow contrary to the way we experience Church in our day and time. Why is that? Firstly: Why don’t we (adult Catholics today) seem to expect the Church to grow in any significant way and certainly not every day as we read in Acts? Why do we seem to content ourselves with a Church that does not seem to grow at all, a Church that resigns itself maybe to counting infant baptisms and seems to have its hopes set on no more than the first confessions and first communions of our children.

I am not saying that Catholics today don’t want people to join the Church, but that we don’t seem to expect them to either. Last week here at Holy Spirit at the Easter Vigil we received 13 younger adults into the faith through Confirmation, one young man among them being baptized on that occasion. That was a lovely experience for all those young adults who received Confirmation and made their First Holy Communion. I could read on their faces and on the faces of their sponsors both joy and excitement. Among the people here in church at the Easter Vigil this unique event (far from an everyday occurrence in the Church) gave evidence of a steady and quiet joy in the congregation and for some of those present, like me, even a bit of a thrill. Easter triumph! Easter joy! What kind of joy? Why this joy? I suppose because at the Vigil we saw a very concrete hope for the future. We saw the Church really growing the way it is supposed to. Make no mistake! The nature of the Church is to grow. This is our history and our heritage. This must be what went on in the Acts of the Apostles. “And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

       Slow down! Not so fast! Can we really expect things to happen in the Catholic Church today like back in Apostolic times? I think yes. To the extent that significant numbers are not being added to the Church in a constant kind of way is not good. If we are not growing, then we must be dying. The slow death of Catholicism is not a fate to which we should resign ourselves. We should be eager, we should be striving to draw people into Christ’s fold.

       St. Peter’s Letter (our Second Reading) puts it this way: “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” That is St. Peter teaching us too, and not just making a statement for the sake of spreading the Gospel back in Apostolic times. His message of salvation has lost nothing of its relevance and of its urgency for the people of our day as well. That is also basically the sense of the words of the Risen Lord in today’s Gospel to the doubting Thomas. St. Thomas professes his faith in the Resurrection after touching Jesus. He says, “My Lord and my God!” To which Jesus responds: “You believe in me, Thomas, because you have seen me, says the Lord; blessed are they who have not seen me, but still believe!”

       But what indeed is our role as ordinary Catholic people in the pews? How should we be going about living our Catholic faith today? In the Acts of the Apostles, in the Gospel accounts of the appearances of the Risen One, were the Apostles and the first deacons of the Church, like St. Stephen and St. Philipp, the only members of the Church called to spread the Good News? Not hardly! Is it necessary to embrace the fullness of Catholic faith if we are to save our souls? Obviously, yes! There can be no limited or second class faith. We must love and believe with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. None of us can be excused from embracing Catholic faith fully and without reserve. That requires of us that we get that message out to all whom we meet, to all whom we love. Why else are these accounts to be found in the Acts of the Apostles and why else did St. Peter write what he did? Our salvation is in Jesus Christ risen and victorious over sin and death. The Lord Jesus lives in His Church. “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

       This Second Sunday of Easter has all kinds of names. It is called Low Sunday in English, in Latin it is referred to as Dominica in Albis, because this was the Octave Day for the newly baptized adults to set aside the white garments they had been wearing since the Vigil of Easter. Pope St. John Paul II christened the Octave Day as Divine Mercy Sunday after the very special devotion to Christ’s infinite mercy propagated in recent times by St. Faustina. The devotion fits perfectly with the traditional Gospel passage which speaks not only of St. Thomas, but also recounts the institution of the Sacrament of Penance.

       “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’”

       Divine Mercy!

Easter Victory! Easter Triumph! Easter Joy! Christ once slain now lives forever! Alleluia! Alleluia!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

In His Light we see Light

 

Easter Sunday – 9 April 2023

Holy Spirit Parish

Acts 10:34a, 37-43

Col 3:1-4

Jn 20:1-9

Alleluia! Resurrexit sicut dixit!

Alleluia! He is risen as He said!

In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we heard about the commission from Jesus risen from the dead given to the Apostles. Even yet today after 2000 years, we as Church share their mission, we carry on that work first entrusted to them by the Lord Himself. So! Acts of the Apostles:

“He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

“…that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

       Obviously when it comes to grasping the Easter event, we have it easier than did the first disciples. For us, as we live the experience of Church, the surprise element which threw them off entirely is gone. Easter is an annual feast for which we can prepare. On this blessed Sunday, we have our Lenten preparation behind us for what the basic teaching about Jesus concerns, plus our annual big penance effort each year so as to have disposed well our hearts and minds for this great news. On this Easter Sunday, a moveable feast in the Church calendar, we can bask in the glorious light of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Unlike Mary Magdalene and the Apostles’ discovery of the empty tomb on this Sunday, Easter does not throw us into confusion or shock us. Despite the interplay of lunar and solar calendars, which move the date from year to year, it does not totally catch us off guard. Without being able to calculate the exact date on our own, we still know what to expect at this time of year.

The good news of the Resurrection cannot find us unprepared as were the first disciples. Our Gospel passage from St. John today ends with the word: “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” We understand the Scriptures. But we might still ask what makes us clearer in our understanding of the Resurrection than were Peter and John? In a sense you might say that we really may not understand the good news of the Resurrection as deeply and profoundly as did Peter and John. They knew Jesus intimately and were forced to confront the event. Despite our Lenten observance maybe we know Him less so. Can we say that out Lenten prayer and penance has brought us to the tomb to puzzle over the empty burial cloths as did they?

Be confident in the power and grace of faith in your own hearts and lives to move you to the boundless joy which can transform our world and our lives.

Alleluia! Resurrexit sicut dixit!

Alleluia! He is risen as He said!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI