Weekly Reflection: Third Sunday of Easter, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Acts 3:13-15.17-19
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 4:2.4.7.9. R. v. 7
Second Reading: John 2:1-5
Gospel: Luke 24:35-48

The resurrection stories and experiences we have been hearing over the past couple of weeks are just as critical for our understanding of Jesus as they were for those first disciples. If we do not have the courage to keep our focus on Jesus then we will not understand.

The thread running through our readings today is our need to repent. But the only way we will truly be able to repent or understand our need for repentance is to keep looking at Jesus.

In our first reading Peter challenges the Israelites to recognise Jesus through their tradition and then tells them that “neither you nor your leaders had any idea what you were really doing” when they disowned Jesus and sent “the prince of life” to his death. He urges them to repent knowing God’s forgiveness is assured.

In the second reading John urges the people to stop sinning and warns the people of the difference between saying “I know him……while refusing to admit the truth” and acting in a way that honours the commandment of Love.

In our Gospel the disciple’s minds were opened as they experience the resurrection of Jesus. They remember the person of Jesus; they recognise him as the Christ and the fulfilment of scripture. It is through the witness of this perfect love of Jesus that they come to know repentance as the heart of the spiritual journey. When they looked at Jesus they saw the perfection of Love and in that they saw their own imperfection. They remembered their denials and desertion of Jesus – they could now see how blind they had been. They knew their need for repentance. But at the same time they knew themselves to be forgiven and loved which filled them with peace and joy.

How does all of this speak to us today?

So often today people are branded as religious nuts if they start talking about repentance, sin and forgiveness etc. Sometimes this is true. But if a person is deeply grounded in their faith and endeavours to live a life of Love there is nothing more attractive. Perhaps part of the problem is that it has been preached AT people by people who have the theory but do not have the real conversion of heart that we see present in the disciples today. It was the disciple’s real belief in what they were preaching that was magnetic for others. Their lives revealed a truth that was deeply attractive and that enabled those to whom they were preaching to see Jesus with open eyes and open hearts. It is critically important for all of us to be exposed to those who truly believe and live that belief.

Talk of repentance and sin is often seen as old hat and religious fanaticism. This is evident in many people who belong to parish communities. We do not like to hear of ourselves as sinners. It makes us feel uncomfortable when we believe that we are living lives that have no real obvious sin in them. We think that we are doing all the right things so what do I have to repent for – that’s for someone else not for me?

But if we truly kept our focus on Jesus we would know how distorted and wrong this attitude is. Jesus cried out on the cross: “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do”. That cry is for each one of us. We are often blind to our own sinfulness and our need to repent. But the more deeply we come to know Jesus our sinfulness will be revealed to us. We truly must accept our blindness knowing that through grace it will be revealed to us when we are ready to receive this truth about ourselves.

Our God does not was us to feel downtrodden or devastated about our sinfulness. Our God embraces us with forgiveness and we delight in this. But how can we experience the joy and peace of this forgiveness and love God has for us if we do not recognise our own need for repentance?

These conversions that take place in our hearts (if we are open to them) help us grow in love. They bring us to a deeper knowledge of ourselves and our need for repentance – they bring us to a greater awareness of our neighbour and our responsibility for our neighbour – they bring us to a greater awareness of Jesus and God’s great Love for us.

Today’s readings call us to go beyond being people who just SAY a lot - claiming to know God while our lives reveal the opposite, to become people whose lives reveal Love in action.

This will happen when we are prepared to walk with Jesus, to look at him, to learn from him, to be in awe of his loving and the affects this has on those around him, to stay awake and pray with him, to weep with him, to experience his forgiveness when we deny him, to die with him.

When we allow Jesus to become our centre we will not run away from repentance, we will embrace it.

So let us pray in the coming week that we will have the courage, the insight and the desire to turn around and face Jesus while saying to him “Lord, let your face shine on us (me)”.

Weekly Reflection: Second Sunday of Easter, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Acts 4:32-35
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 117:2-4.15-18.22-24 R.v.1
Second Reading: John 5:1-6
Gospel: John 20:19-31

Today’s gospel is at the heart of the ongoing experience of the resurrection of Jesus throughout the generations. We do not understand the resurrection if we think that Jesus only came to the disciples and other followers in the days just after Jesus’ crucifixion. The resurrection is filled with mystery. The resurrection is ongoing. Just as those early disciples of Jesus and his followers experienced the resurrection of Jesus, so do we if our hearts are open to it.

If we look at our text we see that the disciples were afraid and had closed themselves in a room. But something happens to their hearts and this fear is replaced by the experience of joy and peace. They hear Jesus saying to them “As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.” He tells them to receive the Holy Spirit and to Forgive.

But Thomas is not with this little community when they have this experience. Why isn’t he with them? Has he walked away feeling all was lost because all their hopes were in Jesus and he had now been crucified? But this small group of disciples tell Thomas of their experience in that closed room and he refuses to believe. But the following week Thomas joins the community and it is here where he experiences the risen Lord. It is within the community that he experiences Jesus and comes to believe.

What does all this teach us today?

The culture of individualism is growing in our world. One of the main causes of this individualism is fear. We close ourselves off from the world and create what we think is our own little safe haven. We bury our heads. We don’t know our neighbours. We don’t trust our neighbours. We close our hearts to the well being of others around us. And then we wonder why our world is in such a mess. The silence of individualism is a grave sin of our time and it is a betrayal of our neighbour and of our own hearts.

While the disciples of Jesus were tempted to stay closed in their room they knew Jesus and they kept reflecting together upon who he was. It was this communal reflection that enabled them to experience the resurrection of Jesus. We experience this communal reflection every time we celebrate Eucharist if our hearts are open to it. So it is a living community that will help take us out of our fear. It is in this community where we will experience Jesus. Thomas didn’t believe until he was re connected with the community. We very sadly close ourselves off from the resurrection while we continue to embrace individualism.

So what happens to us when we have this experience of resurrection?

Our hearts will burn for Love and this is what will drive us – this is what will send us out. We will know that Love does not close itself off, but it goes out into the world with wide open arms that are prepared to die on a cross. This Love will long for our world to be in communion and will do what is within its power to help make this a reality. This is the experience of the resurrection.

When we are baptised we are baptised into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We are anointed priest, prophet and king. We are baptised into the body of Christ. Increasingly people are seeing “the church” as irrelevant in their lives - they have lost the meaning of their baptism – they have become deaf to the story. They have become like Thomas and walked away. But if we go back to our text it was the disciples who had experienced the resurrection who came and told Thomas what had happened to them. Thomas must have seen the new life of Joy and Peace evident in the disciples and it was this that brought him back into the community where he would also come to believe. It was in this community where Thomas could see and feel the wounds inflicted upon Love and this drove him along with the other disciples into a ministry of forgiveness.

This teaches us very important lessons. It is the tendency of some parish communities today to sit back and just let themselves die. Their communities are dwindling and in some cases are almost lifeless. They go through the motions of a weekly Eucharist but they do not experience the resurrection that drives them out into the community. They stay closed in their church building afraid of going out and afraid of receiving the Holy Spirit. They have forgotten the story – they have forgotten who Jesus is for them.

Today’s gospel calls us to go out to the Thomas’ of our world. It calls us to live lives that reflect the peace and joy of the resurrection. It calls us to an authenticity that by its very nature will attract others into the community. It calls us to forgive ourselves and others and to help others to forgive each other. We don’t do this by bullying people, or telling them arrogantly that they should be doing this or that – or telling them that I am right and you are wrong – or telling them God will punish them. We do it by the example of our lives. There is nothing more attractive and contagious than someone who has experienced the truth of the resurrection and then has the courage to live it. This is how the early church grew. It is how the church today will grow.

Let us pray in the coming week for the grace to grow in Love and understanding so that we may become beacons that will attract people into this great communion of Love.

Weekly Reflection: Easter Sunday (Mass of the day), Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Acts 10:24,37-43
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 117:1-2.16-17.22-23. R. v. 24
Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-4
Gospel: John 20:1-9

The dark journey is now filled with light – everything has become clear – “Till this moment they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture, that he must rise from the dead.”

Easter invites us to share in the hope the resurrection of Jesus offers us. It is this hope that will draw us out of the darkness – that will empower us – that will lead us out of despair – that will drive us into mission – that will know in faith that love conquers all no matter how bad things might look. It is this hope that the world longs for.

How is this hope passed onto others? How do we ourselves receive this gift of hope?

Those in our human history whom have been inspired by God to write scripture are deeply reflective people. They have reflected on their experience - they have told the story and re told the story – they are people of faith – they REMEMBER. In our Gospel today we hear John say “Till this moment they failed to understand…….” It was their ability to reflect upon their experience that opened their eyes. We see this beautifully presented in the Emmaus Story when the two people are walking along the road remembering their experience and telling their story to Jesus and then suddenly in the breaking of the bread their eyes are opened. They REMEMBER their past experiences in light of their current experience and their hearts burned within them.

This theme of REMEMBERING is critical in our faith journey, just as it was critical in the early church and Old Testament times.

We have lost the art of telling our stories, of remembering. Instead we now sit in front of the TV and allow our senses to be deadened by what is often rubbish. Or we might absorb ourselves fanatically with sport etc. We fill our lives with all sorts of distractions. Sometimes distractions are necessary but when they take over our lives they become like a disease that eats away at our soul.

It is a very dangerous thing when a culture stops telling its story. We lose purpose, direction and vision.

Perhaps this is what is happening in our church at this time. Why is it so that the Eucharist seems to have lost its significance for so many people? Even if we don’t like what some of the hierarchy of the church are doing, why do we turn our back on the Eucharist? If people in the pews were asked why they came to the Eucharist on a Sunday, what might some of their answers be?

Why do I – why do you come to the Eucharist?

If people who have chosen not to join the Eucharistic community on a Sunday were asked what the meaning of the Eucharist is for them, what might they say? A survey along these lines might show some interesting results.

I would suspect that many do not understand the Eucharist. We have lost the story of its significance. We have become so busy with useless distractions that have filled our minds and hearts to the point that there is no room left to remember or reflect upon ones life and experiences.

When we choose not to REMEMBER the story (for example the story told in the Eucharist), it will no longer have meaning for us. The disciples that ran to the tomb to look for Jesus were enlightened because they remembered scripture, they remembered Jesus, they remembered and listened to their experience and they brought it all together and at that moment they understood. For a person who had not experienced Jesus, who had not know something of scripture and who was not reflective about their experience, this empty tomb would have meant absolutely nothing.
What I am trying to highlight here is the importance of our story – our faith story – our human story and experience. Everybody has a story.

It would seem that as a church we have some how stopped telling the story and have become bogged down with dogmas and rules and laws. We have lost the story of our rich rituals and powerful symbols that help give the story life and meaning.

Again, if we asked Catholics in the pews what the meaning of the rituals and symbols we use in Baptism and other sacraments were, what would be their response? So many times now we hear the words “when can we get our child done” when talking about baptism and other sacraments of initiation. We seem to have lost the sense of being initiated into the body of Christ. Instead we have adopted a strange magical sense of “getting done” which will make us somehow right with God. What a profoundly sad misunderstanding of our story.

If we lose sight of the meaning of the rituals and symbols that we use, haven’t we lost the story?
And stressing again, if the story is lost, so is the understanding. And then we might understand it when we hear people say that ‘the church’ has no relevance in today’s society.

What a tragedy this is, when the church can be a real beacon of hope for our world.

But what we must do is retrieve and own our story. We must encourage each other to Remember. When we can do this we will see enormous change.

We must begin with our children. If children do not hear the story from home and learn to reflect and remember their faith story in light of their own experience then they will come to the tomb and see it empty and walk away not understanding or making sense of anything. Isn’t this happening with many of our sacraments programs being offered now? We embark upon a few months of ‘teaching’ the sacraments in schools or parishes and then we scratch our heads wondering why the children and their families do not seem to maintain the faith. We blame parents, we blame the church, and we blame the schools.

To throw ‘blame’ at one particular group is to somehow miss the point. Every one of us during this Easter season is being asked to remember our faith story – the story of Jesus – the story of our Tradition – our story. Every one of us has a responsibility to keep this story alive.

So as parents, as families, as schools and as parishes we must reclaim our faith story – the story of Jesus. We must say NO to practices that water down this story to the point that it is no longer understood and is seen as some sort of strange magical attitude that thinks ‘getting done’ will make us right with God. When these strange practices are maintained and supported, is it any wonder that we seem to lose our soul and that things no longer make any sense to us and we walk away?

Let us pray during this Easter season that we will have the courage to keep our focus on Jesus and become more open to keeping this extraordinary story of Love and Hope alive in our hearts and in our world.

Weekly Reflection: Passion Sunday, Year B

Reading references:

First Reading: Isaiah 50:4-7
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 21:8-9.17-20.23-34 R. v. 2
Second Reading: Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel: Mark 14:1-15:47

In the alternative opening prayer and in the gospel acclamation for Passion Sunday we see the word “obedient” before us. While this particular word is not explicit in our readings for today it is implicit all the way through them. Therefore “obedience” will be the subject of our reflection for this week.

“Obedience” seems to be a grossly misunderstood word, particularly within the church. In the alternative opening prayer we are told “….so that through the obedience of one man, estrangement might be dissolved for all…”

To whom was Jesus obedient? Was it the Jewish leaders and authorities of his day? No. He confronted the leaders and challenged them and became angry with their arrogance and their blindness, but he never turned his back on them. These Jewish leaders demanded obedience from the people. They interpreted the Law in a way that alienated and oppressed people, and they demanded obedience to their interpretation – this is a false obedience. Jesus would not be contained by such corruption and he named it for what it was. Jesus was obedient to his God – he was obedient to Love. His pure heart demanded this of him.

During Lent we are encouraged to look at our lives and explore our hearts with Jesus beside us, so that we too can become pure – so that we too might become obedient to Love.

A heart that is pure will have eyes only for this and like Jesus, will endure whatever suffering comes its way in order to remain obedient to Love. And there will be suffering for the one who longs to be obedient to Love as we see in our readings today.

Do we long to be obedient to Love? Or is it easier to just abide by the rules and go with the flow, not rocking the boat and not letting ourselves be disturbed by too much, not letting ourselves think too much and not letting ourselves question what is happening around us? These are serious questions we must ask ourselves.

The foundation of the “obedience” we see in Jesus is faith. Without this faith we will not know or understand the obedience that is being asked of us. It is this faith that will sustain us in our suffering. It is this faith that will help us endure and remain present to those around us even when we are suffering. Faith will not walk away – it will search for ways to remain obedient and faithful.

Some church authorities and lay people even today make shocking demands upon the people to follow a false obedience. People have been very hurt and alienated because of this. And very sadly many people have walked away.

There is a difference between obedience to Love, and just wanting my own will and sometimes disguising that as God’s will and claiming this as obedience.

There is a temptation to bully people with fear tactics trying to coerce them into our own way of thinking and this has nothing to do with obedience to Love. For example: Much of the pre Vatican 11 church used fear to extract a false obedience from the people. If you miss mass it is a mortal sin and if you die in mortal sin you will go to hell. If a child dies without baptism then the child will not go to heaven. Sin and its consequences were the focus.

As a church we are still dealing with the fall out of these ways of thinking which has created all sorts of distortions. The image of God so many held was a God who would punish us and a God to be fearful of in a very unhealthy way. How can we have real faith in a god who would behave this way? It makes no sense. So this way of thinking did not nurture faith it did quite the opposite – it retarded faith through an unhealthy fear.

This has little or nothing to do with a God who longs to draw the whole of creation to God’s self in communion. It has nothing to do with the God of Love we know that counts every hair on our head. It has nothing to do with the God of Love we know that stretches his arms out on the cross so that our eyes may be opened to the power of Love.

Vatican 11 endeavoured to turn this erroneous way of thinking around with substantial success. However there is still a long way to go. But as we journey towards this obedience to Love we must remember those beautiful words of Paul when he says:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1Cor. 13:4-7

If we can truly listen to the great wisdom in these words of Paul we will know that when we try to force our own way on others, whoever we are, or we try to bully people into our way of thinking, or we hold up a god who will punish and judge ruthlessly etc that our self perceived obedience to Love is greatly corrupted.

Let us pray in the coming week as we watch Jesus show us what obedience means even to the point where he cries out to his God, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me? that we will have the courage to pray for a renewed depth of faith so that we too may become obedient to Love, even in our darkest hour.