Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

Ask yourself a question:

Who is Jesus praying for in today’s Gospel? Who is he bringing before the Father?

 

He has already prayed for the 12, and will pray for those who are not of the fold, but in this middle part of the High Priestly prayer, he is praying for us.  Just think about that:  Jesus stands before the Eternal Father knows each of us and brings us into the Mystery of God.  I don’t know about you, but that reality blows my mind.

Jesus who suffered and died, Jesus who rose again and not seated at the right of the Father knows me by name and brings my needs and my life into the eternal mystery of God and this God cares and loves me and he does this for each of us.  What more can we ask from God?  St Stephen realized this.  He was so in awe of what Jesus did for him that nothing would silence him.  Even at the moment of his martyrdom, he forgives those who hurt him and entrusts himself into the hands of the Jesus who knew him by name.  St Stephen knew Jesus in the very depths of his heart as Lord and Redeemer and even during his suffering he kept his fixed on Jesus knowing that Jesus was right there next to him.

In Jesus’ prayer, He reminds the Father that the 12 are the Father’s gift to him.  Do you ever see yourself as the gift of the Father?  This is not about ego or pride; the Father has made us gifts to each other and to the world.  But, like any gift, if we leave it unwrapped and unopened, it never gets used.  Jesus made us, the Church, to have one mission:  to tell everyone about the gift of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  It is good for us to remember why this local parish and the Church in general exists:  not for ourselves but to spread the good news.  Like Stephen, we need to stand in awe of the mystery of God and witness to it no matter what.  This awe then becomes the reason we live the values of the Christian life and bring this values and truths into the world

Is this hard?  It is if we try to do it all by ourselves.  St Paul will tell us in the second reading next Sunday that we can only say “Jesus is Lord” in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We need to daily bring ourselves into the presence of God and, being filled with the Spirit, become the witnesses that we are.  As easy as it is to become pessimistic about today’s world and church, as Spirit filled Christians who Jesus knows by name, we must witness to the joy and peace we have from Jesus to the world even in the face of suffering and rejection by the world.

 

Come Lord Jesus, fill our hearts with your seven fold Spirit and open our ears to your voice. May your Divine and Holy Spirit fill us the zeal of Stephen to give our lives for you. Enflame this parish community and change us to be spirited filled disciples committed to Jesus. Come Lord Jesus, and do not delay,  Set us on fire with your love.                     

I ran across a song this past week called the “Hand Song” by a group called Nickel Creek and a reflection that a Jesuit priest connected to it.

Fr. John Foley wrote the following:

A young boy picks roses for his mother. Trouble is, she has been raising these roses with great care, and he has now broken off the beautiful flowers. As he brings them to her, thorns dig into his hands. She lovingly extracts these, reminders of her roses, …

“and she knew it was love. It was one she could understand. He was showing his love and that’s how he hurt his hands”.

This is the love that Jesus calls us too…..a love that sacrifices for the need of another, a love that puts another first, a love that serves the rest.  The word in Greek, is “Agape” a  love is selfless and unconditional. Strong’s defines it as “brotherly love, affection, good will, love, benevolence.” Why else would Jesus have gone to the Cross?  He went there to show us what true love entails.

True love means getting our hands dirty, risk getting hurt, rejected, and thinking more about another no matter who that person is.  True love means even embracing those we may not like.  The love of a Christian accepts the fact that we can get wounded as Jesus, but the fear of getting wounded or even being hurt by the people we help cannot deter us from loving as Jesus did.  This can seem impossible and it probably is without the grace that flowed from the side of Cross and continues to flow into our hearts through the mystery of the Eucharist.

We read in the First Letter of St John, what that the outward sign of love and it is not found in a Hallmark card.  John writes

There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother or sister, he or she is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother or sister whom he or she has seen, cannot love God whom he or she has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his or her brother or sister.

I think that says it all.

So my brothers and sisters, the way is clear and the path is marked out for us.  May we as God’s people follow the example of Christ on the Cross and love each other and the world with a selfless love.  May we wash the feet of all we meet as Jesus did because he is the greatest example of how to love.

 

 

 

I ran across this story this past week.

 A pop quiz was given to a new class of nursing students in the first year of their training. Most of the students did well on the quiz until they came to the last question, which they all left blank.  That question was, “What is the name of the woman you see every morning who cleans our section of the school?”    The students thought that the question was a joke.  But when they got their papers back, every one of them was marked off for that question.  They protested.  The professor said, “Her name is June. In your careers you will meet many people.  All of them are significant.  They deserve your attention and care, even if all you can do is smile and say “hello.” The students never forgot the lesson, or June’s name.

Jesus knows each of us by name no matter who we are or what we have done.  He died for each of us; not just for a select few.  His death and rising gives hope to all humanity.   Because he loved us so much, Jesus calls us to love all our brothers and sisters in the sheep fold.  I know I am not good at remembering names, but I strive to remember a face and who the person is. 

 I grew up in a house where I was often called by my brother’s name, thankfully not the cats, but I still knew that my mother and father knew me for me.  Jesus is the same way and He does know our names.  He calls us by name to follow him. In the sheepfold, no two sheep look alike or act alike.  They are all diverse and even when two or three herds are mixed together, each sheep will respond to only to his or her shepherd’s voice.  We must strive to hear Jesus’ voice today.

 We may not remember the name of the person who gets our coffee at Dunkin Donots, but we can strive to say good morning. The same with the person who checks us out at Price Chopper or Hannaford.  If we work in an office, do we know who cleans it everyday?  Do the youth know the name of the custodians at their schools?  How about asking the postal person who delivers the mail how his or her day is going?  The opportunities are endless.  We all see the same people everyday because of our routines; but do we really see them?  They are sheep of the same shepherd as we are. The people we walk by everyday are the voice of the Shepherd to us and we are the voice of the Shepherd to them

As we celebrate the Good Shepherd who gave his life for us, may we strive to get to know the other sheep of the herd, especially those we walk by everyday. Even here is church, we need to get to know each other because no shepherd ever has just one sheep; he or she has many.  May the Good Shepherd open our ears and our eyes to hear his voice in all we meet.  May he use us to speak to His love to the world.

 

No one wants to fail.  In fact, there are many people who do not want to even make a mistake. This is often the reason we don’t want to change.  It isn’t because we cant; but we are  afraid if we try, we may not do it “right”.

The disciples in today’s Gospel were like this.  Imagine: they are experienced fisherman, they knew the places where the fish were, they could read the lake, the weather….and after doing all this: they fail.  This was on top of all the disappointment of the last day few days in Jerusalem.  Jesus had been crucified and died. Sure, they had seen him, but remember, they all had run away, Peter had denied him, Thomas doubted.  I cant imagine they were feeling really great.

But, notice, it was into this failure, self doubt, and mistakes, that Jesus enters.  He challenges them to take a risk, to try one more time and see what happens.  By being willing to come up empty handed, they try one more time, this time on the other side of the boat and looks what happened; a full net of fish.  In fact, the number 156 was all the known species of fish at the point in history. The net was a symbol that the whole world was captured in the net of God, even those who didn’t yet know Jesus.  It would be through the imperfect apostles that the Jesus would be preached.  They realized, I think, that if they stayed close to Jesus even their mistakes would be used to spread the message.  In the bread and fish, we as Catholics, see how to stay close to Jesus: the mystery of the Eucharist.  As Catholics, the bread and wine are not just a symbol of Jesus nor are they just bread and wine.  This bread and wine become His very presence and the food we need to do the work entrusted to us:  to spread the Gospel message that Jesus suffered, died and rose again.  Every Sunday, he invites us to this meal.

We are at a point in history when we, the church, have to stop throwing out the net on the same side of the boat, the symbol of the church.  Jesus is standing on the shore telling us: try to do it differently and the world will be caught up in my love.  Be willing to try again in a new way.

How?  By first committing our life’s to Jesus.  To look up and and see Jesus in a new way, maybe for the first time even if we are cradle Catholics.  Then and only then, will we  be a transformed church.    Jesus must be the center of our lives and the center of the church and the center of this parish community.

We don’t need to do it perfectly.  If we remain focused on Jesus, we cannot fail.  He will transform all our mistakes and failings into ways to transform the world into the Kingdom of God.  But, everyone who calls themself Catholic needs to be in it together and let Jesus show us the way.  We must be like Peter and jump into the water and run to Jesus.  We must be like the beloved disciple and recognize him in the breaking of the bread, the Eucharist.  Only when we are in it together, we will truly be Church.

My brothers and sisters, let us look up and out of the boat of our complacency and apathy, see Jesus anew.  Let us listen to Jesus and throw our net on the other side of the boat and try new ways to be “Church”.  This meal he has sets before us every Sunday must the highest priority in  our lives as  Catholic Christians. Without it, we are nothing and we can never be the new Church Jesus calls us to be.

He is standing on the shore of our lives right now; will you, will I, jump into the water, with all sins and failings, and run to him, our Resurrected Lord?

Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed. O wonder of your humble care for us! O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave, you gave away your Son!

These words from the Easter Proclamation that was sung tonight (or last night) puts this most sacred and central mystery of the Christian faith into perspective. Without Jesus’s life-giving death and resurrection, our lives would be empty. Too many people today try to put meaning in their lives in all sorts of different ways: in money, in power, in relationships, in things, and the list goes on. The Christian faith teaches us that without Jesus in our lives, we will dry up and wither away.

We live in a time when God is taking second place in many people’s lives. There is a growing numb er of people who refer to themselves as “Nones” when asked what religion they are. We, the community of believers, are challenged, like the first apostles, to be on fire with spreading the Good New of Jesus; the news that God loved us so much he gave us everything. The very Son of God went to the Cross for you and me to take away our sins and give us life. Like Mary of Magdala who ran from the tomb to tell the others, like Peter and John who ran to the tomb and saw and believed, we need to run from this church and tell the world about the Jesus we meet here. People need to hear the message of faith. However, what needs to happen first is that we need to experience the Risen Lord ourselves. Jesus wants to be part of our lives. He only asks that we be committed to him and to His Church before everything else.

Every Sunday is Easter. Every Sunday the Church gathers to proclaim to the world our belief in new life and new promise. Every Sunday, we partake of the Risen Lord in the mystery of the Eucharist. It is in this encounter that our lives find their true meaning. In fact, as we sang, without the Resurrection of Jesus and our belief in it, nothing has any value. Without a regular partaking of the Mystery of the Risen Lord in the Eucharist, we cannot be the people who God will use to transform the world: in our school, on the Little League fields, in our places of work, wherever. The mandate of those who believe in Jesus is to spread the message that the Resurrection promises.

So here is my suggestion. Take some of your Easter candy and jelly beans and Peeps and put them in the freezer. Every Sunday after Mass have a piece of a bunny or a some jelly beans. Have an Easter meal or an Easter BBQ if the weather is nice. Celebrate every Sunday like you celebrate today because every Sunday is today: Easter morning.

Christ is Risen! Yes, He is truly Risen!