Fullerton T

Corpus Christi

In our Gospel story this weekend we hear the story of the feeding of the five thousand. The readings and the feast itself are full of richness. Jesus fills us with nourishing food, We are sent out to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom to all around us, in doing this we provide food for others. Like the circulation system of a body, the Word and the Eucharist continue to live in our communities and in the world. The Eucharist  or the Bread of life is the sacrament of thanksgiving and spiritual journeying. When we see the Eucharistic Bread, we believe that it is Jesus who is there before us such is our faith in the Blessed Sacrament.  

The Church tells us that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” (CCC 1324)  At the Eucharist God sees our hunger and feeds us through Word and Sacrament. We offer our prayer of thanksgiving. Remember, the crowd was first taught, healed and then fed. Their hungers were both spiritual and physical. Now it is our turn, well-nourished disciples, to find ways to address the physical and spiritual needs of the hungry we have noticed along the way. These needs can seem overwhelming. But, as with the bread and fish in the gospel story we take what the Lord has given us and give it freely to others. He will do the rest and all will be satisfied. The meal is also a promise: one day we will sit at the banquet feast where there will be no more hunger, no more illness and our satisfaction in God will be complete. Corpus Christi is the solemn commemoration of the institution of the Eucharist on the first Holy Thursday in the upper room. It is the Church’s act of homage and thanksgiving to Christ, who by instituting the Holy Eucharist gave us the members of the Church our greatest treasure.

TRINITY SUNDAY

This weekend we celebrate Trinity Sunday which is all about the triune god Father, son and Holy Spirit. When my Father was alive he  often had a small tin of oil which was called three in one oil and it reminds me what the trinity was about  that is three divine persons in one. The Father is equal to the Son and the Son is equal to the Spirit three in one and one in three we hear this in the breastplate of St. Patrick. Saint Patrick, with a brilliance that we Irish are justly celebrate found in the three leaf shamrock rising from the one stem an image of the Trinity, father, son and Spirit one The feast of the Trinity goes back to 12th century England and St Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. Historians say the great Thomas celebrated a Liturgy in honor of the Trinity in his cathedral. So the observance was born. In the 14th century, the feast came to be observed by the universal Church.  We open each Liturgy especially the Mass invoking the Trinity . We close Mass and so many other liturgies by calling upon the Father Son and Spirit in blessing us as we go out into the world.

Throughout the Christian world infants will be received into our faith communities  through Baptism in the name of the Trinity. The Christian belief that God is a trinity helps underscore how rich the mystery of God is and how our experience of God is always richer than our concepts and language about God.  The doctrine of the Trinity affirms God as loving and knowing, giving and receiving.  When the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, it is an attempt to summarize the whole mystery of our God into one day.  This is not just a “theological feast” ` but a feast which should speak to us of this simple fact of faith: the Father loves us, has revealed that love in his Son, and has called into a relationship sustained by the Spirit. Each Trinity Sunday, we only scratch the surface of this great mystery of our faith. In gratitude and faith, let us begin and end every prayer with greater faith and reverence “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

PENTECOST SUNDAY

This Sunday we celebrate the decent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles which heralded the beginning of the apostolic mission to bring the Church to the world at Pentecost. It is the birthday of the church so maybe we should sing happy birthday instead of Veni Creator Spiritus and blow out the candles on a birthday cake instead of blowing out the paschal candle because it’s the end of the Easter season!! With the feast of Pentecost the seven weeks that is the 50 days of the Easter season have come to an end with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given, and communicated as a divine person. “Peace” was John’s prayer for his readers as it is for us as we listen to this gospel reading on Sunday. With the sight of Jesus their fear turned into great joy, and their Anxiety turned into relief.

The lack of spiritual direction turned into a sense of deep spiritual grounding. The divine presence stood close to them and with the divine presence came a great sense of peace of spirit mind and soul. We too have the divine presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and it brings Joy and spiritual grounding to all those who come to meet him in the Eucharist. We can’t ignore our own or the problems  other people have.Most of the time the problems in our lives just don’t go away by themselves very often we need to stop and think and pray things through.  If we pray through the problems as well as thinking them through we will find that they are much easier to get through.  Simply put Prayer Moves Mountains but we must keep on climbing. Gathered at Mass week in week out we bring our prayers of intercession to God all of us have our own needs, Family and friends, someone we know may be sick, people need work.

Perhaps the person who has been in our lives for so long has died. We bring these and all our concerns in prayer to church because they remind us of our need and they raise our hope in the power of God made real to every generation through the Holy Spirit.  Through the Holy Spirit our relationship with God has satisfied our longings, and brings us the peace of God which is beyond all understanding. Because of God’s faithfulness, we give thanks, offer sacrifice, and once again present our needs this Pentecost Sunday as we remember the presence of God with us in all our lives through the good bad happy and sad times and we thank God for his enduring presence among us.

DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

I was sitting here a few days ago  just thinking that the season of Lent, Holy Week and  Easter  Sunday have come and gone. Many people think that Easter begins and ends on Easter Sunday but it doesn’t end there, the celebration of the season of Easter goes on to Pentecost Sunday. I wonder what the Apostles would think if they were to come down to us these days and find that we are celebrating the Death and Resurrection of Jesus that took place all those years ago, they would be amazed especially as they thought everything was over with the Crucifixion on Good Friday. In this Sundays Gospel reading the Apostles were still huddled together behind locked doors, pondering the shocking experience of the week before when all seemed to be lost. Then we are told that Jesus came to them and to assure them that He was alive. His message must have troubled them as well when he told them: “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” 

In the same way as the apostles were sent out we are sent out to bring his message of mercy to other people wherever we are. Then of course there is doubting Thomas who heard the witness of the those who saw Jesus but, like so many of us today he wanted more proof. Jesus says to Thomas, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” That is a favourite quote for many of us, who have not “seen” the risen Christ as the disciples did. We have come to believe though we have not seen him in the flesh but he is with us in the midst of our communities through so many different people. When Jesus says to the Apostles Peace be with you the Peace he is talking about is much more than the lack of conflict. True peace, gives us happiness, since it is built on trust.  The gospel tells us how Jesus gave his followers peace because they trusted him. In spite of the scepticism of Thomas and so many others, Jesus  offers us the same peace of heart mind and soul. As we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday we remember the joy, the hope, the grief and the anxieties of the people in our time those we know and those unknown to us and we bring them to the Lord. As Pope Francis says, we must courageously reach out to those who are doubtful among us, and assure them of the great mercy of Jesus the face of the father’s mercy. Our world is hurting so much because of the things that are happening within it with so many people at each other’s throats for so many reasons. May all of us be witnesses to the joy and mercy of the Gospel as we bring the caring face of God’s mercy to the people in our own communities wherever we are called to be.

EASTER SUNDAY

Having  completed our Lenten observance and after the liturgies of Holy Thursday and  Good Friday we  are now at the stage of celebrating the Easter Vigil on the day of resurrection that is Easter Sunday. Holy Saturday is about emptiness, the cross is empty and Jesus lies in the tomb everything around us is still.  The heavens and the earth cry out with longing for the sinless one who is not to be found, if we stop to think for a moment we remember that Jesus died and rose again on the third day. We wait, as mourners beside a grave, unsettled, ill at ease, not knowing what to do with ourselves. The Church has only one thing to do today: to pray through the emptiness of Holy Saturday.

Holy Saturday is the day when we experience watching and waiting at the tomb as we await the celebration of the Resurrection which we celebrate in the Easter Vigil and the season of Easter. The Psalm for Easter Sunday says, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”Above all days, Easter is a day of joy. At Easter, we celebrate the kind each of us longs for, when every tear is wiped away, and there is no sorrow any more no more suffering from weather or hunger or hurtful human beings. As we sing in the much-loved hymn by Fr. John Foley, S. J., at Easter, “the cross and passion past, dark night is done, bright morning come at last!”  When we ourselves rise to meet our risen Lord, in that bright morning we will hear him say, “Come away, beloved. The winter is past; the rain is gone, and the flowers return to the earth” (Song of Songs 2:10-12). In the loving union of that encounter, all the heart brokenness of our lives will be redeemed. That will be perfect  joy.So in that same vein of perfect joy we say “this is the ‘day which the Lord has made.’ Alleluia!  let us take fresh hope,  with Christ our Passover everything is possible! Christ goes forward with us in our future!” Let us go forward together as Easter people rejoicing in the Resurrection.

SPY WEDNESDAY

As we continue our Holy Week journey we have come to the Wednesday of Holy Week and it is called Spy Wednesday, it was the day when Judas made his bargain with the high priest to betray Jesus for 30 silver pieces (Matt 26:14-16; Mark 14:10-11; Luke 22:1-6). In Germany, this day was often called ‘Crooked Wednesday’, while some other countries called it ‘Black Wednesday’. Early Christians also used to fast on Wednesdays throughout the year in remembrance of the betrayal of Jesus. The name ‘Spy Wednesday’ is said to be of Irish origin, although the Bible never refers to Judas as a spy. His surname, Iscariot, is believed by some to be a corruption of the Latin ‘sicarius’, meaning “murderer” or “assassin”.  Matthew narrates everything, not to criticize or to condemn, or discourage the readers, but in order to underline that acceptance and the love of Jesus exceed the defeat and the failure of the people of God! Because of the frequent persecutions, many were discouraged and had abandoned the community and asked themselves: “Will it be possible to return? Will God accept and forgive us?” Matthew responds by suggesting that we can break the relationship with Jesus, but Jesus never breaks it with us. His love is greater than our infidelity. As we look towards the three great days of the Easter Triduum we know that it is possible to return and that  God will accept and forgive us remember the prodigal son and the woman caught in adultery whose stories we heard recently in our Gospel readings at our Sunday Masses.