Fullerton T

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Here we are at the 6^th Sunday of Easter soon we will come to Ascension(Jesus returning to the Father) and then the end of the 50 days of the Easter season we get to  Pentecost (The coming of the Holy Spirit sometimes called the Holy Ghost). The Gospel reading for this Sunday tells us that if we love Jesus he will come to us and stay with us and he is with us in so many ways especially in the sacramental life of the church. But he is with us in a particular way in the sacrament of the Eucharist, the body and blood of Christ which is the Bread of life. Jesus also tells us in this Gospel that he gives us his peace which is not of this world. We have only to look at the various war zones in the world such as Iraq and the middle east where so many have lost so much, even the Holy Land where Jesus walked while on earth is at war with Israel and Palestine fighting over so many things.

I think that the Peace that Jesus speaks about is the peace of soul, spirit and mind that comes from knowing that we are all members of the family of God and that God the Father is with us in our daily lives and existence. The Gospel reading for this Sunday also tells us that Jesus will be soon leaving his apostles and yet here we are 2013 years later celebrating the rich inheritance of the faith that has been handed down to us through the generations from Jesus and the Apostles. The faith that has been passed down through the generations to us here and now will continue into the future. As Eastertide comes to an end we see the power and influence of the Spirit growing. This is the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, and the Spirit who brings the Church to birth at Pentecost which we celebrate in two weeks time. As we journey towards Pentecost – the climax of the Easter Season – we should be considering the presence of the Spirit in the Church today: the reconciler of disputes, the solver of problems, true inspiration for the family of God on our journey to the New Jerusalem!

For us Pentecost is about promise: the Lord at the Last Supper promises that He and the Father will be “at home” with all who keep his words (This includes you and me) – and it is the Advocate, the Holy Spirit who will remind us of these and all his words. Someone once said that the law of gravity and the law of love ultimately have the same source and are both driven by the same spirit, the Holy Spirit. We believe that all Scripture is “inspired” – the word of the Spirit – so as we listen this Sunday let us look for the fulfilment of the promise made by the Lord. 

FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Today is the Fifth Sunday after Easter we are now closer to Ascension and Pentecost than Easter, but we are still in the Easter Season which goes on until Pentecost Sunday. the scripture readings of the seven Sundays after Easter describe   the reactions of the apostles to the news that Jesus was even more alive after Good Friday than He was before His death on the cross. The readings this Sunday begin to move us along too, as once more we hear the Lord at the Last Supper preparing his disciples for his departure: he does this by giving them a rule to live by, a new commandment. This commandment, “love one another”, is to be the guiding light of the community of believers after Pentecost and the coming of the holy Spirit it is the risen Lord’s parting gift to his Church. Paul tells us that “although his nature was divine, he did not cling to his equality with God, but stripped himself of all privilege to assume the condition of a slave. He became as we are, and appearing in human form humbled himself by being obedient even to the extent of dying, dying on a cross.” And elsewhere Paul writes: “Though he was rich, he became poor.” Do you not see what is new in Christ’s love for us? The law commanded people to love their brothers and sisters as they love themselves, but our Lord Jesus Christ loved us more than himself.

The apostles gradually began to understand how necessary it was for Jesus  to die in order to accomplish His mission from the Father, freeing mankind from the ancient curse. Each of the readings show  us how the apostles became more and more confident about the future as we should be confidentas well. In the Gospel, taken from Jesus’ farewell discourse just hours before His betrayal by Judas, their Master and Lord solemnly reveals to them a new commandment.  Love one another as I have loved you, that is the   self-sacrificing love for one another, is to be the sign by which all will know we are His followers. That love is to flow through OUR faith and works, into the structure and authority of His Church. Love is to form the basis for its   ministry as well. “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”Our new Pope Francis, in the short time since his election, has made real efforts to bring the outward face of the Church more in line with the humble, loving, and caring face of Jesus as it carries out the everyday work of its worldwide mission. May the example of Pope Francis give new life to the spirit of love, truth, and service in every local Church so that  it can be said of us in our locality that we have loved on another as Jesus Loved us.

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

DOUBTING THOMAS

Today is the Second Sunday of the Easter Season and it also known as Divine Mercy Sunday. In the Gospel reading for this day we see Thomas the apostle or as he is often called Doubting Thomas and I think  in many ways we are like doubting Thomas full of DOUBTS about what happens in matters of faith. In the Gospel Reading, the risen Jesus appears to ten of his apostles. Thomas is missing. The ten are convinced; but when Thomas rejoins them after Jesus has vanished, Thomas is highly sceptical as we would be if we were in his shoes. Thomas had trusted Jesus and believed he was the Messiah as we trust in Jesus and know he is the Messiah the Son of God.  The Romans killed Jesus and, with Jesus, the hope in Jesus that Thomas had. How much Thomas trusted before the crucifixion can be understood by the way Thomas hardened his heart against trust in the aftermath. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall,” we say. And the bigness of Thomas’s heart and the greatness of his trust in Jesus can be seen by how hard Thomas fell when he thought his trust was betrayed.

Thomas presents a contrast. He wants to physically probe Jesus’ body to confirm the miraculous. Yet when confronted with Jesus invitation to touch him (v. 27), Thomas backs off. He rapidly comes to his senses and confesses his faith: “My Lord and My God.” He accepts Jesus’ new invitation: “Do not persist in your disbelief, but become a believer.”Writing for a later generation of followers  who were gradually being deprived of apostolic witnesses by death, John composed the story of Thomas and the “beatitude” that concludes today’s episode: “Truly worthy of esteem are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”It is precisely because  we live by faith and in faith that we believe in the things unseen and we remember the words of Jesus in the Gospel when he said “Happy are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

Today we also celebrate the feast of Divine Mercy a feast in which we hear about the Merciful love that God has for each of us. The Messages of Divine Mercy were passed down to us through the Polish nun Saint Faustina.   Jesus Mercy is powerfully shown in today’s Gospel as the newly-risen Saviour appears to those who had betrayed Him, those who in weakness had run far away from the soldiers and from the mock trials—and from their Master in His three-hour agony and death. As Jesus showed His Divine Mercy to His apostles on this Sunday, the Church urges us to show our gratitude and belief in His never-failing forgiveness for our sins and betrayals of His love. He urges us to pray often for a world that has abandoned His commandments, ignored His words, shunned His healing, and rejected His love. 

HOLY SATURDAY AND 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 and the day of resurrection that is Easter Sunday. Holy Saturday is about emptiness, ‘The cross is empty now Jesus lies in the tomb and 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, almost 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 then 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 .

But what is joy? The answer St. Francis gave to this question is famous. St. Francis said to his Brother Leo, “When we come to St. Mary of the Angels [our house], soaked by the rain and frozen by the cold, all soiled with mud and suffering from hunger, and we ring at the gate of the place and the brother porter comes and says angrily: ‘Who are you?’ And we say: ‘We are two of your brothers.’ And … he does not open for us, but makes us stand outside in the snow and rain, cold and hungry, until night falls—then if we endure all those insults and cruel rebuffs patiently, … oh, Brother Leo, … perfect joy is there!”

Whatever we may think of St. Francis’s explanation of perfect joy, Easter reminds us that Francis’s kind of joy is not the end of the story. At Easter, we celebrate the other kind of joy, 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.

Holy Thursday 2013

Today is Holy Thursday and the theme that runs through the entire day is one of service or more exactly humble service. This morning in the cathedral the priests con celebrated the Chrism Mass with our bishops. Holy Thursday is all about the  priesthood and the  institution of the Eucharist on the first Holy Thursday in the upper room. During this morning’s Chrism Mass our priests  renewed their commitment to serving the people of god in the parishes and the various chaplaincies that there are. We in our turn were asked to support our priests and our bishops by our prayers.

The evening Liturgy, marks the end of Lent and the beginning of the sacred “Triduum” (“three days”) of Holy Week, which culminates in the Easter Vigil, and concludes at Vespers on the evening of Easter day. The Evening Mass commemorating the Last Supper has, as its theme, service and sacrifice – which are aspects of the same mystery.  We see Jesus as one who serves, who gives himself. Just as he gives himself in washing the feet of his disciples, so he gives himself in the bread and wine he takes, blesses and hands to them. And in the same way he will give himself on the cross tomorrow.  All these acts of self-giving are the same act – that of the Son of Man who came ‘not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’

The action of the Church that is our action on this night also witnesses to the Church’s respect for Christ’s Body present in the consecrated Host in the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, carried in solemn procession to the  Altar of Repose. No Mass will be celebrated again in the Church throughout the world until the Easter Vigil on Saturday evening proclaims the Resurrection that is the light of Christ. In the words of the liturgy let us go forth to meet the Lord in peace and thanksgiving as we celebrate the three days of the Easter Triduum

PALM SUNDAY 2013

Today we celebrate Palm Sunday when Jesus entered his own city From the ashes on Ash Wednesday we have almost gone full circle through the six weeks of Lent and here we are at Palm Sunday with three more days to come as we head towards the last round up that is the Easter Triduum. On Palm Sunday, we celebrate the first joy of the season, as we celebrate Our Lord’s triumphant entrance into Jerusalem where he was welcomed by crowds worshipping him and laying down palm leaves before him. It also marks the beginning of Holy Week, with the greatest tragedy and sorrow and then the greatest triumph of the year on Easter Sunday.

There are so many different aspects to this particular week it is so hard to flag up all of them on this day and i’m not going to do that.   They each have their own emphasis and there will be time to comment on them later on in the week.  Holy Week and the events within it give all of us an opportunity to look at our lives and to accept responsibility for all that is within our lives good bad or indifferent. It is important that we who say we are Christians accept the truth about ourselves and then in our acceptance of the truth we will be able to look at the Cross and recognise the love of God our Father for us and for everyone.

This week  and indeed the whole of our Lenten Journey that we will soon finish give  us the opportunity to look hard at ourselves and see exactly where we have come from and where we are going and perhaps were we should be going. We have always to remember that Jesus came to take away our sins and to point us in the right direction that is towards our father in heaven and all that is good.  During this week we remember that Christ came to give his life as a ransom for many and as a result of this he points us to God. Christ took our sinful ways on himself because of his love for us. May the passion story inspire all of us to try to imitate in some small way the all loving all forgiving Jesus who went through betrayal to death and finally to resurrection for us so that we will have life and have it to the full.  Over the next few days let us prepare with greater intensity for the Easter Triduum and then we will really be able to enjoy Easter feast which we have been preparing for since Ash Wednesday.

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

Well here we are nearly at the midpoint of Lent the third Sunday, of course the midpoint is next Wednesday 3 weeks in with three more to go. With the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, the thought that came into my mind on Friday was Here today gone tomorrow. After his resignation coming into force at 8pm on Thursday the popes name is automatically taken out of the intercession in the Eucharistic Prayer  and all other official references made of him in the Liturgy cease. In the same way when a pope dies his ring and seal are both smashed by the Cardinal Camerlengo and the papal apartments are sealed until the new pope is elected this all took place on Thursday evening. I’m sitting here just after 8pm on Thursday evening thinking has all this happened and as we know it has and so life goes on as we reflect on the readings for this Sunday

In this Sundays  gospel we hear again the urgent call of the Christ to change our way of life, to repent, to begin a new relationship with God our Father. The passage shows the compassion of Jesus, but this compassion does not exclude the need for repentance. To undergo resurrection in Christ is to undergo the judgment of God! Indeed, the time of Lent is nothing other than the time of the life of the Church: these forty days of repentance are the days given to the Church in order that she might prepare for her meeting with the risen Jesus, the Lord of Lords, He who is “the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 21:6). 

God, in his mercy, gives us time to get right with him, but that time is here and now not in the past and not in the future. We must not assume that there is no hurry. There is always a hurry when it comes to faith because a sudden and unexpected death leaves us no time to prepare to settle one’s accounts when we must stand before the Lord on the day of judgment. Jesus warns us that we must be ready at all times. The Lord in his mercy gives us both grace and time to turn away from sin, but that time is right now. If we delay, even for a day, we may discover that grace has passed us by and our time is up.  

As a Church, we learn from the lessons of history and we remind ourselves that we the people of god  and the Church  we are part of are always in need of renewal and purification. We are in the middle of Lent; it is that time of the year when we have a lot to think about but the message of today’s readings is clear. It is that the task that lies before us is one of repentance. This means that we need to examine our consciences carefully and admit to God our sin and unworthiness and in all humility seek his forgiveness.  In simple terms the urgent call of the Christ to change our way of life and leave all the sinful ways behind us as  we look forward in hope to a better life  the eternal life offered us by the risen Lord at Easter.