Fullerton T

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

Here we are at the 3^rd Sunday of Easter and the schools are open again after the Easter holiday. It really seems no time since we got the ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday and yet here we are at the 3^rd Sunday of Easter 6 or seven weeks on.

In the Gospel story for today we see Simon Peter and his companions catching nothing after fishing all night. At dawn as they approach shore, someone on the shore whom they do not recognize directs them to cast out their net. When the net is filled with a large catch, the beloved disciple recognizes Jesus, now risen from death, and says to Peter, “It is the Lord.” When they reach shore, they see a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread. Jesus invites them to eat with him. He takes bread and gives it to them and in like manner the fish. Jesus then asks Peter three times if he loves him, and says to him in turn, “Feed my lambs…Tend my sheep…Feed my sheep.” Jesus then speaks of the kind of death Simon Peter will undergo, and says to him, “Follow me.” His call is exactly the same for you and me when he says to us FOLLOW ME.

In today’s gospel passage, John also links friendship with Jesus with his real presence at our Eucharistic meal. The meal Jesus shares with his disciples together with the feeding of the large crowd (John 6) and the Last Supper Discourse reveal the meaning of the Eucharist for us. Jesus, the Risen Lord, truly is with us at our sacred meal— speaks to us, prays with us, leads us in self-giving to the Father, gives himself to us as the bread of life  and cup of salvation. He calls us his disciples and his friends: the life implications remain the same.  The way we will fulfil his request to follow him as disciples in service of others is unique and particular for each of us. We can count on the Spirit of Jesus to guide us in discerning what that service will be.Jesus is always here with us! This is our joy! This is our everyday Easter! That is our life in the joy of the Spirit! For Jesus said: “I am with you always, to the end of time.” (Mt. 28:20)Remembering this brings us happiness and joy: this memory, this memorial of the Lord who becomes sacramental in the Eucharist – is this not a true apparition of the Lord? For Jesus can appear to his disciples in a manner that is mysterious and real through his grace, through the gifts of his Spirit, just as he appeared  to his Apostles on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.

Today’s Gospel, which many people consider the most beautiful of the resurrection stories, has many themes: the failed fishing trip, the inability of Peter to recognise the risen Jesus, the miracle of the fish and the simple, powerful reassuring words of Jesus to his confused disciples: “Come and have breakfast.” We can all find ourselves a place in this Gospel story, as we continue to wonder at the resurrection. Let us continue our journey  during this Easter Time as we go forward in faith.

THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT FEAST OF SAINT PATRICK.

THE WOMAN CAUGHT COMMITTING ADULTERY

Today is the 17^th March and  for anyone who is Irish or claims to have Irish ancestry we celebrate the feast of our National Saint. That said  this year our readings are for the 5^th Sunday of Lent and we reflect on them in a moment. It is good to have an opportunity to remember what today is really about – not parades, not entertainment, not drink, not sporting events, not all the other stuff that goes with St Patrick’s Day. This day is about remembering the arrival of the Christian faith upon the  shores of Ireland. The vibrancy and the power of that faith come to us  through in the writings of the time. Being a Christian wasn’t just about attending a church on a Sunday, it was about living every second and every minute and every hour under the protection of God. There was a belief inherited from the Celtic past that there was an energy, a force, a power, a strength behind all things, the God proclaimed by Patrick fulfilled this belief. Through all the experiences of life Patrick has a sense of Christ with him and within him. Patrick shows his familiarity with the writings of Saint Paul in the penultimate verse. Paul writes to the Galatians, ‘I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’.

At the end of St. Patrick’s Breastplate  Patrick has come full circle – back to the Trinity, back to God and in the closing two lines he expresses the message of the Gospel, “Praise to the Lord of my salvation, Salvation is of Christ the Lord’. May we follow Patrick’s example: may we bind God to ourselves and may we, like Patrick, know Christ as our Lord.

Today is also the Fifth Sunday of Lent – the final Sunday prior to Palm Sunday and Holy Week. We pray for our Holy Father Pope Francis that he will be accompanied by the prayers of the Church throughout the world as he begins his ministry as Pope. Lent is a time of endless opportunity for new growth, a time for insights into the meaning of God’s love for us. On this Fifth Sunday of Lent, we need to perk up the ears of our hearts when God says to a despondent people in exile, to look forward not backward, as though this moment in which they hear Isaiah’s prophecy is really the first day of their lives. He tells them to forget the past, for He has decided to do something new! This prophecy is really a veiled reference to the Father’s decision to send His Son Jesus as Messiah. By His sacrifice, He will bring them out of their vicious cycle of sinning. How sad that hundreds of years later, when their descendants actually saw their Messiah in the flesh, they failed to remember Isaiah’s words that God was doing something new!

In today’s Gospel Jesus meets the woman who was caught in adultery. He frees her from captivity to the crowd, the Pharisees and the Law. The “courtroom” tension is resolved by Jesus’ inviting her fellow-sinners to keep the Law by stoning her, if they themselves are without sin.  Nobody is left to throw stones as they were all sinners as we all are. We can understand why Israel had a “zero tolerance” policy against adultery. But Jesus is not about policies or procedures; he is about people and all the concerns and needs that they have. He knows that we all have in some way turned against God. And Jesus wants to free each one including us in our present time and place. He faces the woman’s accusers and his look causes each to examine his conscience. Then he speaks to the woman. Instead of condemnation, he offers a new beginning, “Go and from now on do not sin any more ” This is really what Lent is about, it is about all of us recognising that we are sinners, confessing our sins and then going out to try and sin no more.

ASH WEDNESDAY 2013

REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOOD NEWS OF THE GOSPEL

I am just sitting here at my computer the day after hearing the news about the resignation of our Holy Father Pope Benedict.  As i’m sure you know this news came yesterday around midday Irish Time as a complete bolt out of the blue to use Cardinal Sodanos words and that is certainly what it was. In two weeks time the Catholic Community throughout the world will be like sheep without a shepherd as the Pope resigns the See of Peter at 8pm on the 28^th of February. The Director of the Holy See’s Press Office explained that the Holy Father “will move to Castel Gandolfo on 28 February, and, once he has finished the tasks he has in progress, he will take up residence in the former cloistered monastery in the Vatican. The process for the election of a new Pope will begin on 1^ST  March. We do not yet know the exact date of the conclave, but obviously there will be no need to wait the normal eight days of mourning (novendali) after the death of the Pope. Thus, in two weeks, during the month of March, in time for Easter, we will have a new Pope … Benedict XVI will have no role in next March’s conclave, nor in the running of the Church during the time between popes, the time of Sede Vacante. The Apostolic Constitution gives no role in this transition to a pope who resigns.” So after all of this we now face into Ash Wednesday and our time of Lenten Prayer, the Church never stops amazing its people as we have seen. So then, in this season of repentance let us rethink how we treat one another. With the certain aid of the Holy Spirit, let us focus not on sin, but on service — service to one another and therefore to God.

For if we are truly focused on serving, we will not readily sin, because our focus is truly on what God desires unconditional love of all His precious children.  We also need to pray during this first part of Lent for the Church local and world-wide and its leadership. We also need to pray that the Holy Spirit will inspire the Cardinal Electors when they come to elect the next pope to elect the man who will lead us Catholics along the roads that lead to Salvation.

THE FEASTDAY OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST

THE FEASTDAY OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST.

TRINITY SUNDAY

Today is Trinity Sunday and this feastday was popularized by St. Thomas a Becket centuries ago. The feast of the Trinity became so important that until recently Anglicans numbered the long summer Sundays as “Sundays After Trinity”. This feast is unique in that the focus of our celebration is not an aspect of the history of salvation, but reflection on the nature of God as we believe it has been revealed to us as Christians. It is worth reflecting that today’s focus is the very essence of Christian identity. We begin every liturgy by stating that we are acting ‘In the name of the Father …’ and that is a declaration of our basic faith, not just an opening formula.

In 324 A.D., the gathering of bishops at Nicaea declared doctrine of the Trinity. Their declaration was in response to a false teaching that the Son and Spirit were merely creatures. If the Son and Spirit were creatures, then the relationship of all believers to the Father would be distant. The bishops rejected this teaching and reaffirmed God’s intimacy with his faithful. As Catholics, we profess the Nicean Creed every Sunday at Mass. We are living in an age of information overload – driven by means of communication which have profoundly changed the nature of our relationships with one another and our lives and the way we live them. You can even have a “best friend” you have never met  through the internet and other computerised ways of communication– and before you scoff, we need to hit the “pause” button to reflect on how we relate to God, Father Son and Spirit one. Our world seems locked in battle between contending parties and groups, and division and tension have even got into the churches as we are divided over so many different issues and some of the issues that have divided us are so very hard to deal with at so many different levels. Common sense tells us God exists and Jesus gave us a new look into nature of God. As creator, God is “Father.” Jesus made that distant concept close intimate and personal to us all. The Father became “Our Father” who cares for each and every one of us his creatures with an intense, personal love he has called each one of us by name and we are his.

As he showed us God as this loving Father, Jesus revealed himself as the only Son of the Father. As the Son, he became our model and connection with the Father. Through the Son we touch the warm embrace of the Father. The Spirit continues the mission of the Son through the Church. The Spirit moves us to intimacy with the Father. It moves us to prayer and worship, witness and evangelization, community and service. Through the Spirit, the strangers become friends, friends become believers, and believers come close to God. Hence, we believe God is Trinity (three divine persons in one God) simply because we experience divine power in the words, deeds, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And we experience divine life in the Spirit. In both we find what we call “God.” In both, we experience the Father as a personal, intensely loving, and compassionate God. The Church receives new believers “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.” The singular term “name” referred to the ancient notion that God in substance (nature or essence) is one, but three in person (or “hypostasis”). The family acts as an easily understood analogy of this mystery. There is only one family, but many members. Just as grace is given from the Father through the Son, so there could be no communication of the gift to us except in the Holy Spirit.  So whenever  we say In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit let us remember the love of the Father, the grace of the Son and the fellowship of the Spirit himself given freely to all of us.

Ascension of the Lord

Today we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus to the Father in Heaven. There is an air of finality about today’s festival but as we know it was end and a beginning. Our focus is on the retelling of a story declaring that Christ has returned to the Father, and so we think of it as the ‘end’ of the Christ event or the ‘end of Easter’ – in times past there was a custom of extinguishing the Paschal Candle after the gospel to signify: ‘he is gone’. That said he is gone but at the same time we believe that he is truly here with us. The ascension was an end As well as a beginning. While it was the end of Jesus’ physical presence with his beloved disciples, it marked the beginning of Jesus’ presence with them in a new way. Jesus promised that he would be with them always to the end of time (Matthew 28:20)  and he is with us too in the Eucharist, that is also called the real presence of Jesus in the blessed Sacrament.  Now as the glorified and risen Lord and Saviour, Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven, and he promised to send the Apostles the Holy Spirit who would give them his power on the Feast of Pentecost.

Why did Jesus leave his disciples forty days after his resurrection? Forty is a significant number in the scriptures. Moses went to the mountain to seek the face of God for forty days in prayer and fasting. The people of Israel were in the wilderness for forty years in preparation for their entry into the promised land. Elijah fasted for forty days as he journeyed in the wilderness to the mountain of God.

For forty days after his resurrection Jesus appeared numerous times to his disciples to assure them that he had risen indeed and to prepare them for the task of carrying on the work which he began during his earthy ministry.  When the Lord Jesus departed physically from the apostles, they were not left in sorrow or grief. Instead, they were filled with joy and with great anticipation for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ last words to his apostles point to his saving mission and to their mission to be witnesses of his saving death and his glorious resurrection and to proclaim the good news.  As I have said before I wonder what those same apostles would say if they realised that 2012 years later we in our own time would be writing and talking about the ascension of Jesus their friend and ours .Their task  in their time was to proclaim the gospel – the good news of salvation – not only to the people of Israel, but to all the nations. This is also our task to proclaim the good news of salvation to those around us by what we say, and how we live as Christian and Catholic people.

We remember that God’s love and gift of salvation is not reserved for a few or for one nation or one particular person alone instead gods salvation is for the whole world – for all who will accept it. Today as we celebrate the Ascension let us pray that we proclaim the good news of that Jesus is with us in our lives and daily living to those around us by what we say, and how we live as Christian and Catholic people.  The gospel is the power of God, the power to release people from their burden of guilt, sin, and oppression, and the power to heal, restore, and make us whole. Do we believe in the power of the gospel in our lives in 2012? All believers are given a share in this task – to be heralds of the good news and ambassadors for Jesus Christ. Next Sunday we celebrate the feast of the coming of the Holy Spirit as we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, and sing Come Holy Spirit creator come  we remember that We have not been left alone in this task, for the risen Lord works in and through us by the power of his Holy Spirit.