4TH SUNDAY OF EASTER GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY
Fullerton T
RELIGION LITURGY AND LIFE
Third Sunday of Easter
This Weekend we celebrate the third Sunday of Easter it seems strange that we have come so far from the ashes of Ash Wednesday right through to Jesus resurrection at Easter. In the resurrection We celebrate the one who affirms for us that God has walked on our streets, confronted the evil we confront and suffered died and rose again for us. Jesus resurrection assures us that life can come out of death and good can overcome evil and it does. It doesn’t always seem that way these days when we see the suffering of the people around the world but for people who have faith in God nothing is impossible. After a tragedy like Sri Lanka or whatever there is a strong response of self-sacrifice and compassion from everyone to help the victims and those affected by the violence. Then with the passage of time we go back to where we were before the crisis, preoccupied by our concerns and yet through all of this bad stuff God is with us.
After the earth shattering events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday Peter and the others were ready to put the events of those days behind them and return home to what they did before they came across Jesus. But Jesus won’t let them go and by association he won’t let us go either. In our Gospel Story for this Sunday he comes to the shore looking for them. He gets their attention, as he did when he first called them, with a large catch of fish. He prepares breakfast for them and invites them to eat, “Come, and have breakfast.” After the meal Jesus asks Peter three times about the reality of his love. Insisting on love is something of a mark with Jesus. Three times Peter affirms his love, as three times Jesus insists on it. And when Peter professes his love Jesus commissions him to care for his flock when he says feed my sheep. And that is what Peter does – as we hear in Sunday’s first reading. In his ministry of preaching and healing Peter gets through to many people, and the authorities become nervous at the ability of Peter and the apostles to work in the name of Jesus.
In spite of the opposition Peter will continue insisting on his love for Jesus and this insistence will take him to martyrdom in Rome. No matter whether the believer is new or old, a pew sitter or a leader of people, the call of Christ is the same: “Follow me.” Following Christ means life in the community of faith where we are. Are we, like Peter, spreading the net for new believers and professing a true love for our Savior? Or are we on the sidelines watching others doing the work when we should really be out there doing the work with them? At the end of the day whatever happens we remember that God is with us and wants us to be with him now and in the future, He is with us in good and bad times so let us take courage this Eastertime to go forward in faith.
SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY
This Sunday we celebrate the great Mercy of God on the second Sunday of Easter that has come to be known as Divine Mercy Sunday. We celebrate the mercy of God made known to us in a particular way by Saint Faustina the polish nun.
I was sitting here a few days ago thinking that the season of Lent, Holy Week and Easter Sunday have come and gone so quickly this year and are now a distant memory. 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 for 50 days and ends on 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 over 2000 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 from the week before when all seemed to be lost. Then we are told that Jesus appeared 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 god’s mercy and love 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 favorite quote for many of us, who have not “seen” the risen Christ in person 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 in God and one another. The gospel tells us how Jesus gave his followers peace because they trusted him. In spite of the skepticism 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 merciful Lord. 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 love 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
The Forty Days of Lent are over. We have celebrated the beginning of the priesthood and the Eucharist on Holy Thursday. We have also celebrated The Passion and Death of the Lamb of God and the tomb is now empty as we wait on the joyful call that Christ has risen from the dead. The darkness of good Friday is gone and the flowers in our churches symbolize the New Life that has come into the world. Jesus Christ lives! He has Risen as he said he would and his light lights up our world. During the Easter Vigil we lit the Easter fire and from that fire we have lit the Paschal Candle that will be used over the next year.
Our Gospel story for the vigil tells us that we should not look for Jesus among the dead for he has risen and the light of Christ lights up the darkness of our lives and our world. The Easter celebration is an invitation to come out of darkness into the light of the risen Christ. In that light we see him and recognise each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord. It is that light which summons us to leave the darkness of our lives behind and all of us have some of those dark places. As a result of Jesus conquering death on the cross nobody can be written off as a lost cause ever again. Year after year when we celebrate Easter we hold as holy the memory of God’s great love for us when he raised Jesus from the dead. We believe that God’s graciousness will be extended to ourselves and that our own death will not be the final word. Our faith tells us that we will participate in Jesus resurrection on the last day. But a question raises itself: is our faith in the resurrection limited to remembering Jesus’ resurrection and hoping for our own on the last day? Hopefully it will mean more to us than that.
The resurrection of Jesus is a proclamation that this outcast from Galilee is the beloved Son of God who cannot be held in the darkness of death because someone else takes action. Jesus did not raise himself; he was raised by God his father. All of us believe that God’s work continues not least because we believe Jesus’ words: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Our celebration of the Easter Season begins with our celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday with the Vigil on Holy Saturday evening during which we welcome and baptise Adult converts to the faith Then on Easter morning we celebrate our Easter masses as we renew our baptismal promises and don’t forget that the feast of Easter continues for 50 days until Pentecost. So full of gratitude for Christ’s passion, with joy in his resurrection and, strengthened by the Spirit, we continue our Christian journey this Easter time.
Holy Saturday
We await the resurrection at the tomb in the quietness of Holy Saturday. All seems to have ended yet this is only the beginning As we wait at the tomb we think about Mary the mother of Jesus and the disciples who were the witnesses to Good Friday how must they feel? As we think about them we also remember that we are the inheritors of this great salvation event and we pray:
Almighty, ever-living God, whose Only-begotten Son
descended to the realm of the dead,
and rose from there to glory,
grant that your faithful people,
who were buried with him in baptism,
may, by his resurrection, obtain eternal life.
GOOD FRIDAY
On this day in the liturgy we read St. Johns account of the passion, we pray for the needs of the Church and the world, we venerate the Cross and we receive the blessed Eucharist. We think of the death of Jesus on the cross, his death was a result of the courage of his convictions. He lived his life with a message of compassion, of equality and love, Jesus was often critical of those who lorded it over those who were less well off or who had little or even nothing at all. The cross of Good Friday is a sign and a symbol that all of us recognise, it is a sign of the completeness of the love that God has for each one of us faults and failings included.
It is not accidental that the Passion according to John is always read on this day. This account shows that Jesus is always in charge, in total command of his situation. John’s Passion is an extended commentary on an earlier statement of Jesus found in John 10:17-18: “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” The focus of the liturgy of Good Friday, is not primarily a meditation on Jesus’ pain, nor on our sinfulness, or our imitation of Jesus’ humility. Instead the focus on the cross is a reminder to us that we are beneficiaries of this event and so we call the Friday “Good” by thanking God for what God has done for us . The final words of Jesus from the cross say it all for us, “It is accomplished!” Jesus is not overcome. On the contrary! He has overcome and the fact that we are celebrating Good Friday in 2019 bears witness to this. When we go up to venerate the cross on Good Friday we should allow the cross to move us to be better people. Consoling, comforting and challenging the people we meet with the values of Jesus and the Cross.
How splendid is the Cross- of Christ! It brings life,
not death;
Light not darkness; Paradise, not its loss.
It is the wood on which the Lord, like a great warrior;
was wounded in hands, and feet and side,
but healed thereby our wounds.A tree had destroyed us,
a tree now brought us life.
Theodore of Studios
HOLY THURSDAY 2019
Lent has ended and now we begin the Holy Week Triduum. The word Triduum is the Latin for three days that is Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The Church celebrates one liturgy each day. We should not think of the liturgies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil as three separate events, all three form part of one single extended liturgy. In fact at the end of the Mass on Holy Thursday there is no dismissal and blessing instead we accompany Jesus to the Altar of repose and then leave in silence. In the same way there is no formal beginning and end to the Good Friday liturgy we enter in silence and again we leave in silence. This three-day liturgy concludes with the solemn blessing at the end of the Easter Vigil or at the morning Mass on Easter Sunday.
On Holy Thursday morning the sacramental oils of the sick and catechumens are blessed and the Chrism is consecrated. Also during the Chrism Mass the priests renew their commitment to serve the people of God. If we think about our priests they bring the love of God into the lives of so many people through their work in the parishes, in the chaplaincies to Hospitals, schools and so many other places as well. We pray in a special way for our diocesan priests as well as those who are members of religious and Missionary Orders that God will uphold them in their ministry. We also remember in a special way the Archbishop Bishops priests deacons religious and people of the Archdiocese of Paris today as they would have been having this Mass in Notre Dame this morning and we pray that god will get them through these days safe in the knowledge that many people are praying for them throughout the world.
During the celebration of the Mass of the Lords Supper on Holy Thursday evening we hear two readings, Paul’s account of the institution of the Eucharist and John’s account of the washing of the feet during the last supper. John’s Gospel is full of signs of the Eucharist which are not read. Instead, we hear about Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. In the loving act of washing feet, Jesus demonstrates that one’s love of another is humble service, a bond of charity filled with grace and love. When supper had ended, Jesus took water in a basin and a towel and began to wash his disciples’ feet. He then commanded his disciples to follow his example by giving such loving service to others. On this night we act out Jesus’ command by participating in the foot washing. We are invited to have our feet washed and to watch the feet of others being washed. These readings make us aware that the institution of the Eucharist is tied to the demand of mutual love for one another.
Following the celebration of the Eucharist, we move in procession with the Blessed Sacrament to the chapel Of reservation there parishioners keep a watch through the night up to midnight. The custom of spending some time with our Lord on this night comes from the desire to give an affirmative answer to Jesus’ question, “Could you not watch with me one hour?” Participating in the Holy Thursday liturgy prepares us for the events of the next days in which we see betrayal ,death and 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). 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.
Notre Dame de Paris
Tonight we heard the sad news that Notre Dame de Paris was burning and I imagine at this stage nothing is left. As we continue our Holy Week journey we think of the French people and in particular we think of the people of Paris especially the Catholic Community there. It particularly poignant that this is happening during Holy Week as well as all that has been happening with the vandalism that has taken place in other French catholic churches in recent times. At times like these there is nothing that can be done except to express solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the faith that are affected by the tragedy of this fire especially at this time when we celebrate Holy Week. In holy week we celebrate life death and resurrection and tonight we witnessed the death of Notre Dame as it was and I feel certain that we will witness its resurrection in the future just as we will witness Christs death and resurrection later in the week.
PALM SUNDAY
Fullerton T 