Kept by Christ—A reflection on the Seventh Sunday of Easter

In today’s reading from John’s gospel, Jesus is praying what has been called his high priestly prayer. It is a prayer for the unity of the Church. He asks the Father to protect the disciples so they may be one as Christ and the Father are one. Jesus has protected them so that not one of them was lost, except for Judas.

And what of Judas? Why was he lost? Jesus calls him “the son of destruction” and says that Judas was lost “in order that Scripture might be fulfilled.” The first reading from Acts tells us that Peter was with 120 others waiting for the Holy Spirit to come on the day of Pentecost. He reminds them that Judas was the guide for those who arrested Jesus. He was the betrayer, the son of destruction. Peter finds in the Psalms that Judas’ vacant office needs to be filled. So they selected Justus and Matthias and after praying, they chose Matthias by lot. This may seem like a strange was to go about choosing a successor to Judas, but it was the ordinary way things were done. We might pick names out of a hat!

I think the deeper reason for Judas being lost is found in the reading from St. John’s epistle. It too is about our unity in God. It is a unity of love. God loves us, so we must love one another. If we remain in love we remain in God and God in us. Judas did not remain in love, he betrayed Love to death. If Judas had sought true repentance, he would have remained in God’s love. The difference between Peter’s denial and Judas’ betrayal is that Peter repented with bitter tears and Judas chose to end his own life outside of God’s love.

But this is Easter, the season of glory and joy in the risen Lord Jesus Christ! So why are the readings talking about Judas? Because the Church understands our human frailty. I am reminded of St. Philip Neri. Philip had a prayer he used to pray every day. It was “Lord, watch over Philip today, or he will betray you like Judas.” St. Philip Neri, whose feast we celebrate this coming Tuesday, understood our frailty. He knew that we are all the kind of people who could betray Jesus. Judas’ price was 30 pieces of silver. Our price is often much less. We betray Jesus every time we deny that Jesus is the Son of God. We do that when we take him for granted, when we put him to the test, when we tell those who ask us about our faith “I do not know him”, when we treat the sacraments casually, when we deny the Church which is his body by dissenting from its teaching, when we do not help those in need.

The good news is that Jesus is praying for us to the Father. The writer of the book of Hebrews says that he always lives to make intercession for us.(Hebrews 7:24-25 ) In today’s gospel, Jesus prays for our unity, he prays for protection, he prays for our joy, he prays that the Father will keep us from the evil one, he prays that the Father will consecrate us in the Truth of his word. Then he sends us into the world protected by this prayer of consecration. Jesus is praying for us now in this Mass. The Eucharist is his answer to all that he prayed for us and all that we pray for ourselves. It is the source of our unity and the way God remains in us and brings his love to perfection in us. Let us receive Christ, remembering St. Philip Neri’s prayer. We are frail but Jesus is our redeemer. He took on our human nature and ascended to Heaven. Let us work for the unity in truth before the Father, for Jesus is that Truth.

Love and the Spirit--A Reflection on the 6th Sunday of Easter

Love. The word “love” occurs 9 times in today’s gospel and another 9 times in the epistle. Friend occurs 3 times in the gospel and joy twice. We expect God to love us. We don’t really believe it, but we expect it! After all, isn’t God supposed to love everyone?

One of the most astonishing statement’s in all of Scripture is found in today’s gospel reading. Jesus says “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Jesus says that we are his friends. This is the love of God we don’t expect; to be his friends. Not only that, but it is the kind of friendship that lays down its life for others.

But isn’t there a catch? Jesus' friendship seems conditional; if we do what he commands us he will be our friend. That sounds more like a servant or slave than a friend. No, we have it wrong. Christ says that he does no longer calls us slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. Isn’t that amazing? We are not slaves but friends because Jesus has told us what he is doing. He tells us through the Scriptures, the Church and the Holy Spirit.

It was the Holy Spirit who led Peter to understand that even the Gentiles are loved by God, are God’s friends. Peter was shown by the Holy Spirit in a vision that God shows no partiality. He accepts anyone who fears him and acts uprightly. In today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke tells us that as Peter was still speaking these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening. God gave the Gentiles the same gift of the Spirit that he gave to the Jewish believers. He gave them himself.

Love is so essential because, as John tells us in his epistle, God is love. If we want to be like God were must love as God loves. We must love without partiality. We must accept all those who God accepts and love all those God loves. And we must lay down our lives for them. This is no sentimental love, but the love of God. It is a love, as St. Paul says, that spared not God’s own Son but delivered him up for us all. A love that will freely give us all things.

When my friend Vincent Druding was ordained to the priesthood last week, one of the verses he used on his invitations and holy cards was from today’s gospel, “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

Vince understood that laying down his life for God’s friends is at the heart of the priesthood. It is also what we are all called to as Christians. In imitation of Christ, we love as he loves. To do this, to have the strength to lay down our lives, we must receive from the Holy Spirit God’s grace, his very life. This life comes to us through the Sacraments, especially Confession and the Eucharist. In Confession, we lay aside every burden and sin that clings to us and holds us back from loving God and his friends. As we receive from this altar the sacred body and blood of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, we will be filled with every grace and blessing. We will receive the strength to love as God loves. As St. John says, “God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.”

Our Blessed Mother is sets an example for us. Having accepted the Father’s love by saying Yes to the angel Gabriel’s news that she was to be the Mother of the Son of God, she went to see her cousin Elizabeth. In that moment of joy and love and friendship, Mary brought Jesus to her.

Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will fall on us as he fell on the Church in Acts so that, filled with the Spirit, we will know the joy and the love and the friendship of Christ. Then let us bring that joy and the love and friendship of Christ to all of God’s friends.

Living in Christ--A Reflection on the 5th Sunday of Easter

In today's Gospel, Jesus uses a agricultural metaphor to talk about the Christian life. He is the true vine and we are branches. We grow as we take his life into ours. Branches cannot survive without the vine. Cut off from the vine, they wither and die. Around my house we have wild grape vines. They grow everywhere! As they climb other plants and trees, their tendrils grab hold. The only way to disentangle them is to prune them, cutting the branches so they are no longer attached to the vine. Once they wither, they're much easier to pull off.

What grows on vine? Grapes. My grandmother used to make grape jelly from the wild grape vines. Saint John uses this story of vines and branches to talk about Christian living because of his theme of the Eucharist. Remaining in the vine, refers back to the Bread of Life discourse in chapter 6. There Jesus also talks about remaining in him "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him." (John 6:56).

The Church only grows by remaining united to Christ. As it does so, the Holy Spirit is free to grow the Church. We see this in the first reading from Acts as Barnabas introduces Paul to the Apostles. As they come to understand Paul's calling, they accept him, even risking their lives to rescue him. The Church was briefly at peace and the Holy Spirit caused the Church to grow.

Saint John also tells us in his epistle that "the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us." The peace we know as we remain in Christ comes from God who is greater than our hearts. Our hearts often condemn us for failing to keep his commandments. But because God is greater than our hearts, we can be confident that God will give us what we ask. John says that "those who keep his commandments remain in him."

We remain in Christ, the true vine by keeping his commandments. We gain strength to keep his commandments through the sanctifying grace of the sacraments. Through the forgiveness of sin in Confession, God prunes away the sins that injure, and even kill, his life in us. In the Eucharist, Jesus gives himself, his true life, to us. As we remain in his life, we will bear much fruit as his life grows in us. If we separate ourselves from Jesus, we will wither and die as a branch does cut off form the vine. Jesus himself says that without him we can do nothing. United to him, we will grow and bear fruit, glorifying the Father.

The Good Shepherd--A Reflection on the 4th Sunday of Easter

If you've ever had a problem with an employee or a contractor, then you know what Jesus means when he talks about the difference between hireling and true shepherds--it's ownership. The hireling works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. To the true Shepard, the sheep are like family. He cares for them because they are his. He knows the and they know him; the sheep know the shepherd's voice and follow him. A good shepherd will lay down his life for a sheep to keep them from the wolf. Jesus says "I am the good shepherd." I suppose that makes us sheep!

Jesus says "There will be one flock, and one shepherd." As our shepherd, he is our unity. He will bring together all the sheep into one flock, even the ones "that do not belong to this fold." When the Church teaches that "outside the Church there is no salvation" she doesn't mean that you have to be Catholic to be saved; she means what Jesus meant. There is one flock and Jesus is bringing those who belong to another sheepfold to the one flock. The Church as the body of Christ carries on this mission: to bring all the sheep together to his one flock.

This is also what Peter is saying in the first reading from Acts that "There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved." Salvation is through Jesus Christ. The Church is his body, but the Church is bigger than just the Catholic Church. It is wherever people are seeking Christ, even if they don't know it is Christ they are seeking! Saint Paul says that God wants all people to be saved.

How will Jesus bring all his sheep together? By laying down his life for them. The cross didn't happen to Jesus, he wasn't a victim. He willingly gave his life for us, his bedraggled, smelly, wandering sheep. He laid down his life in order to take it up again. The salvation he secures for us by laying down his life is described by Saint John. "See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are." Calling God our Father is not just a expression of faith. The Father loves us and gives his life to us through the Sacraments. He makes us his children in reality, not just figuratively.

And this salvation procured by Christ is not just for now. As we grow in grace, in the very life of God in us, Saint John tells us that "we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is." Trust the Jesus, the Good shepherd, to bring his sheep into one flock to present to the Father, who will give us his very life in grace through his Church.

Reality--A Reflection for the 3rd Sunday of Easter

If there is one word that sums up today’s reading, it is reality. Now reality is something we tend to avoid at all costs. It can be hard and narrow. Jesus said that the gate that leads to destruction is wide and the road broad; many enter
through it, but the road that leads to salvation is narrow and the gate small; few shall find it. That is reality.

In the first reading, Peter is preaching after healing a lame man. He boldly reminds the people that they had “denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.” (Acts 3:14-15) This is something God had announced beforehand through the prophets, that Christ would suffer.

The people listening to Peter probably thought that Jesus was just another troublemaker like they has seen before. Perhaps they thought he was a prophet. But the certainly didn’t believe he was their Messiah. The Messiah was supposed to deliver then from the Romans, not be crucified at their hands. Yet, God had said that the Christ, the Messiah, would suffer. What God says is reality. And this Reality suffered before being raised from the dead. Peter and the others were eyewitnesses to this. That was their reality.

In the second reading, Saint John writes about the necessity of keeping God’s commandments. “The way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments. Those who say, ‘I know him,’ but do not keep his commandments are liars, and the truth is not on them.” To call people liars sounds harsh. But Saint John is trying to get us to deal with reality. Many claim to believe in God. How do we know that we know God? John’s answer is that we know we know if we keep God’s commandments; then we are keeping with reality.

Today’s gospel is about the reality of the resurrection. When Christ appears to them, in their surprise they think they are seeing a ghost! To allay their fears, he invites them to look closely at him, even to touch him. John says, “He showed them his hands and his feet.” He is inviting them to see the wounds of his crucifixion. The resurrected body of Jesus, though glorified, is real. It can be clearly seen, even touched. He even eats a piece of fish on front of them. You don’t get much more real than eating!

Jesus reminds them of the reality of the Scriptures, that everything written about him must be fulfilled; that he would suffer and rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all nations.

This is the reality we are living in today. The Church is still carrying out this mission, preaching the Gospel to the world. If we wish to live in reality, we must bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our family, friends and neighbors. Like Peter and John, we do that by living a life grounded in the reality of the Gospel and by our eyewitness testimony to what Christ is doing in our lives. We are simply to tell them about Christ and his Church and to trust the Holy Spirit to open their hearts. As he worked through the disciples, he will work through us as we live in the reality of the Gospel.

Believing Thomas--A Reflection for the 2nd Sunday of Easter

Poor Thomas. One moment of doubt and he is labeled for life--"Doubting Thomas". Jesus appears to the disciples one night and Thomas is not there. Maybe he was visiting his twin? When the others tell him that "We have seen the Lord", Thomas gives his so-called doubting reply, "Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." In other words, for this Thomas wants proof, empirical evidence. He is a materialist; like so many of us, he wants proof before he will believe.

Thomas' refusal to believe without this proof is strange for a man who has spent the last three years with Jesus. He has seen the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead raised to life again. He has heard Jesus' teaching. What more proof could he want? But then this is a big claim by is friends--Jesus has appeared to then!

It's one thing to believe that Jesus is someone. To some he is the Messiah, to others he is a moral teacher, to some he is a revolutionary, to others he is another spiritual master. Some even believe he is God.

Yet, it in not enough to believe things about Jesus. As St. James says, even the demons believe and tremble. We must believe in Jesus. It is not enough to give intellectual or even faith assent to him. We must trust Jesus; that is the lesson of this Divine Mercy Sunday's motto, "Jesus, I trust in you." We must put our faith, our trust, in Jesus as a divine person, son of God and son of man, not in facts about him, but in him.

That kind of faith is transformative. As St. John says in today's 2nd reading, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God..." God is our Father now. He puts his nature, his life into us by his Holy Spirit--that is divine mercy! Transformed by this love and mercy into his children, we can build the kind of community we see in the first reading from the book of Acts. St. Like tells us that "no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common."

But what of Thomas? Did his doubt exclude him from this community of faith? Again, we see God's divine mercy. Jesus appears again and this time Thomas is there. Jesus invites Thomas to "put you finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe." Jesus challenges Thomas with his own words at his own point of doubt. Thomas' distrust was really in the other disciples' testimony that they had seen the Lord. Perhaps he was more upset at being left out than anything else.

I wonder if it's too much to say that Jesus appeared again to the disciples for Thomas' sake; to offer Thomas a chance to show his faith to them all after his public doubting. After all, Jesus would soon offer Peter the chance to redeem his three-fold denial of him. This is divine mercy.

Thomas' response to Jesus is one many of us echo each time we receive our Lord in the Eucharist, "My Lord and my God." That is the response of faith in Jesus. But then Jesus reaches even beyond Thomas to each one of us when he says, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." We are those who have not seen Jesus as Thomas did, but have believed. We, too, say "My Lord and my God."

Strengthened in his faith by his Lord and his God, Thomas becomes one of whom Acts says, "With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus..." This witness and power of faith eventually brought St. Thomas to preach the Gospel in India. He founded the Church there around AD 52 and was martyred around AD 72. When travelers arrived in India, they found the Church, through St. Thomas, had gone there before them. The Syro-Malabar Catholic Church is the largest of the Catholic Churches in India. It traces its origins to St. Thomas. It is in full communion with Rome.

Doubting Thomas? Not after receiving God's Divine Mercy in Jesus. Not after he said, "My Lord and my God." We repeat his words as we receive Jesus in the Eucharist. As Jesus said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."