FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

29 APRIL 2018

          Being close to the vineyards of southwestern Michigan helps us to understand the images which Jesus presents in today’s Gospel.  Once the workers in the vineyard plant the first vines, they have to wait several years for the first grapes.  Rooted in the earth, their tendrils reach out and travel under the earth, forming long rows.  Close to the earth, the tendrils are brown, thick, and woody.  However, nearer to the branches, they are green, pliant, and flexible.  Not only do the vines have to be propped up to keep them above the ground, but they also have to be pruned continually.  The pruning enables the water and nutrients to be directed toward the grapes, and away from the woody stalks.  Once a healthy vineyard has been given a few years, those branches begin producing tasty grapes every year.  Riding through the vineyards on my bicycle around Labor Day is great, because I can smell the sweet aroma of grapes ready to be harvested.

            We are those branches, and we have been grafted to the vine when we passed through the waters of Baptism.  To use the words of the First Letter of John, we are the Beloved of God.  As branches connected to the vine, we grow in God’s love when we keep the commandments to love God and one another.  We can bear much fruit, and we can make our world smell much better by the way we treat one another.  Jesus makes it very clear that we can bear fruit, only if we remain connected with him, the vine.

            At this Mass, our second graders are receiving the Lord in the Eucharist for the first time.  After the homily, they will walk to the Baptismal Font, where they were first grafted as branches onto Jesus, the vine.  They will renew the promises made for them as babies and bless themselves with water.  Clothed with the white garments reminding them of the white garments put on them at Baptism, signifying their union with Christ, they will bring up the gifts of bread, wine, and the sacrificial tithe and will receive the Lord in the Eucharist for the first time.

            They will receive bread baked from wheat that has been harvested and ground up and transformed into the Body of Christ.  They will drink wine that comes from fermented grapes and which has been transformed into the Blood of Christ.  Boys and girls, the Lord promises that he will strengthen you every time you receive Holy Communion, just as he strengthened the Apostle Paul as he boldly proclaimed the risen Lord to people who wanted to do him harm.  Every time you come to Mass and receive the Body and Blood of Christ, he will strengthen you to keep the commandments to love God and neighbor and remain with you.

            In the Gospel of John, Jesus uses the word “to remain” 67 times.  He promises to dwell with us, to abide with us, to stay with us, to remain with us.  These children remind us of that promise today.  They remind us that we are the branches, grafted solidly on the vine that is Christ.  Just as the tendrils of vineyards connect with each other under the earth, we are connected to one another through the Eucharist as members of the Body of Christ.  We promise to support you as you bring your children to the Eucharist every Sunday.  We promise to be with you, even when you and your children might be pruned by difficult events in your lives.

            Today, we prayed Psalm 22 as our Responsorial Psalm.  The last time we prayed this Psalm was on Palm Sunday, when we prayed the first stanzas to reflect on the death of Jesus, the Suffering Servant.  Today we pray the later stanzas of this Psalm, reflecting on the Servant’s vindication in the resurrection.  He will remain with us in our suffering and even in our dying.  He promises to remain with in a very real ay as we continue to be fed with his body and blood, especially when difficult situations in life will prune us.  He will keep his promise to remain with us forever, as we share in his dying and trust in his rising.

FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

22 APRIL 2018

          Throughout the Gospel of Saint John, Jesus often uses the words “I am” to identify himself with his divine nature.  In the Old Testament, God used those words “Yahweh,” or “I am who am” to identify himself to Moses.  In most instances, Jesus speaks of himself as the bread of life, or the light of the world, or the resurrection and the life to indicate what he, as the Son of God, has to offer us.  Today, he identifies himself in a human role when he says that “I am the good shepherd.”  To a culture which understood the role of good shepherds with their flocks, he speaks of his own costly freedom, as well as his mutual relationship with the Father and with us, his followers.  The people of that culture knew the devotion of good shepherds to their sheep.  They also knew the examples of shepherd leaders who cared more for themselves and their own comfort than for the common good of the people they were supposed to be leading. 

Jesus speaks this parable to the religious leaders of his day.  He had just given sight to the man born blind.  As that man gradually came to see Jesus as the Christ who is the light of the world, the religious leaders refuse to acknowledge the truth standing before them.  They are the hired hands who are much more interested in the prestige and perks of their office than serving the needs of their people.  They will become the wolves who bring death to the good shepherd, because he threatens their authority and influence.  The good shepherd will willingly accept that painful and humiliating death and lay down his life for us, his flock. 

The image of the good shepherd is familiar to our parish.  At the entrance to the Parish Education Center is a copy of the most ancient statue of the Good Shepherd:  a young shepherd, without a beard, dressed in a short tunic, and with a pouch around his neck.  On his shoulders he carries a lamb.  The other image is on our triumphal arch:  the Good Shepherd seated on his heavenly throne, drawing the sheep to himself from Bethlehem (on the left) and from Jerusalem (on the right).  Beneath that image on both sides are images of two religious leaders who have served as shepherds.  On the left is Saint Peter, who has been transformed from denying Jesus on the night he was betrayed to boldly proclaiming the resurrection in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles.  On the right is Pope Saint Pius X, a successor to Saint Peter, who decided to admit children to the Eucharist when they reached the age of reason.

That is why you are here, boy and girls.  You became children of God when you passed through the waters of baptism.  The Good Shepherd knows each of you by name and has laid down his life for you.  He has become the Lamb of God (portrayed in the mosaic on the front of the Altar) who now feeds you for the first time with his Body and Blood.  When you were baptized, your parents, who are your shepherds, carried you to the font and made the baptismal promises for you.  When you emerged from the waters of Baptism, you were clothed with a white garment, indicating that you put on Christ.  Your parents were told to keep that garment unstained, so that you could go out to meet the Lord.  Now you will walk on your own two feet to renew those promises and bring up gifts of bread and wine.

Celebrating First Communion at this Mass is very important, because we are reminded of the important role of this parish community in supporting you parents in training your children in the ways of faith.  Parents, you are good shepherds when you sacrifice everything for the good of your children.  Just as you sacrifice for their material needs, be sure to sacrifice for their spiritual needs.  The first Letter of Saint John assures us that children of God can be transformed by contact with the risen Lord, just as Peter had been.  Trust the power of the Eucharist to transform your family and your children in our shared pilgrimage to the new and eternal Jerusalem.  

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

APRIL 15 2018

          When we meet the disciples in today’s Gospel, they are listening to the two disciples who had just returned from Emmaus.  These two disciples had told the gathered community what had happened to them.  They had been running away from Jerusalem on that first day of the week, because they were devastated by the public execution of the one whom they had thought was the messiah.  Since they could not imagine God’s messiah being treated in such a horrible way, they had given up all hope and were leaving town.  The risen Christ joined them, even though they did not recognize him.  He listened to their pain and began to apply the familiar words of Scripture to what happened to him.  Those words caused their hearts to burn within them.  When he accepted their invitation to stay with them, they recognized him in the breaking of bread.  Then, they returned to Jerusalem convinced of the power of the resurrection.

            As they are speaking, the risen Christ appears again and greets them with the words, “Peace be with you.”  We would expect them to be overjoyed.  But instead, they are startled and terrified.  Those two reactions are important for an understanding of our own Easter faith.  Part of their reaction comes from their sense of guilt.  They had not been faithful to Jesus when he was betrayed and executed.  Instead, they ran away in fear.  Despite the consistent greeting of the risen Christ, “Peace be with you,” they must have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the Lord to chide them for their infidelity. 

            But another huge part of their reaction has to do with their terrifying experience.  Despite Jesus speaking continually of his role as a suffering servant, they could not let go of their expectations that a messiah should be a conquering hero.  So jarred by their experience of his horrendous dying, they still had trouble embracing this entirely new concept of rising.

            That is why the risen Christ has to assure them that he is truly raised from the dead.  He shows them his wounds, not to make them feel guiltier, but to allow them to see the real effects of sin.  Instead of feeding them, as he did at the Last Supper, they feed him with a piece of baked fish, proving that he is not a ghost.  Then he opens their minds to the words of Scripture, just as he had done for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Filled with a deeper understanding of the Paschal Mystery and with joy, they accept his commission to spread the good news.

            During this Season of Easter, the risen Lord speaks to us at every Mass, just as surely as he spoke to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and to the gathered community in today’s Gospel.  He feeds us with his Body and Blood at every Mass, just as surely as he shared these meals with the original witnesses.  But like those disciples, we too can become startled and terrified when we are confronted with those elements of the Paschal Mystery that involved suffering.  When we are faced with the death of a loved one, or when we suddenly have a very heavy cross placed on our shoulders, we react in the same way as those disciples did.  Like those disciples, we too make some bad choices and are faced with the guilt and weight of our sins.  But like those disciples, we can turn to the Lord and receive his peace and divine mercy.

            Not only does the risen Christ reveal himself to us here in Word and Sacrament, but he also reveals himself in the graced encounters with other people.  In his speech in the Acts of the Apostles, Peter explains that he and John had healed a crippled man, not by their own power, but by the power of the risen Christ.  The Easter Season invites us to consider the advice of the First Letter of John and grow in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  When that happens, we begin to understand the intimate connection between loving him and loving others.  Then, we too can experience the joy and amazement of the presence of the risen Lord in our broken world.

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

APRIL 8 2018

          Saint John reminds us that Thomas is called “Didymus,” meaning that he has a twin brother or sister.  However, Saint John is also reminding us that each one of us is a “twin” to Thomas.  Like Thomas, we were not present when the risen Lord broke through those locked doors on Easter Sunday.  Like Thomas, we did not hear the words “peace be with you,” nor did we see the wounds in his hands and side.  That is why Jesus pronounces us “blessed”, because we have not seen as Thomas eventually did, and we have not witnessed the physical wounds on the transformed body of the risen Christ, as he did.  But we believe. 

            We are blessed in another very unique way.  Today, one of the members of our parish, Father Christopher Brennan CSC, is celebrating his Mass of Thanksgiving.  A year ago, he made a commitment to live as a vowed religious in the Congregation of Holy Cross.  He has already dedicated himself to doing what the earliest disciples did in the Acts of the Apostles:  having everything in common and bearing witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ by teaching on the authority of the Apostles.  Yesterday, he was ordained a priest and received the commission given by the Risen Lord to the Apostles from Bishop Jenky, a successor of the Apostles.

            Father Chris, as a “twin” of Saint Thomas the Apostle, you have received the Lord’s farewell gift of peace and given a generous share of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate.  During your priestly ministry, you will minister many times to the wounds present in our world and in the Body of Christ.  In the name of the risen Lord, you will heal the deep wounds caused by sins.  You will administer the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick to those who are wounded by any kind of sickness.  You will release Catechumens from the scourge of their sins when you baptize them.  You will prepare couples to enter into the many sacrifices involved in the Sacrament of Matrimony.  Having worked with you for a year in this ministry, I am confident that you will prepare them well.  Most importantly, you will celebrate the Eucharist, proclaiming the risen Lord’s mercy in your preaching of the Word and making the Lord present in bread and wine.  You will administer the Eucharist often as food for the journey of many people.

            We do not have to look far these days to recognize the many and deep wounds in our world and in our Church.  As a Church, we share in both its glories and its blemishes, which is what unites us more than divide us. Touching these wounds, not turning away in horror, you can help the people you serve to live out that shared agape love that we hear in the first reading. Please do not be afraid to touch those wounds, as Jesus often touched the wounds of so many sick people, especially those excluded from society as lepers.  Do not be afraid of your own wounds.  Jesus never entrusted the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God to perfect people.  You know your brother Holy Cross priests and me well enough to recognize our weaknesses, our vulnerabilities, and our sins.  Do not allow your wounds to make you fearful. 

            All of us are “twins” of Saint Thomas the Apostle.  We are truly blessed to believe without seeing and to recognize his risen presence in so many wounds.  We truly are blessed to celebrate this Mass with you and show our support.  You will be a good priest!  You come from a parish founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross.  Blessed Basil Moreau is looking down on you right now and telling you to serve with zeal “to make God known, loved, and served, and thus save souls.”  Saint Andre Bessette is standing over there and smiling with pride at you.  The Mother of God and the Beloved Disciple are standing on the anchor that is you wear around your neck.  Trust the risen Lord to give you the strength to proclaim the Good News of Salvation and bring healing to our wounded world.