Thursday of the Sixth Week of Easter
In today’s first reading, we read of Paul’s travels from Athens to Corinth. As usual, Paul had begun preaching Christ in the synagogue, but was met with opposition. After multiple rejections from the Jewish community, Paul became angry. Perhaps in this moment he was convinced of his vocation to the Gentiles, who had been more receptive. After going to live with Titus Justus, a Gentile, Paul must have been surprised to learn that Crispus, the synagogue official, and his family wanted to be baptized. Contrary to Paul’s expectation, the conversion of a Jewish household became the seed of the church in Corinth. Clearly, the path that God has planned is not always obvious to us.
Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Pentecost is a couple weeks away. What a great opportunity to seek the Holy Spirit and pray for a fresh filling of the Spirit’s truth, power, and presence. In my experience, the Holy Spirit often becomes the forgotten Person in the Holy Trinity, as our tendency is to focus on Father and Son to the exclusion of Spirit. When was the last time you prayed specifically to the Holy Spirit? Perhaps part of our prayer today can be addressed personally to the Holy Spirit. In today’s Gospel, Jesus identifies the third Person of the Godhead as “the Spirit of truth.” Allowing the Spirit to be our guide today, let us seek God’s truth and ask for a reignition of the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Why didn’t Paul and Silas flee the prison in the aftermath of the Earthquake? And what does this mean for believers today? If I was unjustly imprisoned and beaten, and then an earthquake allowed me to escape, I think I would take the opportunity, with thanks to God for divine intervention. But if they had fled, the guard would have killed himself, or been killed by the authorities for letting his prisoners escape. Instead, his life was preserved and his whole family became Christians. This kind of mercy changes hearts.
Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter
I’ve always thought of myself as a good listener but when I stop and think about it, I have to admit there are times during conversations or meetings, or even during church services, I find my mind has wandered. Maybe I presume to know already what I will hear or I am thinking about something else, in truth it means I’m not ‘actively’ listening. This day’s Scriptures perfectly demonstrate the importance of being open and engaged and actively listening. This way of listening is a gift and an art. There is nothing passive about it. Active listening requires work, attention, and perseverance.
Saturday of the Fifth Week of Easter
I think often of our parish motto, “Think like Jesus. Talk like Jesus. Act like Jesus.” These are powerful and intentional words to live by. They help give us guidance on how to form our moral compass and make decisions. It will not always be easy, but at least we have a path to follow. Today’s gospel takes this all one step further - if we are going to choose to think, live and act like Jesus, we are also choosing to suffer like Jesus.
Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter
Today’s Gospel is one of those readings that seems so simple and yet so challenging; so basic and yet so profound. “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.” (Jn 15:12) The words are clear and direct, comforting and worth repeating again and again. Within the five verses, the word “love” is repeated four times and the command, “love one another” is emphasized twice. Love one another. I imagine Jesus’ words going on… love one another today, right here, right now, in this moment and with these people.
Feast of Saint Matthias, Apostle
Scripture Readings
Matthias is my confirmation name, so imagine my surprise when I sat down to write today’s reflection and found that it is the feast of St. Matthias. Even as a pubescent know-it-all I had some decent reasons to choose Matthias’ name. Sure, it caught my eye at first because it was the name of the hero in Brian Jacques’ award-winning Redwall novel. However, I truly chose him because I related to how Matthias was stepping into the rank apostle, and even though the others could be dunderheads at times, he had big shoes to fill. A feeling I can relate to as I admire the accomplishments and character of my three older siblings. But there is more to Matthias than I had ever considered. That is the direction I’d like to take the rest of this reflection.
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter
My sister and her husband live in the Napa Valley of California. I always say that if you stand in their yard and throw a rock in any direction, you’ll hit a vineyard! Driving through that area, I’m awed and overwhelmed by the beauty of the vineyards – some in massive acreages on flat land, others growing up the gentle hillsides of the mountain foothills. Being present in any part of the Napa Valley, one cannot help but be taken in and captivated by the majesty and the fertility of the vineyards. For the people who live there, grape-growing and the wine industry form a central part of their culture. I can imagine if Jesus showed up there today to offer a parable that it would center around grapes and vineyards. The people of Jesus’ day had a similar understanding of this unique agriculture. In today’s Gospel, Jesus paints a vivid picture of our life in him and offers us hope and comfort through an invitation to abide under the loving cultivation of our Heavenly Father.
Tuesday of Fifth Week of Easter
Our first reading today sounds familiar; nearly the same passage was read this past Sunday. There must be something there worth repeating! It’s a very historical reading. Paul travelled here, did this, and then he went there, met with these people, etc. But between the itinerary, we read that Paul was thrown out of the city and stoned, but got up as the disciples gathered around him, and went right back into the city! This is a person without fear! Paul goes on to tell the disciples that “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.” This is what strikes me in the first reading. Paul and the disciples are not delivered from hardships and persecutions, but they are freed from the power that such coercive acts have over normal people.
In the second reading, Jesus promises Peace. But not as the world gives peace. What is the difference between the peace of Christ and the peace the world gives? Perhaps worldly peace is a calm and restful day free from conflict. It is a fragile peace. Christ’s peace is a deeper and sturdier. It is not the absence of conflict, but the freedom to speak love and truth to all people, no matter what their reaction might be. We Christians are freed from the power of peer pressure and persecution by our ability to endure many hardships. The result is a peace, rooted in Christ’s love and providence, which is unshakable. It is more powerful than anything this world can threaten us with.
This is the great power of the stories of Christian suffering throughout the world, today and in the past. Martyrs and saints teach us this: to find in our suffering the ability to endure hardships for the good of the Kingdom. When we walk next to Jesus in our trials, we have the opportunity to die and rise with Him as well.
May we find in our sufferings another pathway to Christ’s Love and Christ’s Peace. Amen!
- Chris Nieport
Monday of the Fifth Week of Easter
What would I do in the face of persecution? During these seasons in which we take a deep dive into the Acts of the Apostles, I find myself wondering about that. However, in light of today's readings, I am left to ponder a less often considered threat.
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus reminds the disciples that He reveals the Father in His life and His works. As disciples of Christ, we are called to follow Jesus in our words and actions, so others will see God is us. Jesus promises that if we believe in Him, He will do great works through us and this will give the Father glory.
Friday of the Fourth Week of Easter
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says to his disciples as he is preparing them for his death and resurrection in these Last Supper Discourses. Yes, we are still in the liturgical Easter season, but the gospel readings take us back to reflect on what happened before the resurrection. In juxtaposition, again, with the first readings from the Acts of the Apostles (post-resurrection accounts), we get a look at how the disciples eventually came to understand much of what they did not (could not?) understand previously. Do not let your hearts be troubled? Even as the one they loved, they followed, gave up their livelihoods for, placed all their trust in, was about to be executed in a torturous manner?
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Although we are four weeks into the season of Easter, we are taken back to the night before Jesus died in today’s Gospel. In this passage, which follows the washing of the disciples’ feet, Jesus shares several meaningful messages. The first is, “Amen, amen, I say to you, no slave is greater than his master nor any messenger greater than the one who sent him.” When Jesus takes on the role of servant as he washes his friends’ feet, he restores the worthiness of all people and breaks down the labels of society which often divides people into those who serve and those who are served. As in many instances in the Gospel of John, Jesus models his teachings by his own action and he calls his disciples to imitate him as well.
Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
One of my favorite parts of the Mass at Immaculate Conception Parish happens when we dismiss the children with our blessing for the Children’s Liturgy of the Word. I’m always deeply moved when we sing the chorus over them affirming that God’s Word is a lamp unto their feet and a light unto their path (Ps 119:105). What a powerful message to declare over our precious ones week after week! We sing confidently over them, imparting a life-giving truth. I hope that each of us adults internalize this truth for ourselves, as well, as we proclaim God’s Word. God knows full well how we humans struggle to walk in the light and how strong our temptation to remain in darkness. In today’s Gospel, Jesus announces (loudly), “I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness.” We have a darkness problem in our world. When we find ourselves in the dark, we must honestly acknowledge that we’ve made a choice to be there. Christ himself is our Light that never goes dim. Perhaps today we might take a step out of the darkness and enter more fully into the light of God’s love.
Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Where are you from? When people ask you that question, what does your answer say about you? Do the favorite foods of your hometown apply? Do cultural stereotypes and weather preferences apply to you? Beyond the surface, what does claiming your hometown say about you? How do you feel when you recall your beginnings there? What elements of that life have most strongly shaped you?
Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter
There are so many options! Jesus is talking about the good shepherd, the Psalm is offering the beautiful images of our longing for God, and in Acts the covenant is being opened to the Gentiles. Amid all of that, I can only focus on Peter’s story.
We long for stories. We tell true stories, make-believe stories, true stores that don’t tell us anything worth believing, and make-believe stories that communicate some of the deepest truths there are. Peter is doing the same in Acts, just as Luke is doing by giving us Acts. They are telling stories.
These stories are drawn from memory, particularly Peter’s. Peter is responding to challengers and responds to them with a clear retelling of his prayer life. He has a memory of his time in prayer to lean back on when he is questioned.
Do we? I know that is not always true of me.
Thus, I’m so struck by his storytelling. Because I do not think I could do it very well if our roles were reversed. Sure, my kids ask me most nights to tell them stories, and I read stories, and I play make-believe communal storytelling games like D&D, but can I tell the stories of my prayer life? I can probably only tell the dramatic moments.
God, however, relies on much more than merely the dramatic. Peter experienced an interrupted nap, but Peter was attentive. How can we be more attentive so as to be receptive? When we are receptive, how can we be sure to preserve what the Lord gives us to remember?
When I make big decisions in my life, I want to be able to share with my challengers how I came to my decision in prayer, and not just because it was a whim. Obviously, this implies I am taking my decisions to prayer, but it also means I have a method of remembering my time in prayer.
How do you help ensure your time in prayer preserved so that it may inform you and others in the future? What is a story from your prayer life?
- Spencer Hargadon
Memorial of Saint Athanasius, bishop and doctor of the Church
Scripture Readings
When I read today’s Gospel, I can’t help but picture myself in the disciples' shoes. After Jesus tells them they will have to eat his flesh and drink his blood, they tell Christ what I have often found myself saying - “this saying is hard.” Granted it’s not always a saying I find hard. Sometimes I end up telling God, “Enduring this tragedy is too hard. Loving this person is too hard. Putting others before myself is too hard. Making peace is too hard. Forgiving is too hard.” Christ made us a lot of promises, but He never promised us that living a Christian life would be easy. Choosing to think, talk and act like Christ will be hard. It is hard.
Friday of the Third Week of Easter
Today, we celebrate the great conversion of Paul. Many of us know the gist of the story; that Saul was traveling to Damascus on the hunt for Christians when he is confronted by God and essentially told to knock it off. We read that “a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (ACTS 9:3-4). The entirety of the story and the rest of Paul’s life can be themed around light. Saul was quite literally blinded by the light (cue the chorus from the Manfred Mann’s Earth Band song). Moving into his ministry, Paul goes on to shine the light of Christ to Christian communities all over.
Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
The story from Acts for today about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch is one of my favorites. It is something like the Gospel in a nutshell.
Memorial of Saint Catherine of Siena, virgin and doctor of the Church
What are you hungry for? That’s a question that I routinely pose to my family as we plan our dinner menus for the coming week and prepare to shop for groceries. As I type these words, with a sense of deep humility I remember the materially poor, as well. Those who struggle financially may simply be hungry. It’s not a matter of what sounds good to eat, they are just desperate to obtain food, any food. Every living creature experiences physical hunger. Not all of us have experienced a desperate kind of hunger, however, a terrifying kind of hunger that threatens the very essence of life itself. As we reflect on today’s Gospel, I wonder, What are you hungry for? Jesus addresses a very real, very deep hunger that is common to every human being throughout all of time. For what do you hunger and thirst in the depths of your being, in your very essence?