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?
Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
Both exciting and challenging things are happening in the scripture readings the Church gives us this week. This is particularly true in the First readings from the Acts of the Apostles, which has the same author as Luke’s gospel and is an account of the beginnings of Christianity. This time after Jesus’ resurrection, beginning with his ascension, more than 2000 years ago, can both challenge and inspire us Christians today in 2020.
Monday of the Third Week of Easter
Fat babies. That is what I sometimes think of when I hear the word angel. I think of curly hair, chubby cheeks, big eyes, and feathery wings. I think of cute, adorable, docile creatures. But is this what Luke is asking us to imagine when using the words, “All those who sat in the Sanhedrin looked intently at [Stephen] and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.” I think not.
Feast of Saint Mark, evangelist
Today’s first reading is written by St. Peter as he instructs the new Christian community trying to live out their discipleship in the midst of persecution and suffering. As I read this scripture, there were many points of guidance that ring true for us as we navigate the many challenges of being a follower of Christ in the midst of a pandemic. We too are “called to go into the world and proclaim the gospel to every creature,” and the advice St. Peter had for the early church can be a source of encouragement for us as well.
Friday of the Second Week of Easter
One of the ways I have been spending my time during the “Stay at Home” order is taking longer than usual walks with my dog. I feel very thankful that we live near some beautiful parks and trails, and I have been enjoying watching Spring unfold on these daily outings. However, although normally a creature of habit, I have found myself getting somewhat bored of the same walks every day. So today I decided to walk one of my usual routes backward (not walking backward, mind you, just doing it in the reverse direction). What a difference it made! Hills and turns and views looked and felt different -- It gave me a different perspective. While you may be wondering what, if anything, this has to do with today’s readings, it does...so please read on.
Thursday of the Second Week of Easter
Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus and others are often operating on two different levels. Jesus speaks of what he hears from the Father. Sometimes his audience has difficulty opening themselves up to the words of the Father because they cling to their own ideas here on earth, and are incapable of understanding the deep significance of Jesus’ words and actions.
Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter
The scripture verse John 3:16 is so familiar to most people that many have a tendency to gloss over it. Yeah-yeah, we know, God so loved the world, yada yada . . . Even non-believers recognize it as “that scripture” which shows up on signs behind the goalposts at football games. You know the expression, familiarity breeds contempt. May it never be for us who yearn to follow Christ. I’m praying two things today: that we might each grasp more fully our belovedness, and that we might live our lives more genuinely from that state of being God’s beloved.
Tuesday of the Second Week of Easter
Today this reading from Acts reveals something noteworthy about the Church- it was written down either as an example to follow, or because it was no longer happening in every church by the time the scripture was written down. Indeed, how many Church communities in our time are ‘of one heart and mind’ or hold ‘everything in common’? I’m having trouble thinking of any, although religious brothers and sisters come close. So this is unique. What is unique about our parish community? If we were writing about how things are here, to believers in another place or time (perhaps our sister parish), what would you say? What’s special about IC or the parish groups you are a part of or your small group?
Monday of the Second Week of Easter
Google "fear of change" and you will get ~662,000,000 results. Our fear of change seems basic to who we are. However, I think that it also can play an important part in our spiritual lives for good or for ill and that is reflected in today's readings. Overcoming our fear of change as Christians requires an acceptance of things we don't fully grasp, a surrender of control, and a humble acceptance that there is only one unchanging one.
Saturday in the Octave of Easter
At the end of today’s gospel passage, the Apostles are given a mission. You and I are reading this reflection because they took on that mission and “proclaimed the Gospel to every creature.” And yet they were not your picture-perfect candidates. How did these dismissible men, receive such an ambitious mission and achieve it with such conviction that, as we see in today’s first reading, they became undismissible?
Friday in the Octave of Easter
In the gospel for today, we read about Jesus revealing himself to his disciples for the third time following his resurrection. Upon first seeing him on the shore after a long night of unsuccessful fishing, they did not recognize that it was Jesus. But after Jesus instructs them to cast their nets one more time, it is once again via the incredible abundance of God and in the breaking of the bread that they come to recognize him.
Thursday in the Octave of Easter
When the disciples encounter Jesus in the reading from Luke today, they don’t know at first what to make of him. Is he a ghost? Are they hallucinating? Is he for real? Jesus sees their fear and their doubt. But instead of chastising them for a less-than-faithful response, he tells them to check him out. He invites them to touch him—touch his very real body. He is not an apparition. He is the truly resurrected Christ.