Tag: Catholic

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Third Sunday of Easter

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Readings
First Reading: Acts 5:27-32, 40B-41
Psalm: Psalm 30:2, 4-6, 11-13
Second Reading: Revelation 5:11-14
Gospel: John 21:1-19

Peace be with you! Today’s Gospel is from John 21:1-19. You’ll find a link to the readings in the notes for this podcast. If for some reason the links don’t show up, no worries! You can always head over to my website, www.deaconrudysnotes.org, where you’ll always find the full text for this podcast along with links to the readings. Most of the reading links point to the USCCB website. That’s the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops website where they have an excellent resource of the readings used in the mass every day of the week.

Now, there’s a lot going on in today’s Gospel where Jesus appears for the fourth time. Don’t forget, the first appearance was to Mary Magdala, (John 20:11-17). There is definitely a theme of reconciliation, right? Peter is reconciled with Jesus, (John 21:15-19). There is a Eucharistic theme in the sharing of bread and the fish, (John 21:12-13). But I would like to talk about the discipleship theme in today’s Gospel.

What does it mean to be a disciple? I think being a disciple means three things.
First, we need to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. (John 21:7). Now, accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior should change everything. It should change the way we look at the world; the way we see our family and friends; it should change everything. But does it? Look at the disciples. Jesus has appeared to them twice before and what are they doing? They went fishing – and not on some leisurely fishing trip. No! They are behaving like the commercial fishermen of their day – fishing by night so that they can bring the freshest fish to market the next morning.

Before you shake your head or roll your eyes in disbelief at Peter, I wonder how many of us, after a retreat, a mission trip, a pilgrimage or some other powerful encounter with Jesus, just go back to our everyday lives without giving it a second thought – just as if nothing happened? Having an encounter with Jesus – accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior – should change everything.

Second, being a disciple means we should want to learn more about Jesus. Jesus asks Peter, just as he asks each of us, “Do you love me?”, (John 21:15). Have you ever fallen in love with someone? Do you remember what it felt like when you first fell in love. It wasn’t enough just knowing their name, right? You probably wanted to know everything you could possibly learn about them. The same is true in our relationship with Jesus. If we love him, then we need to learn more about him. The Church has a treasure trove of excellent resources for us to learn more about Jesus. Many people have come before us and they’ve left us some amazing works of art, literature, stories and theology as they tried to understand Jesus. From GK Chesterton, to CS Lewis to JRR Tolkien; from Michael Angelo to the builders of beautiful churches adorned with magnificent works of art; to great teachers from John Henry Newman, to Teresa of Avila, to Augustine. There’s so much quality information out there to help us learn more about Jesus. Not sure where to begin? Your parish can offer you all sorts of ideas of places to begin. Either way, the great challenge of discipleship is for us to learn more about Jesus Christ.

Finally, discipleship means that we need to go out and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. Pope Francis calls this being a missionary disciple. So many people in this world struggle with all sorts of addiction – alcohol, drugs, pornography, sex – because they are missing something in their lives. But nothing can fill that hole in our hearts except Jesus Christ. So, we need to reach out to people to share with them the message of hope, the message of mercy and the message of love that comes from our Savior.

To be effective, we should emulate Jesus. What did he do? First, he built a small fire and fed the disciples. Like him, we need to meet people where they are. So, from the beginning, the Church has followed Jesus’ example by feeding, clothing, housing, and educating people. Our concern for people’s physical needs not only relieves human suffering, but also constitutes a powerful spiritual witness. We meet people where they are and by our example, we share the love of Jesus Christ with them. Through us, other people can have an encounter with Jesus Christ – an encounter that leads to transformation – transformation that leads to salvation.

Homework! This week I ask you to reflect on the following two questions.

  1. First, what does the way I live my life say about my love for Jesus?
  2. Second, how can I help support the mission of the Church in feeding, clothing, housing and educating people?

I think by doing our homework, we might become more effective disciples of Jesus Christ. Do you got it? Do you get it? Are you going to do it? Good! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. +Amen!

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Divine Mercy Sunday

Image of the Divine Mercy and prayer: Jesus I trust in You

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Mass Readings
First Reading: Acts 5:12-16
Psalm: Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24
Second Reading: Revelation 1:9-11A, 12-13, 17-19
Gospel: John 20:19-31

The Lord is risen alleluia. Peace be with you on this Divine Mercy Sunday. Inspired by a revelation to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy Sunday focuses on the gift of mercy and love that we are given through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. All our readings today in some way describe God’s mercy and love.

The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 5 explains how the Risen Lord continued to show his Divine Mercy to the sick through the healing and preaching ministry of the apostles. The Responsorial take from Psalm 118 shows the Divine Mercy that “endures forever.” The second reading, taken from the first chapter of the Book of Revelation encourages Christians to fight fear with faith, and trepidation about the future with trust and hope. And in today’s Gospel from John 20, we hear that familiar story about doubting Thomas. You know, I think Thomas gets a bit of a bum rap, but Thomas says he will not believe unless he sees Jesus – unless he can see and touch Jesus’ wounds.

You know, I encounter a lot of people like Thomas – or perhaps worse. At least Thomas was willing to believe if he saw Jesus. I’ve encountered people who don’t want to see Jesus. There are those who are so angry about something that happened in their life or over someone they lost, that they are afraid of what they’d say to Jesus if they met him. They’re more willing to scream to heaven, “Where are you God!” Maybe they’re too comfortable with their anger.

I’ve also encountered people who are so embarrassed or ashamed of something they did, or something done to them that they can’t bring themselves to look in Jesus’ eyes. They think they are in some way unworthy. Maybe they’re afraid of being forgiven or they’re too comfortable with their pain or their embarrassment.

And then there are the people I’ve encountered who can’t believe that there is a Jesus at all. They have no desire to look for Jesus, let alone come face to face with him. They’re skeptical.

How do we bring God’s Divine Mercy to all these people? I’d like to share a recent experience with you. Last week, most of my family and I had the chance to go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes with HCPT. I think I will dedicate an entire podcast episode to our experience, but for now, I’d like to share this brief story with you. HCPT is a UK-based organization founded by Dr. Michael Strode who is now a Cistercian monk. HCPT helps children and young adults with disabilities travel on pilgrimage to Lourdes. We were blessed to travel with HCPT Switzerland on the Easter pilgrimage.

On our last day, our group leader arranged for us to celebrate our last mass at the Catholic Ukrainian church in Lourdes. It’s a beautiful, small church. We invited the HCPT group from Bristol, the “Green Machine” to join us for our last mass since the Swiss group is an offshoot of the Green Machine. There was a young man in the Green Machine whose name I don’t know. As it happens, he’s confined to a wheelchair. As the mass progressed, he began to cry. Soon, he was outright bawling as were many of the Green Machine helpers. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to speak with him after mass, but what I’ve learned from others is that the end of pilgrimage week can be a highly emotional experience for everyone. You see, when all these youth from around the world gather together at Lourdes for Easter, they don’t experience judgment or prejudice there.

When we gather, we don’t see disabilities. We see people. Period. For some of the youth who come here, this may be a very different experience then their lives back home. I think those who travel here with some sort of disability experience the Divine Mercy of God through all the people around them. Whether the helpers realize it or not or want to believe it or not, they – we – are conduits for God’s Divine Mercy. But Jesus also said, whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, Matthew 25:40. So when we treat people with disabilities with respect and as equals, we are in fact ministering to Jesus Christ. We are touched by the Jesus through those to whom we minister. So you see, we allow Jesus to touch others through us and we are touched by Jesus through others.

But this experience of sharing with each other God’s mercy isn’t something limited to Lourdes that can be bottled up and brought home. God’s mercy is available to all of us all the time – no matter what we’ve done. We just need to ask. You see, in today’s Gospel, when Jesus appeared to Thomas, he could have run, because Jesus will not force himself on anyone. Like Thomas, we need to be willing to face Jesus and allow God’s healing to wash over us. That’s the beautiful thing about the waters of Lourdes. It helps us experience in a concrete way God’s mercy washing us clean – healing us. But it doesn’t end there.

Jesus gave us his Church to bring us God’s mercy and grace every day! In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his Apostles, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained,” John 20:23. We see this as the foundation for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Some people ask, “Why do I need to go confess my sins to a man?” But it’s not about the priest. We confess our sins out loud to take responsibility for what we’ve done. We say it! We own it! We ask God for forgiveness. We can also experience God’s mercy through the mass itself – most especially in the Blessed Sacrament. In fact, we can experience God’s mercy through all the Sacraments in one way or another. The question is, are you ready, like Thomas, to face Jesus and proclaim, “My Lord! My God!”? And that leads us to our homework today.
Homework! I encourage you to reflect on the following two questions this week.

  1. Ask yourself, “What’s stopping me from receiving God’s Divine Mercy?”
  2. If you were to come face-to-face with Jesus, what would you say to him?

Do you got? Do you get it? Good! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. +Amen!

Resources:
• How to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy

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Easter: Overcome Slavery to Sin

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Easter Readings
First Reading: Acts 10:34A, 37-43
Psalm: Psalm 118:1-2, 16-17, 22-23
Second Reading: Colossians 3:1-4
Gospel: John 20:1-9

Happy Easter! He is risen! Alleluia, alleluia! So, what does Easter mean to me? What is the importance of the resurrection?

Today I’m going to reflect on Paul’s reading that we used on Saturday night during the Easter Vigil, Romans 6:3-11. In the notes for the podcast today, you’ll find the readings for Sunday’s Easter mass. But I want to reflect on Paul’s reading from the Easter Vigil. Since Paul’s reading is not in the notes, I’d like to read a little bit of it to you.

“Brothers and sisters, are you aware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death, we were indeed buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead, by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” He goes on to write, “We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.”

Think about that phrase just for a second, “…in slavery to sin.”

What does this mean in relation to Easter? Here’s the bottom line: Christ was killed for us. His death washed away our sins. By dying, he defeated death itself. That’s it. As Christians, we may have different ideas about how all of this works, but this our common belief. As CS Lewis put it, “That is the formula. That is Christianity,” (Mere Christianity, 55). But there’s the catch. We have to say yes. You see, we have a choice. Jesus will never force himself on anyone. So, we have a choice.

Why would anyone refuse the offer?

That’s a good question and Paul gives us some insight through the phrase he uses, “…in slavery to sin.” You see, temptation and sin are so powerful a force that people find themselves trapped in a cycle of sin. Yes, that sin could be things like drugs and alcohol, but people can also become slaves to money, power, influence, new technology, pornography, sex, among other things. A slave cannot do whatever they want. They can only do what their master commands.

Maybe another way of looking at sin is through the language of addiction. An addict may lack the power to resist – to fight – to decide. To break the cycle of addiction, an addict needs help from the outside, but even then, it won’t work unless the addict is wants help.

Consider the life of Venerable Matt Talbot. Born in 1856 in Dublin, Ireland, the second of twelve children, his father and most of his brothers were heavy drinkers. In 1868 Talbot left school at the age of twelve and went to work in a wine store where he soon began “sampling their wares.” By the age of thirteen, he was considered a hopeless alcoholic. He was an alcoholic by the age of thirteen! But that didn’t stop him from getting work at various whiskey stores. He frequented pubs spending most or all of his pay and running up debts. When he ran out of money, he borrowed and scrounged for money. He pawned his clothes and boots to get money for alcohol and once he stole a fiddle from a street entertainer just so he could buy drink.

At age 28, he was broke and out of credit. He waited in the street outside a pub in the hope that somebody would buy him a drink. After several friends had passed him without acknowledging him, he went home humiliated. With the help of his pastor, he turned to God for help.

He was an alcoholic for 16 years, but Talbot stayed sober for the next forty years of his life. He once said, “Never be too hard on the man who can’t give up drink. It’s as hard to give up the drink as it is to raise the dead to life again. But both are possible and even easy for Our Lord. We have only to depend on him,” (Matt Talbot).

My brothers and sisters, I have good news! Like Matt Talbot, we are not alone! By our baptism, we have access to God’s grace. You see, when we pour water over a baby during a baptism or submerge an older child or adult in the water, it symbolizes what Paul is saying – we die with Christ. When the child or adult emerges from the water, it symbolizes the Resurrection – we rise with Christ.

St. Paul reminds us that by our baptism we have God’s grace – we have the power to nail our sins to the cross and with Jesus to experience the resurrection. For Christians the Resurrection at Easter is like the Passover. Easter means deliverance from the oppression of sin and failure to new life through baptism.

Our lives can demonstrate freedom from sin’s power and show the fruits of the resurrection in our lives. Paul uses strong images to get his message across. Those baptized into Christ have been “buried with him.” We are united with him in his death, but also in his resurrection. Christ “raised from the dead, dies no more.” The same is true for us: we died with him and now we are “living for God in Christ Jesus.”

This Easter, Jesus invites you and he invites me to look at the results of our Lenten sacrifices and, by the grace of God, to nail our sins to the cross so that we can experience the liberating freedom of the resurrection. The great challenge of Easter is of course how the resurrection will bear fruit in our lives, and that leads us to our homework.

Homework!

  1. Reflecting on my Lenten experience, what sins am I prepared to nail to the cross? In other words, what is new about my faith this Easter?
  2. Like Jesus who emptied himself out for all of us, ask yourself, “as a disciple, where and how am I being called to sacrifice in my life for the good of others?”

Do you got it? Do you get it? Are you going to do it? Well good! May each of us come to experience the joy of Easter! He is indeed risen! May Almighty God bless you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. +Amen!