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Pentecost (“A”) – June 4, 2017

Frackville, From the Pastor /

On the day of Pentecost the disciples, likewise, were afraid of what might happen to them. The huddled together in an upper room with locked doors, waiting for something to happen. The Lord had promised them that the Spirit would come and so they waited. Now the room shook and the sound of the wind could be heard, and the vision of tongues of fire came upon each one of them. Each individual and the whole group together were gifted with the coming of the Spirit. It didn’t take long for the effects of that Spirit to be seen and heard.

This day is known as the „birthday” of the Church. We were born on this day. The Spirit came and enlivened a group that had almost died. The risen Lord sent His living Spirit to be our life. Each oen of us, as well as the whole Church together, receives the gift, and the gift is to be used. We begin with a gift of peace. Not the world’s peace, initially, but our own. We seek to grow in the gift of a peaceful mind and heart, and peaceful relationships in our life. The second gift is the mission. You are sent out from this church into the world around you. You are able, with the Spirit’s help, to be outgoing and to help bring a gift of peace into the lives of those you live with and work with. You have a responsibility now. It is a grace given to you. Do not let it go for nothing. Finally, the third gift is the grace to reconcile people who are at war with one another. There is the power to forgive others and the power to call people to justice. Do you believe this? Do you accept this? Come, Holy Spirit.

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VII Sunday of Easter (“A”) – May 28, 2017

From the Pastor /

The part of St. John’s Gospel from which we read today gives us an imtimate insight into how Jesus speaks with His Father. Very few places have thie beautiful unity so magnificently displayed. It is our privilege to stand by Jesus and listen to all He has to say. We hear Him speak of glory, of eternal life, of His own pre-existence, of prayer and of our own good selves. This is the essence of Jesus’ mission and ministry, and we are being given this opportunity to hear it all from His own mouth as the words fall from His lips. If we use our hearts wisely to begin to understand all of what Jesus says, then we have a very good chance of being the followers He really wants. Being inspired to pray or asking how to pray is a very good position to be in as a result of today’s Gospel. Jesus speaks to the Father about us.

Listening is one thing; however, to do it with reverence is the key that will surely enable us to hear the message. Today let us think about how well we listen. There are many different ways in which we listen. But what we get from the words may depend on how well we listen.

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IV Sunday of Easter (“A”) – May 7, 2017

From the Pastor /

In today’s Gospel Jesus gives us warning about people who have no care for others except to take advantage of them and to exploit them for their own selfish purposes. He says anyone who gets into the sheepfold and does not use the gate is up to no good. The gate is the open entrance into the fold where sheep safely graze. The gate is the pathway of honest approach. If you approach people in a sly or sideways manne you are up to mischief and people will have every reason to mistrust you. A true shepherd uses the gate. The sheep see the shepherd and know they are safe. The shepherd’s voice is familiar and to be trusted and the sheep feel secure. Every good parent or guardian knows this. Children look to those who care for them. The story Jesus tells is especially suited for people in positions of pastoral care. What applies to priests and pastors in the Church equally applies to any of us who have roles of responsibility towards others in life.

Jesus, who is the great shepherd of our souls, is also the innocent lamb who was led to the slaughter. Speaking about this, Peter describes to us how the Lord in His suffering left us an example to follow. He never lied. He never threatened, even when He was being tortured. The Lam of God went to His death teaching us to be wise and gentle with one another. His wounds heal our ills. Peter’s call to us today is stark in its message: „Save yourselves from this perverse generation.” Every age has its evils and the exploitation of the innocents has raised its ugly features inour time, in the world and in the Church. „What must we do?” Peter told them straight. Repent of your sins and be converted to the Lord once more. The Spirit helps us to become like Christ Jesus in our own world. It is a most magnificent vocation, to love and to care for others.

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III Sunday of Easter (“A”) – April 30, 2017

From the Pastor /

Jesus always has to reveal himself to His disciples in His risen appearances. They never identify Him through their own powers. On most occasions He appears in their midst and offers them peace. Mary Magdalene mistakes Him for gardener, but He only has to say her name for her to recognize Him. In today’s story of His encounter with two disciples on the road to Emmaus, there is a much slower process. The story is like a program of catechesis. The disciples are first asked to give their account of what is preoccupying them, and with their telling of the story there is a sense of disappointment and frustration. Their hopes had been dashed, both in the events of the crucifixion and the puzzling aftermath of the empty tomb. Jesus picks up their story and reframes it. By this time their hearts are beginning to burn with the experience of the truths He is unfolding to them. But the act of full recognition only comes after they have persuaded Him to stay with them. He accepts their invitation and it is in His disciples and breaking of bread that the disciple’s eyes are finally opened and they recognize Him.

Each stage of the celebration, the offering of the bread and wine, the consecration of the elements and our receiving them in communion, helps our understanding of the mystery of God’s presence among us. We become the body of Christ whose sacrifice we have been both witnessed and made our own.

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Low Sunday (“A”) – April 23, 2017

Frackville, From the Pastor /

Thomas is often called “Doubting” Thomas because he refused to believe the other disciples when they told him they had seen the risen Lord. We cannot always accept without question what a group of people tell us about something they say has happened even if they are all in the same place at the same time. Thomas wanted to verify with his own eyes what they said had happened. His doubts were reasonable. He was not left in uncertainty. Jesus appears again to the disciples when Thomas was with them. Because he can see the risen Lord, Thomas believes and his response is the fullest expression of faith found anywhere in the Gospels: “My Lord and my God!” Jesus then declares blessed “those who have not seen and yet believe”. This gives us assurance that faith does not depend on what we ase but on what is in our hearts or, as we read in the letter to the Hebrews, “Only faith can…prove the existence of the realities that at present remain unseen.”

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Resurrection Day (“A”) – April 16, 2017

From the Pastor /

​The mystery of Jesus’ empty tomb has continued to fascinate throughout the centuries. Mary Magdalene is the first to discover that it is empty. When Peter and John get to the tomb, John hesitates. He stands on the threshold of the tomb. Peter goes straight in and also sees the evidence, though we are not told what he makes of it. However, when John symbolically crosses the threshold of the tomb, something happens within him. Even without seeing the risen Jesus, it suddenly makes sense for him: he sees and he believes. It’s not the risen Lord that he sees, just the clues of His resurrection. Mary had seen those same clues and naturally assumed the body had been taken away – it’s only when she actually meets the risen Lord that she comes to believe. But John is able to intuit this awesome truth simply from the fact of the empty tomb, from the fragments of Jesus’ burial cloths – and so surely from the fragments of his memory of Jesus’ teaching on the resurrection from the dead.

“They have taken my Lord and I don’t know where they have taken Him.” Mary is every woman, every man. There are inevitebly times in our life when we feel the desolation of loss – loss of loved ones, loss of hope, even loss of faith, when the Lord himself does indeed seem to have been the dynamics of how we come to faith. Peter sees the empty tomb, but says nothing. He needs more time, more experience before he can come to full faith. But he remains open to the possibility. John is able to cross the threshold of faith by holding his sense of loss and his experience of the emptiness of the tomb on the one hand, and bringing it into connection with his memory of the Lord on the other. An empty tomb is not proof of resurrection. Religious scholars may argue over it, like archeologists quarreling over king Tut’s tomb, but our faith does not rest on physical proof. „The time life you have is hidden with Christ in God,” St. Paul tells the Colossians. It’s not the tomb, but our faith does not rest on physical proof. „The life you have is hidden with Christ in God,” Paul tells the Colossians. It’s not in the tomb that we will find the proof we seek. The resurrection – our encounter with the risen Lord – can actually happen within the hidden chamber of our own hearts. That is where we meet Him today – in our searching, in our prayer, in our pain and in our persevering love.

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Passion Sunday (“A”) – April 2, 2017

From the Pastor /

Today Jesus talks about death not in cosmic apocalyptic events but in close loving relationships. Martha and Mary inform Him about their brother Lazarus, whom Jesus loves. At first Jesus seems indifferent and delays going to help then reassures them that the illness will not end in death. Jesus speaks powerful words, which we often hear at funerals: “ I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in Me, even though he dies he will live.” Jesus is moved to tears by the grief of those He loves and angry at the reality of death in His friend. But then He performs the greatest sign of His ministry as He calls Lazarus from the grave. And Lazarus is freed from death.

The raising of Lazarus is the greatest sign Jesus performs but, like the other signs we have seen in Lent, the giving of “living water” to a thirsty woman and sight to a blind man, it points to the greater reality of the resurrection, which we celebrate at Easter. Lazarus was raised from the dead but he had to die again. He would need again the funeral clothes that are cast aside when Jesus rises on the third day. At the resurrection Jesus conquers death. On the last day we believe that Christ will come again in glory to bring His creation to share fully in His resurrection.

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IV Sunday of Lent (“A”) – March 26, 2017

Frackville, From the Pastor /

In the ancient Jewish world, blindness was not just a physical ailment. In popular thought it carried a terrible stigma. This arose from a false interpretation of the Law of Moses, which stated that people who were blind or lame could not fight in the army of God’s people. There was good reason for this: soldiers who cannot move fast or see the enemy are not going to be much help to their comrades. However, an extreme interpretation of the rule concluded wrongly that anyone who could not fight in God’s army could never enter God’s kingdom. The next step was to class them as sinners, and that in turn led them being refused word and reduced to begging. Jesus denies that the man’s blindness was caused by anyone’s sin: on the contrary, this man will make God’s works visible. This passage is long and complicated, but we hear of a formerly blind man – notice how briefly the miracle itself is described: over and done with in a couple of sentences – who becomes increasingly full of life and who very soon teaches the Pharisees the ways of God. They become more obsessed about how a sinner could possibly open the eyes of a man born blind. They furiously insist that they are disciples of Moses.

There is another aspect to this light/darkness scenario, exemplified by the parents of the blind man. They’re asked if this is their son, if he was born blind and, if so, how he can now see. They reply “yes” to the first two questions, but refuse to comment on his new sight. “He is old enough: let him speak for himself,” they say, because they fear being expelled from the synagogue if they are perceived to be followers of Jesus. In the Gospels people either accept Jesus as the light, or they reject Him, remaining in darkness. There is no middle road. Later, Jesus will insist that there is only one sign for those who claim to be His disciples, who follow His light: they love one another in the same way that He loved us.

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III Sunday of Lent (“A”) – March 19, 2017

From the Pastor /

We don’t know her name, but the Samaritan woman in today’s Gospel has the longest conversation recorded between Jesus and any person. It was noon on a hot day. Jesus, tired from traveling, chose a rest stop – Jacob’s well, outside the town of Sychar – while waiting for His disciples to fetch food. The woman who joined Him at the well was an outcast, looked down upon by her own people. She came alone to draw water from the community well when, during biblical times, drawing water and chatting at the well was the social highpoint of many women’s day. But this woman was ostracized and marked as immoral woman living openly with the sixth in a series of men. Jews weren’t supposed to speak to Samaritans. Men weren’t permitted to address women without their husbands present. Jesus was willing to ignore the rules, but the woman reminded Him. She focused on the laws of respectable society; Jesus focused on grace. To this woman Jesus revealed that He was the Messiah, offering the living water. She forgot about her own need to fetch water, and ran to tell others about Jesus. She became a powerful evangelist.

The story of the woman at the well teaches us that God loves every one of us, especially those of us who feel ourselves undervalued and even worthless.

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