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V Sunday of Easter – “A” – May 18, 2014

From the Pastor /

In today’s Gospel the song of trouble and heartbreak is about to erupt in the life of Jesus. Here, in His final conversation with His disciples, Jesus seeks to strengthen his friends in the face of the coming darkness. Very soon His own heart will be greatly troubled, as He prays in the garden of Gethsemane, knowing that His enemies are closing in. Nobody escapes trouble and heartbreak. Nobody escapes from fear. And yet there is a way out of these dark places. That heavenly place is the presence of God, and Jesus now tells us how to find our way. As His disciples are thrown into confusion, they begin to ask Him questions. Two very important questions emerge: “Lord, where are You going?” and “How can we find the way there?” He is going to God, His Father, and in following Jesus we will find our way there too.

Trouble and heartache come to everyone in this world, and in many different guises. There are issues of injustice, where people do not receive their share of bread in this world; issues of violence, where people’s lives are torn apart by bloodshed, issues of human relationship; issues of bereavement, where people suddenly lose the ones they love. The word of Jesus, spoken first to His disciples at the Last Supper, are repeated to us today: “Do not let your heart be troubled.” The Lord himself is the reason why we are not to lose hope. Today we hear what St. Peter has to say about the importance of others, about the importance of the Church. The Lord is a living stone, and we can set ourselves close to Him. It is only by being set next to one another in the Lord that we can be strong. It is this precious love in our lives that will enable us to have a care for one another, and as a Church to have a care for everyone. To rescue the human heart from trouble is the great work that we can do.

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IV Sunday of Easter – “A” – May 11, 2014

From the Pastor /

Today’s redings do not speak of mighty warships, but take us rather to the other extreme – towards a flock of frail sheep. No single image can convey all that Jesus means to us. As the first reading makes clear, this Good Shepherd of ours who was crucified is Lord and Christ; He is the long-awaited Messiah; He is God in our midst. He is not only our shepherd, says the Gospel, but the gateway that leads to life in all its fullness. “Listening” is a favorite word in St. John’s Gospel: it appears more than 50 times. Today’s reading very appropriate draws our attention to the way in which sheep listen for the voice of their shepherd; and then, they “hear” it, are ready to respond. We live in a world where many alluring voices are raised, where it’s so easy to hear and be swayed by what the Gospel calls “the voice of strangers” – the powerful voices of the media, of politicians, of celebrities, of our own peer group, even when they promote ideas and aspirations that are quite contrary to those of our Shepherd. Today we are invited once again to listen carefully for the voice of our Good Shepherd: on the one hand, not allowing it to be drawned out by other voices; on the other, recognizing that it is to be heard in many, and even in some unlikely situations.

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III Sunday of Easter – “A” – May 4, 2014

From the Pastor /

They…recognized Him at the breaking of bread. Twe depressed, half-believeing disciples on the road to Emmaus recognized the risen Lord in a setting with which you and I are instantly familiar. We are tempted to say, “There is something magic about the Mass,” but that is not right: magic has no place in Christianity. When we first met them in today’s Gospel, these two travellers on the road to Emmaus could not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. They had been His followers, and that made it worse. Jesus had to spend the whole day walking with them, explaining the psalms and prophecies of the Old Testament, to prepare them for the blinding moment of recognition.

As soon as they recognized the risen Lord, They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem. Their joy was so great that it couldn’t wait till morning. They ran the seven miles back to the city to bring the stunning news. Jesus is alive. Their depression was lifted, their despair had disappeared. If Christ is risen, all things can be hoped for. As men and women of trust, we are oddballs in our secular world, which is grim, sarcastic, sad, expecting the worst, pooh-poohing virtue and unselfishness. We are the opposite. We can bring each day with hope in our heart, because we know that the risen Christ is with us, helping us interpret everything that may happen, casting His light on every encounter, every problem.

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Low Sunday – “A” – April 27, 2014

From the Pastor /

Every Sunday at Mass we proclaim the Creed – the “I believe”. The word “creed” comes from the Latin word “credo”, meaning “I believe”; and the word “believe” derives ultimately from a word related to “love”. When we pray the Creed, when we say we believe, we are making a statement about the person in whom we trust, the one to whom we have given our hearts – just as Thomas did. “The truth is out there.” For the Christians, the truth of the resurrection will never be proved or disproved by scientific reasoning of historical data, but by the effects of that truth in our world and in our personal lives. The first reading gives an indication of some of those effects: a faithfulness to the teaching of the apostles, to the community, to the breaking of bread, to prayer. Perhaps most importantly, the real hallmarks of the risen Jesus are the peace and joy, the healing and reconciliation that this Spirit brings into people’s lives – driving out fear and sadness, overcoming the death-dealing power of sin. This is the real sign of the resurrestion, the truth that we are called to live out and embody, for the healing and salvation of the world.

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Resurrection of the Lord – “A” – April 20, 2014

Frackville, From the Pastor, PNCC /

We read in today’s Gospel that when the beloved disciple entered the tomb, he saw and he believed. What did he see? Not Jesus, certainly, only the empty tomb with the grave clothes. The Gospel tells us that up to this point they had failed to understand the teaching of scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead. The disciples were in a state of shock. Their world had been shattered as they witnessed the arrest of Jesus and His death on the cross. It took more than the evidence of an empty tomb to convince them that Jesus was truly risen from the dead. The empty tomb was the beginning of a process that led to faith. Gradually, over a period of 40 days, they had a variety of experiences of meeting the risen Lord, which enabled them finally to proclaim with conviction, as Peter says in today’s first reading. The relationship that the disciples had with Jesus began with an invitation to follow Him. They heard His words; they witnessed His miracles; they saw how He related to people with great love and understanding, and the conviction grew that He was the Christ, the Son of the living God. What this meant was severely challenged whey they witnessed the betrayal of Jesus, His arrest and torture, and the finally His death on the cross. They only really came to understand who Jesus was after the resurrection, when the Spirit came to lead them to complete truth.

Easter is the feast of all feasts. The feast of Christmas did not even exist for the first two centuries of the Church’s life, but Christianity is inconceivable without Easter. The risen Lord appears to those who have received the gift of faith, that gift of the Holy Spirit which brings us into a relationship with Jesus. When we believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, we are enabled to die to the things of this world and come alive to the things of God. Our whole sense of values changes, because our life is now hidden with Christ in God. We begin to see with the eyes of Christ so that we can know His Father as our Father and feel His compassion for the needs of the world around us. Like the disciples, however, we have to grow in our faith. Like them, we have to follow the call of Jesus, to listen to His word, to allow a relationship with Him to develop. Without Jesus, our world is an empty tomb. Today let us open our hearts to the gift of the Spirit who will enable us to see what is not visible to the eyes of our body, and to believe that the Lord is truly risen and living among us.

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