April 24, 2005: First Communion & Love

+ THE FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Today, we joyfully celebrate First Holy Communion here at St. John’s Parish. Soon, three beautiful youngsters will receive Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist for the very first time — please God, for the first of countless times in their life. We congratulate all of them and their families!

Receiving Jesus in communion is like nothing else in the whole world. Just as food makes the body healthy, Holy Communion makes the soul healthy — healthy to live out faith, hope and love… healthy to deal with all the troubles of life that come along… healthy to fight off temptations… healthy to carry even the heaviest burdens of sorrow and trial. Communion makes the weak strong and the strong stronger.

And, the same way that food helps the body grow, so does Holy Communion help the soul grow — grow from selfishness to charity… from impurity to purity… from injustice to justice… from pride to humility.

We know, too, that in every living thing, repair is continually necessary to fix the damage that comes about and to strengthen against possible future injury. Holy Communion does this for the soul. It is spiritual medicine. It fixes the wounds that come from sin and makes us stronger so we are less likely to sin in the future.

And finally, just the way that having a meal is not only a source of nourishment for the body, but also a source of pleasure and enjoyment — so too there is pleasure in receiving Holy Communion, the Lord’s Supper. It is a spiritual delight. It is a time of sharing a meal and having an intimate visit with a loving friend.

Yes, First Holy Communion opens the door for our precious children to all these wonderful things — and takes them deeper into the life of grace.

The life of grace, of course, is found squarely in the heart of the Church. Jesus’ desire is not just to have individual, one-on-one relationships with each of us — but rather to incorporate us as fully as possible into His Mystical Body… into the Communion of Saints. That’s why there are two, not just one, Great Commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor.

I’m sure most of you with children are familiar with the popular game called “Chutes and Ladders.” I remember playing it with one of my nephews a few years ago. We both had our share of wins and losses. If I was very unlucky rolling the dice, I’d be slowed down by landing on a lot of chutes, and lose. If I got lucky, I’d land on more ladders than usual, beat my nephew to the last square, and win.

Usually though, in this game, players lucky enough to land on a lot of ladders land on at least one chute, just as the unluckiest player landing on many chutes gets at least one ladder.

My nephew asked me, “Uncle Jeff, what would happen if a person always got ladders or always got chutes when they played?”

I answered that I thought that the person with all the ladders would be really happy for the first few games — but then he’d get bored with winning all the time and with the lack of any challenge. A person who only got chutes every game would probably get discouraged and quit playing after a few games, just as some people do in the game of life.

Then he asked, “How is the Chutes and Ladders game like life?”

I explained that just the way that the game’s inventor put lots of chutes and ladders into his game, God has done the same thing with life. The ladders in life would be the people or events that “lift” you by encouraging your gifts, making you feel loved and giving you hope. Chutes would have the opposite effect. They would bring you down — those people or events that make you feel unloved, discouraged and cause you to lose hope.

God didn’t want too many ladders in life because then it would be boring or too easy or unchallenging. But he also didn’t want life to be so tough or stressful that we’d give up. So he gave life a balance of ups and downs.

Now remember what I said a little while ago. God wants us to live our lives as a church community — by loving him and by loving each other, all with the constant help of the Holy Spirit. If you relate this to the game of Chutes and Ladders, it would be interesting to ask yourself this: what kind of person am I towards others? Am I more like a ladder in life to people, or a chute? In other words, do I act to lift people up and encourage them… as a channel of God’s love, hope, forgiveness and healing… or am I just the opposite?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all be ladders! We would smile at people… be kind to them… take an interest in them… go out of our way to help them and comfort them and bring them joy. What a lift and a blessing we would be to them!

It’s not such a far-fetched idea! The beautiful thing about Holy Communion is that in an amazing way, it can turn icy cold, stony hearts into warm, loving hearts. It really can turn us from chutes into ladders.

May all of us who come to the Lord’s table today, (and especially our First Holy Communicants), pray for God’s forgiveness, wisdom and power to love… and let’s get to work for the kingdom of love! May we never lose the wonder and joy of the Bread of Angels! And may the Holy Spirit always fill us with his wonderful grace. Amen!

April 17, 2005: Following the Good Shepherd

+THE FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

In the gospel today, we hear the well-known parable of the Good Shepherd. Of course, we’ve all heard it many times—and we’re quite familiar with the visual picture of the Good Shepherd and the sheep… and the meaning seems pretty obvious to us.

Did you ever stop to wonder what it must have been like for Christ’s listeners to hear his parables for the very first time? Evidently the message wasn’t as clear, because the gospel says: Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them.

That’s kind of surprising, I think. It seems fairly easy to understand the imagery of the Good Shepherd, especially since shepherds would have been a common sight for everyone Jesus talked to. What’s more, in the Middle East, the custom is for the shepherd to walk ahead of his sheep, expecting them to follow—rather than being driven from behind as is the custom in western countries.

When you think about it, you can appreciate how beautifully this parable fits in with Jesus’ attitude of allowing people to choose. He never tried to manipulate or pressure people to follow him. He just laid his cards on the table and gave folks the option of following or not as they chose. Yes, he was always concerned about the “lost sheep”—and went out of his way to rescue them—but sheep that deliberately chose against him were able to freely make that choice. He even went to the cross because that was what his enemies wanted.

But back to the parable. Maybe what the Pharisees didn’t get was the part where Jesus says that the sheep follow the shepherd because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger . . . because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.

I wonder if our Lord was just being kind here. He says the sheep will know that they shouldn’t follow a stranger… but so often we sheep do exactly that. We’ll jump on a new bandwagon if it looks like the popular thing to do. Especially when things are too rough and rocky in our own particular pasture, we’ll look for the quickest and easiest way over the fence!

Often the grass we haven’t walked in—or messed in!—seems greener. And, as Jesus says, there’s no shortage of folks who would say, “Hey, come on over here!” It makes them feel good to think that we’d like to be like them. Maybe you can say that this is a kind of stealing—stroking their own egos at our expense.

On the other hand, maybe we steal from ourselves by giving up on our own lives too quickly. Sometimes the way to the gate that God provides is difficult. Sometimes we don’t know where our next meal or our next dollar is going to come from. But leaping over the fence in fear when the going gets tough doesn’t seem like the wisest choice we could make.

I like the way that the 23rd Psalm is paired with the gospel of the Good Shepherd. The old traditional translation said: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Some people don’t just walk through the valley of the shadow of death; they set up camp there! Isn’t it true? Some people seem to be camping out for a lifetime in the valley, always complaining that they can’t see their way over the mountain. And I’m not talking about people facing death. Real problems seem to sometimes motivate us to get a move on… probably because we turn those problems over to God.

It’s interesting that this psalm is so often read at funerals. Most of it does talk about how the Lord provides and gets us through life. It’s nice to think about this after a person has passed through to the other side, but wouldn’t it be more productive and more helpful to use it as a guide along the way?

We Catholics love to think of the rewards that await us in eternity—and to think of heaven as “a better place.” But the psalmist describes everything that the Lord provides in this life: green pastures to rest in… still waters to calm our spirits… protection… abundance… even anointing. My cup overflows. Indeed! How could any place be better? Goodness and kindness are ours for the taking every day of our lives—yes, the lives we are living right here and now.

Today’s message of the Good Shepherd should help us realize that each of us has a life to live… time and space in which to live it… and an endless supply of God’s grace to fill us with fruitfulness and blessedness. God wants us to have life and have it abundantly—our life, not somebody else’s… his great gift to us—for our happiness, for the service of others, and to give honor and glory back to God.

During this holy Easter season, may we truly experience this abundance… and the grace to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow him with joy.


Today’s Readings:
Acts of the Apostles 2: 14, 36­–41
Psalm 23
1 Peter 2: 20–25
John 10: 1–10

April 10, 2005: Imitating the Faith of Jesus

+ THE THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

When tragedy strikes, the human brain kicks in to protect us from the shock and the trauma. Our system goes onto a kind of “auto pilot,” and we may walk around in a daze, feeling numb, until our mind can grasp and start to deal with the enormity of what’s happened to us. I think most of us can relate to this from personal experience… whether it’s the death of someone close, a devastating personal loss or even a calamity like the events of September 11 or a high-school shooting.

After Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, kangaroo court trial and execution, the disciples were reeling. Before they could even come to terms with everything that happened, along came another zinger. Some of the women reported back the incredible news from an angel: Jesus was alive again—resurrected, as he had said. That was Sunday.

Today’s gospel takes place the next day, on Monday. Even though the angel had told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit, evidently these two fellows we meet on the road were too antsy to stay put. So they’re walking to Emmaus, a hike of seven miles. Maybe they thought the three-hour or so walk would help them put things in perspective. In their numbness, they don’t realize that they’re disrupting God’s plan by walking away from the place where God had intended them to stay. Jerusalem is more than just a geographic location; it’s where someone experiences suffering, death and resurrection in imitation of Jesus.

From the gospel, we learn that Jesus doesn’t meet the pair of disciples from the opposite direction. Rather, he’s walking the same way they are, and he overtakes them. In other words, it’s clear that Christ is coming from Jerusalem. On the way, Jesus explains God’s word and then breaks bread with them. It’s at this point that their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And their recognition caused something else to happen, too: he vanished from their sight.

Listening to the word, then breaking bread, is a classic way to describe the Eucharist. Through the Eucharist, Jesus takes Jerusalem to them.

From the earliest days of Christianity, it was in the breaking of bread that believers discovered the risen Jesus among them. The Eucharist was each Christian’s Jerusalem: the place where they died to themselves by becoming one with all those others who joined in the action. The act of suffering and death brought them the spiritual insight to perceive the risen Jesus in their midst. And that is why the instant he’s recognized, he disappears: we recognize him over and over again only because we’re willing to give ourselves over and over again.

So here we are in the year 2005. Does the Eucharist still work the same way? Yes—if we truly make it a personal experience of dying and rising.

On Holy Thursday—the Last Supper—Christ instituted the Eucharist. You all know how he took bread and said, “This is my body.” He broke it, passed it around. Then he took the chalice of wine and said, “This is my blood.” He passed it around, too. He told the disciples, “Do this in memory of me.” His instruction was that we were supposed to imitate him.

Now listen to Peter’s speech in our first reading today. The first pope taught that we’re not supposed to just think how great Jesus is, but we’re also expected to imitate some of his attributes.

Peter speaks about Jesus’ “mighty deeds, wonders and signs.” He tells us that God worked these through Jesus. It’s important to understand that Jesus didn’t accomplish these solely by his own choice and power. Rather, they were part of his life because he had opened himself so thoroughly to God that God’s actions couldn’t be separated from Jesus’ actions.

Now, when Jesus’ first followers tried to imitate his giving of himself to God, they not only became witnesses of his resurrection, but they also discovered the same Spirit poured into their lives that God had poured into Jesus’ life.

We see another aspect of Jesus’ self-giving in Peter’s letter. He doesn’t say that Jesus “rose from the dead”; he writes that God raised him from the dead. There’s a huge difference between doing something yourself and having someone do it for you.

Peter’s point is that God will do the same thing for us as he did for Jesus… so our faith and hope should be in God. You see, we discover the risen Jesus among us not so much by having faith in Jesus as by having the faith of Jesus. Instead of just worshiping Jesus, we’re also expected to copy him. Only then do we notice that the risen Jesus has entered our lives.

We all know from personal experience that figuring out what would Jesus do—much less doing it—isn’t always easy. Life is messy and complicated. Yet Jesus, who we’ve got to remember was truly human so he in some mysterious way was in the same bind as us, managed to light up the path for us. The more we can keep our head and heart with Jesus, the better we can do at imitating him.

The best ways to do this are by ruminating on God’s word in the Scriptures and by praying always. And of course, the Eucharist is the top of the mountain when it comes to both.

The peace and strength and power and love and incredible joy of God are before us on a silver platter. During this blessed season of Easter, may the Holy Spirit stir up our hearts to desire and seek these wonderful gifts.

Amen. Alleluia!

Today’s Readings:
Acts of the Apostles 2: 14, 22–33
Psalm 16
1 Peter 1: 17–21
Luke 24: 13–35

April 3, 2005: The Second Sunday of Easter

Our first lesson from the Acts of the Apostles today is pretty amazing. This short reading — it contains just five sentences — gives a complete summary and model of the Christian life. If today we did the things this passage describes, we’d be well on the road to perfection.

Because we can profit so much from the advice and example in this brief reading, I’d like to talk about it today. But let me encourage you also to a make note of the bible reference — Acts, Chapter 2, Verses 42–47 — so you can look it up again in your bible at home and hopefully spend some time this coming week quietly praying with these few short verses. Ask the Lord to stir your heart so you can live out his Word as he would have you do.

The reading opens, The brethren devoted themselves to the apostles’ instruction and the communal life. In other words, all the baptized listened with docility and love to the Church, and they lived out Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor. They looked upon the Church as a loving Mother — someone interested in their welfare, a source of love and wisdom ready to help. Today, do we see the Church and our bishops this way? Or do we see them as a source of rules and restrictions that seem out of touch with modern life? This is a key question to think about, because chances are good that the people sitting around you today think just as you do!

To continue with the reading, we next hear how the new Christian community committed themselves to celebrating the Eucharist together and praying together. What did they pray for? Basically two things — and this is interesting: first, they prayed to give praise and glory to God. The passage says that a reverent fear overtook them all. This is not a “fear” that the Lord would punish them or anything like that. No, it was a holy fear; they loved God so much that they were afraid that they might do even something small and unintentional that could offend him. Can you imagine such a loving, attentive sensitivity?

The second thing they prayed for was each others’ needs — not for their own needs and desires. Their entire mindset was outward — thinking about other people.

And their prayer for others didn’t stop there. Desires and words — even fervent words — weren’t enough. Acts tells us that these new Christian brothers and sisters put their desires and words into practice. They shared whatever they had, and they didn’t hesitate to give something away if it could be used to help someone else. We can understand how a mother would gladly go hungry if it meant feeding her children; can we begin to comprehend the same sacrifice for a neighbor? Yet this is what Jesus asks of us — and this is exactly how the earliest Christians lived.

If we were to face ourselves honestly and ask why we wouldn’t give the shirt off our back for a brother Christian, I bet it’s out of pure fear — fear that somehow this loss of something we need will make us suffer and somehow diminish our life. So it’s really perplexing that Acts tells us that the people did all these things with exultant and sincere hearts. They were happy and carefree! What incredible faith.

I’d like to call your attention to one final point in this reading — the very last line, which says, Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Non-Christians looked at this community of believers. They saw how wonderful everyone was to everyone else. They saw how joyous they all were. And even though they may not have understood a lot about Christianity, they knew one thing for certain: they wanted a piece of it! That power of witness was like a magnet.

I don’t know about you, but this passage stirs me up. It makes me jealous: I long for that kind of Christian life. It makes me a little cynical, too: we pat ourselves on the back for how advanced we are — how far our civilization has come — but don’t you think we’ve really gone backwards?

For me, it all comes down to two fundamental questions. Where did we lose our fervor? And more importantly, how can we get it back?

In part, I believe we’ve grown to take things for granted that we really shouldn’t. Look at the Holy Eucharist, the very center of our faith. 50,000 Catholic priests around the world have the awesome, mystical power to transform bread and wine into the living body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do we see our holy priests as the Church’s equivalent of the neighborhood McDonald’s? Can you imagine how different things would be if only one person on earth — perhaps the Pope — could make the Eucharistic Lord present? What longing we’d have to make that holy pilgrimage! But instead, we’ve taken Christ’s generosity and cheapened it, make it common, and have valued it less.

Another reason that we’ve lost the old fervor is that our hearts have become divided. We have two loves: God and the world. We love our things, our daily pleasures, our achievements — all our idols. Our God — who’s way up there somewhere — doesn’t seem as real or as important. And I confess that those of us in the holy pulpit don’t always do our job to set things straight. When was the last time you heard a sermon on the Last Four Things — Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell? I assure you: one day, these will be the most important things in your life!

How then, dear friends, can we get back on track? Wouldn’t this be a great goal for this holy Easter season!

To begin with, we need to take charge of our lives. We often speak about “love of God,” but I think many of us take this to mean something emotional. But it isn’t really. Love of God is in the mind and will. We give and show love by making choices and following up on them. Remember in Acts how we saw people loving their neighbor? They did things for them.

With God, I think our first choice has to be to remember. Our second reading today tells us how Jesus Christ in his great mercy gave us a new birth through baptism and makes us heirs. We’re in the will! The inheritance is coming— and boy oh boy, do we have some treasures to look forward to. We just have to remember this and stay prepared to claim what’s rightfully ours! Never, never forget!

How do we remember in the busy-ness of life? By praying — a lot! Keep God in mind. Make him part of your life. Pray to the Holy Spirit to fill you with his incredible gifts.

We should also act like heirs. You’re rich in Christ! Act it! Be generous, not stingy — you’ve got so much it will never run out, no matter how much you give away! Give it up — the Father will give you more! What should we give? Everything! Material things: food, water, clothing, money... Spiritual things: compassion, mercy, empathy, forgiveness, love... time... Remember to give these things to your parish, too, which is a clearinghouse to pass them along to others.

Finally, keep up your hope — even in the midst of this life’s inevitable pains, sufferings, and trials. Don’t lose sight that our hope comes with a guarantee: Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus said he’d rise from the dead — and he did! That’s pretty impressive, right? So shouldn’t we equally believe his other promises too? His promise of the eternal joy and happiness to come? This is the very core of our faith. Hold onto it. Hold onto it tight.

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, let us promise ourselves today to make a fresh start in the Lord. Let’s do this by forgetting about ourselves and concentrating our love and prayer on God and our neighbors — just as we heard in the example from the Acts of the Apostles. This approach brought peace and joy to the first Christian community 2,000 years ago — and Jesus promises it will do the same for us today.

He is risen. Alleluia!