Monday, April 29, 2013

5/6/2013 – Monday of sixth week of Easter – Acts 16:11-15


       Today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles speaks about a journey that Paul and some of the other members of the Early Church made in order to follow Jesus' command to spread his Good New to all the world.  On this journey, they encounter a wonderful woman, Lydia, whose heart is opened to God.  Not only did Lydia and her family accepted baptism into the Lord after she hears what Paul has to say.  She goes one step further, inviting Paul into her home in an act of true hospitality. 
         We see acts of hospitality a lot in our culture.  Here in the American South, sharing a meal with someone and offering refreshments to a guest are important in our conception of hospitality.  I also remember how as a lay missionary in Ecuador, I would travel every week to the small jungle villages that our mission site served.  Loving and generous members of our faith communities in these villages would invite me into their homes, sharing a meal with me and allowing me to accompany them on their journey of faith.  Many of these families faced great hardship in their lives as the struggled to make a living in the vast rainforest jungle.  But the love of God was so evident by their graciousness & their hospitality.
         With the example of Lydia and so many other faithful followers of Jesus that have come before us, may we continue to practice Christian hospitality.  May we let open the doors of our hearts to God, reaching out to others in a sense of unity and welcome, even when we face great obstacles and challenges ourselves.  

5/5/2013 – Sixth Sunday of Easter – John 14:23-29, Acts 15:1-2, 22-29



         The Gospel reading from John’s Gospel that we hear today is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse that he shares with his apostles as they are gathered for the Last Supper.  Jesus is getting them ready for the time when he will no longer be with them.  Yet, he tells them that they will not be alone in living out their life of discipleship.  Jesus tells them that He and the Father will dwell with them, that the Holy Spirit will be with them as an Advocate, and that Jesus’ peace will be with them.  
         When I thought about today’s reading from John, I was taken back to the very beginning of John’s Gospel, a reading we heard back on Christmas Day.  The Gospel of John starts not with the birth of the baby Jesus in a manger, but back to the beginning of creation:  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.”  We are called to bearers of Christ’s peace to the world, we are called to be models of this peace for the world, the same peace that Jesus brought to his Apostles in the Upper Room at the Last Supper. 
         As a priest, something I often hear people struggling with is their anger.  We live in a modern world where we want everything in an instant.  We want to send a text message immediately and we want to get the response to that text right away.  We want to go to a restaurant and be served immediately, without having to wait a long time.  It is so easy to get impatient or angry or frustrated in our fast paced modern world.  We can easily get impatient at our family members or friends.  And just look at the road rage we see on the streets when driving around town.  How do we find peace in the midst of all of this?
         The peace of Christ is not something we generate or create for ourselves, but rather it is a peace that is passed down to us from Christ himself.  And this peace is not something that came into being in the Upper Room at the Last Supper, but is rather rooted in the Eternal Word of God and in act of love and goodness in which God created the world.  We receive this peace as a gift from God, from God’s mercy and compassion.  We are to exemplify this peace in our lives.  We are to live out this peace and to feel it in our hearts. 
         I taught high school in the Mississippi Delta for four years in the city of Greenville.  You can just imagine how some days the peace of Christ felt as far away as the Man in the Moon.  But I had to remind myself that in the midst of the chaos and turmoil of that experience of trying to teach these young people, I had to be very creative and disciplined in my approach.  I remember that I had 2 students – twins actually – that loved getting on my last nerve and making my role as a teacher as miserable as possible.  I endured one semester with them, and when I saw them assigned for me for one more semester, I tried to think of another way I could approach the situation.  So, rather than being on the defensive and reacting to how they were treating me, I decided to go on the offensive and smother them with absolute kindness.  They were really caught off-guard, and that approach seemed to really work at that situation. 
         We see how an argument is resolved in the early Church in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles.  Some followers of Jesus from Judea came to the newly formed faith community in Antioch, insisting on certain stringent requirements for salvation, including circumcision.  However, Paul and Barnabas appeal to Jerusalem for assistance, with a settlement reached.  Barnabas and Paul decided to go to Jerusalem to resolve the disagreement – sometimes peace requires confrontation and resolution.  Both sides could have had a stand-off or could have gone their separate ways.  The peace that Christ gives us requires courage and persistence. 
         We could ask ourselves the following question when we look out at the world and see all that is going on: Where is the peace of Christ in the midst of the violence, uncertainty, and suffering in our world?  Perhaps that is not the right question we are asking.  Perhaps it is better to ask: What am I doing to bring the peace of Christ into my own life and into the world?  How is the Spirit moving in me to be a bearer of that peace?
         

5/3/2013 – Friday of 5th week of Easter - Feast of St Phillip and St James – John 14:6-14


        One of the things I love about our Catholic faith is the community of saints.  I love learning about the saints and celebrating their presence as a part of our community of believers.  This week has been particularly wonderful for those of us who love the saints, as in our daily masses this week we have celebrated two Doctors of the Church (St Catherine of Siena and St Athanasius), St Joseph the Worker, and then today two of the Apostles – St Phillip and St James.   Our parish here in Tupelo has St James the Greater, the son of Zebedee, as our patron saint, but the Apostle we celebrate today is James the Lesser. 
         We see a bit of Philip’s curiosity in our Gospel reading today.  Jesus is telling the disciples about his relationship with the Father.  In response, Philip wants Jesus to show them the Father.  Jesus tells Philip that if one has seen Jesus, he has indeed seen the Father.  We might have a similar curiosity about our faith. We may want to see more – we may want truth or further explanation.  A curious mind and the questions we ask will help us in our search for God.
         As we celebrate these wonderful saints this week, we harken back to the Early Church and to the diverse group of the faithful who have helped us journey in faith throughout history.  May we always see the saints as our friends who are helping us with their prayers and intercessions along our journey.  

5/2/2013 – Thursday of 5th week of Easter - Memorial of St Athanasius – Archbishop of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church – Psalm 96


        Athanasius was Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt in the fourth century for 45 years.  Alexandria was one of the great centers of Christianity and of learning in the ancient world.  Yet, during that long time he was bishop, Athanasius was exiled by different emperors 5 different times.  More than six years of that time of exile was spent in the desert.  He also had to flee Alexandria 6 additional times when he feared for his life.  Athanasius is one of that select group of men and women who have been named as a Doctor of the Church for their contributions to spirituality, theology, and Church doctrine.  Athanasius was active in the fight against Arianism, a belief in the Church that saw Jesus, the Son of God, as subordinate to the Father.  The writings of Athanasius were important to the way our understanding of the Trinity developed in the early Church.  On of his quotes about Jesus as God is this: “Jesus that I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God.”
         “Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.”  We hear this refrain in our psalm today.  Many of us might wonder how we are to proclaim God’s deeds to a world that often times does not want to listen to Christ’s message.  We can think of all the opposition that Athanasius faced in his lived, how even in the face of exile and threats against his life, he never gave up.  We also may be faced with various challenges in living out our faith and in proclaiming God’s world.  May Athanasius and the other saints serve as inspirations and as examples of faith as we try to live our lives as disciples of Christ in the modern world.  

5/1/2013 – St Joseph the Worker – Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Easter – John 15:1-8


       In Communist countries throughout Europe, May 1 was traditionally celebrated as the Day of the Worker.  To put the worker in the context of our Christian values, Pope Pius XII established the feast of St Joseph the Worker in 1955, which we celebrate on May 1 in our liturgical calendar.  We also celebrate St Joseph on March 19 in our liturgical calendar as the spouse of Mary.  We know that Joseph was a carpenter, that he probably taught Jesus this trade as well.  The Church teaches that no matter what work we undertake in life, we are to do so with dignity and in a manner that allows us to contribute to both God’s kingdom and to human society as well.  We can find dignity in all human work – no matter what kind of work it is – and we can lift that work up for the glory of the Lord.
         It is easy for us to see our work and our lives as our own, to see what we do in life as our own efforts.  But Jesus uses the story of the vine and the branches to show how we are connected to him.  Jesus tells us that we are to abide in him just as he abides in us.  Do we really feel that we are dwelling with Jesus, dwelling with what we hear him communicating to us?  Are we willing to bear fruit for him and for God’s kingdom, rather than just bearing fruit for our own means and our own pleasures?
         As we think about St Joseph the Worker today, may we lift up our work and our efforts here on earth to the glory of God.