Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 26, 2015: See what love the Father has bestowed...

See what love the Father has bestowed on us...

What can faith teach us about intimacy?

When, in this Sunday’s reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Jewish leaders that he is the good shepherd, he is setting himself in stark contrast to them.  Unlike the authorities who are unsettled by his teachings because they themselves fall short, Jesus is the image of perfect love, ready to lay down his life for his sheep; although he is all too aware of his followers’ faults, he loves them still, and invites them to enter into his life, and to share his life, his intimacy, with the Father.  The profound love that compels Jesus to the cross is the profound love into which we are baptized.  To be open to that love is to recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, sent to bring salvation to all; faith, then, is about acceptance of that love, a love that fosters deeper connection, profound intimacy, with the God of love.

Because they know that intimacy of connection, we see in Acts, Peter and John are able to heal, as Peter tells the Jewish authorities, in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean.  Jesus is their cornerstone, their foundation, without whom intimacy with God, love, and salvation are impossible.  They know the profound love the Father has bestowed on us, know the intimacy that is theirs because they are children of God (1 John).  They can therefore, like the author of Psalm 118, give thanks to the Lord before the Jewish leaders, knowing God’s mercy is theirs, trusting in the intimacy of profound love that is their refuge.

Do we have their faith in the gift of intimacy, 

in the promise of God’s profound love for us?

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

Image source: Wordle

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 12, 2015: Jesus is the Christ...

Jesus is the Christ...

How do we give witness to what we believe?

Sunday’s gospel reading from John reminds us of the story of the disciple Thomas, who is not present when Jesus first visits the apostles, and whose doubt is manifest:  Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my fingers into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.  As it happens, Thomas has only to see the Lord one week later and his conversion is immediate:  My Lord and my God!  he exclaims.  God revealed before him elicits a profound statement of faith, and Jesus’ reflection on this moment is telling:  Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.

After the first generation of disciples has passed, of course, this will be the situation of all those (including us) in the Church:  they will not see, yet they will believe.  In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles, it is the great power of the witness of the apostles that helps them to strive for peaceful community, where everyone is of one heart and mind.  All is shared in a just distribution of goods; they had everything in common. In the words of Psalm 118, this is cause for rejoicing, the joyful shout of victory in the tents of the just, the tents of those who do God’s work.

Like the apostles, we are charged with a mission:  As the Father has sent me, so I send you, Jesus says. We are called, in other words, to give witness; it is part of our identity as baptized believers in Christ.  We are called to bring the love God has to bear for us upon the world, to transform it, giving witness to his love with our lives.  With the help of the Spirit – the one that testifies, according to the First Letter of John – we are called to plant ourselves squarely within the domain of God’s love, a position from which we can give open witness to our belief that Jesus is indeed the Christ, and to the ways our lives are transformed, daily, by faith in his love.

This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.

Image source:  Wordle