Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 24, 2022: Do not be unbelieving, but believe!

Do not be unbelieving, but believe!

Is seeing the only path to believing?

    After his Resurrection, Jesus appears to a variety of people, and he is there in person, but not in the way he had been prior to his death and rising. In John's Gospel, these people do not yet expect to encounter Jesus. Yet Jesus transcends the barriers they have erected to protect themselves from the world – the locked doors, the desolate hearts. Peace be with you, he says. When he appears for a second time, before Thomas, he hopes that Thomas will come to believe, to come to faith, to see and realize the truth of salvation with his heart: do not be unbelieving, but believe! Jesus banks on the power of his love to grow for them, that they might see him present in their midst, and believe. As they will come to learn, belief is an expanding process; we come to faith and, over time, our faith deepens and grows. 

   Likewise, after Jesus’ resurrection, as the Acts of the Apostles tells us, the disciples manifest the power of Jesus, not in order to claim Jesus’ power, but to make it clear that it is God who causes the healings to occur: Many signs and wonders were done at the hands of the apostles. And great numbers were added thanks to their efforts: some are brave enough, and have faith that is strong enough, to express their belief and formally recognize their faith in public. Psalm 118 calls all who believe to worship: Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting. Jesus, rejected by the world, has become the cornerstone through God’s extraordinary intervention in human existence. 

   Not long after the Church was established, it came under persecution from all sides. The Book of Revelation is John’s witness in faith. It is Jesus – one like a son of man – who appears to John on the island called Patmos, a penal colony to which John has been sent because he proclaimed God’s word and gave testimony to Jesus. It is there that John learns from the Lord himself what to write; God is responsible for John’s eyewitness: Write on a scroll what you see. The Book of Revelation was sent so that Christian communities might find hope in spite of persecution and not abandon the faith that has been given to them, but rather, expand upon it. As long as the light of the lampstands is lit, there is hope – they need to keep the lampstands burning and the flame of faith alive. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 11, 2021: Do not be unbelieving, but believe!

Do not be unbelieving, but believe!

How does our faith inform our life in community? 

    When, in John’s Gospel, shortly after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus appears to the disciples behind locked doors, he breathes the breath of life into them: Receive the Holy Spirit, he says, filling them with God’s mercy and love. In so doing, he calls them to action: Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. A week later, when he returns and invites Thomas to see, Jesus is speaking as much about understanding as he is about physical sight; he proposes a way of seeing things that will radically change Thomas’s world view. He then calls Thomas to faith: do not be unbelieving, but believe. 

   The First Letter of John reminds us that, as Christians, we are bound together in that very same faith: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God. We are brothers and sisters through baptism and are bound together in the love of God and of one another in Christian community. The early Christian community is described in the Acts of the Apostles as a community of believers, of one heart and mind. There, too, love was the bond that held them together and allowed them to bear witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, meeting the needs of all in Christ’s name. Their bond is a reason for rejoicing, as Psalm 118 reminds us to do: Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting. We are called to live in love for God and for one another, strong in our belief in the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection to bring salvation to our world. May he breathe life into us as well, that we might be bearers of his mercy and forgiveness to the world. 

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

Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 8, 2018: Do not be unbelieving but believe...

 Do not be unbelieving, but believe… 

What do you believe? 

   John tells us that his Gospel is written that you might come to believe and have life in Jesus’ name.  But our journey to belief can be an arduous one.  Even after Jesus appears to the disciples in the upper room when the doors were locked, and says to them, Peace be with you, they are still afraid; the doors remain locked until Jesus comes again the following week to appear to Thomas:  do not be unbelieving, but believe!  Only once the disciples believe that Jesus is the risen Messiah who has come to save all through his death and resurrection will they unlock the door and believe that there is, indeed, nothing to fear anymore.  In the Acts of the Apostles, the community bears witness to a shared faith, a shared belief, and thus to a shared identity in Christ, an identity which allows them to share all they have:  they had everything in common, Luke tells us.  They know, as Psalm 118 will foretell, that Jesus, the stone that the builders rejected, is their cornerstone, their strength, their hope, their courage; they can be one body as a result.

   And, as the First Letter of John reminds us, faith and love are inseparable.  The victory that conquers the world is our faith, our belief that Jesus is the Son of God, sent by God as a sacrifice for our sins, who, through his death and resurrection, has redeemed us and gathered us into that very community celebrated in Acts.  For everyone who believes that Jesus Christ is Lord is begotten by God:  they are the children of God, ready to embrace the belief in the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection to heal us, sustain us in God’s love, our life force, the force that drives us.  We need to live inside this creed, this belief, this faith.

   What is the test of our faith?  What do we believe?  And how strongly does it work as a driving force in our lives?  Can we discern when it does and when it doesn’t, when it ebbs and flows?  Belief is something we must live, day to day.  We can be of one heart and one mind, as Luke describes.  How?  If we believe that Jesus forgives us, we too must be forgiving -- we must have mercy on others and God showers his divine mercy on us.  Faith makes it possible for us to experience all that life has to offer, but we must be driven by Christ, driven by his love for all. 

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

Image source:  www.wordle.net