Sunday Gospel Reflection, May 5, 2019: Cast the net over the right side of the boat...

Cast the net over the right side of the boat...

How are we to act, now that Christ is Risen?

  Long after having witnessed the Risen Jesus in the upper room, the disciples are still at a loss, so they turn to the one activity they know:  they go fishing.  In John’s Gospel, when the disciples fish alone, they catch nothing.  This is not how their lives have been defined; they see failure no matter which way they turn.  But when a man the disciples do not recognize as Jesus tells them, Cast the net over the right side of the boat and you will find something, the disciples pull up so many fish that they cannot even haul them into the boat. It is the Lord who shows the disciples that they need to go further, to stretch the boundaries of what they know, to expand their horizons, to explore how they understand themselves now that Christ is risen.  They have been radically changed, and they need to move forward.  Peter offers the clearest example.  Having denied Jesus three times, Peter must repeat three times, Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.  It’s not enough simply to say so, however; Jesus then tells him, Feed my sheep. 

  The Acts of the Apostles chronicles the disciples’ efforts to do just that, teaching in Jesus’ name, obeying God rather than men.  The apostles are witnesses to salvation, but the Sanhedrin are not open to that revelation; indeed, the Sanhedrin are at a loss as to how to confront this ongoing profession of faith, because they cannot believe in Jesus as God.  But the Holy Spirit is at work in the apostles, who give thanks to his holy name (Psalm 30), their mourning changed into dancing as they are dismissed by the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they have been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.  In the Book of Revelation, the Risen Lord will be referred to as the Lamb that was slain, a symbol of salvation always depicted as alive in that text.  The angels and living creatures and elders who witness the Lamb recognize that God’s power and plan are unfolding in the Lamb; they give witness to God’s immense love as embodied by the Lamb and all that he can accomplish in us… so long as we cast our net over the right side of the boat!

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, July 1, 2018: Little girl, I say to you, arise!

 Little girl, I say to you, arise! 

 Who is the source of your life? 

   The Book of Wisdom tells us that God created us not for death but for life, for he fashioned all things that they might have being.  We are creatures formed in the image of the Lord’s own nature, created that we might be his representatives, his face in the world, his revelation on earth.  But although God formed us to be imperishable, it is only through righteousness, through right relationship with God, that we can come to participate in eternal life and live in the perfection of God’s love.  In Psalm 30, the psalmist recognizes God’s life-giving role in his own existence:  you brought me up from the netherworld; you preserved me… We were meant to be eternal, if only we open ourselves to this possibility and act according to God’s will. 

   Jesus, too, is a life-giving force in chapter five of Mark’s Gospel.  In the intercalated stories of the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the healing of the woman afflicted with hemorrhages, we have two instances of Jesus restoring life to those who are dead, or as good as dead.  When the woman, who has been afflicted for twelve years and therefore ritually unclean, dares to penetrate the crowd and touch his cloak, Jesus stops, seeking to identify the person who has touched him.  This moment of contact affects him, and profoundly so; it is important to Jesus that he encounter the woman as a human being, a being to whom his touch has restored life.  Indeed, he engages with her, affirming her suffering, her hope, and her great faith.  Likewise, Jesus meets Jairus’ daughter where she is, in death, and raises her to new life – Little girl, I say to you, arise! – restoring her to community, to relationship, transmitting by his touch the love of God that is life-giving.

   It is not only through his ministry on earth that Jesus gives life; Paul reminds the Corinthians that Jesus became poor so that by his poverty, they might become rich, and share the wealth that is their very existence, their life, with all around them.  Only in so doing, only by imitating Jesus himself, his sacrifice and his love, can they come to know that love in its perfection.  Jesus came that we might have life; it’s up to us to reach out and touch the cloak of Christ, to open to that life in all its plenitude, to embrace his life-giving love, and to know, once and for all, the source of our life.

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

Image source:  www.wordle.net

Sunday Gospel Reflection, June 5, 2016: He was moved with pity for her...

   He was moved with pity for her…  

 How have you been touched by the depths of God’s compassion? 

  

   When her son stops breathing, the widow of Zarephath in the First Book of Kings rocks his body on her lap, finding in that closeness and intimacy the only solace remaining to her.  Imagine her consternation as the prophet Elijah intervenes to take the child from her, Elijah, whom she blames for her son’s illness:  Why have you done this to me, man of God? she asks.  Yet Elijah does what is necessary to serve the God in whom he believes; confident that God will hear his prayer, Elijah’s act of faith restores both the son and the mother to life.

   Likewise, Jesus’ intervention during the burial rite of the son of the widow of Nain in Luke's Gospel shows the power of God’s love entering in to do God’s work.  Nothing, not even a concern for ritual impurity, keeps Jesus from touching the coffin and commanding the young man to arise.  Moved with compassion from the depths of his being, Jesus proves to be entirely engaged in this very human event, and his actions arouse a sense of awe throughout the crowd in attendance.  Having encountered the power of something so far beyond anything they can imagine, the people commence to glorify God, proclaiming that A great prophet has arisen in our midst.  Jesus’ miracle comes from the depths of his connection to the human condition; it is his compassion for the woman that allows him to enter into her death (without a son, she is essentially dead), and ours, so that we too might be raised.

   Believers throughout history have celebrated the power of God’s compassion in their lives, from Psalm 30 – I will extol you, Lord, for you drew me clear – to St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians, who knows that God has set him apart, that he might proclaim Jesus to the Gentiles.  Paul’s encounter with the risen Christ is a moment of transformation, all the more stunning in its compassion in that Paul had for years persecuted the followers of Jesus, and in no way merited such a revelation of the depths of God’s love for him. 

   Consider this.  When the compassion of God touches and transforms our lives, it becomes a directive to us:  we are called to practice compassion, to live Jesus’ compassion in our daily lives.   How have you touched others with the depths of your compassion today?

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

Image source:  Wordle

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 10, 2016: You have rescued me...

  You have rescued me…  

The Lord is ready to change you:  are you ready for to be changed?  

   Although the singer of Psalm 30 tells us that his lack of energy has been draining him of life, he can now, thanks to God’s intervention, report that his mourning has been changed into dancing, giving him all the energy necessary for new life.  We too are called to be changed, radically changed, this time by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

   In this week’s Gospel from John, Peter knows what it feels like to be changed:  his metanoia comes when, having met Jesus on the shore after the Resurrection, he is given the opportunity to assure the Lord, not once but three times, that he loves him – Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you – thereby negating his triple denial of Jesus during the Passion.  He and his fellow disciples are ready to do what Jesus tells them, ready to throw out their nets after a night of fruitless fishing, ready to fish for men by proclaiming the Good News.  They are ready to be changed by the Resurrection.

   The fruits of this changed position are evident in our reading from Acts, where we see Peter and the disciples healing and prophesying and being imprisoned for their activities:  they have indeed been radically changed by their encounter with Jesus, unlike the Jewish authorities, who resist any such change and stubbornly deny the miracles taking place before their very eyes:  We gave you strict orders, did we not, to stop teaching in that name?  They have failed to acknowledge the power of the Jesus in their lives, failed to note, as John does in Revelation, that To the one who sits on the throne and to the Lamb is given blessing and honor, glory and might, forever and ever. They are not changed.

   Resurrection calls us to be changed, to allow our very identity to be changed by Jesus, alive and present in and among us.  Are you ready? Then shout out your response, like the psalmist who cries, I will extol you Lord, for you drew me clear, or, like the four living creatures of Revelation, Amen!

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

Image source: Wordle