Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 12, 2026: All who believed were together and had all things in common...

All who believed were together and had all things in common…
 Do we find our common identity in Christ? 

   When, in John’s Gospel, the resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples behind locked doors, he enters into a community of believers, but believers wracked by fear. Peace be with you, he says to them (twice). Jesus wants to put his faithful flock, those who have maintained their faith in him and remain true to him, at ease. Breathing on them, Jesus invites them into new life in him: Receive the Holy Spirit. This gift will allow the disciples to be the first community through whom God will be revealed; their faith – including Thomas’ – will allow them to believe past the limitations we normally place on our world, so that they might bring his mercy to that world. For this, they will, as Psalm 118 states, give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting. 

    It is the union that grows among this community of believers that we find depicted shortly thereafter, in the Acts of the Apostles. They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers, Luke tells us. That communal life becomes integral to their identity; the meals they share are celebratory, exultant, for in them they express true devotion to each other and and to the common good, growing in their identity as the Body of Christ. 

    By the time of the writing of the First Letter of Peter, the Christian community is one that has not known Jesus firsthand: although you have not seen him, you love him. Yet, through baptism, a new birth to a living hope, they too have been transformed through the death and rising of Jesus. Their communal identity develops both from the trials they are facing together and from their indescribable and glorious joy at knowing they are saved. Like this community, we have not seen Christ yet we love him. And like them, we too can give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love is everlasting!

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 27, 2025: His mercy endures forever...

His mercy endures forever…
To whom do we turn in times of fear and distress? 

    We think of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to the apostle Thomas in John’s Gospel as a story focused on doubt and faith. And Thomas does in fact express doubt: Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands… I will not believe. But the more important message being conveyed by this story is one of mercy. In this story, fear continues to drive the lives of all the apostles – a week after they have seen the Risen Lord, they are still behind locked doors, after all! – and they all struggle to get their heads around recent events. But God’s mercy is there for them through the struggle, and it does not diminish. No matter how much the apostles struggle or doubt or fear, God continues to pour his mercy upon them abundantly. Thomas’ profession of faith, My Lord and my God!, is, like Psalm 118, a celebration of God at work manifested before his eyes, and an acknowledgement that God’s love is everlasting. 

    As they continue to receive God’s mercy, the apostles will become conduits of that very mercy as they perform many signs and wonders throughout the Acts of the Apostles. These miracles, which the Sanhedrin consider a threat, are in fact evidence of God active in and through the apostles and in the early Church. And people are drawn to the mercy, to the forgiveness and kindness shown by Christ’s followers: great numbers of men and women were added to them, and all were cured, for the Lord is with them, showering his mercy upon all. 

    That mercy will continue to flow as many early Church communities face times of distress. The Book of Revelation speaks pointedly to the experience of the Church under persecution, fearful of a world that seems to be pitted against them. Fear marks each of their days. But Christ assures them, through John, their brother, that he will continue to let his mercy flow upon them through it all: Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Christ is present in the midst of the seven gold lampstands – Christ is with them, as he is present with us today. Christ dwells among us, is active in our existence – we have but to look past our fear and open the eyes of our hearts in order to see his mercy at work in our world, in us and through us. 

    Happy Divine Mercy Sunday! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 7, 2024: The community of believers was of one heart and mind...

The community of believers was of one heart and mind…

How can a Christian community thrive? 

    In the Gospel of John, when Jesus first appears to his disciples after his resurrection, he immediately says, Peace be with you. Breathing on them, Jesus gives them new life in the Spirit, echoing creation when God breathed the breath of life into the man he formed out of the dust of the ground. Like the first man, the disciples will be transformed by this experience of the risen Lord, but the Lord’s primary intention is that they transition from an experience of his physical presence to one in which he will be spiritually present to them, spiritually connected to the community and its members. Jesus therefore first calls them to the peace they need to find in him, that they might thrive and, like Thomas, proclaim their faith, My Lord and my God! 

    It is this peace that will allow the community, in the Acts of the Apostles, to pool their resources, that the Twelve might dedicate themselves to preaching the good news, bearing witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The preaching of the Word is altering the way people live, the way they see themselves and others. The Acts of the Apostles offers an idyllic vision of Christian community, one they strive for, one they try to live fully. Their transformation is fueled by the Word of God, such that they can, as in Psalm 118, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, and recognize that his love is everlasting. The community will thrive if they ground themselves first and foremost in the Word of God that is Christ. 

    To be begotten by God is to have received the gift of faith in God through Jesus Christ, the First Letter of John tells us. To love the Father is to love Jesus, and, by extension, to love the Christian community, those begotten through baptism. Our participation in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord by keeping his commandments is a sure way to express our love for God and for all members of the Christian community, and our identity in that community is not static, but dynamic. All are part of this one identity, grounded in the multi-dimensional idea of what it means to belong to God and to be begotten by God. When we experience the Spirit of God at work in us, the Spirit testifies to our faith, to our being begotten, to truth. And most of all, the Spirit breathes life into the community we share in Christ. Only then can we truly thrive! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 16, 2023: They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and to the prayers...

 

They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread
 and to the prayers…

What defines our life shared together in Christ? 

   It’s not surprising that, after Jesus’ death, the disciples were afraid, remaining together behind doors that were locked for fear of the Jews, uncertain what to do next. Although they had faith, they did not really know what to expect. But when they see the Lord, the disciples rejoice. And while, at first, he doubts – Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, I will not believe, he says – Thomas, too, will come to have faith, even more rapidly than his friends did, recognizing Jesus immediately when Jesus returns a week later to the upper room. 

   By the time John is writing his Gospel, Christian witness is essential to the community, for the persecutions are underway and there is great pressure to not believe, to renounce their faith in Christ. Christians know that it is essential to live every day as though they have been conceived for the first time, for they live for a future event that is unfolding in them. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Christian community knows this, and all devote themselves to a life fulfilled in Christ Jesus. Even simple communal dinners are cause for rejoicing: They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God, perhaps with Psalm 18, My strength and my courage is the Lord. Acts provides us with an idealized picture of the Christian community, in which all live with and care for one another, having one another’s interests at heart – the essence of any community of faith. 

    Why gather in community? Why hold beliefs in common? When we come together as a community, there is a power in our spiritual presence to one another that is greater than we can measure, born of faith, a power out of time and space, epitomized by the joy that fills us at Eucharist. We have, as the First Letter of Peter tells us, a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, a hope born of faith, imperishable, undefiled, unfading, indescribable. We believe in the power of the resurrection to forgive sins, to create us anew; like the apostles, we must know, we must believe, that it is essential to live every day as though we have been conceived for the first time. We too live for a future event that is unfolding in us, and that shared faith defines our life together in community. Our faith may waver, it may ebb and flow, but ultimately, may the genuineness of our faith indeed prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ! 

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 19, 2020: Peace be with you...

Peace be with you…

Is the mercy of God at work in you?

  When, in John’s Gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples on the evening of the Resurrection, they are locked in, and fear dominates their every move.  That fear will continue to dominate their existence until the following week when Thomas is also present and Jesus appears yet again to address the disciples’ doubts.  Jesus is there to liberate them from their fear, offering them peace and breathing the Holy Spirit upon them, the life-breath of their existence as community. Jesus’ divine mercy helps the disciples to move from fear to hope; the very fact that we can find our identity in his breath, in his dying and rising, is God’s mercy at work. 

  Community is also a revelation of God’s mercy at work; the early Christian community in Acts devote themselves to the communal life, breaking bread together, gathering together at the temple, sharing their lives in every way. Christ is still at work in them – his promise of eternal life gives them something to hope in and helps to bond the community together.  It is as Psalm 118 promises:  His mercy endures forever – a celebration of community delivered from peril thanks to God’s mercy.

  We have entered into life in Christ through baptism, a new birth to a living hope, as 1 Peter refers to it, but we have not yet fully entered into resurrection, for our ultimate hope is not yet fulfilled.  But God’s mercy is being played out constantly, and that mercy will lead to our resurrection, to our ultimate joy at union with God:  Although you have not seen him, you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribably and glorious joy, Peter writes.  When we are aware of the mercy of God active in our lives, then joy can fill us, push us out of ourselves, connect us in community with one another, that we might know fully the experience of being sustained in faith and in the hope that is the death and rising of Jesus Christ.

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

Image source:  www.wordclouds.com

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 28, 2019: Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands...

Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands…

What does it take for us to know in our hearts that Jesus is Lord?

  It may seem astounding:  a full week after Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on them, the erstwhile rejoicing disciples remain behind doors that are locked.  Coming to full faith in Jesus isn’t always an instantaneous experience; it is a process that takes time and an opening of heart.  So, Jesus appears to them again in John's Gospel, this time offering the previously absent Thomas a chance to witness Jesus’ resurrected body for himself:  Put your fingers here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, Jesus says to Thomas. Do not be unbelieving, but believe.  Jesus’ invitation for Thomas to see with his fingers might seem odd, but in fact Jesus is calling Thomas to a different kind of sight, inviting him to know with his heart, to see with his heart – and he does!  Thomas doesn’t even need to touch Jesus’ wounds to proclaim his faith:  My Lord and my God!  Thomas has moved from a desire for proof – Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands – to a profound heart knowledge of Jesus as Lord.

  What’s the next step?  The disciples have to leave that room!  As the Father has sent me, so I send you, Jesus tells them.  So, leave, he tells them… leave so that your heart can give witness to what you know is true.  Let your belief become so much a part of you that your very life is witness to what you now know in your heart.  Eventually, as the Acts of the Apostles tells us, many believers will be added to their numbers in spite of the fear of persecution, because Jesus’ presence is conveyed through the heart knowledge of the men he sent out to teach, preach, and heal the sick and those disturbed by unclean spirits. Jesus remains, in the words of Psalm 118, their cornerstone, rejected by the builders but foundational to the new faith budding in Jerusalem.  John, the author of the Book of Revelation, will tell a similar story:  knowing distress, he nevertheless proclaims God’s word and gives testimony to Jesus. Knowing in his heart who Jesus is gives him the strength to endure.

  To know in our heart that Jesus is Lord, to experience life through the Risen Christ – who himself moved from death to life – calls from us something different, something new, a change so profound that it hits us at our core, a transformation of heart so radical that we are moved to proclaim his good news.  What does it take to know in our heart that Jesus is Lord?  We need to open that heart, for starters.  And, once we do, once we  open to his love in our lives, we too are called, and indeed, sent by Jesus to bring the good news of God’s love 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

Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 23, 2017: Unless I see...

 Unless I see… 

How strong is your faith? 

   If faith is a celebration of our relationship with the Lord, then the author of Psalm 118 was in a joyous mood.  Having been delivered from we know not what, the king and his people are processing into the Temple precinct in order to celebrate their relationship with the God who has saved them:  By the Lord has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes!  Their hearts are full of rejoicing; their mouths sing God’s praise.  They have faith.

   The disciples’ faith comes into question in our Gospel from John, where, on the very Sunday of the Resurrection, their doors are locked.   Mary of Magdala has already announced to the disciples, I have seen the Lord, but they remain in a place of fear, and come to faith only (and only partially) when he appears in their midst.  Yet, a week later, those doors are still locked, and the formerly absent Thomas expresses his doubts:  Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nailmarks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.  As soon as Jesus appears, however, Thomas believes, proclaiming his faith with fervor:  My Lord and my God!  He has faith.

   Only once the disciples left behind their fear – their locked doors – were they able to get comfortable with what they knew in their hearts:  that Jesus has risen from the dead and is with us still.  Only then can the disciples enter that place of awe described in the Acts of the Apostles, living with exultation and sincerity of heart, praising God.  Did they ever fear?  Certainly.  Nevertheless, they had faith; they trusted in their hearts, knowing that in their relationship with the Lord, there can be no barriers.  Only then do they come to understand that God has given them, as 1 Peter clearly states, a new birth to a living hope, and are safeguarded through faith, a genuine faith that will allow them to survive any trial.  Their faith was strong and gave them an indescribable and glorious joy – is yours strong enough to do that?

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

Image source:  Wordle