Bearing witness (Pope Francis)

  Like the first disciples, do not neglect to nourish your life and your apostolate with the Word of God, the Eucharist and prayer. For the mission, like communion, is first and foremost a mystery of Grace. It is not our work, but God's; we do it not alone, but moved by the Spirit and docile to his action. Mission and communion spring from prayer, are shaped day by day by listening to the Word of God - listening in prayer - and have as their ultimate goal the salvation of the brothers and sisters the Lord entrusts to us. Without these foundations, they become empty and end up being reduced to a mere sociological or welfare dimension. And the Church is not interested in providing welfare… helping, yes, but first of all, evangelizing, bearing witness: if you give assistance, let it come from witnessing, not from proselytizing methods. 

--Pope Francis, Audience to the members of

Missionary Institutes in Italy, May 13, 2023 

Image source: Nicolas Poussin, Sts. Peter and John Healing the Lame Man (1655), https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/are-the-acts-of-the-apostles-examples-for-us-to-follow/
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Speak about Christ (Paul Claudel / Daniel J. Harrington SJ)

Speak about Christ only when you are asked,
but live so that people ask about Christ.

 

--Paul Claudel 

   The thrust of Jesus’s teaching is not esoteric, the preserve of the initiated few. Rather it was intended from the start to be public property. 

--Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, Sacra Pagina 

Image source:  https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/barron/how-to-preach-like-the-apostles/
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A community of witnesses (Nichole Flores)

   As we gather and celebrate this Easter, we do so as a community of witnesses. We have encountered Jesus not only in the bright light of midday, but in the confusion before dawn. We have encountered him in the context of our daily lives, in moments of sorrow and in moments of joy. 

   We also gather as a community of testimony, as those witnesses who now proclaim the Good News. 

    As we enter into this season of rejoicing, how can we create space for the practices of witnessing and testifying in our daily lives? How might these practices help us to attend to our confusion, our suffering, and our wounds in the context of our daily lives, in lo cotidiano? And how might these practices help us to hear Jesus’s joyful call, beckoning us to see the face of the Lord crucified and risen who has been with us all along? 

--Nichole Flores 

Image source: Fra Angelico, St. Peter Preaching in the Presence of St. Mark (ca. 1433), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fra_Angelico_-_St_Peter_Preaching_in_the_Presence_of_St_Mark_-_WGA00464.jpg
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Sunday Gospel Reflection, April 11, 2024: You are witnesses of these things...

You are witnesses of these things…

What story are we to tell? 

    While we know that our salvation is a direct consequence of Jesus’ life, death, and rising, we sometimes forget our responsibility to be witnesses to this core belief of our faith. In Luke’s Gospel, after Jesus has risen from the dead, he appears to his disciples and asks, Have you anything here to eat? Why would Jesus make such a banal request? Jesus wants the disciples to look at his hands and his feet. Touch me and see, he adds, to assure yourselves that I am not a ghost. Jesus wants them to be witnesses of these things, to recount all that they have seen and heard to all who will listen, that all might believe and be saved. 

    This is what Peter goes on to do, as we hear in the Acts of the Apostles: The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses. Peter notes that this is precisely what the prophet Isaiah had proclaimed in the Suffering Servant discourses: God has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand, that his Christ would suffer. No one understood this at first; Peter acknowledges that they acted out of ignorance in putting the Messiah to death. But now, thanks to Peter’s witness, the people have the opportunity understand, and so he calls upon them to repent and be converted, that their sins may be wiped away. 

    The death of Jesus was thus necessary for salvation, according to God’s plan, as it demonstrated the depths of God’s love for humankind. God is merciful, and that mercy defines our relationship with God. Psalm 4 reminds us that the Lord does wonders for his faithful ones, letting the light of his countenance shine upon us. We can turn to God and have confidence that he will care for us, as will Jesus, our Advocate with the Father of whom the First Letter of John speaks. Jesus advocates for us because he knows intimately what it means to be human. Jesus knows our struggles; the way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments, because those commandments – to love God and neighbor and self – lead us to him. We are all moving toward a place where we hope the love of God will be perfected in us. This is the good news of salvation, to which we too must be witnesses, that one day the love of God might be truly perfected in all. 

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

The mystery of community (Henri Nouwen)

   Friendship, marriage, family, religious life, and every other form of community is solitude greeting solitude, spirit speaking to spirit, and heart calling to heart. It is the grateful recognition of God’s call to share life together and the joyful offering of a hospitable space where the re-creating power of God’s Spirit can become manifest. Thus, all forms of life together can become ways to reveal to each other the real presence of God in our midst. 

    Community has little to do with mutual compatibility. Similarities in educational background, psychological makeup, or social status can bring us together, but they can never be the basis for community. Community is grounded in God, who calls us together, and not in the attractiveness of people to each other… The mystery of community is precisely that it embraces all people, whatever their individual differences may be, and allows them to live together as brothers and sisters of Christ and sons and daughters of his heavenly Father. 

--Henri Nouwen 

Image source: Wangari Mathenge, The Ascendants XI (Homage to Ecclesiastes Three, One Through Eight), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/t-magazine/friendship-art-creative-partnerships.html

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Welcoming his Word (Pope Francis)

     Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord does not seek skilled commentators of the Scriptures, as much as he seeks docile hearts that, welcoming his Word, allow themselves to be changed within. This is why it is so important to be familiar with the Gospel, to always have it at hand — even a small-sized Gospel in our pockets, in our purses to read and reread, to be passionate about it. When we do this, Jesus, the Word of the Father, enters into our hearts, he becomes intimate with us, and we bear fruit in Him. It is not enough to read it and understand that we should love God and our neighbour. It is necessary that this commandment, which is the “great commandment”, resound in us, that it be assimilated, that it become the voice of our conscience. 

--Pope Francis 

Image source: https://www.bibles4mideast.com/home-1/2017/03/05/carry-and-read-the-bible-as-if-it-were-a-mobile-pope-francis
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Be the person who cares (Charlotte Freeman)

   Be the person who cares, even if it's too much. Be the person who loves, be the person who sees the good in each soul you cross paths with. Be the person who spreads kindness. Be the person who checks in on the people who haven't been themselves lately. Be the person who sends a text to someone close to you to let them know you're thinking of them. Be the person who makes your loved ones feel important and appreciated each day. Be the person who listens, someone who understands, someone who is genuinely happy for the people around them, be someone who doesn’t hold others back, but encourages them to grow and be everything they dream to be. Be the person who helps people you care about without hesitation, and who doesn't expect anything in return. Be the person you know you are even though you have been hurt before by being exactly you, by being too loving, too caring, too available. Do not let the actions of others take away the most beautiful qualities you have. Be the person who knows that the only way to attract the exact people who are meant for you is the be exactly who you are. 

--Charlotte Freeman

Image source: James Tissot, The Ointment of the Magdalene (c.1900), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anointing_of_Jesus#/media/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_The_Ointment_of_the_Magdalene_(Le_parfum_de_Madeleine)_-_James_Tissot.jpg
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