Easter Reflections -- 50 Days of the Easter Season

April 22, 2005

Jesus and Scripture

Jesus grew up with the Jewish Scriptures, studied them as a boy, learned them well, and frequently quoted them in his ministry. The Bible (except the New Testament) is made up of writings that he, too, read and prayed.

When walking with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, the risen Lord “interpreted to them what referred too him in all the Scriptures.” Later, when Jesus appeared to the disciples gathered in Jerusalem, “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

Jesus still does this – when the Scriptures are proclaimed at liturgy, or when a person prays the Scriptures, as in these “six minute” postings.

When people read a book written long ago, the author is not there to help them understand.

But when the Scriptures are read prayerfully, the Lord is present (It is a “real presence!), opening our minds, our hearts to who He is, drawing us closer to Him, shaping us in His image.

Friday, Fourth Week of Easter

Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

Luke 24:44-45

Jesus talks about what he spoke to them “while I was still with you.” At first this seems a very odd thing to say. Isn’t he with them now? Yes, but in a different way.

Again the resurrection was not resuscitation – like Lazarus. Jesus has gone through death, to a transformed human existence (He wasn’t recognized at first.), to the “right hand of God,” and from there is present to them in a new and fuller way. As one of the Eucharistic prayers says: “Father in heaven…Jesus now lives with you in glory, but He is also here on earth among us.”

In this scene Jesus “opened their minds” to a deeper understanding of the Scriptures. This is what is supposed to happen in the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. The proclaimed word takes on new meaning because of the feast, the setting…and most of all, because it is the Lord who is present and active in the word saying something to us.

Not so long ago, the Liturgy of the Word was the part of the Mass we could miss without “missing Mass.” Now we realize that it is one of the most important parts of the Mass. We also appreciate much more the value of reading and praying the Scriptures privately.

We just read a Scripture passage. The Lord, through the Spirit, is especially present to us right now.

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

April 23, 2005

Martyrs

The word “martyr” in Greek means “witness.” For example, when choosing someone to replace Judas, Peter says that the person “must become with us a witness (Greek “martyr”) to the resurrection.”

The word “martyr” came quickly to be used especially for someone who gave witness by dying for their faith. Paul, describing his role before his conversion, uses this word for Stephen: “While the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I stood by, giving my approval of it. I even guarded the cloaks of those who killed him.”

The classic “age of the martyrs” took place in the first three centuries when Christians were a persecuted minority and were frequently tortured and killed.

From the beginning, there was a concern that the memory of these martyrs not be lost. Because of their commitment to Christ, their death was seen as a special expression of what it meant to be “Christian.”

The remains of martyrs became “relics: (from a Latin word meaning “what you left”) and were venerated. From this developed the custom of placing the relics of a martyr in the altar.

* * *

Martyrdom didn’t end with the first three centuries. In 2000, Pope John Paul II led an ecumenical service at Rome’s Coliseum honoring 20th century Christian martyrs. In preparation for this ceremony, the Vatican collected more than 12,000 names.

Saturday, Fourth Week of Easter

And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”

Luke 24:46-48

Jesus is commissioning these disciples and all of us. In his name, they (and we) are to preach “repentance” (the word means “a change in the way we look at things.”)

Then He tells them that they are to be witnesses “to all the nations.” We still actually see this unfold in Luke’s second volume – the Acts of the Apostles – which begins in Jerusalem and ends in Rome.

Luke wrote in Greek and the Greek of Luke’s Gospel read, “You are martyrs of these things.” The word applies to all forms of witness. We witness day in and day out just by the way we live.

Before Christianity was called Chritisanity, it was called “The Way.” Our witness may not be dramatic, but even in small ways we follow a different way of life.

The way Christians live isn’t what one would call the “normal” way of living. It’s noticeable, a “witness” to something different – forgiving 70 times seven, loving our enemies, having a special concern for the poor and those left out, spending some time in prayer, responding to his invitation to gather at the supper table and “take and eat, take and drink.”, being part of a group of disciples…

As I live my life today, I should think of those words: ”You are witnesses of these things.”

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

April 24, 2005

The Passover Meal

Today is Passover.

We aren’t sure of all the details of the Passover meal at the time of Jesus, but the basic structure was:

• A family-type group (10-20 persons) gathered.

• The meal began with a first cup of wine when two prayers of blessing were offered – one for the feast, and one for the cup of wine.

• Herbs and unleavened bread were eaten, dipped by hand into a dish of sauce.

• The “paschal lamb: (sacrificially killed at the Temple earlier in the day) was brought in. The meaning of the Passover rite was explained.

• The first part of the Hallel (taken from Psalms 112-113) was sung, and the second cup of wine was drunk.

• The lamb was eaten along with the herbs and unleavened bread, and the third cup of wine was drunk with thanksgiving to God for the meal.

• The rite ended with a fourth cup of wine and the singing of the rest of the Hallel.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

The Last Supper

Today’s Gospel lets us know the kind of God we’ve got. This is the last meal that Jesus will have with his disciples. Within 24 hours, he will be dead. He is concerned about what his departure will mean for them. He tells them not to be troubled and tries to reassure them. It is in this caring, concerned attitude that we learn a lot about God.

For example, Jesus says that in his Father’s house there are many dwelling places, and he is going to prepare a swelling place for them. To hear Jesus speak in these terms reveals a very understanding and very real kind of God.

He could have spoken in abstract concepts, saying that in the Kingdom we experience eschatological wholeness and bliss. But he didn’t. He simple said that his Father has lots of dwelling places, and they are good ones, and he will prepare one for us. That means a lot.

Then Thomas wanted to know the way. Now if you asked someone about a way of life, they would probably refer you to systems, or books, or principles, or teachings. Jesus didn’t. He said, “Look, Thomas…I am the way.” It is that simple. We simple relate to Jesus as a person and know that He is the way. That reveals to me a very personal God.

Finally, Philip wants to know more about God so he asks about the Father. We have these same questions about God – how he can be all good and yet allow evil in the world? We wonder about his silence when we pray and ask for things. However, Jesus says to Philip, “Philip, you want to know what the Father is like, well, you’ve gotten to know me. Do you remember the way I treated little children? Do you remember the time I healed the leper by reaching out and touching him? Remember all those good times and tough times we had together? Well, I’m in the Father and the Father is in me.

If you want to know what God is like, look at me.”

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

April 25, 2005

St. Mark

Young “John Mark” (whose feast is today) first appears in a story told in the Acts of the Apostles. Peter, jailed in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa, escapes during the night with the help of an angel.

They emerged and made their way down an alley, and suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter recovered his senses and said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me…” When he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John who is called Mark, where there were many people gathered in prayer.

(Acts 12:10-12)

Mark later traveled with Paul on his first missionary journey (about 46 A.D.) He is also thought to have served as an interpreter for Peter who may not have known Greek well enough to teach in that language.

Mark wrote his Gospel in about 70 A. D.

Monday, Fifth Week of Easter

”And behold I am sending the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Luke 24:49

We are four verses away from the end of Luke’s Gospel. Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit upon them.

At the beginning of the Gospel the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and Jesus was conceived in her. Now, at the end, Jesus promised to send the Spirit upon the disciples, and disciples of all ages, so that He can be present to all of us.

Those are his last words in Luke’s Gospel

In the entire scene the disciples speak not a word. All the initiative is taken by Jesus. It is He who comes to them, not the other way around. It is He who speaks to them. It is He who shows them his hands and his feet. It is He who asks for something to eat. It is He who provides all the assurance.

During these 50 days of the Easter Season we simply enjoy the Lord’s presence. It is the Lord who takes the initiative and blesses us with his presence. It is the Lord who speaks to us. It is the Lord who provides the assurance.

Enjoy a few minutes letting the Lord, through his Spirit, take the initiative.

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

April 26, 2005

Blessings

The Latin word for “blessing” (bene-dictio) means to “speak well” of or upon someone. A person blesses God by speaking well upon (praising) God. One blesses another by asking God to do well by them. Actually, “good-bye”. Is a blessing, a contracted form of “God be with you.”

Besides the Sign of the Cross (which is a blessing upon oneself), the blessing most commonly used by Christians is the blessing upon food and upon those gathered to eat it: “Bless us O Lord, and these thy gifts…

Blessings are not magical and though the words themselves carried their own power. God is the source of every good gift, and ultimately, all blessings come from God.” “Praise God from whom all blessing flow.”

At the end of Luke’s Gospel, the risen Lord blesses the disciples, and then afterward they are described as continually in the temple blessing God.

* * *

Every Christian can bless others. Some have a special authority to invoke God’s blessings, for example, parents upon their children…or those who are ordained to act on behalf of the Church. The Church promulgated this by publishing the Book of Blessings in 1988.

Sometimes objects are “officially” blessed insofar as they are set aside for sacred use – e.g. an altar, a chalice, a crucifix, a rosary. At other times objects are blessed insofar as one asks God’s special care – e.g. a home, a car, a boat. These objects aren’t set aside as sacred, but God is asked to be present in a special way.

Tuesday, Fifth Week of Easter

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them. As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.

Luke 24:50-51

Now on Easter Sunday night, Jesus is “taken up to heaven.” This marks the end of the appearances of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel.

Bethany is the village of Martha, Mary and Lazarus – where Jesus stayed when he visited Jerusalem. It is about two miles from the city, just over the Mount of Olives.

This also marks the end of a journey Jesus began back in the ninth chapter of Luke’s Gospel: “When the days for his being taken up were fulfilled, Jesus resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem.”

Now, 15 chapters later, after going through suffering and death, the day for his being taken up is fulfilled.

Jesus’ last act was to bless them.

It’s not a good-bye. It is the end of a brief series of extraordinary appearances immediately following the resurrection.

The risen Lord is still with us, not in extraordinary manifestations, but in the ordinary run of day-to-day life. As only someone who really loves us would do.

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

April 27, 2005

Patron of the internet?

”What would St. Paul do if he were alive today? He would use the media to spread the good news of Jesus Christ in the fastest way and to the most people possible.
~Fr. Alberione

On Dec. 31, 1900, inspired by Pope Leo XIII’s prayer for God’s blessing on the church in the new century, a young seminarian made a New Year’s Resolution to do something for his Church. James Alberione would dedicate his work to St. Paul, who was a writer and a preacher.

After his ordination in 1907 for the Diocese of Alba, Italy, he first founded a printing school where young men could learn a trade as well as produce good literature. In 1914, he founded a religious community known as the Society of St. Paul (Paulist Priests), who would spread the Gospel message through modern media.

In his ministry, Fr. Alberione embraced all communications technology – from radio to television to motion pictures.

Fr. Alberione died in 1971 at age 87, with Pope Paul VI at his bedside. He died before the advent of the Internet, but many supporters think he would have embraced it as one more means to evangelize.

* * *

Fr. Alberione was beatified on this date in 2003.

Wednesday, Fifth Week of Easter

They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.

Luke 24:52-53

These are the closing words of Luke’s Gospel. It ends where it began – in the Temple.

At the beginning, Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist) is chosen by lot to enter the Temple sanctuary of the Lord to burn incense.

At the end, the disciples are “continually in the Temple praising God.” Our roots are very Jewish.

A few verses earlier, Luke described the disciples as “incredulous” when Jesus appeared to them. Now they do him “homage,” and are filled with “great joy.” Their faith is full and strong. They recognize what he is – the Lord Jesus Christ wondrously and fully alive, with them.

We, 2000 years later, continue that same faith, full and strong. We don’t know how many years lie ahead before the end is reached. It may be millions, perhaps billions.

As one bishop once noted, we are born into a time not of our choosing, given a task not always to our liking, and we find God there or not at all, for God is nowhere else.

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

April 28, 2005

Cardinal Dearden

After hew retired as Archbishop of Detroit, Cardinal John Dearden was asked what his style of leadership was.

He thought for a moment and said, “Well, I tried never to get in the way of the Holy Spirit.”

* * *

The Holy Spirit is mentioned 57 times in the Acts of the Apostles.

* * *

Nothing is known about the “Theophilus” to whom Luke’s two volumes are formally dedicated.

Thursday, Fifth Week of Easter

The Acts of the Apostles

In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up, after giving instruction through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

Acts 1:1-2

We now begin Luke’s second volume. He begins by looking back to the end of Volume I. Jesus was “taken up” after he had instructed the apostles through the Holy Spirit.

We might say, “Whoa! We just finished reading the final chapter of Luke’s Gospel. The risen Lord himself, not the Holy Spirit instructed them.”

Don’t put distance between Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Luke sees all Jesus’ activities directed by the Spirit.

• At the very beginning of his public ministry we read: ”Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days.”

• In his first visit to the Nazareth synagogue, ”Jesus found the passage where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me…’”

Jesus’ whole minisitry was immersed in the Spirit, and his ministry after the ascension will be the same. The Holy Spirit is not a second-rate substitute, as though Jesus sends his assistant. Jesus is present to us in the Spirit, and it is a first-rate, real presence.

If I look to the right or left of me, I won’t see Jesus. But he is present to me now – within me, around me – in and through the Holy Spirit.

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

April 28, 2005

Feast of St. Catherine of Siena

Born in 1347, St. Catherine of Siena is famous for her Dialogues (written accounts of her revelations from Christ), and her Letters which initially gave spiritual instruction and encouragement, but gradually began to deal with public matters. Catherine lived during the Avignon Papacy, when the pope and his staff moved from Rome to southern France. Catherine not only wrote to the pope, respectfully chiding him for leaving Rome, but in 1376, the 29 year old woman visited him in Aivgnon and did the same.

Catherine died on this date in 1380 at the age of 33.

* * *

In Rome along the Via Consolatione (the avenue leading up to St. Peter’s Square) is a large statue of St. Catherine. She appears to be in motion, bent a little as though walking in the wind. She is headed for St. Peter’s.

The statue stands on a large stone platform upon which are carved three scenes from her life. In the first Catherine (who could neither read nor write) is shown dictating her revelations to a stunned Dominican friar (possibly St. Raymond of Pentafort).

The second carved stone shows her at the execution of a prisoner in whose cell she had spent the night with him in prayer. She is kneeling on the “other side” of a guillotine, hold out her scapular to receive his severed head.

In the third, Catherine kneels at the feet of Pope Gregory XI, shaking her finger into his startled face.

Friday, Fifth Week of Easter

He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

Acts 1:1-2

The resurrection and ascension of Jesus in his humanity is a sign of things to come for all of us and for all creation. It is a great sign of hope, for it reveals the destiny God intends for us. Our homeland as human beings is heaven.

The theologian Karl Rahner describes the ascension as the feast of the future of creation. We can no longer picture a future without matter. Flesh has been redeemed and fortified which means that matter will last forever.

Through his ascension, Christ has brought part of this earth to God. It is the beginning of what is to come, a cause for hope in a world that all too often is gloomy about its own future.

It’s nearly the month of May. In the Northern Hemisphere, it’s springtime. Nature comes alive with sunshine, flowers, green leaves, birds singing, and a soft earth.

Gerard Manley Hopkins put in masterfully in his poem: God’s Grandeur: The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.

Today, every day, I would do well to open my eyes to the grandeur of God all around me.

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

April 30, 2005

Bishop James Walsh

James Walsh was born on this date in 1891. He lived for 90 ears, 40 of them as a Maryknoll missionary in China, and the last 12 of these years in prison. Bishop Walsh wrote of how; in his early years in China, his heart was captured by his flock.

I saw them in the rice field. I have lavished admiration and affection on every special object of God’s creation, but I thought I had never even scratched the surface of love before, as I felt the fiery surge that came to me now. It was romance, if you will. “I choose you,” sang in my heart as I looked at them. They were a perfect picture of the underprivileged soul.

I said to myself, “I choose you and with you, the countless millions of God’s children like you; men forgotten and despised; people white, black and brown; souls impoverished and abandoned. I choose you and I dedicate myself to you, and I ask no other privilege but to devote the energies of my soul to such as you.”

For in this sudden revelation shines an incarnation of my life ideal: I am a missioner with a vocation that has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor. “Shine on farmer boy, a symbol to me of the thousand-million like you who drew the Son of God from heaven to smooth and bless your weary anxieties and your puzzled brows.”

Do not let me forget that vision, but stay by me, and preside over my dreams.

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