Posted on 04/23/2016 7:30:44 PM PDT by Salvation
Readings:
Acts 14:21-27
Psalm 145:8-13
Revelation 21:1-5
John 13:31-35
By God's goodness and compassion, the doors of His kingdom have been opened to all who have faith, Jew or Gentile.
That's the good news Paul and Barnabas proclaim in today's First Reading. With the coming of the Church - the new Jerusalem John sees in today's Second Reading - God is "making all things new."
In His Church, the "old order" of death is passing away and God for all time is making His dwelling with the human race, so that all peoples "will be His people and God Himself will always be with them." In this the promises made through His prophets are accomplished (see Ezekiel 37:27; Isaiah 25:8; 35:10).
The Church is "the kingdom for all ages" that we sing of in today's Psalm. That's why we see the Apostles, under the guidance of the Spirit, ordaining "presbyters" or priests (see 1 Timothy 4:14; Titus 1:5).
Anointed priests and bishops will be the Apostles' successors, ensuring that the Church's "dominion endures through all generations" (see Philippians 1:1, note that the New American Bible translates Episcopois, the Greek word for bishops, as "overseers").
Until the end of time, the Church will declare to the world God's mighty deeds, blessing His holy name and giving Him thanks, singing of the glories of His kingdom.
In His Church, we know ourselves as His "faithful ones," as those Jesus calls "My little children" in today's Gospel. We live by the new law, the "new commandment" that He gave in His final hours.
The love He commands of us is no human love but a supernatural love. We love each other as Jesus loved us in suffering and dying for us. We love in imitation of His love.
This kind of love is only made possible by the Spirit poured into our hearts at Baptism (see Romans 5:5), renewed in the sacrifice His priests offer in every Mass.
By our love we glorify the Father. And by our love all peoples will know that we are His people, that He is our God.
They Will Know Us by Our Works | ||
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April 24, 2016 - Fifth Sunday of Easter
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Father Alex Yeung, LCJohn 13:31-33a, 34-35
Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe that you are here with me. I am privileged to have this private audience with you. Aware of my weakness, I hope in your mercy and love. I open my heart now to you, to the wisdom, mercy and good news of your Gospel, for through it you wish to guide me home to rest eternally with you in heaven. Thank you for your boundless love. Take my weak, poor love in return, as it is all I have to offer you. Petition: Lord, help me to imitate you by accepting and forgiving others.
Resolution: Today I will make a list of those souls immediately before me for whom I can do a hidden act of charity. I will pray for them, speak well of them, and look for a significant way to serve their needs as I would if they were Christ himself. |
April 24, 2016
Fifth Sunday of Easter
First Reading: Acts 14:21-27
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/042416.cfm
When we finish a difficult project of some kind, it is tempting to put it behind us and never look back. This attitude is reflected in the way we go about many things: short-term mission trips, time-limited projects, or even the constant focus on this quarters numbers with no recollection of the past. While most of the time, this approach may be fine or at least neutral, it is very dangerous to think of our relationships with other people in the same way, especially people that we are trying to evangelize, help or mentor.
In this Sundays first reading from the Book of Acts, we find the apostles Paul and Barnabas on the mission trail. They have just finished traveling through Cyprus, Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. The whole time they have been preaching the gospel, making Jewish and Gentile converts. Yet they have also experienced their fair share of persecution. They were chased out of Antioch and Paul actually was stoned at Lystra. One would think that after such a tumultuous journey, they would be in a hurry to get home. And if you look at a map of their journey, they could get back to their home base at Syrian Antioch quickly by going through Tarsus, the town where Paul grew up. But they dont. They dig in with manly courage and decide to retrace their steps. They return from Derbe, the endpoint of their mission, through Lystra, the very place where Paul was stoned! (Acts 14:21) Paul and Barnabas are proof that real evangelization takes bravery and tenacity. They stick to the mission despite the risks, and they are risking their lives.
Paul and Barnabas are no wimps. Neither is the message they bring back to the brand new Christians whom they had just converted. They encourage these new Christians, but they also warn them through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22 RSV). These people had seen the apostles suffer persecution at the hands of the secular and Jewish authorities. For them, to embrace Christ was to embrace a life of suffering, which involved risk and possibly even death. Tribulations of persecution were to be expected by every new Christian.
In addition to encouraging the new Christians to remain faithful in persecution, the apostles appoint elders (presbyteroi) in each of the new churches. Paul and Barnabas realize that for these little communities to grow and mature as believers, they need leadership and guidance, so these new presbyteroi are given the role of teaching and governing the new Christians. Solid leadership is essential to a healthy community and the apostles know that. As they appoint these elders, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord (Acts 14:23 RSV). Just as Paul and Barnabas had been sent on their mission trip with prayer and fasting (13:2), now they re-engage in prayer and fasting to appoint new leaders. Fasting is a powerful spiritual practice that many of us avoid because of the discomfort it causes, yet as we can see from these episodes, it is a fitting exercise in times of life-transition.
From Pisidian Antioch, the apostles trek south to the coastal towns of Perga and Attalia, continuing their public preaching. Eventually, they board a boat for home and sail back to Syrian Antioch. The text mentions the work which they had fulfilled (14:26). To me this little phrase has always been powerful. For sometimes, evangelization can seem like an endless, hopeless endeavorso many people, so few who listen, so little changes. It sometimes feels that our task will never be accomplished and there will always be more work to do, an endless cycle of evangelizing effort without much fruit. Yet here Paul and Barnabas return from their trip successful: they did it, they completed the mission, they achieved its objectives. Now in the eyes of the world, they might look like failuresgetting stoned while preaching isnt what most preachers would consider Sunday-morning success! But in fact, in the eyes of the Lord, they are successful, actually accomplishing what they were sent out to do. In that, they can enjoy some level of satisfaction with their apostolic labor, but that doesnt make them lazy. Instead, they just get geared up for the next mission trip.
Once they get back to Antioch, we can imagine that they rest and recharge, but they also report to the community what happened on their mission trip. They get everybody together and tell them stories about all the things that God did through them out on the mission trail. In particular they point to the door of faith to the Gentiles (14:27), a hint that the plan of salvation is expanding further, beyond the borders of the Jewish community, to those who have not known God at all before. The example of Paul and Barnabas offers us a few lessons. First, their tenacity should inspire us. They retraced their steps and went back to the churches they had planted to make sure that they would continue in the faith. Second, their bravery in the face of persecution is a profound example for us. They counted the mission itself as more important than their own comfort, even their own lives, and pursued the project of evangelization against fierce obstacles. Lastly, they go full circle, return to their home community to report back, and allow their supporters to share in their success. Paul and Barnabas dont leave the new believers to their own devices, but return to strengthen them. We have reason to believe that they stayed in touch via letter (e.g. Galatians was likely written to these communities) and that these communities grew into strong churches. Paul and Barnabas show us that a little Holy Spirit inspired courage, along with a willing heart and a bit of commitment, can break through the toughest hindrances to deliver the Good News.
At the Last Supper, Jesus announces that His betrayal by Judas begins an outbreak of Gods glory. How can this be?
St. John tells us that after Satan had entered Judas, driving him out into the night to report to Jesus enemies (see Jn 13:21-30), the Lord began to speak in an unexpected and baffling way: Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. We know that Judas betrayal led to Christs Passionviolent brutality, suffering, and a shameful public death. How could all that be described by Jesus as a glorification of both Him and His Father?
The answer is anticipated in what Jesus says next: I give you a new commandment As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. Although Christs Passion had the appearance of failure, defeat, and impotence, it was, in fact, a revelation of Gods love for man that far exceeded anything man had ever before or ever will see. Gods glory was revealed in the total self-emptying of Jesus on the Cross for love of us, doing for us what we are helpless to do for ourselves. Jesus submitted to great darkness and was thus able to conquer it. He emptied suffering and death of their sting. The glory of God is that even in the human circumstances that seem most devoid of His presence and care, God is at work to overthrow appearances and reveal His love for sinners in all its brightness and power.
Jesus also spoke about a new commandment of love. The Jews had been taught to love their neighbors as themselves (see Lev 19:18). What is new in Jesus teaching is that now Gods people are to love others as Jesus loved uslaying down His life for us, people who dont deserve it. The bar has been set much higher! This kind of supernatural love can only come from Christ living in us. The presence of this love in usour willingness to serve others as Jesus served uswill be how all will know that [we] are [His] disciples.
When this selfless love becomes the mark of the Church, then is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.
Possible response: Lord Jesus, help me see the small ways that my self-denial out of love today can be a flash of Your glory in this world.
We will better understand this reading if we know its context. Paul and Barnabas, on a missionary journey, visited a town called Lystra. There they healed a crippled man. The people were so amazed by this that they tried to worship the apostles as gods. Instead, of course, Paul preached the Gospel to them. However, some Jews who had opposed Paul in other cities he had visited (Antioch and Iconium) followed him to Lystra and provoked the people there to stone him. Thinking he was dead, they dragged his body out of the city. Yet when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city (see Acts 14:8-20).
Remarkably, this episode gives us a living picture of how the early Church actually fulfilled what Jesus spoke in our Gospel. Paul and Barnabas faithfully preached the Good News. Darkness closed in on them, as the Jews stirred up murderous hated. The violence against Paul was so extreme that his enemies believed they had killed him. The believers, looking beyond the darkness they saw, very probably prayed for him as they drew near his seemingly lifeless body. Miraculously, Paul rose up, as Jesus had done in His darkness. Glory! Then, amazingly, Paul entered the city again. Why would he go back to a place of such hostility against him? He still wanted to preach and to teach those who had believed in Jesus. This is the love of the new commandment, a self-emptying for the sake of others that is beyond what is naturally possible for man.
In the verses included in our reading, we see Paul continuing on to the next city, and then he returns to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. Although all these places were full of danger for him, he wanted to strengthen the spirits of the disciples and [exhort] them to persevere in the faith, saying, It is necessary to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God. This is the same kind of glory Jesus had described, isnt it? Far from being signs of Gods disapproval or indifference, earthly affliction opens the way to heavenly glory (see Mt 5:10; Rom. 8:17).
[Note: See that Paul and Barnabas appointed elders for them in each church. The Greek expression, appointed, means to stretch forth hands and alludes to the rite of priestly ordination (see 1 Tim 4:14; Tit 1:5). This helps us see the hierarchical, not democratic (elected by the laity) authority structure of the infant Church. This is apostolic succession in action in the New Testament, a succession observed to this day in the Catholic Church.]
Possible response: Lord Jesus, help me be as fearless as St. Paul in doing Your will, no matter what the cost.
All the psalms in the season of Easter give us an opportunity to sing Gods praises for His lavish, unthinkable love for us, demonstrated so unequivocally in the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. In our Gospel, the Lord knew with confidence that the boundless glory of God was about to be revealed to all mankind in His suffering. He knew the words of this psalm would be appropriate for us: Let Your faithful ones bless You. Let them discourse of the glory of Your kingdom and speak of Your might. We must never forget the lesson Jesus taught His disciples at the Last Supper and that He teaches all of us through all the ages: The glorious splendor of [Gods] kingdom, although often veiled now, is indestructible. Therefore, today we can declare: I will praise Your Name for ever, my king and my God.
Possible response: The psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings. Read it again prayerfully to make it your own.
In our Gospel, we wondered why Jesus started speaking about glory when the power of His enemies was soon to overtake Him. Here, in St. Johns vision, we can see an explanation. Jesus knew that in the sacrifice He was willing to make, Gods plan to make all things new would begin in earnest, never to be undone. This beautiful heavenly scene gives us a glimpse of the conclusion of the history of the former heaven and the former earth, the time and space in which we now live. Gods plan is to make His dwelling with the human race. The old order of death, mourning, wailing, and pain will be over. Jesus knew at the Last Supper that His suffering would be temporary. St. Paul knew on his missionary journey that his suffering would be temporary. We, too, must understand this, and St. Johns vision is written down to give us exactly this kind of encouragement (see Rev 21:5b). The new Jerusalem, the Church, is being prepared as a bride and adorned for her husband.
We ought never to forget that although in this life we will shed tears, someday God Himself will wipe every tear from [our] eyes. Glory!
Possible response: Heavenly Father, thank You for Your promise to make all things new. This is our ray of hope in every darkness.
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