What an interesting gospel but then I imagine any fisherman can relate to Peter’s bad luck, fishing without a single bite and having his patience truly tested. Hearing someone tell him to throw his net to the other side, Peter was challenged to try a different approach and this time he and his companions caught so many fish that they could not haul the net onto their boat.

The gospel, however, really isn’t a lesson in fishing. Peter’s inability to catch any fish was John’s way of symbolizing Peter’s failure to love. Think back to the night Jesus was on trial after being betrayed by Judas. Peter stood in the courtyard to watch what was going on. When pressed by a servant girl, he denied that he even knew Jesus, much less loved and believed in him.In this brief encounter, he had turned his back on a friendship that had been three years in the making.

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3rd Sunday of EasterRead More »

DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY

Scripture:
1st Reading: Acts 5:12-16
2nd Reading: Rev 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19
Gospel: John 20:19-31

There was a preacher who didn’t know when to stop preaching. A man came up to him after the service and said, “Your sermon this morning sounded to me like the peace and mercy of God.” Pleased to hear this, the preacher made the mistake of asking the man what he meant exactly. “Well”, the man said, “it was like the peace of God because it was beyond all understanding, and it was like the mercy of God because I thought it would endure forever”.

On this Second Sunday of Easter we celebrate the truth that God’s mercy is everlasting, and our celebration of that mercy is itself a perpetual gift to the Church of our late Holy Father, Blessed Pope John Paul II, who declared this Sunday as Divine Mercy Sunday.

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2nd Sunday of EasterRead More »

On Holy Thursday, I asked the question, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” I then shared that this question, asked by a child, opens for those who have gathered for the Passover Seder a retelling of what God did to free his people from slavery. For Jews, the Passover gives them their identity.

“Why is this night different from all other nights?” is a question for us to ponder too (as we reflect on our own salvation history beginning with the story of creation recounted in the book of Genesis). What happened differs from any other night for that night Jesus rose from the dead. Had this not happened, we would not be here for the basis of our Christian faith is contingent on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Pope Benedict in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, observes, “If this were taken away, it would still be possible to piece together from the Christian tradition a series of interesting ideas about God and men, a kind of religious world view, but the Christian faith itself would be dead. Jesus would be a failed religious leader; who despite his failure remains great and can cause us to reflect. But he would then remain purely human and his authority would extend only so far as his message is of interest to us.”

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EasterRead More »

According to John, Jesus’ last words were, “It is finished.” Unlike what we hear in the other gospels, there is no sense of surrender or defeat being expressed here. Instead, what was finished in that final breath was the mission which had been entrusted to Jesus by his Father, a mission he carried out selflessly to the very end despite the high cost, death on the cross following a tortuous journey to the place of the skull.

Imagine Jesus and the archangel Gabriel having a conversation after his return to heaven. Even in heaven, Jesus bore the marks of his crucifixion. Gabriel exclaimed, “Lord, you must have suffered horribly! Do people know and appreciate how you love them and what you did for them?”

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Good FridayRead More »

“Why is this night different from all other nights?” With the evening Mass of the Lord ’s Supper, the curtain rises on Christianity’s greatest drama, the Easter Triduum. For the next three days, Catholics around the world will be immersed in a three act drama not even Shakespeare could surpass. Sad to say, however, that few of them see the events of these days as one ongoing story. Instead, they view them as separate and distinct liturgies. Worse yet, they see them through the lens of history as something from the ancient past that has little to do with 21st century America.

Since the readings tonight began with the Exodus account of the first Passover and the requisites of the ritual Seder meal, we might be wise to take a page from our Jewish ancestors when approaching our own sacred rites. They believe that in some mystical manner all Jews, past, present and future, are somehow present at this key event in their history. Everything is spoken in the present tense. God’s interaction with them is not something that took place in the distant past, but something that continues to take place here and now. How differently might we respond to the events we are recalling over the next 72 hours if we saw ourselves as being there and taking part in them? Changing our perspective could take time but we could try.

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Holy ThursdayRead More »