3rd Sunday of Easter - C (May 1, 2022)

What Do I Have?

John 21: 1-19

 

When Jesus first appeared on the scene, he asked the disciples if they had “caught anything to eat.”  Curiously, Jesus had breakfast ready when the disciples came in.  Why did he ask if they had caught something to eat?      

 

Besides, while he had breakfast ready, he still told the disciples to bring over some of the fish they caught with his instruction.

 

Later, Jesus asked Peter to feed his sheep.  That came only after Jesus himself had fed Peter, not only with breakfast that day, but with his love, the love that led him to the Cross for Peter and for all his sheep.

 

What Jesus did in this passage gives us consolation when we feel inadequate, or when the task is more than we could handle. 

 

Jesus has fed us first.  He continues to feed us with his love, his words of life and his Eucharist.  

 

Image source: www.agnusday.org

 

2nd Sunday of Easter - C (April 24, 2022)

 

 “We”

John 20: 19-31

 

“We have seen the Lord.” 

 

The pronoun “we” suggests the importance of the communal aspect of Christian witness. 

 

Today, let us pray for Christian unity.  That together, may we witness to the world of the peace of the Risen Christ.  

 

Image source: www.agnusday.org

Easter Sunday - C (April 17, 2022)

 

He Saw and Believed

John 20: 1-9

 

In this short Gospel passage, the word “saw” is used four times. 

 

Three people “saw” the empty tomb.  Mary thought that “they have taken the Lord from the tomb.”  Peter – we do not know his response, at least at this point in his journey. 

 

Only the disciple, “whom Jesus loves,” believed as a result of what he saw.

 

We all see.  May God give us the eyes of faith.  

 

 

Images: Chapel of the Salesians of Don Bosco Community in New Rochelle, NY 

Palm Sunday - C (April 10, 2022)

 

The Great Love of God

Philippians 2: 6-11

 

The Son of God came to live among us.  He accepted the death on the cross of a slave. (The Law of Moses forbids crucifixion.  The Romans would not use crucifixion to put Roman citizens to death.  It was only for slaves). 

 

In so doing, the Son of God, who has no sins, freed us from slavery to sin and makes us children of God. 

 

Let us spend some time during this Holy Week to reflect on the immensity of God’s love for us.  

 

Painting by Salvador Dalí, wikipedia.org

5th Sunday of Lent (April 3, 2022)

 

“Neither Do I Condemn You”

John 8: 1-11

 

Meeting Jesus results in both the woman and her accusers knowing their sins. 

 

The difference is in their responses to that awareness. 

 

The woman’s accusers walk away from Jesus.  Was it because they were ashamed, or because they did not accomplish their plan “to test Jesus”?

 

The woman stays.  She probably could have walked away once her accusers have left.  But she remains.  She then hears Jesus’ words of forgiveness.

 

What do I do when I become aware of my sins?

 

Image:  Andrey Mironov, Christ and the sinner, commons.wikimedia.org

4th Sunday of Lent - C (March 27, 2022)

 

God is Filled with Compassion

Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32

 

In the face of evils and suffering, we want to ask, “Why God?”  Or if God is a benevolent God, why would God allow evils and suffering?

 

This parable teaches us that it is we, like the two sons, who cause our sufferings and we cause others to suffer.  We do not see ourselves as God’s children.  We rebel.  We do not want to live in God’s house, or following God’s laws.  We treat each other as strangers. (In the parable, the younger brother only thinks of himself and his wants.  He has no consideration for his father or his brother.  The older brother complains to his father about the faults of “your son” but not “my brother.”)

 

When we cause our own sufferings, and when we cause others to suffer, God is “filled with compassion for us.”  God “comes out and pleads with” us to return to share God’s love, compassion, and joy with God and with each other.   

 

Image: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, The Return of the Prodigal Son, www.wikipedia.org

3rd Sunday of Lent - C (March 20, 2022)

 

The Lord is Kind and Merciful

Luke 13: 1-9

 

These words of the responsorial psalm consoles and encourages us.

 

Imagine if God “dealt with us as our sins merit” (Psalm 103:10).

 

Instead, as Jesus teaches us through the Gospel parable, God creates us and continually sustains God’s gift of life in us. 

 

But we do not always live the way of God.  Even then, like the gardener, in our Savior, God guides and nourishes us with God’s grace, so that we, the fig tree, might bear fruits.

 

 Image source: www.agnusday.org