Exegetical notes and homily themes to get you started this weekend:
4/6/25 – Fifth Sunday of Lent (Common lectionary)
4/13/25 – Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
4/17/25 – Holy Thursday
4/18/25 – Good Friday
4/19/25 – The Easter Vigil
4/20/25 – Easter Sunday
4/27/25 – Second Sunday of Easter
5/4/2025 – Easter 3
5/11/2025 – Easter 4
5/18/2025 – Easter 5
5/25/2025 – Easter 6
6/1/2025 – Ascension (or Thursday, May 29)
6/1/2025 – Easter 7
April 6 – Fifth Sunday of Lent [C]
ROMAN LECTIONARY:
“Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”
John 8: 1-11
THE WORD:
The story of the adulteress is a later addition to John’s Gospel. A cherished tale from the then rich oral history of Jesus’ life, it was added to John’s text probably in the third century.
Once again, the scribes and Pharisees set up a trap to discredit Jesus. According to the Mosaic code, adultery was considered among the gravest of sins, punishable by death; but the law of the Roman occupiers forbade the Jewish authorities to impose and carry out the death sentence on anyone. The dilemma facing Jesus, then, is this: If Jesus condemns the woman, he undermines his own teachings on forgiveness and puts him in conflict with the Roman authority; if he does not condemn her, he breaks faith with the covenant Law.
Jesus’ response to their hypocrisy challenges the Jews’ understanding of judgment and authority: God reserves the role of judging others to himself; to us belongs the work of forgiveness and reconciliation. God’s commandments are addressed to each one of us as individuals to keep. We are called to judge our own actions and pass sentence on our own lives.
While the scribes and Pharisees view authority as a license to criticize, ensure and condemn this woman, Jesus sees authority as a gift for transforming her life and reconciling her with God.
HOMILY POINTS:
Jesus calls us not simply to follow the “Law” but to embrace the spirit of the Law: not to demand rigid adherence and conformity but seeking instead mutual understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation; not to be satisfied with condemning the sinful and fallen but to bring forth resurrection from the ashes of their sin through understanding and reconciliation.
Confronting the demons of the world must begin with confronting the demons in our own hearts: We cannot lift the fallen until we realize that we, too, are fallen; we cannot raise others to health and hope until we seek our own healing; we cannot pass sentence on others until we judge our own lives.
April 6 – Fifth Sunday of Lent [C]
COMMON LECTONARY:
Mary took a pound of costly perfume made from pure nard, anointing Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
John 12: 1-8
THE WORD:
The Gospel reading for the Fifth Sunday of Lent in Year C in the common lectionary is the Fourth Gospel’s account of Mary anointing Jesus feet with perfume. This incident takes place six days after Jesus’ raising of Mary’s brother Lazarus from the dead, just before Jesus’ Palm Sunday entry into Jerusalem. As the evangelist notes in the verses immediately preceding today’s Gospel, Lazarus’ coming back from the dead has all of Jerusalem buzzing – and not all of it is good.
Jesus comes to Bethany, to the home of his good friends, Lazarus, Mary and the ever-busy-with-hospitality Martha. Mary welcomes Jesus by anointing his feet – not washing them with water, the usual courtesy – but with nard, a very expensive fragrance imported from Northern India. This precious spice must have cost Mary everything she had. Her extravagant act rocked her sister’s dinner party – but how can you adequately thank someone who gave you back your brother?
Judas, the keeper of the company’s purse, objects at this wasteful extravagance (the Fourth Gospel’s description of Judas here is the most devastating picture we have of Judas in the Gospels: he is described as a thief, a manipulator, a betrayer). While Judas’ protests sound reasonable, he’s not fooling anyone. Jesus deflects Judas’ objections. Mary’s act of kindness is exalted by Jesus as a prelude to the wonders that are to come.
HOMILY POINTS:
Mary’s act in today’s Gospel is not a matter of extravagance and waste but one of gratitude and love. Her gift comes not from the extra she could spare but from her own need, her own poverty. She expresses with a liter of ointment a love she feels in the depths of her soul, a love that is beyond any words she knows to adequately express it.
In today’s Gospel, while Judas and the other guests deride Mary for her ostentatious display, Jesus graciously accepts her act of loving hospitality. In doing so, Jesus transforms her humiliation into joy, her ridiculous display into a prayerful offering. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus lifts up and calls forth the good from everyone he meets — from the most despised tax collector to a little boy’s offering of his lunch. As Jesus transforms the lives of these “real” people, so we are called to do the same: to accept one another, to love one another as God has accepted us and lifted us up and loved us.
Broken as an act of welcome to her beloved friend, later to be broken as an act of courageous compassion to anoint the body of the crucified Jesus, Mary’s small jar of spices is an example to all of us of the “fragrance” of joy and peace, of comfort and care with which we can fill our own “houses” when we dare to “waste” our own time and energy to “break” our own “vessels” of humility and selflessness in the spirit of God’s Risen One.
April 13 – Sunday of the Lord’s Passion: Palm Sunday [C]
THE WORD:
The Blessing and Procession of Palms: Luke 19: 28-40
Typical of his Gospel, Luke’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem portrays the coming of a Messiah of peace. The kings of antiquity rode horses when they came in war, but entering Jerusalem on an ass indicates the “kingship” of peace and service that Jesus has come to exercise. The crowds who welcome Jesus into the city greet him with words similar to the song of the angels in Luke's nativity narrative: “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Another uniquely Lucan detail is the fact that the people do not wave palm branches as Jesus enters Jerusalem. Luke’s crowds place their single most valuable piece of clothing – their cloaks –on the ground to honor Jesus. The holy poor of Luke’s narrative place all that they have at the disposal of their Messiah-king.
The Passion: Luke 22: 14 – 23: 56
Throughout his Gospel, Luke’s Jesus has preached the joy of humble servanthood. In his final hours, Jesus exhibits that same great generosity, forgiving spirit and abandonment for the sake of others. Only in Luke’s account of the Passion does Jesus heal the severed ear of the high priest’s servant. He does not rebuke his disciples for falling asleep during the garden watch. He urges the women of Jerusalem not to be concerned for him but for themselves: if such injustice can befall the innocent Jesus (the “green wood”), what horrors await an unrepentant (“dry”) Jerusalem? At the Place of the Skull, Jesus’ crucifixion becomes an occasion for divine forgiveness: he prays that God will forgive his executioners and promises paradise to the penitent thief crucified with him. Even Jesus’ final words on the cross are not words of abandonment but of hope: Luke’s Crucified does not cry out Psalm 22 (as he does in Matthew and Mark’s narrative) but prays Psalm 31: 5-6: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Luke’s Jesus is the Suffering Servant whose death for the sake of humanity will be exalted in the Resurrection three days hence.
Reading 1: Isaiah 50: 4-7
Reading 1 is taken from Deutero-Isaiah's “Servant songs,” the prophet's foretelling of the “servant of God” who will come to redeem Israel. In this third song, Isaiah portrays the servant as a devoted teacher of God's Word who is ridiculed and abused by those who are threatened by his teaching.
Reading 2: Philippians 2: 6-11
In his letter to the Christian community at Philippi (in northeastern Greece), Paul quotes what many scholars believe is an early Christian hymn (Reading 2). As Christ totally and unselfishly "emptied himself" to accept crucifixion for our sakes, so we must "empty" ourselves for others.
HOMILY POINTS:
There is a certain incongruity about today’s Palm Sunday liturgy. We begin with a sense of celebration – we carry palm branches and echo the Hosannas (from the Hebrew “God save [us]”) shouted by the people of Jerusalem as Jesus enters the city. But Luke’s account of the Passion confronts us with the cruelty, injustice and selfishness that lead to the crucifixion of Jesus. We welcome the Christ of victory, the Christ of Palm Sunday, but we turn away from the Christ of suffering and of the poor, the Christ of Good Friday. These branches of palm are symbols of that incongruity that often exists between the faith we profess on our lips and the faith we profess in our lives.
In his account of Jesus’ death, Luke portrays a Christ of extraordinary compassion and love, who forgives those who betray and destroy him, who consoles those who grieve for him, whose final breaths give comfort and hope to a condemned criminal who seeks reconciliation with God. The broken yet life-giving body of the Crucified Jesus calls us to embrace that same “attitude” of Christ, that we may bring the same healing, reconciliation and hope to all the broken members of his body.
The Gospel calls us to take on what Paul calls the “attitude of Christ Jesus” (Reading 1) in his passion and death: to “empty” ourselves of our own interests, fears and needs for the sake of others; to realize how our actions affect them and how our moral and ethical decisions impact the common good; to reach out to heal the hurt and comfort the despairing around us despite our own betrayal; to carry on, with joy and in hope, despite rejection, humiliation and suffering.
In our remembering the events of Holy Week, Jesus will turn our world and its value system upside down: true authority is found in dedicated service and generosity to others; greatness is centered in humility; the just and loving will be exalted by God in God's time.
Today’s liturgy confronts us with the reality of the cross of Christ: by the cross, we are reconciled to God; by the cross, our lives are transformed in the perfect love of Christ; by the cross, Jesus’ spirit of humility and compassion become a force of hope and re-creation for our desperate world.
April 17 – Holy Thursday [ABC]
“If I, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet.”
John 13: 1-15
This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the LORD, as a perpetual institution.
Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14
As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
1 Corinthians 11: 23-26
THE WORD:
The central event of John’s Gospel account of the Last Supper is the mandatum – from the Latin word for “commandment,” from which comes the traditional title for this evening, Maundy Thursday. At the Passover seder on the night before he died, Jesus establishes a new Passover to celebrate God's covenant with the new Israel. The special character of this second covenant is the mandatum of the washing of the feet: to love one another as we have been loved by Christ.
The writer of the Fourth Gospel makes no mention of the establishment of the Eucharist in his account of the Last Supper. Chapters 14, 15 and 16 recount Jesus’ last instructions to his disciples, concluding with his “high priestly prayer” in chapter 17. The Johannine theology of the Eucharist is detailed in the “bread of life” discourse following the multiplication of the loaves and fish at Passover – chapter 6 of John’s Gospel.
Tonight’s first reading recounts the origin and ritual of the feast of Passover, the Jewish celebration of God’s breaking the chains of the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt and leading them to their own land, establishing a covenant with them and making of them his own beloved people.
The deep divisions in the Corinthian community have led to abuses and misunderstandings concerning the “breaking of the bread.” In addressing these problems and articulating the proper spirit in which to approach the Lord’s Supper, Paul provides us with the earliest written account of the institution of the Eucharist, the Passover of the new covenant (this evening's second reading). If we fail to embrace the spirit of love and servanthood in which the gift of the Eucharist is given to us, then “Eucharist” becomes a judgment against us.
HOMILY POINTS:
The Eucharist, instituted this night, comes at a price all must be willing to pay: We must become what we have received; we must become, for others, Christ the healer, Christ the compassionate and selfless brother, Christ the humble “washer of feet.”
Jesus, who revealed the wonders of God in stories about mustard seeds, fishing nets and ungrateful children, on this last night of his life – as we know life – leaves his small band of disciples his most beautiful parable: As I have washed your feet like a slave, so you must wash the feet of each other and serve one another. As I have loved you without limit or condition, so you must love one another without limit or condition. As I am about to suffer and die for you, so you must suffer and, if necessary, die for one another. Tonight’s “parable” is so simple, but its lesson is so central to what being a real disciple of Christ is all about. When inspired by the love of Christ, the smallest act of service done for another takes on extraordinary dimensions.
Tonight is about reliving a memory: the memory of Jesus, the Christ, who begins on this night, for our sakes, his great “passing over” from death to life. At this table, in the cenacle of our own church, the memory of Jesus becomes a living reality. Jesus speaks to us again and again in the pages of the Gospel book, in the basin, pitcher and towel, in the Eucharistic bread and wine. The memory we relive tonight and tomorrow and the next day re-creates us, identifies us, makes us who we are as human beings who love, who care, who heal, who forgive, who lift up.
When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over his spirit.
John 18: 1 – 19: 42
THE WORD:
John’s profoundly theological Passion account portrays a Jesus who is very much aware of what is happening to him. His eloquent self-assurance unnerves the high priest and intimidates Pilate, who shuttles back and forth among the various parties involved, desperately trying to avoid condemning this innocent holy man to death. Hanging on the cross, Jesus entrusts his mother to his beloved disciple, thus leaving behind the core of a believing community. He does not cry out the psalm of the abandoned (Psalm 22); rather, his final words are words of decision and completion: “It is finished.” The crucifixion of Jesus, as recounted by John, is not a tragic end but the beginning of victory, the lifting up of the Perfect Lamb to God for the salvation of humankind.
HOMILY POINTS:
Today, Jesus teaches us through his own broken body. As a Church, as a community of faith, we are the body of Christ – but a broken body. We minister as broken people to broken people. The suffering, the alienated, the unaccepted, the rejected, the troubled, the confused are all part of this broken body of Christ. In God’s unfathomable love, the broken body of Christ is forever transformed into the full and whole life of the Risen Christ.
As Jesus’ cross becomes a means of transforming death into life, we are called on this Good Friday to use the crosses that we shoulder in our lives as vehicles for “resurrection” in the Jerusalems and Golgothas of our own time and place.
Jesus is crucified every day in the betrayals, condemnations, and crosses taken up and endured by the poor, the sorrowing, the sick, the grieving and the dying – but the “goodness" of Good Friday gives us reason to hope, reason to carry on, reason to rejoice. By the grace of the Risen Christ we can transform our crucifixions into victories of Easter resurrection.
Today, “truth” stands in front of us in the figure of the humiliated Jesus, the suffering Jesus, the ridiculed Jesus, the crucified Jesus. Right in front of us is the truth about a God who loves us to a degree we cannot begin to fathom; a God who refuses to give up or reject or destroy his beloved creation – a creation that has hardly lived up to its promise; a God who humbles himself to become one of us in order to make us like him, to realize that we have been created in his image, created by his very breath blown into our hearts.
God calls us on this Good Friday to a second Exodus journey, marked in the slaying of his Son, the Lamb, who becomes for us the new Passover seder — today is our exodus from the slavery of sin to the freedom of compassion and forgiveness, our “passover” from this life to the life of God.
April 19 – The Easter Vigil [C]
“Why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, he has been raised up. Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners and be crucified, and rise on the third day.”
Luke 24: 1-12
THE WORD:
Luke’s Easter Gospel brings to completion the ancient prophecies foretold concerning the Messiah. The two men “in dazzling white garments” at the tomb invite the terrified women to “remember what he said to you.”
Remember – not the mere recollection of a previous conversation but to understand with new and deepened insight the meaning of a past action and bringing its power and meaning into the present. It is in such creative and living “remembering” that the Church of the Resurrection is form.
Typical of Luke, women – who possessed no true autonomy, whose testimony was considered of little value before a Jewish court – are the first proclaimers of the Easter Gospel. Sure enough, the disciples refuse to believe their wild story (in his original Greek text, the physician Luke describes the women’s story as the excited babbling of a fevered and insane mind). Peter alone goes to investigate; Luke writes that Peter is “amazed” at what he sees, but still does not understand what has happened.
HOMILY POINTS:
On this night in early spring, we celebrate God’s new creation, the “second Genesis.” Death is no longer the ultimate finality but the ultimate beginning. The Christ who taught forgiveness, who pleaded for reconciliation, who handed himself over to his executioners for the sake of justice and mercy, has been raised up by God. We leave behind in the grave our sinfulness, our dark side, our selfishness, our pettiness – the evil that mars God's first creation.
The Risen Christ is present to us in the faithful witness of many good people who share the good news of the empty tomb by their day to day living of the Gospel of compassion and reconciliation. Like Mary Magdalene and her companions, we can bring into the darkness of our own time and place the joyful light of the Resurrection; into the cold, spiritless winter around us, we can bring the warmth and hope of the Easter promise.
The question asked by the angel of the women on Easter morning is asked of us every morning of our lives: Why do we seek the living among the dead? Why do we expect meaning from what is doomed to nothing? Why do we center our days on things of limited value when God’s love and grace abounds in our lives? Easter is God’s never-ending invitation to freedom, his raising us up from “tombs” of selfishness and fear and anger and hatred.
Easter pushes us out of the tombs in which we bury ourselves and challenges us to discover fulfillment in living a life centered beyond ourselves. Easter throws us out of the lifeless cemeteries where we hide in order to embrace the love of Christ present in family and community. Easter dares us to look around the rocks we stumble over and find the path of peace and forgiveness. Jesus has been raised up from the dead. He is not bound by burial cloths of hopelessness and cynicism. He is no longer entombed by fear and distrust. His cross is not the dead wood of shame and ridicule but the first branches of a harvest of compassion and justice for every one of every time and place.
April 20 – Easter Sunday [ABC]
[NOTE: The Gospel from the Easter Vigil may be read on Easter Sunday.]
On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”
John 20: 1-9
THE WORD:
John’s Easter Gospel says nothing of earthquakes or angels. His account begins before daybreak. It was believed that the spirit of the deceased hovered around the tomb for three days after burial; Mary Magdalene was therefore following the Jewish custom of visiting the tomb during this three-day period. Discovering that the stone has been moved away, Mary Magdalene runs to tell Peter and the others. Peter and the “other disciple” race to get there and look inside. Note the different reactions of the three: Mary Magdalene fears that someone has “taken” Jesus' body; Peter does not know what to make of the news; but the “other” disciple – the model of faithful discernment in John's Gospel –
immediately understands what has taken place. So great are the disciple's love and depth of faith that all of the strange remarks and dark references of Jesus now become clear to him.
HOMILY POINTS:
While the Easter mystery does not deny the reality of suffering and pain, it does proclaim reason for hope in the human condition. The empty tomb of Christ trumpets the ultimate Alleluia: that love, compassion, generosity, humility and selflessness will ultimately triumph over hatred, bigotry, prejudice, despair, greed and death. The Easter miracle enables us, even in the most difficult and desperate of times, to live our lives in hopeful certainty of the fulfillment of the resurrection at the end of our life's journey.
The Risen Christ is present to us in the faithful witness of every good person who shares the good news of the to bring resurrection into this life of ours: to rise above life’s sufferings and pain to give love and life to others, to renew and re-create our relationships with others, to proclaim the Gospel of the empty tomb.
Today we stand, with Peter and John and Mary, at the entrance of the empty tomb; with them, we wonder what it means. The Christ who challenged us to love one another is risen and walks among us! All that he taught – compassion, love, forgiveness, reconciliation, sincerity, selflessness for the sake of others – is vindicated and affirmed if he is truly risen. The empty tomb should not only console us and elate us, it should challenge us to embrace the life of the Gospel. With Easter faith, we can awaken the promise of the empty tomb in every place and moment we encounter on our journey through this life.
Easter is about resurrection — not just resuscitation, not just about coming back from the brink, not just about bouncing back from a difficult situation, not just about a near miss when we’ve been spared the worst that can happen. In fact, the pre-requisite for resurrection is that the worst — devastating loss and death — happens. And we are changed by the experience.
April 27 – Second Sunday of Easter [C]
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. And when he said this he breathed upon them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit . . . ”
Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”
John 20: 19-31
THE WORD:
The Gospel for the Second Sunday of Easter (for all three years of the Lectionary cycle) is Act 2 of John’s Easter drama.
Scene 1 takes place on Easter night. The terrified disciples are huddled together, realizing that they are marked men because of their association with the criminal Jesus. The Risen Jesus appears in their midst with his greeting of “peace.” John clearly has the Genesis story in mind when the evangelist describes Jesus as “breathing” the Holy Spirit on his disciples: Just as God created man and woman by breathing life into them (Genesis 2: 7), the Risen Christ re-creates humankind by breathing the new life of the Holy Spirit upon the eleven.
In scene 2, the disciples excitedly tell the just-returned Thomas of what they had seen. Thomas responds to the news with understandable skepticism. Thomas had expected the cross (see John 11: 16 and 14: 5) – and no more.
The climactic third scene takes place one week later, with Jesus’ second appearance to the assembled community – this time with Thomas present. He invites Thomas to examine his wounds and to “believe.” Christ’s blessing in response to Thomas’ profession of faith exalts the faith of every Christian of every age who “believes without seeing”; all Christians who embrace the Spirit of the Risen One possess a faith that is in no way different less than that of the first disciples. The power of the Resurrection transcends time and place.
HOMILY POINTS:
We trace our roots as parish and faith communities to Easter night when Jesus “breathed” his spirit of peace and reconciliation upon his frightened disciples, transforming them into the new Church.
The “peace” that Christ gives his new Church is not a passive sense of good feeling or the mere absence of conflict. Christ’s peace is hard work: the peace of the Easter Christ is to honor one another as children of the same Father in heaven; the peace of the Easter Christ seeks to build bridges and find solutions rather than assigning blame or extracting punishment; the peace of Christ is centered in relationships that are just, ethical and moral.
Jesus’ entrusting to the disciples the work of forgiveness is what it means to be the church: to accept one another, to affirm one another, to support one another as God has done for us in the Risen Christ. What brought the apostles and first Christians together as a community – unity of heart, missionary witness, prayer, reconciliation and healing – no less powerfully binds us to one another as the Church of today.
All of us, at one time or another, experience the doubt and skepticism of Thomas: While we have heard the good news of Jesus’ empty tomb, all of our fears, problems and sorrows prevent us from realizing it in our own lives. In raising his beloved Son from the dead, God also raises our spirits to the realization of the totality and limitlessness of his love for us.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus appears to his disciples and shows them his hands and his side; later he invites the doubting Thomas to touch the marks made by the nails and the gash from the soldier’s lance. We all have scars from our own Good Fridays that remain despite our small resurrections. Our “nail marks” remind us that all pain and grief, all ridicule and suffering, all disappointments and anguish, are transformed into healing and peace in the love of God we experience from others and that we extend to them. Compassion, forgiveness, justice — no matter how clumsily offered — can heal and mend.
May 4 – Third Sunday of Easter [C]
The Risen Jesus appears to his disciples at the Sea of Tiberias.
Jesus said to Simon the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love?”
John 21: 1-19
THE WORD:
Chapter 21 is a kind of “appendix” to John's Gospel: John 20: 30-31 seems to be the original ending of the Gospel. The events recorded in Chapter 21 may have been included to challenge those who doubted the physical resurrection of Jesus, who believed that what the disciples saw were visions or hallucinations. Here the Risen Jesus is a very real and physical presence, who points to the fish, lights the fire, cooks and serves the fish.
Today's Gospel records two events that take place at the Sea of Tiberias after the resurrection. In a scene reminiscent of Luke 5: 1-11, Peter and a group of apostles have been fishing all night and have caught nothing. At daybreak Jesus appears on shore and tells them to try casting their net on the starboard side. The catch is a living parable of the Church's apostolic activity: the number 153 is probably intended as a universal number (some have suggested that it represents the number of known species of fish at the time), indicating the Church's mission to all men and women; the unbroken net may also be seen as a symbol of the new Church.
The miraculous catch includes two typical Johannine themes: the contrast of light and darkness, day (the resurrection) and night (sin and evil), and the Eucharistic overtone of the meal, of Jesus taking bread and fish and giving it to Peter and the disciples.
After the meal, sitting by the fire he has made, Jesus invites Peter to atone for his triple denial of Jesus by the fire in the high priest’s courtyard by declaring three times his complete love and unfailing devotion to him in the light of this Easter fire. We can hear the pain and hurt in Peter’s voice, but also his conviction in his response after Jesus asks the third time: “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” Jesus is not taunting Peter but calling him to move beyond the past to take on the challenges ahead. In forgiving Peter as he does, Jesus transforms Peter’s regret and shame into understanding and commitment to the Gospel the fisherman has witnessed. Jesus the Good Shepherd (John 10) passes on the role of servant/shepherd to Peter and his brothers. It is a moment of re-creation and resurrection for Peter.
HOMILY POINTS:
When we act out of love, when we put aside our own fears and expectations for the sake of others, when we seek to imitate the selfless compassion of the Risen One, we will discover how strong and indestructible our own “nets” are; we will realize a “catch” of good things despite the hopelessness of the night, the fear of the unknown deep, the weight of the catch we struggle to haul to shore.
Jesus’ lifting up of Peter’s love and commitment transforms Peter’s utter failure into understanding and wisdom that enables Peter to take on his role in the post-Resurrection story. The Easter Christ calls Peter and his brothers and now all of us to take on his work of reconciliation: to possess — despite our doubts and disappointments — the heart of the Risen Jesus to forgive and seek forgiveness, to be the means of enabling God’s mercy to be realized in our own families, neighborhoods and communities. Through forgiveness and in constantly seeking reconciliation with others, we enable such “resurrection” to take place in our own families, neighborhoods and communities.
May 11 – Fourth Sunday of Easter [C]
“My sheep hear my voice . . . ”
John 10: 27-30
THE WORD:
Today’s brief Gospel is the conclusion of the Good Shepherd discourse in Chapter 10 of John’s Gospel. Yahweh, the eternal shepherd of Israel (cf. Ezekiel 34), has raised up his own Son as the Good Shepherd to guide the new Israel of the Church to eternal life. In listening to the voice of Jesus the Good Shepherd, the “flock” finds its way to the Father.
HOMILY POINTS:
Christ the Good Shepherd calls us to listen consciously, deliberately, wisely for his voice in the depths of our hearts, to listen for his voice in the love and joy, the pain and anguish, the cries for mercy and justice of those around us; Christ the Son of God assures us that we are always safe and accepted in the loving embrace of his Father.
Christ speaks in many voices — including our own. We can be the “voice” of Christ’s compassion, comfort, forgiveness and peace in even our smallest and simplest words and acts of kindness and generosity.
Jesus calls each one of us to take on the role of “shepherd”: to walk and lead one another through the steep paths and dangerous ridges we all must walk, not diminishing the danger or pain but helping one another make our way through it. The challenge of taking up the Good Shepherd’s staff is to face the truth despite our own fears, to search for God’s light (if only a flicker) in the midst of overwhelming darkness, to reach out to grab another despite our own tenuous grasp.
May 18 – Fifth Sunday of Easter [C]
“This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13: 31-33, 34-35
THE WORD:
Today’s Gospel takes place in the cenacle the night of the Last Supper. Jesus has just completed the dramatic washing of his disciples’ feet and has further shocked his disciples with the warnings of Judas’ role in the events to come. After Judas leaves, Jesus addresses his own, his dearest friends. He leaves them a “new” commandment of love – what is “new” is the model Jesus leaves them of selfless, sacrificial, forgiving love. This same “new” model of love is the indispensable sign of discipleship.
HOMILY POINTS:
To those who profess to follow him – from the apostles to us to the very last generation who will inhabit this planet – Jesus gives a “new” commandment, a new standard for all human relationships: as I have loved you, so must your love be for one another. It is that concept of unconditional, sacrificial love that distinguishes us as men and women of faith, as true disciples of the Risen One.
As a Church, we come together at the “command” of Christ to accompany one another through our lives’ journeys to the reign of God, to support one another in life’s joys and sorrows, to “be Christ” to one another in love and compassion.
Jesus leaves his Church a “new” standard of love, a standard that transcends legalisms and measurements, a standard that renews and re-creates all human relationships, a standard that transforms the most Godless and secular world view into the compassion and justice of God. It is a love that grows stronger the more it is tested, a love that endures and remains steadfast the more it is pulled, a love that continues to heal and forgive the more it is engaged.
Our very identity as disciples of Christ is centered in such persistent and constant love; our faithfulness in imitating the compassion and forgiveness of the Risen One is lived in our openness of heart and spirit to love selflessly, completely and unconditionally, as God has loved us in his Christ.
May 25 – Sixth Sunday of Easter [C]
“ . . . the Father will give another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it sees nor knows him.”
John 14: 23-29
THE WORD:
In his Last Supper discourse, Jesus leaves his fledgling Church his gift of peace and the promise of the Spirit. Christ’s gift of peace is not the absence of trouble and hostility (“as the world gives peace”); Christ’s peace is the Scriptural concept of shalom, meaning the pursuit of everything which makes for the highest good. The peace of Christ finds its core in the Gospel principles of humble servanthood and holy justice.
The “Advocate” (or “Paraclete,” as found in some translations of John’s Gospel), who intercedes and intervenes on behalf of good, is the exact opposite of the "adversary," Satan. The Advocate/Paraclete is that presence of God within us that opens our hearts and minds to the promptings of God's Word as proclaimed by Jesus.
HOMILY POINTS:
The peace the Risen Jesus leaves us is not passive acquiescence or the absence of hostility and conflict; the peace of Jesus is a mindset: a constant seeking out of God’s love, justice and mercy, an understanding of our “connectedness” to God and to one another as children of the same God.
In sacrament, in Scripture, in community, in our living of the Gospel in our everyday lives, the Risen Christ is in our midst. In even our smallest act of selfless kindness – prompted by the Paraclete instructing our open hearts and spirit – we reveal the presence of the Easter Christ in our little piece of the world.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises that he and his Father will “make our dwelling” with us when we “keep [Jesus’] word” of love, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.
Whenever we act out of compassion, the Advocate is at work in our midst; whenever we put aside our own fears of inadequacy to reach out to someone in need, the Holy Spirit is moving among us. The Spirit, the Advocate, is present in our care often without our realizing it, enabling us to make the justice and mercy of the Gospel a reality in our own time and place.
June 1 – Ascension of the Lord [C]
[In some churches and dioceses: Thursday, May 29]
“ . . . you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When Jesus had said this, as they were looking on, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took them from their sight.
Acts 1: 1-11
“You are witnesses of these things.”
Luke 24: 46-53
THE WORD:
Today’s readings include two accounts of Jesus’ return to the Father by the same writer:
Reading 1 is the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, Luke's “Gospel of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus’ Ascension begins the second volume of Luke’s work. The words and images here invoke the First Covenant accounts of the ascension of Elijah (2 Kings 2) and the forty years of the Exodus: Luke considers the time that the Risen Lord spent with his disciples a sacred time, a “desert experience” for the apostles to prepare them for their new ministry of preaching the Gospel of the Resurrection.
Responding to their question about the restoration of Israel, Jesus discourages his disciples from guessing what cannot be known. Greater things await them as his “witnesses.” In the missionary work awaiting them, Christ will be with them in the presence of the promised Spirit.
Whereas in Acts Luke places Jesus' Ascension 40 days after Easter, in his Gospel the Ascension takes place on Easter night. Luke treats the same event from two points of view: in the Gospel, the Ascension is the completion of Jesus' Messianic work; in Acts, it is the prelude to the Church's mission.
HOMILY POINTS:
Jesus’ Ascension is both an ending and a beginning; it marks an absence and a presence. The physical appearances of Jesus are at an end; his revelation of the “good news” is complete; the promise of the Messiah is fulfilled. Now begins the work of the disciples: to teach what they have learned and to share what they have witnessed.
Christ places his Church in the care of a rag-tag collection of fishermen, tax collector and peasants – it is not a very promising start for the new Church. And yet, what began with those eleven has grown and flourished through the centuries to the very walls of our own parish family.
The Church Jesus leaves to his followers is rooted not in buildings or wealth or formulas of prayer or systems of theology but in faith nurtured in the human heart, a faith centered in joy and understanding that is empowering and liberating, a faith that gives us the strength and freedom to be authentic and effective witnesses of the Risen One, who is present among us always.
The words Jesus addresses to his disciples on the mountain of the Ascension are addressed to all of us two millennia later. We are called to teach, to witness and to heal in our own small corners of the world, to hand on to others the story that has been handed on to us about Jesus and his Gospel of love and compassion.
June 1 – Seventh Sunday of Easter [C]
“Father, I pray . . . for those who will believe in me through their word, so that all may be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you . . . ”
John 17: 20-26
THE WORD:
In John’s account of the Last Supper, after his final teachings to his disciples before the events of his passion begin, Jesus addresses his Father in heaven. He begins praying for himself, that he may obediently bring to completion the work of redemption entrusted to him by the Father. Next, he prays for his disciples, that they may faithfully proclaim the word he has taught them. Finally (today’s Gospel pericope), Jesus prays for the future Church – us – that we may be united in the “complete” love that binds the Father to the Son and the Son to his Church, and that in our love for one another the world may come to know God.
HOMILY POINTS:
In his “High Priestly Prayer,” Jesus pleads with the Father that the unique sense of “oneness” that exists between the Father and Son might exist among us, as well. It is a unity of complete love embracing all, from Genesis to the Gospel of the empty tomb to our own parish family.
Christ calls us to work for that sense of “oneness,” that sense of “connectedness” and “completeness” within our own Church by recognizing and honoring the essential dignity that every one of us possesses as children of God and in seeking ways to tear down the barriers that divide and alienate us from one another.
Christ’s prayer the night before he dies is that we realize his hope for the Church he leaves behind: a Church of welcome and acceptance that refuses to trap one another by labels and categories, a faith that seeks to find and honor what unites and binds us together as the people of God.