7th Sunday of Easter

Often while I am reading a passage of scripture something strikes me. It can be one word or a phrase. This week it was a sentence in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11, “When they had gathered together they asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” To put the sentence in context, the disciples are with Jesus after the resurrection. He has appeared to them many times. “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. “

What struck me during my reading and reflecting was that after following Jesus for three years, after witnessing the crucifixion, after the resurrected Jesus appeared to them, after he talked to them, after he prayed with them and ate with them the disciples still didn’t get it! As we study today’s readings we learn from St Matthew that when they were at the mountain just before Jesus ascended into heaven, they worshiped him but they still doubted! What crossed my mind was, “hum, if the disciples didn’t get it with the resurrected Jesus standing right in front of them how can we expect people to grasp the message of Jesus today?” What did it take for the disciples to get the message and following on from that, what does it take for us to get the message?

Jesus Christ left this world and ascended into heaven with eleven doubting followers just standing around looking into the sky. A couple of angels had to drop by to get them moving. This is the beginning of our Christian Church and it isn’t a very auspicious beginning. Yet the church that began with this unlikely collection of people has grown into a global spiritual movement that extends to us right here in Peachtree City, Georgia more than two thousand years later.

Clearly at some point the disciples did “get it.” They managed to overcome their doubts and fears. They did come to believe and they did fulfil the commission Jesus gave them before he ascended to his Father in Heaven, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28: 19 – 20). Because of their action, each of us has come to believe. Our faith is nurtured by the Holy Spirit; the same Holy Spirit that descended on the followers of Jesus during Pentecost.

In these days leading up to our celebration of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, let us pray with St Paul the Apostle who did not walk with Jesus while he was on earth but who experienced Jesus through a conversion of heart. “Brothers and sisters: May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe in accord with the exercise of his great might …” (Ephesians 1: 17 – 18).

God our Father,

our risen Lord Jesus Christ

lives now in your presence.

When we keep looking for him in the clouds,

help us turn to the task

he has given us to do here on earth

and learn to recognize his face

in our brothers and sisters.

And when we are too attached to this earth,

remind us that in your own good time

you will complete Jesus' works in us

and take us to your joy and glory

for ever and ever.

Amen.

A Mother's Love

 

Ascension Sunday

As I reflected on our readings for today, the final line of the second reading, “For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2: 10), resonated with me. It reminded me of a quotation that the psychiatrist Carl Justav Jung had inscribed over the front door of his house and on his tomb, VOCATUS ATQUE NON VOCATUS DEUS ADERIT. Bidden or not bidden God is present. The author of Sirach in our first reading says something similar, “Immense is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power, and all-seeing. The eyes of God are on those who fear him; he understands man's every deed” (Sir 15: 18 – 19).

The themes of today’s readings are freedom and the law. The author of Sirach reminds us that, “God in the beginning created human beings and made them subject to their own free choice (Sir 15:14). HOWEVER, no matter how much freedom of choice we have, we are still subject to rules, regulations, laws, statutes and our social and cultural norms.

The kingdom of heaven has laws too. They are the Ten Commandments and the Laws of Moses found in the first five books of the Old Testament. In today's gospel, Matthew 5:17-37, Jesus tells his disciples and he tells us that he came to fulfill the law and the words of the prophets. He proposes a new order, a new way of looking at the world built on what came before. His fulfillment of the law set a new standard. In the kingdom of heaven, it is not good enough for us to observe the letter of the law like the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus asks us to embrace the Spirit of the law, to look beyond the actual words and internalize the values that underpin the law.

Jesus defined the Spirit of the law in Matthew 22:36-40 when he told an ambitious young Pharisee “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

If we embrace the idea that no matter what we are doing or where we are, God is present and that God understands our “every deed,” and that “the Spirit scrutinizes everything,” then we should be motivated to behave accordingly. Imagine what our world would look like if everything we did was defined by our love of God and love of neighbor. Then, truly, we will live in the Kingdom of God.

Lord God, loving father,

In your Son Jesus, you have shown us

How we should seek and fulfill your loving will.

Help us respond to your love

From the depths of our hearts

and to be faithful to you in all that we do.

Reconcile us to one another.

Make us respectful of one another and attentive to the needs of people,

even when they remain indifferent and thankless.

Show us the way to bring your love and mercy to our world.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

Oneing

One of my favorite mystics is called Julian of Norwich. We don’t know her real name. She is simply named after the church in Norwich, England—St. Julian’s—where she had her little anchor-hold. One window of her small room looked into the sanctuary for mass and another opened to the street where the people would come by for her counsel and prayer. Julian experienced her “showings,” as she called them, on the night of May 8, 1373. Then she lived in the anchor-hold for twenty years, trying to process and communicate what she had experienced on that one night. Julian wrote about these showings in her book Revelations of Divine Love, the first book published in English by a woman.

Julian experienced and wrote of a compassionate, relational, and joyful God. She writes: “For before he made us, he loved us; and when we were made, we loved him. And this is our substantial goodness, the substantial goodness in us of the Holy Spirit. It is nothing we create; it is our substance. God revealed to me that there may and there will be nothing at all between God and the soul. And in this endless love, the human soul is kept whole as all the matter of creation is kept whole.”

Julian uses the Middle English word “oneing” to describe this whole-making work of God. God is always oneing everything: making twos and threes and fours and divisions and dichotomies and dualisms into one. As she explains, “God wants us to know that this beloved soul that we are is preciously knitted to him in its making by a knot so subtle and so mighty that it is oned with God. In this oneing it is made endlessly holy. Furthermore, he wants us to know that all the souls which are one day to be saved in heaven without end are knit in this same knot and united in this same union, and made holy in this one identical holiness.”

Richard Rohr, OFM Adapted from Intimacy: The Divine Ambush

Lily of the Valley

The years have woven a tapestry fine,

With threads of silver and gold that shine.

Each line on your face is a story well-told,

Of a heart that is brave and a spirit so bold.

Like your favorite Lily of the Valley,

You’ve bloomed with a grace that is quiet and true.

A delicate strength in the shade of the garden,

Refreshing our lives with the spirit of you.

You were the hand that held mine at the start,

The steadying rhythm, the beat of my heart.

Through winters of worry and summers of pride,

You’ve been the anchor, the light, and the guide.

Your wisdom now ripples like sun on a lake,

In every small choice and the paths that I take.

You’ve taught me that beauty isn’t just in the bloom,

But in the deep roots that find space in the room.

So today we celebrate all that you are,

Our family's compass, our bright morning star.

May your day be as gentle as the love you’ve sown,

The most beautiful mother we’ve ever known.

cjh

5th Sunday of Easter

With all the technology we have at our fingertips today few of us have any excuse for getting lost.  However, back in the early 1990s when I first came to Atlanta from Ireland, I was perpetually lost.  Those were the days before GPS and smart phones.  Armed with maps, a dumb phone, and driving on the wrong side of the road, I struggled to get around.  The city confused me at every turn.  There were streets that had several different names and their layout seemed to defy logic.  To confound things, there was the traffic.  Never in my life had I encountered so much traffic, so I spent much of my driving time in a total panic. 

I imagine that is how the disciples felt when Jesus told them “Where I am going you know the way” that we hear in today’s gospel, John 14:1-12.  Although Jesus told the disciples countless times that he would return to the Father, they did not understand him.  Only blunt Thomas had the courage to say, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"  Jesus’ answer to Thomas is one of the most reassuring statements in scripture, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

The disciples could find comfort in Jesus’ words because since the time of Moses the children of Israel tried to follow the way of God.  In Deuteronomy 5:32-33 Moses told them “Be careful, therefore, to do as the LORD, your God, has commanded you, not turning aside to the right or to the left, but following exactly the way that the LORD, your God, commanded you that you may live and prosper, and may have long life in the land which you are to possess.”  In Psalm 32:8 we hear “I will instruct you and show you the way you should walk, give you counsel with my eye upon you.”  And in Isaiah 30:21 the prophet says, “And your ears shall hear a word behind you: ‘This is the way; walk in it,’ when you would turn to the right or the left.”  Jesus didn’t simply give the disciples (and us) directions, he led them and he leads us every day.  When we listen to him, we too can hear the word behind us, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Father, you restored your people to eternal life

by raising Christ your Son from death.

Make our faith strong and our hope sure.

May we never doubt that you will fulfill

The promises you have made.

Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,

One God, forever, and ever.

Amen

Donation

Father O'Malley answers the phone.

"Hello, is this Father O'Malley?" a woman's voice says.
"It is," he replies.

"This is the IRS. Can you help us?"
"I can."

"Do you know Ted Houlihan?"
"I do."

"Is he a member of your congregation?"
"He is."

"Did he donate $10,000 to the church?" 

"He will."