The Liturgy of the Fifth Sunday of Easter puts the life-giving words of Jesus before the worshipping assembly. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, the one in whom people can place all their trust. Because they believe these things, they gather to praise God……
We find assurance of God’s presence in the solemn majesty and grandeur of the heavens, but also his presence on earth in the person of Jesus. Once the grandeur of God’s gift is realized in our hearts, from that moment it must be shared with others.
So long as we live on planet earth, we have not arrived at our final destiny, since “here we have no lasting city” (Heb 13:14). Our Scriptures declare that earth and even our entire solar system will one day disintegrate, but emphasize far more the ephemeral, short-lived, ever changing circumstances of our individual lives and of our society. We are always wayfarers on a journey,..
Putting today’s readings together, a line of continuity stretches from eternity to earth and right through Israel’s history upon planet earth, into the life of the church. Jesus is sent by the heavenly Father, with a message not just in words but in his very person. Jesus is that message drawn from the heart and intense life of the Godhead; Jesus, therefore, is the great I AM. This title, I AM..
In today’s Scripture we catch a glimpse of the intimate community of life between Jesus and his heavenly Father, between the members of the church in Antioch among themselves and with God. Jesus’ entire existence is formed by his total desire to please the Father, this receptivity to the Father’s will and wisdom, this total community of life with the Father.
True pastoral initiative must come from God, who speaks our name and leads us to follow Jesus. From him we receive eternal life, and through him we are caught up into the Holy Trinity. United with Jesus, we are united with Father and Spirit; as Jesus says: “The Father and I are one.”
The gift of the Holy Spirit is personal, reaching into the depths of our heart and mind; it is also powerful, summoning us to heroic acts and new ways of life. Important moments of our personal, individual life can happen with startling abruptness, as they can for the entire Church. Peter finds himself baptizing gentiles, not so that they may receive the Holy Spirit but because already they have been graced by the Spirit in wonderful ways.
The saving message of Jesus needs to be announced vigorously, in the language of today. For this many volunteers are needed, with various outlooks and personalities, to share the Good Shepherd’s work. In the current crisis in vocations to administer Word and Sacrament and promote Christ’s message in our world, we pray God to provide wise and caring pastors for his church. But we pray that our church leaders, too, will be open to promoting new ways of priestly ministry, including a wider range of prospective candidates, many of them married, and, who knows
The fourth Sunday of Easter is often called Good Shepherd Sunday, because the readings are about the care we receive from Christ, our true shepherd. This Sunday is also the day of prayer for vocations.
The qualifications of an Apostle as explained by Peter, head of the original apostolic group, are important to remember. For him it was essential for a member of the apostolic circle to have been with the Christian movement “from the beginning” and to have been “a witness to all Jesus said and did.” Matthias meets both criteria and could bear personal witness to the life and mind of Jesus of Nazareth.
St Paul’s conversion is here presented for the first of three times in the Acts of the Apostles (see also 22:4-26; 26:12-18). Here it highlights the movement of the church beyond Judaism to the gentile world. This account is preceded in Acts by the story of the Ethiopian eunuch who was baptized by deacon Philip and then followed by the conversion of the Roman centurion Cornelius.
Our heavenly Father was already drawing the Ethiopian eunuch and royal treasurer to a life-giving faith. This foreigner was already a “God-fearer,” the term for gentiles who believed in Israel’s God Yahweh, and followed those prescriptions of the Torah which would not alienate the foreigner from his own family and country.
Jerusalem, which had been a special object of Jesus’ ministry, now violently rejects his disciples, while the countryside, particularly Samaria, listens carefully to the word, is willing to accept miracles, and converts to the Lord. Sophisticated Jerusalem with its religious schools and centuries-old traditions, never gives Jesus or his disciples a fair chance to explain themselves; while Samaria, neglected, oppressed, fearful of mass
In presenting the martyrdom of St. Stephen, in Acts, Luke carefully models the death scene of Stephen upon Jesus’ death on the cross. Each, accused of blasphemy, is condemned to death by the Sanhedrin. Each sees a vision of someone coming on the clouds, at the right hand of God, a reference to
The key word here linking today’s Scripture is “look” – how we look and what we see! When the members of the Sanhedrin looked on the face of Stephen it “looked like that of an angel.” Jesus tells the crowd: “You are not looking for me because you have seen signs but because you have eaten your fill of the loaves.”
Recognising God’s living presence with us and among us is a great gift, which is the heart of the faith. Above all, recognising God as our personal life-giver, the one who raised Jesus and who will also raise up each of us. Peter and the first community were acutely aware of God’s life-giving presence. St Luke tells of a recognition experience by two walkers on the road to Emmaus, who knew that the crucified Jesus was still alive with them.
During the Easter season, the Church continues to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Today, we join together to worship God, who has brought about this great victory over sin and death. In joy and gratitude, we praise God who saves us ….
Today’s gospel presents two scenarios: one in which we travel without Jesus and are engulfed by waves that can destroy us; another in which Jesus is with us and we come safely to our destination. In the Acts we read how the apostles healed a major division in the ranks by compromise and common sense.
We are asked to examine our motives for following Jesus and our norms for judging other institutions. Personal advancement and pleasure are ruled out by the scriptural readings. When the people proclaim Jesus as the
It is always difficult to distinguish internal strength from stubborn manipulation of others. How can we know if our convictions are from God and must be obeyed at all costs, or whether it is just from pride that we resist authority? Very few have had immediate revelations from God. How then do we know that our convictions are from God?
