7th Sunday of Easter Year C, 2025

 

(Acts 7:55-60; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20; John 17:20-26) 

In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we were given a picture of the fanaticism which can so easily surface in fallen humankind, for the murder of Stephen was the work of religious fanaticism of which we see some atrocious examples today, in supposedly civilized Pakistan for example.    There are, of course, all sorts of fanaticism: other prominent types today being football fanaticism, pop and rock fanaticism, and the animal rights brand.  Fanaticism is close to hand for fallen mankind, because human nature was made for God, not for itself; man was made to love and serve, know and obey, that is, identify himself with, God, and ultimately to share in His eternal beatitude; and so, fallen men and women are inclined to give themselves in varying degrees, not indeed to God, but to their own prejudices, or to someone, something,  such as a super-star, a football team, or to a violent crusade for dumb animals etc.; Giving themselves to what is not God  the God-given impulse to religious devotion is thereby progressively changed, twisted, poisoned and corrupted, into various types of fanaticism, each of which tries to offer pseudo-fulfilment through the excitement of belonging to a group of similarly motivated enthusiasts, or to the far more dangerous self-exaltation which finds satisfaction in rejection or hatred of what is not self-originated or self-promoting.

Let us now look a little closer at the religious fanaticism shown in the first reading and compare it with the teaching of both the second reading and the Gospel:

All who sat in the council, cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him.

The present attention of those in the council was fixed on their enemy, Stephen, and at the back of their minds was the insistent problem of their own status with regard to the Roman overlords; they were most certainly not responding to the God they professed to represent.  The words of Stephen should have been answered, if indeed they were defenders of the Law; but, in order to answer they would have had, first of all, to listen to Stephen’s words, and that was something they were not prepared to envisage let alone do:

They cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord.

In so doing, they were in fact giving vent to, satisfying, their own feelings of anger, apprehension and even fear, not defending the Law of the Lord their God.

Human passions are no guide to God’s will: human anger does not serve divine justice nor can human sentimentality transmit God’s goodness; and yet, emotions are part and parcel of our human nature, they are necessary for human actions, above all for human love and divine charity:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. (Mark 12:30)

However, such emotions need to follow the lead of, keep in tune with, a mind guided by faith in Jesus, and able, by the grace of His Spirit, to look at the situation as a whole, not to indulge a mind that is exclusive in its focus because of the weakness of its grasp.  Human emotions should neither be stoked up by prejudice nor smothered by fearful self-interest.

If we now turn to the second reading, we can see how the Christian is called not only to look to Christ, but also urged to long for, pray for, His coming:

I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star."  And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" He who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

The Christian, therefore, can only be a truly living member of the Church (the bride) to the extent that, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, he or she is steadfastly looking and longing for Jesus.   Our Blessed Lord became ‘man’ in order that He might love His Father in human flesh, to give back to mankind’s supremely loving Creator the love mankind itself, and even the Chosen People, had so long refused to give Him.  Jesus’ whole purpose was and is to love His Father in our human flesh to the very utmost of His human being which includes  -- thanks to the indwelling power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit --  His own rejection by the Chosen People and His Roman crucifixion.

And  there, dear  People of God,  lies the true beauty and glory of our vocation as disciples of Jesus, when we long and pray for the Holy Spirit to draw us ever more with Jesus into loving the Father: for there we are becoming children again, but now children of God. following the Way of Jesus under the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit, the Bond of Infinite Love uniting and issuing from both Father and Son in ‘love beyond all telling’.

5th Sunday of Easter Year C, 2025

 

(Acts 14:21-27; Rev. 21:1-5; John 13:31-35) 

Jesus the Christ was, as you well know and firmly believe, Son of God and Son of Man. As the Son, the Word of God, He shared with His Father and the Holy Spirit in the original creation when God made all things; and that is why -- now that all things are in the process of being made new – the Son become Incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, having been crucified in His flesh and, by the power of the Spirit, raised from the dead, now appeared to His Apostles locked in the Upper Room for fear of the Jews and breathed His Spirit upon them.   His breathing upon them was precisely the sign of a new creation being made. Just as God had breathed on the original creation (Genesis 2:7):

The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 

Likewise Jesus, appearing in the midst of His disciples and having shown them the wounds in His hands and His side, said to them (John 20:19-22):

Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you."  And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”

 

God is making all things new, and Jesus, the Risen Lord, divinely glorious in His risen humanity, shares in His Father’s work by breathing the Holy Spirit upon His Apostles, thereby making them into the nucleus of that new creation where sin is to be overthrown by the cleansing and empowering presence of God's Holy Spirit.  A new creation indeed: the Family of God, MOTHER CHURCH, work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where God bestows new life-in-Jesus, and where Jesus calls upon His disciples to love one another by the Spirit He bestows on them, just as He, Jesus, loved those to whom His Father had sent Him.

LIFE and LOVE!  That is what fellowship with Jesus is all about! LIFE and LOVE, sustained in and inspired by  the Eucharist, that is what Christianity is all about here on earth.

Our closest bond is, humanly speaking, flesh and blood, and God’s new creation is not alien to, or at variance with, deep-rooted natural human awareness.  That bond, however, is made supernatural and becomes capable of sustaining eternal life and love’s ultimate commitment, by our partaking of and sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ!  In Jesus our Lord, Who gave Himself for us and offers Himself to us as food for eternal life, we are made uniquely and supremely one as adopted Children of God: family in Jesus of Him Who is pleased to be our Father.  It is not human family, not shared sufferings, most certainly not racial superiority or hatreds, that can unite us, but only and exclusively our being one with and in Jesus -- the supreme, divine, reality in the whole of God's creation -- by the Spirit, for the Father, and for His plan and purpose to make ‘all things new’.

Dear People of God, the liturgical Sacrifice of the Eucharist and our personal, sacramental, reception of and commitment to the fruit of that sacrifice, is the supreme sign of our saving oneness with Jesus, the supreme seal of our filial embracing of the Father’s good-will for  His adopted children, and the bonding of our human togetherness in mutual reverence and rejoicing.    Treasure your Mass and pray with confidence for Mother Church and our new Pope Leo.

4th Sunday of Easter Year C, 2025

 

(Acts 13:14, 43b-52; Revelation 7:9, 13a, 14b-17; John 10:27-30) 

From the book of Revelation we heard:

I John had a vision of a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue.  They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches.

That puzzled John the seer, and he was told:

These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

That was in accordance with Jesus' own words to Nicodemus:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)

Multiform cleansing is one of the main purposes to which we dedicate our use of water.  Those, however, who come out of the great tribulation of which the seer speaks, have washed their robes with the only cleansing agent able to wash away the stains of human sin, that is, the Blood of the Lamb; for it is that Precious Blood, poured out for us, which alone gives the power for supernatural cleansing to the baptismal waters of the Church.  As Jesus said:

Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

People of God: it is a fact of Catholic spiritual awareness that the sacraments of Mother Church are to be regarded as the fruit of the outpouring of Jesus' Blood. 

Far too many parents through succeeding generations have had only tenuous catholic connections; they had their children baptized merely to satisfy their own parents, or, at best, to gratify their own pseudo-conscience ("I would like to have my kids done … then I will feel I have done my best for them"), without having any real intention of bringing up their child in the ways of Jesus according to Mother Church's teaching.  They understand baptism only as ceremonial, where mere water is poured over the child's head, whilst a few words are said, and then all is over and done with.  There was no reverence for the sacrament; no awareness that the water poured out is water empowered by the shedding of Jesus' blood, water which -- as the seer tells us -- enables those dedicated to Jesus to: 

Wash their (souls) and make them spotless in the blood of the Lamb. 

And today we see the full circle turned and renegade Catholics not only disregard the Sacraments but they disregard even Mother Church herself. 

We, however, who have celebrated the love, compassion, power and beauty of the Passion and Resurrection of our Blessed Lord Jesus, must use all bonds of kith and kin, and prayer, to help those missing from our community out of their death lapse of worldly peace – at one with everybody else in worldly pleasures, appearing to enjoy a conscience-less life, forgetful of any and all consequences. … for we have hope for beautiful, good, and holy things to come when the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be Shepherd of those He has brought into the Father’s presence and He will lead them to springs of living water. Yes, Jesus, Our Lord, will be there -- with us and for us -- as Our Shepherd, our Leader, our Glory; and He will lead us along the heavenly paths of eternal life, so that, with Him, all that is truly human in us, far from being smothered or denied, will be glorified as He, our Lord and our Brother, is most fully and beautifully glorified in His sacred humanity.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Who can fittingly speak of the intimacy and tenderness of God the Father's relationship with each and every one of His children redeemed by the blood of His Only Begotten and most Beloved Son?

Now, that life -- Mother Church teaches -- begins here on earth for Jesus' true disciples, but its heavenly fulfilment can only be attained by those who have passed through tribulations of varying degrees chosen by God in His Fatherly goodness to cement their union with Jesus in sincerity, depth, and trust.

These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

3rd Sunday of Easter Year C, 2025

 

(Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19) 

There are scholars who see in Jesus’ three-fold questioning of Peter a then recognized Oriental social procedure -- used before witnesses -- when conferring and confirming a ‘legal’ right -- that is, one socially approved and fully binding, on someone other:

            Feed My lambs; tend My sheep; feed My sheep

Therefore, we most probably have here a remarkable instance of Jesus’ great and most compassionate wisdom: He wipes out the memory – in Peter’s own mind and in the minds of the other apostles – of Peter’s moment of weakness and shame and -- and at the same time -- quite dramatically and most emphatically establishes him as head of His nascent Church in accordance with His Father’s manifest will.

There are also revealing words of Jesus relating to Peter’s future crucifixion:

Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.

At this juncture, we should recognize that there is no question of Jesus implying that Peter would refuse to face up to his future crucifixion, only that Peter would not want to go; and, in that regard, we should recall that John tells us that:

Jesus said this signifying by what kind of death he (Peter) WOULD GLORIFY GOD.

Peter was a most wonderful disciple of Jesus and he had come to find no difficulty in acknowledging, admitting, his own nothingness: of himself, he would not want to go on that journey to his crucifixion because he did not love as Jesus – his Lord and Saviour alone could love.  However, he most fully trusted in Jesus that He could, and would, draw Peter after Himself, and that He would help him, Peter, to humbly follow where Jesus his Lord alone could lead.  

Dear People of God, let us most seriously pray for the simplicity of heart to admire Peter’s example; but, above all, at this juncture in time, let us pray for the Gift of a new Peter to guide Mother Church in witnessing and clinging fast to the divine Truth and heavenly Beauty of Jesus’ teaching, by walking ever more closely in the way of His commandments and following ever more joyfully the inspiration of His own most precious example in giving praise,  honour, gratitude and thanksgiving, to God the Father of us all.