who, though we have not seen him, love him, as Peter s letter has just told us.

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Jason Terry
5 years ago
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1 Easter 2 At this time of the year there seems to be a great confluence of new life. Liturgically we are celebrating the resurrection of the Lord and its promise to us of life forever, yes, forever. Ecologically, we are surrounded by the rebirth of nature. All the trees are now clothed in new leaves, and many different kinds of flowers are blooming. Then there is the rebirth of new life in the church. Last Sunday three children were baptized in our church at Easter Sunday Mass. Next Sunday six young people of our parish will be confirmed by Bishop Evans at St. Anthony s Church. And last Friday many of us were impressed by the great dignity and solemnity of the royal wedding in London. May that event serve to strengthen respect and reverence for married life in our society today! Yet all this good news about new life has now been overshadowed by the latest weather disasters in the middle part of our country where many have lost their lives and many more have lost their homes and possessions. Life in this world is always an imperfect thing. We have reason to rejoice, but we also have reason to sorrow with those who are suffering.

2 2 Today we celebrate Mercy Sunday, a feast created by Pope John Paul II who will be declared a blessed of the Church tomorrow (today). Now he will join his predecessor, John XXIII, who is already Blessed. Now who will be the first to be canonized? I hope that like Peter and John in the Gospel of John, John Paul will act as John acted. John ran faster than Peter because he was younger but waited for Peter and allowed him to enter the tomb first. That would be fitting here also, for John was an older pope and came before John Paul. Indeed, John s work in opening the Second Vatican Council set the stage for the later pope s own work. Our readings for this second Sunday in Easter time speak to us of the first days of the church. The first reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us an ideal picture of what the first community was like: its members were taught by the apostles, gathered frequently for prayer, and shared their material possessions. So teaching, prayer and sharing. Nothing has changed. The community of Jesus today must have these same characteristics. We must be faithful to the teaching of the apostles, we must pray together, and we must share our material possessions.

3 3 The second reading from the First Letter of Peter reminds us of our in-between status in this world. Yes, the Lord is risen and we live in the strength of the Holy Spirit. But not all is yet complete. And so it has the poignant sentence describing our relationship with the Lord: Although you have not seen him you love him. Obviously, the writer of this letter is speaking to a later generation of believers who had not seen Jesus in the flesh. So their situation is also ours. We have not seen the Lord, yet we love him. The Gospel for today also speaks of seeing the Lord. Thomas, one of the Twelve, won t believe the others when they tell him that they have seen the Lord. Jesus therefore comes again to show himself to the doubting Thomas: Put your finger here and see my hands and believe. When Thomas then makes his act of faith, My Lord and my God, Jesus says to him: Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed. If there was ever a line in the Gospels that was clearly meant for us, the readers of this Gospel, to overhear, to grasp as directed at us, it is this one. We are the one who have not seen but believe. We are the ones

4 4 who, though we have not seen him, love him, as Peter s letter has just told us. We live in difficult days for our Catholic Church. The priest scandal and, perhaps even more so, the scandal of how bishops handled such priests, continues to make the headlines. Then there is the issue of marriage. Our diocesan paper, the Rhode Island Catholic, made the front page of the Providence Journal today (yesterday) because of its editorial which calls for the rejection of civil unions here in Rhode Island between people of the same sex on the grounds that the recognition of such unions places them on an equal level with traditional marriage and is therefore a stepping stone for their recognition as marriage. It bears reading, especially for those of us who might think such a recognition is a legitimate compromise preserving the traditional definition of marriage yet recognizing civilly the unions of same sex people. When we confront such problems, we must do so a community which attempts to discern what is the authentic apostolic teaching, which prays together and shares its possessions, and which attempts above all to love the Lord in word and deed, even though we have never seen him. Yet

5 5 we do see him in the bread of the Eucharist, in the Scriptures, in one another, and in all the people of our world.

Journey. through Lent

Journey. through Lent Journey through Lent T W O L E S S O N S for Holy Week and Easter 2018 Journey through Lent TRIDUUM Lower Elementary Materials Handout A: What Is Triduum? Handout B: The Last Supper Look and Find Handout