My friends, each Church Year, we are taken scripturally through the life, death and resurrection of our brother, Jesus.  During Lent especially, we are called to ponder just who this God-human-person was.  During Holy Week we are encouraged to spend time with our human brother, trying to understand as fully as we can, why he came among us, for what purpose, what his death and resurrection meant for him and for us—but even more so, what his life meant. 

   Now for me, growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, before the 2^nd Vatican Council, the message was always clear— “Jesus came, died for our sins, so that we could go to heaven one day and be happy with him, there forever.”  That sounds good on the surface, but I feel that Jesus’ coming was much simpler, much more loving than that. 

   I believe for many people, it is easier to get our “heads” around the fact that “God needed to come and clean up the mess we humans made, taking our failings, placing that guilt upon Jesus’ shoulders and “wha-la,” all is good!”

   But you see my friends, the above is much more of a human outlook than that of the Loving God, that Jesus, in his life presented to us.  Jesus was always more about applying the “heart” than the “head” in any situation. 

   In our Catholic church today, just as in the Jewish faith of Jesus’ time, men ran the show and we would all probably agree that setting up a list of dos and don’ts (the Jews had over 600 and Christians, a good many too) and a storyline that neatly answers all the questions is much easier than suggesting, as Jesus often did, that we simply do, the most loving thing!  Granted, doing the most “loving thing” is a lot messier! 

   Throughout history, the virtues of goodness, kindness, mercy, long-suffering, and so on have been looked at as the “gentler” virtues and relegated to the “gentler, weaker sex”—that of women.  But make no mistake, my friends, doing the “most loving thing” in any situation is far harder than following a set of narrow rules and regulations as Jesus proved throughout his life.  We must always remember that Jesus’ one, beautiful human life was taken because he relentlessly chose to do, not what the law said, but what “love” said—the two, as we know, are often not the same.  And for any of us who have ever followed his lead, we know that it is not easy, nor a weak action. 

    The Scriptures chosen for us to hear in the days and weeks after the Resurrection show the apostles sometimes in the same situation as Jesus in his life—people were attracted to him many times because of the physical cures that he was able to do.  The same was true for the apostles, after his death.  But for Jesus and the apostles, as we read today in Acts— “through [their] hands, many signs and wonders occurred among the people—women and men, in great numbers were continually added to their number.” 

   Given the above words, we can only imagine that there were many others, for Jesus and the apostles, who experienced what Jesus was really after in them, “a change of heart.” Those who were just after a messiah who would vanquish their physical enemies or cure their physical bodies, didn’t discover the “messiah” who Jesus ultimately was. 

   In the simplest of terms, Jesus came out of the loving heart of God who wants only good for us, not bad.  Such a God would never ask for reparation for the failings that were part of the humanity given us.  But such a God would give us chance, after chance, after chance, to get it right.

   Look at our Scriptures today:  The Revelations’ reading is about things not understood, except for our God’s words, “Don’t be afraid”—the piece understood, but not said is— “I will be with you.”  In the gospel reading from John we read times two— “Peace be with you—just as the Creator sent me, I [am] sending you”—to do, like me, the most loving thing! This gospel selection also lets us know that we will have great powers—the power to forgive and many other loving things, if we so choose. 

   Eastertime my friends, is all about gratitude for a God who has loved us so much in Jesus as well as a great time of grace to choose a “change of heart” –big enough to follow him, doing always what is most loving, in our world, that today, as we all know is in need of, just that!  Amen? Amen!

Good Morning Friends!

As previously advertised–being that this was the weekend for our Saturday afternoon Mass, we opted this year for the Easter Vigil instead of an Easter Sunday service. We brought in the “new light” and the “new water” reminding us of our baptisms and our continual challenge to walk in our brother Jesus, the Christ’s light. I will have the “blessed water” at church if you would like to bring bottles and take some home. I know that several of you were away and some with guests and others unable to be with us –a solid 12 “apostles” gathered and prayed for our community. Following is my homily from last evening–be blessed my friends and sing out the alleluias of this spring-time holyday! Peace and love, Pastor Kathy

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Easter Vigil Homily

April 16, 2022

   My friends, we have experienced many readings tonight from what some might call, “salvation history,” but I would like to call it, the story of our God’s love for creation, culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, our brother.

   Tonight, because our service is already longer, I wanted to simply lift up a line or two from the readings for us to hold on our hearts:

• In the creation story we hear that God looked on all of creation and said that it was very good. For that reason, I chose not to have us read the story of Moses fleeing the Egyptians and God drowning them in the Red Sea.  It seems that as the prophets become more involved in the story of the Israelite people, God becomes a much more loving figure and certainly the God of Jesus was.
• In the reading from the prophet Isaiah, we hear, “come to the water, all who are thirsty.”
• And in the reading from Ezekiel, we hear, “You will be my people and I will be your God.” 
• We see the compassion of God expressed in the gospel selection from Matthew tonight as twice we hear, first from angels and then from Jesus, “Don’t be afraid.”
• The epistle from Paul to the Romans speaks in a somewhat cloaked fashion of sin and the truth about being Jesus’ followers—simply that it will mean we have to leave sinful ways behind, striving to be our best selves.  But that will come soon enough—now is the time for joy in the fact that Jesus is still with us.

   Because we won’t be meeting on Easter Sunday, I wanted to add a few thoughts that are included in tomorrow’s readings that are very significant in understanding this most glorious day.

   The Easter Sunday morning’s gospel comes from John 20:1-9. I think it is important not to stop after verse 9 but to continue on to verse 18 as it includes the beautiful encounter between Mary of Magdala and Jesus in the garden.  The reading shouldn’t stop after verse 9 as the story simply isn’t complete at that point.  The reading for the Easter Vigil stops short too and that is why I added verses 8-10 to that reading. 

   It is significant that these faithful women who stood by the cross to the very end would be the first to see Jesus in his risen state and only an all-male hierarchy would set up the readings in this way, completely discounting the women!

   Another point in this gospel that is most significant especially for those who may find it hard to believe in the resurrection and might say, “The body was simply stolen will find an answer in the way John describes the scene at the tomb.  [Simon Peter] observed “the linen wrappings lying on the ground and saw the piece of cloth that had covered Jesus’ head lying not with the wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.”   Exegetes tell us that if one’s intent was to steal a body, you would hardly unwrap it first and certainly not take the time to fold up a piece of cloth covering the head!

   John also gives us another interesting tidbit in his account of the resurrection—when Mary of Magdala first encounters Jesus, now risen, in the garden—she doesn’t recognize him!  We might ask—how can this be?  Again, exegetes tell us that one apparently doesn’t appear the same in resurrected form as they would if they were merely asleep and awakened.

   The same phenomenon seems to be true in Luke’s account of Jesus joining the disciples the next day on the way to Emmaus.  Just as Mary didn’t recognize Jesus until he did something familiar—saying her name, the disciples on the road didn’t know him either until he likewise did something familiar—when he broke bread with them. This is a good thought to keep in mind after we have lost a loved one—they too probably wouldn’t be recognizable to us, except in doing something familiar to us.

   So, my friends, some thoughts to carry on our hearts as we continue now with the blessing of the water and our baptismal promises….