April 19, 2015

Third Sunday of Easter

It is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, who has glorified his servant Jesus whom you handed over and then disowned in the presence of Pilate after he had given his verdict to release him. It was you who accused the Holy and Upright One, you who demanded that a murderer should be released to you while you killed the prince of life. God, however, raised him from the dead, and to that fact we are witnesses;

    ‘Now I know, brothers, that neither you nor your leaders had any idea what you were really doing; but this was the way God carried out what he had foretold, when he said through all his prophets that his Christ would suffer. Now you must repent and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out,

Then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of bread.

Jesus appears to the apostles

They were still talking about all this when he himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you!’ In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said, ‘Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts stirring in your hearts? See by my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.’ And as he said this he showed them his hands and his feet. Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, as they were dumbfounded; so he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes.

Last instructions to the apostles

Then he told them, ‘This is what I meant when I said, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms, was destined to be fulfilled.’ He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘So it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.

 

Third Sunday of Easter
April 22, 2012

INTRODUCTION – (Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; 1 John 2:1-5a; Luke 24:35-48) In our first reading, there is no mention of a crippled man being healed by Peter and John, but this is the context of Peter’s speech that we are about to hear from the Acts of the Apostles. A man, lame from birth, was brought to the Temple every day so he could beg for alms. Remember, in the Jewish mentality of the time, this man was not only physically impaired, but everyone would have looked upon him as a very sin-full person. The Jews would have thought that God was punishing him for something he or his parents must have done. A short time after the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost, Peter and John went to the Temple for afternoon prayer. The lame man saw them and asked for a little money. Peter said, “I don’t have any money, but I will give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.” Then Peter helped him to his feet and he was healed. He was so excited, he jumped and danced and praised God. Of course, this created quite a commotion and everyone wondered what had happed. It was a perfect opportunity for Peter to explain the healing power of the risen Jesus. Notice Peter is very outspoken in accusing all of his Jewish listeners, not just their leaders, of rejecting Jesus and calling for his death. Peter said God can excuse them because they acted out of ignorance, but from now on they have no excuse, and they must repent and be converted for they had just seen the risen Jesus at work in the healing of the lame man. It is not the entire speech of Peter, but it is the most important part of it.

HOMILY – I came across an interesting parable the other day about an old pine tree. It was tall, 70 feet above the forest. Younger trees were also tall but none of them had a top as filled with foliage as the old pine. It was scarred from wind and lightening but it had survived every challenge that came along. Even when strong winds snapped off the younger pines, this old pine barely lost a needle. Amazingly, what finally destroyed this grand old pine tree was not a storm; it was a heavy snow that piled up on its branches. No one would be able to say which snowflake was the proverbial “last straw” that accomplished what years of storms had been unable to do, but the weight of many tiny snowflakes snapped off the old tree’s magnificent and full crown.

The article where I read this parable was talking about debt. Most of us know that debt is something that can slowly–but–significantly erode one’s economic ability to recover. One little thing can tip the scales from a person’s carrying a lot of debt to becoming bankrupt? However, I thought the parable was equally true of how sin can destroy us. Sin is a reality for all of us. St. John says at the beginning of his letter: “if we say, ‘we are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves.” We confess as we begin each Mass that we are sinners and ask for God’s mercy. Like tiny, innocuous looking snowflakes, sin can have a way of creeping up on us. We tell ourselves things like “oh, that’s not so bad,” or “everybody’s doing it,” or “God is forgiving,” or “no one will know,” “nobody’s perfect,” or whatever. For the most part, each of these statements can be absolutely true: it’s not so bad, everybody’s doing it, God is forgiving, no one will know, nobody’s perfect but like little snowflakes that keep falling, we don’t notice how certain habits can grow. St. John tells us in today’s second reading “I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin.” Before I move in a more positive direction with what I have to say about sin, I would like to insert what I believe is the most dangerous sin our culture has to deal with today – ignoring the Third Commandment, to keep holy the Lord’s Day. To too many people it doesn’t seem to be a big deal, yet it denies God the honor due to God and it breaks one’s connection with the body of Christ, the community of believers, which gives us spiritual nourishment and guidance.

St. John has more to say about sin than to tell us we’re all guilty. He goes on to say, “if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.” Our readings at this time of the year proclaim the resurrection, but they also continuously call us to live the new life Christ came to bring us and to turn away from whatever interferes with our relationship with our risen Lord. Did you notice how in last Sunday’s gospel, the first thing Jesus said to the apostles after greeting them with “Peace be with you,” he said “Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive they are forgiven them”? In our first reading, Peter calls his listeners to repent and be converted that their sins may be wiped away. In today’s gospel, Jesus tells his apostles, “Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations.”

Dr. Karl Menninger, a well-known psychiatrist, wrote a very perceptive book entitled Whatever Became of Sin. He ends his book by saying the first thing we have to do to change anything about ourselves that perhaps we should change is to face it. Last Sunday is often designated as Diving Mercy Sunday. I’m all for Divine Mercy and I’m grateful that God’s mercy is available any time we turn to him and ask his forgiveness. I suppose it’s called Divine Mercy Sunday because of last week’s gospel, but today has every right to be called Divine Mercy Sunday. Truly, on every Sunday, or every time we come to Mass, we begin asking for God’s mercy. We say in the Our Father, “forgive us our trespasses;” we say before Communion, “Lord I am not worthy.” I suppose if a person is burdened with guilt, Divine Mercy Sunday would be a good reminder that God is merciful and forgives us when we turn back to him, but we must always know God is kind and merciful. It’s the way he identified himself to Moses (Exodus 34:6), the way he identified himself throughout the whole Old Testament, the way he presents himself to us in Jesus, and for that we give thanks.