The Lord’s words in the Gospel passage for today speak about what the Easter mystery has accomplished: a new creation, a new human community, which takes birth from the Spirit and is filled with the very life of the Risen Christ. We all descended from Adam on a natural level; we all are built into Christ on the level above the natural. He is the new Adam, and Easter began the new humanity, victorious over the grave and sharing the life that lasts forever.

This supernatural community, symbolized by vine and branches, obviously builds on the natural community. To enjoy supernatural life, we must have natural life, and to appreciate the meaning of supernatural community, we must have some appreciation for natural community. In our day, however, the very notion of "community" even on a natural level has been obscured by false notions of freedom that separate everyone into his or her own sphere of "choices" and purely personal evaluations of what is true and right. The fruit of this freedom disconnected from Gospel truth is the Culture of Death, in which people think that they have responsibility only to themselves and those for whom they choose to take responsibility.

In the natural and supernatural community established by God, however, we have responsibility before we choose. God (not we) has chosen the other branches on the vine, the other members of the community. We must welcome them all, although, as the First Reading demonstrates, it can be challenging to us to overcome our prejudices.

 But here is where the "fruit" comes in. The Lord says we must "bear fruit." What is this fruit? It is the fruit of love, concretely visible in a life of self-giving, as the commandments (Second Reading) specify. The fruit that is to be visible in the community is that we welcome and serve all - born and unborn, healthy and sick, criminal and law abiding, convenient and inconvenient. Parents in particular demonstrate this kind of love, with an unconditional welcome of their children. We can’t do it on our own power. That’s why we have to stay united to the vine. It is the power of His love in us that makes it possible for us to love as he has commanded, with the very same love that led Christ to the cross and to the glory of the Resurrection.

 FOURTH   SUNDAY  OF  EASTER   2009   YEAR B    May 3,2009


The readings for many Easter liturgies bring us the meditations of John's gospel upon what the life of the Word made flesh means to the world.  Sayings of Jesus beginning with ‘I AM’ abound in this gospel - clearly intimating the Savior’s claim to the divine name itself.  They come easily to mind: ‘I AM the bread of life’; ‘I AM the sheep gate’; ‘I AM in the Father’; ‘I AM the way; I am truth and life, no one can come to the Father except through me’; ‘I AM the true vine’; ‘I want those you have given me to be with me where I AM’; ‘I AM he … I have told you that I AM HE’; and the earth-shattering: ‘Before Abraham ever was, I AM’.
The gospel reading of today's liturgy, ‘I AM the good shepherd’, heard against this background, takes us deep into the mystery of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ - and, as we shall see, it tells us of how God's initiative in the Passover Mystery was conceived in the depths of the Life of the Trinity itself.
The Good Shepherd theme has had a great impact on Christian consciousness. One of the earliest and most repeated motifs of Christian art is the youthful shepherd carrying the lost sheep home on his shoulders.  The image it suggests is so telling that it has featured prominently in the Church's preaching in every age.  As so often happens with the best things in life, we tend to take this theme for granted. Today's text helps us to find a fresh appreciation of its implications.  In it Jesus explains these implications by reference to the Passover Mystery.

This supernatural community, symbolized by vine and branches, obviously builds on the natural community. To enjoy supernatural life, we must have natural life, and to appreciate the meaning of supernatural community, we must have some appreciation for natural community. In our day, however, the very notion of "community" even on a natural level has been obscured by false notions of freedom that separate everyone into his or her own sphere of "choices" and purely personal evaluations of what is true and right. The fruit of this freedom disconnected from Gospel truth is the Culture of Death, in which people think that they have responsibility only to themselves and those for whom they choose to take responsibility.

In the natural and supernatural community established by God, however, we have responsibility before we choose. God (not we) has chosen the other branches on the vine, the other members of the community. We must welcome them all, although, as the First Reading demonstrates, it can be challenging to us to overcome our prejudices.

 But here is where the "fruit" comes in. The Lord says we must "bear fruit." What is this fruit? It is the fruit of love, concretely visible in a life of self-giving, as the commandments (Second Reading) specify. The fruit that is to be visible in the community is that we welcome and serve all - born and unborn, healthy and sick, criminal and law abiding, convenient and inconvenient. Parents in particular demonstrate this kind of love, with an unconditional welcome of their children. We can’t do it on our own power. That’s why we have to stay united to the vine. It is the power of His love in us that makes it possible for us to love as he has commanded, with the very same love that led Christ to the cross and to the glory of the Resurrection

 4^th  SUNDAY   OF   LENT  – A  Cycle –  2009  –   2^ND   Scrutiny

He says that he is the ‘good’ shepherd - in contrast to the unfaithful shepherds who have failed God's people, thinking only of their own interests - because, as he three times repeats, he ‘lays down his life’ for them. He lays it down, he explains, ‘in order to take it up again’.  In his Resurrection, he will be a source of life for them.  And in this drama of his death and resurrection, he is carrying out and making clear to the human family what his Father wills for them - an enterprise so dear to the Father that he looks upon the Son's obedience with a renewed love.
It is a plan that works to bring all those who believe into unity. There are other ‘folds’, or pens, than the one the community that gave us John's gospel finds itself in.  Through his Passover Mystery, the Good Shepherd will lead them in the forming of a single ‘flock’, overcoming all the apparently impossible barriers that divide the human family.
The other readings illustrate the blessings that belong to those who ‘know’ the Good Shepherd and ‘listen to his voice’. We recall the faith and courage of Peter, as he works the Christian Church's first miracle in the power of the divine name - ‘in the name of Jesus’.  And we are told that we can become ‘God's children’, through ‘the love that the Father lavishes on us’, with a future which when it is fully revealed will give us a share for all eternity in the intimate life of God.
[It is this that we celebrate with these young people today - they are invited today to come to the table and in taking the Lord within themselves through Bread and Wine they are invited further to that intimate relationship with God in which they will become like him as he is. But for today they stand with us calling God their Father in the midst of the Church as promised at their Baptism. We welcome them to the Table of the Lord.

SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT - B CYCLE - 2009
   We continue in this joyful season when the image of Christ comes clearer into our hearts and into the fabric of our daily living. This weekend’s Second Prayer of Scrutiny leads us to look inward at our sin / our darkness and then to discover the needs of the Elect of God of our parish; to see where sin lives in us; thrives in us; where it is supported in others by us and by others in us = naming our sin so that we can claim our salvation, our deliverance from it by the one we hear who washes feet and breaks bread and dies and rises from the dead.

Last week in the Gospel about the woman at the well, we heard about the thirst for God that leads to faith and to those waters that spring up like a fountain of living water leading to eternal life in those who have that thirst.

Today we hear Scriptures that speak to us in images of baptism. In the search for a king after the kingship of Saul failed – about to end in the king’s suicide – the prophet Samuel anoints David at the command of God, to be King. The Book of Samuel says: “the spirit of the Lord ‘rushed’ upon David from that moment on. Having chosen David, God empowers him to be successful at the task he has called him to take on.

In the Letter to the Ephesians (today’s second reading) we witness texts used in early baptismal celebrations. In the Letter we are reminded, that we are not just bearers of light, or witnesses to light, but that, through our immersion into the Lord’s Body at our Baptism: WE ARE LIGHT ITSELF. Being light we can reject all darkness and all deeds of darkness. God calls us to be light, and he enables us to be that light. “Awake, o sleeper, and arise from the dead. And Christ will make you light.” In the very early Church, Baptism was called enlightenment, which means anointed, by light.

Today’s gospel reading is a commentary on Jesus’ earlier statement that he is the Light of the World. In dramatic steps the author of the gospel contrasts the growing sight of the Man Born Blind with the increasing blindness of the ones who claim that they already see.

This gospel is the story of our conversion as well. Today’s Gospel warns against the arrogance, which causes real blindness, which is where all is darkness. It warns us about choosing the darkness of spirit, which attacks and threatens our very lives in the Spirit of Jesus and puts into jeopardy our faithfulness as we journey through this Lent and Easter. In the Gospel, John the Evangelist, states it this way: “If you were blind, there is no sin in that. But you say ‘we see’- we’re fine, all is well, we do no harm, we have the truth and understand it all – so you remain in your sin.”

The Gospel marks, as well, the slow revelation of Jesus’ identity: we move from ‘that man they call Jesus,’ to: he is the ‘prophet,’ then to the ‘Son of Man’ and finally the formerly blind man reveals – it is the ‘Lord.’ This is the journey of Lent for each of us: to come to know the Lord more fully, more completely as the Lord he is as he opens our eyes.

Lent calls us (all those baptized and those elected to be baptized) to see ourselves and others through eyes formed by a conscience touched by the Gospel. To see what sin exists, what we can address with our healing touch and our change of heart, by conversion and turning to the light that is ours that flows from the Cross and the empty tomb. To not have sight is one thing but to not have sight and to act as if we do is darkness indeed. The Lenten call: Come into the light!

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THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT   –   B   Cycle   –   2009

          “Lent is a period of positive preparation for the celebration of the Paschal Mystery: the death/resurrection of Jesus by which God brought about humanity’s salvation. We participate in this salvation by our baptismal union with the victorious Christ; thus baptism is uniquely the Easter Sacrament, and references to this flow throughout the season we began in Ash Wednesday.”

This quote is from Fr. John J. Castelot – scripture scholar and my Scripture teacher in High School and in Theology. I offer it because it is a clear and concise statement of the nature of the Lenten season we have begun. It offers us a season-long source for reflection.

          Our positive preparation for the Passover Mystery connects very directly with our sense of sin. No sin = no salvation. Nothing to be saved from! No promise to be kept. It is that simple. If we are not aware of our need to be saved how can we expect to be saved? If we are not aware of the promises God makes to us, how can we expect to receive them?

          One fundamental question that the Book of Genesis asks is: “what is the origin of evil in the world?” in addressing all aspects of the question, The Flood serves as a reminder that the consequences of sin can be severe. Beyond the surface of this story of the flood that devastates the whole world, is the story of creation and new birth = of all things made new again. Noah: the first to step from the ark to dry land becomes the father of the new creation = reborn to a new life, cleansed of the past; born again to the possibility of living this new covenant with God with the rainbow in the sky as the sign of the new covenant. Interesting note: the Scripture states the purpose of the rainbow as this: “Thus says the Lord: each time I will see rainbow I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living things.” The rainbow is a sign to God of his promise.

          St. Peter, in the second reading: connects the water of the flood, the water of baptism, the covenant rainbow in the sky with the resurrection of Jesus. In that sign of the New Covenant, all the evil forces that have enslaved, subtly influenced all humanity, are simply broken and subject now to the Messiah of God who has won us salvation. The task is completed; living it out has begun.

          In the Gospel, we see a very direct and simplified experience of the Temptation of Jesus in the desert. St. Mark simply states: Jesus was driven into the desert by the Holy Spirit and was tested by Satan and then Angels ministered to him. We know that following his desert experience Jesus announces that the Kingdom of God is at hand and repentance is needed to be a part of this Kingdom of his Father.

          God intends his son to be tested: it is the Holy Spirit that DRIVES Jesus into the desert. In this experience, the Messiah-to-be is empowered to be faithful, to be Savior, to be the One who is victorious over sin and death.

          In the baptismal anointing, we are empowered in Jesus to the same realities. We are freed from the powers that would enslave = how do we celebrate that freedom that is already ours? What we do in our families, our community, the world where we have influence, to announce the freedom   of the children of God from what enslaves?

          We experience through local news the level of violence that exists in our society from elementary school on up; we see adults developing new, exotic, drugs that return our brothers and sisters, our children to slavery; we see cruel abuse and neglect of children and spouses; we see the teachings of the Church on the life issues divided and prioritized where some are presented as more about life than others: death by injection somehow different than death by abortion; we see almost a sense of glee among some commentators around the terribly serious decision to wage war against a person by waging war against a people. We constantly see forces that seek to return us to the slavery and blindness from which the Messiah delivered us. How do we announce our freedom to those in our midst who, having died in those Baptismal waters and Risen with the Lord, have chosen to be enslaved once again to these powers? How do we heal them; deliver them?

          Lent is the season of these hard questions and even harder answers that call us to live them out. It is the time of conversion, change, of beginning to look and act differently for the rest of our lives and for the rest of eternity. It is the season of the rediscovery of Christian behavior. What do Christians look like and act like apart from other people faithful to other faiths? What should we look like as we grow and are led in this season by the Spirit of God?

          The Mystery we prepare to celebrate is founded on principles of liberation and eternal life for all who enter the Waters of the Jordan; having died in that baptism, rise to the new life that proclaims that we are the people born anew who are the first to step from the flood to dry land and become the leaders of the New Creation of Grace.

          As we spend our Lent in prayer, fasting, and works of charity well; we inherit what Bill Wegner talked about in his first presentation: deliverance from our mess – our sin; deliverance from the death that is in our future; deliverance into the Kingdom where the feast had been prepared.