However,
until that happens I will offer you two reflections today one that I offered
last Thursday on the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord and one on the Seventh
Sunday of Easter. Let me once again say happy Mother’s Day to all mothers and
let me remember in a special way all mothers who have gone before us,
especially my own mother. Mothers are a great gift, a great blessing and a
wonderful way to meet God in life! Blessings upon all mothers today and always.
Feast
of the Ascension of the Lord
“Men
Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” I have always liked
this little phase at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. For me it sets
the stage for everything that Luke is going to tell Theophilus about Jesus and
this community call Church. Perhaps this question directed at Jesus’ followers
just after he ascended into heaven sits at the center of our life as Church.
Sometimes
as a Church I think we are standing there look up at the sky. We are looking at
the past. We are looking at what use to be and not what is. We are looking back
hoping the past will be the present and the future.
The
angel’s question to the disciples perhaps was not just a question but a
challenge. Are you going to continue to stand here and just look up at the sky?
Are you going to live in the past, put your hope in the past? Or are you going
to get busy and be about the ministry Jesus has entrusted you with, are you
going to get busy about living of life.
In the
movie the Shawshank Redemption Andy at one point tells Red, “I guess it comes
down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.” Perhaps
that is what the angel is asking Jesus’ disciples the day of the Ascension.
What are they now going to do with the mission, the ministry that Jesus has
entrusted them with? Their choices are to stand here and keep looking up at the
sky, waiting for Jesus to return, thinking of the past or they can get busy
living the life, the faith, the hope, the love that Jesus has entrusted to
them.
We
might say that this celebration of the Feast of the Ascension challenges us in
the same way. Are we as a Church just going to stand around looking, waiting
for Jesus, are we going to stand in the midst of the past and wait or are we as
a people of faith going to get busy living out our faith through the gifts of
the Spirit?
If you
are celebrating the Feast of the Ascension along with Mother’s Day have a great
day!
Seventh
Sunday of Easter
The
Gospel passage today is taken from the Last Supper discourse in John’s Gospel.
You might say that this is the last meal, the last class, the last
prayer-service and the last conversation that the disciples had with Jesus
before his death. We could say that it is Jesus’ good-bye speech to them.
Within it Jesus expresses a profound love for his friends and a deep desire for
union, friendship with them. Jesus is one with the Father and longs to share
that with his friends and through them to share his love with the world. As
with a good-bye speech, there are strong statements of being sent and a wishing
to be received. Jesus knows that these friends are a gift from God to him.
Jesus loves them as he knows the Father loves him.
Jesus
longs for his friends to receive that love as a part of their knowing and
receiving themselves. The world in this reflection is not the physical earth,
but those people in the world who do not and have not had the chance to
encounter Jesus as God’s gift of love. Jesus has been preparing his friends for
their mission to be the presence of his love in the world. He is sending them
into the world after his death and resurrection to be that presence.
These
deep sharings by Jesus are going to be real by his death and resurrection. Love
might be suggested in words but it is most often made real by actions and
deeds. Love is the exchange of all that one has with the other who does the
same. Jesus has said the words and he lived the words by totally handing himself
over to us. All of the love he receives from the Father has been given to us.
Intimacy results in fruitfulness. All that Jesus gave to his friends; he now
gives to us. All that Jesus shared with the friends, he says now to us. Jesus
was sent to bring us to life and that life is ours to exchanging with the
world. The reception of a love, of gifts, of any intimacy is not an end, but a
beginning of living with and then beyond the experience of being so loved.
Have a
blessed Sunday and Mother’s day everyone!
Mother’s
Day Prayer:
We
thank you, God, Creator of us all, for our mothers.
We
thank you that they gave us life and nurtured us all those years. They gave us
our faith, helping us to know you and to know Jesus and his ways. They taught
us how to love and how to sacrifice for others. They taught us that it was okay
to cry and that we should always tell the truth.
Bless
our mothers, with the graces they need and which you want to give them today.
Help our mothers to feel precious in your eyes today and to know that we love
them. Give our mothers strength and courage, compassion, peace and those who
have passed eternal life.
Bless
our mothers this day and always with your love. Amen (Adapted from a Mother’s Day Prayer found on Creighton University
Ministries web site)
A
Runner’s Thoughts: To give anything less than your best is
to sacrifice the gift. (Steve
Prefontaine)
Daily
Blessing: Sunday and Mother’s Day greetings and
blessings to all! I would like to wish a very Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers
living and remember in a special way all mothers who are deceased who have
touched our lives throughout the years. I would also like to remember expectant
mothers as they prepare and wait for new life. In a special way I would like to
remember my niece, Sarah, my nephew, her husband, Dominick and my niece, little
Natalie Ann, as they wait for their son and brother to arrive sometime this
month!
I hope
all of you are having a great day and that you getting the chance to honor your
mother and all the mothers who have touched your life in some way. I always
find it special honor my own mother as I celebrate mass and I will most happy
to do that today.
I pray
that you will have a great Mother’s Day touched by the presence of God and if you
are traveling today you will do so safely. May all your encounters with others
and your time alone today be rich in the joy of God grace and love. May God’s
blessing be upon all mothers especially those who are expecting and may we
celebrate the gifts that all mothers offer us and touch our lives with today in
a very special way. May God bless this day and may it be a day of blessings
that will help us to encounter the joy of life, especially the joy mothers
bring into our lives! Peace in Christ’s Passion and Joy in the Risen Lord…Fr.
Paul
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