When we listen attentively to the Lords word, we are opening ourselves to Holy Spirit, and in the power of that Spirit we will be able to witness to our faith in the Lord with something of the courage shown by Peter and the apostles in todays first reading. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. However, there will always be a reserve in our receiving. The Lord is with his struggling churches to keep them faithful to the end. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. His wounds were not just the marks of human cruelty but signs of his enduring love. Scripture: Acts 11:1-18 John 10:11-18. It is also true that just as we can eat poor quality food in an effort to satisfy our physical hunger, we can try to satisfy our spiritual hunger on poor quality fare. They had forgotten that Jesus had told them that, having been crucified by his enemies, God would raise him from the dead. The Lord calls us to attend to ourselves, so that we can give of ourselves to others, so that we can be good shepherds. The one whom they had been following, and in whom they had put so much hope, had been crucified by the Romans. Our union with Christ through baptism is thereby strengthened in the Eucharist. The Lord is there before us even if we have not invited him in, even if we have locked ourselves away from him. In other words, it is in giving that we receive; it is in giving life that we receive life. The Lord can work powerfully through our own rather limited resources, if we are generous with those resources and place them at the Lords disposal. For my flesh is real food In this mornings gospel reading Jesus identifies himself as the one who can satisfy these deeper hungers in our hearts, the hunger for God, for a love that is faithful, for a life that endures beyond this life. According to the verse before our gospel reading (Jn 6:15), Jesus had withdrawn to the mountain by himself, in response to the crowd wanting to make his king. The Lord will do the rest. What is needed from us is what Jesus called for from Nicodemus, a readiness and willingness to surrender to the movement of the Spirit in our lives. There they were, locked into a room, in a self-imposed prison, out of fear. The disciples thought Jesus was dead and they presumed their following of him was over. Yet, here was a Pharisee who stood out somewhat from his peers. you are not looking for me because you have seen the signs He walked with them with a view to getting them to change direction, but before he could do that, he had to walk with them in the wrong direction for a while. All Documents Quizes It speaks of Gods love for the world, of Gods generous way of expressing his love by giving the world his Son and of Gods desire that all people would experience eternal life through receiving Gods Son in faith. the good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep. The gospel reading puts before us some very striking statements about Jesus. According the Acts of the Apostles, the name Barnabas means son of encouragement. The Lord will provide in abundance the means for us to take the path that leads to life. Do not be afraid. They wanted to take him into the boat, but the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading. Saul sought to destroy all who responded to the welcoming invitation of Jesus. That way of the cross became more difficult this past week, the Easter octave, when the church celebrates the resurrection of Christ. Catholic Daily Reflections My Catholic Life! When Peter preached the gospel to the crowd in Jerusalem, their response was to ask Peter, What must we do? They understood that the gospel they had heard placed an onus on them to do something, to make choices they had never made before and follow through on those choices. Alternatively, please click the Cookie settings button to adjust which cookies this website stores during your visit. In that sense, each of us is called to be a shepherd to others. Yet, according to Luke in the reading we have just heard, in the immediate aftermath of his meeting with the Lord, Paul was first struck blind and had to be led by the hand into the city of Damascus. Thomas story assures us that no matter where we are on our faith journey, even if we are full of doubt and scepticism, the Lord stands beside us, gently calling out to us, doubt no longer, but believe. As people of faith, we are always on a journey, on a pilgrimage. The gospel reading acknowledges that even though the light has come into the world, some have shown that they prefer darkness to the light. As he now comes to meet his Lord face to face, we pray that his hopeful faith will continue to inspire us all. When the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. In todays first reading, the Lord came to Saint Paul in a very striking way. Healing Mass card. We are called to listen attentively to the word of God, especially as proclaimed and lived by Jesus who is Gods Word in human form. Sheep are gathered in a sheepfold for protection. so it is in my power to take it up again; The tendency of Philip and Andrew in the gospel story was to complain about the hopelessness of the situation, Two hundred denarii would not buy enough What is that between so many? We are all prone to throwing our hands up to the heavens in exasperation and even despair at the perceived extent of some problem. To see ourselves in the light of Jesus is to recognize how far we fall short of the person God has created us to be. They were astonished and said, Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Even though we are an Easter people, we never stop being a Good Friday people also, at least on this side of eternity. Jesus wants to share with each one of us his own very intimate relationship with God; he wants to draw us into his own personal relationship with God, his Father. If we open ourselves to his presence, as, eventually those two disciples did, the Lord will lift us up. Here and now the Lord wants us to know something of that life to the full which is our ultimate destiny. It is not a condemnatory light; God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but so that, through him, the world may have life and have it to the full. It will help you to participate in a communal journey that is able to release the best energies in you and around you. The painting conveys a sense of this powerful figure now rendered helpless before the risen Lord. She prayed that she might atone for the sins of the church, and shortly afterwards collapsed and died. He was succeeded by Pope Urban VI who turned out to be a disastrous Pope. He said to them, Peace be with you, and showed them his hands and his side. The two disciples were journeying away from Jerusalem when the risen Lord joined them in the form of a stranger and opened the Scriptures for them. In his diary he wrote, It is not like a child that I believe in Christ and confess him. He was dependent on Ananias, a member of the church of Damascus, to receive back his sight, be baptized and received into the church. The risen Lord continues to pour out his Spirit into our hearts so that our lives may be Spirit-filled. There tends to be a restlessness in all of us. I am the bread of life. To enter through Jesus the gate is to respond to his call, the very personal call that he addresses to each one of us. If we are to experience him as the bread of life, as the one who can satisfy our deepest hungers, we must believe in him, give ourselves to him in trust and faith. Faith will always include doubts or it is not faith. He stops to read the Scriptures and he is very touched by a passage from the prophet Isaiah. This two fold dynamic of prayerful communion with God and loving service of the broken and needy that shaped the life of Jesus also shaped the life of Catherine. As the gate, he calls out to us to keep passing through him to find that fullness of life which alone can satisfy the deepest longings of our heart. As St Paul says, While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Seeing that they were in need of food, he asked Philip where food could be bought to give them something to eat. Whereas the wind can be destructive, the Spirit is always life-giving. In this mornings first reading people ask, Is this not the carpenters son? The term translated carpenter might better be translated craftsman or artisan. In one of his encyclicals, Faith and Reason, Pope John Paul II stated that the church remains profoundly convinced that faith and reason mutually support each other they offer each other a purifying critique and a stimulus to pursue the search for a deeper understanding. Both share the same role, that of looking after and caring for the sheep. Jesus knows that if the boy is prepared to part with his precious little store, great things can happen. She was deeply involved in what was happening in Europe and in the church in her time. Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist, was in almost continual religious conflict. FunctionalOur website uses functional cookies. Looking upon the sheepfolds of his day, Jesus identifies with both the gate and the shepherd. In this mornings gospel reading we find Jesus and his disciples faced with a hungry crowd and little or no means of feeding them. He highlighted in his gospel the failure of the disciples. In coming to us there he directs us to take the path he wants us to take, just as he directed Paul. John 6:35-40 He calls us into a personal relationship with himself. As Jesus says in the gospel reading, those who belong to me listen to my voice. It was only then that Thomas became a member of those Easter disciples, with his wonderful confession, My Lord and my God. A contemplative, her life of prayer expressed itself in the loving service of those in need. How can this man, Jesus, give us his flesh to eat? But Jesus said to them, A prophet is only despised in his own country and in his own house, and he did not work many miracles there because of their lack of faith. Our website places 3rd party cookies from other 3rd party services which aren't Analytical, Social media or Advertising. If you did not receive an email please check your spam and other folders. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers. Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them. The stranger who joined the two disciples on their sad journey was the very person whose death they were grieving.
Free Resources | Our Lady of Mercy An essential element of following Jesus is listening to his voice. In various ways, calls are made upon our time, upon our gifts, upon our energies and resources. One of them, named Cleopas, said to him in reply, Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days? And he replied to them, What sort of things? They said to him, The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed him over to a sentence of death and crucified him. -----------------------------------------. We can be grateful to this former persecutor of the church for opening us for up the riches of our Christian identity and destiny. When the other disciples came to him in the power to the Holy Spirit to announce, We have seen the Lord, he could not bring himself to believe this news. We find it very hard to get started. Over the centuries the Carmelites adopted the Lectio Divina to develop their understanding and knowledge about Jesus. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Catherine stood out as a beacon of light in a dark time. Philips proclaiming of the gospel moved the Ethiopian to ask for baptism. Their purpose is not to keep people in or keep people out but to create an opening in the railings for people to come in and go out. We all have a role to play in calling forth the gifts of others by recognizing situations that would be ideally suited to them and by creating space for them in which to work. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. Yet, we can put a damper on the Lords work, a bit like Philip and Andrew, or we can create a space for the Lord to work, like the small boy. These two disciples were not alone in their grief. That appears to be the situation of the two disciples in todays gospel reading. In one of his encyclicals, Faith and Reason, the late Pope John Paul II stated that the church remains profoundly convinced that faith and reason mutually support each other they offer each other a purifying critique and a stimulus to pursue the search for a deeper understanding. Catherine was one of the great mystics of the church. if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, However, Jesus as the gate calls out to us because he is also the shepherd who knows each of us personally, by name. I am the gate. We are called to be contemplatives in action, like Catherine of Siena. One of the tasks of life is to try and listen to the particular call that the Lord is addressing to me here and now. They never follow a stranger but run away from him: they do not recognise the voice of strangers.. The first reading says that when Barnabas got there, he could see for himself that God had given grace, and this pleased him, and he went on to give encouragement to what was happening. In Jesus, the earthly has become the revelation of the heavenly, and Jesus shows us how to see the deeper, heavenly, reality in and through the earthly reality. The church has endured for over 2,000 years because it is from God. Mark reminds us that living the gospel, following in the way of Jesus, is not easy; it makes demands on us; it stretches us. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. Do not be afraid. They were for taking him into the boat, but in no time it reached the shore at the place they were making for. Jesus argues that if there is a mysterious quality about the wind, there is an even more mysterious quality about the Spirit of God.
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