East4B24.    Acts of the Apostles 4:8-12.   The Holy Spirit speaks through the graced words of Peter.  God is not silent but rather uses the hearts and minds of those who have chosen to belong to him to speak in his behalf.   The “good deed done to a cripple” gave testimony to the saving power of Jesus Christ, “who God raised from the dead.” “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”

John 10:11-18.  Not only is Jesus the Good Shepherd who daily leads his flock on the way to heaven; but he is also the sacrificial lamb, who “lays down his life for the sheep,” so that, redeemed from their sins, they may enter heaven.  Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me.” He knows those who have chosen to belong to him.  Through daily prayer we come to know him more and more personally as our God, who loves us and dearly cares for us.  He wants us all to join together as one flock with one shepherd.

1 John 3:1-2.  “Beloved (loved ones), See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.”  In the intensity of God’s love for us, he makes us to be his children, when we accept his love and choose to live our life born from above in God’s love for us.  To human eyes we seem to be just like any other earthly creatures but in God’s eyes there is much more to us than just earthliness.   As children of God, God is our life here and now.  That God made us in his image and likeness will only be fully realized when we are in heaven and “shall see him as he is.”

East4B21.     Acts of the Apostles 4:8-12.    Following the cure of the crippled beggar in Acts 3, Peter, standing before the Sanhedrin in Acts 4, was filled with the Holy Spirit.  Although it was the person of Peter and his voice that was heard, it was the Holy Spirit who spoke through him.  When they heard Peter, they were hearing God, made audible through the voice of Peter, God’s spokesperson.  Jesus said in John 14:26: “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name—will teach you everything and remind you of all that [I] told you.”   Peter declared in today’s first reading, “It was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean” that “this man stands before you healed.  He is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.  There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.”   Through Jesus, and only through Jesus, do we have salvation!

John 10:11-18.     Jesus identifies himself as the good shepherd, who loves his sheep so dearly that he lays down his life for them in contrast to the hired man who only loves the profit he can get out of it for himself.   Because the good shepherd cares so deeply for his sheep, they have come to know and love him dearly.  The good shepherd wants all sheep to be able to receive his love and caring.  So he reaches out to other sheep who are not of this present fold.  Jesus has learned and acquired the desire to know and to love from his relationship with the Father in which each know and love one another.  Jesus’ love for the sheep has led him to freely offer himself up as a sacrifice on the cross so they may be saved.  His sacrificial offering was in obedience to the will of the Father who is love.  Jesus does all out of love for us.  Jesus pours out his life into us so that we may have life forever.

1 John 3:1-2.   Jesus said in John 3:3b, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”  His love for us makes us children of God, begotten by God as long as we draw our life out of his love for us as the source of our life.  In 1 John 4:15-16 we read: “Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.  We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.” Paul writes in Philippians 3:8a, “More than that, I even consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” Through the power of the Holy Spirit we come to know Jesus personally, our good shepherd who cares for us as his own on our way to heaven through this life that is filled with many dangers.  “What we shall be has not been revealed.  We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he.”  Paul goes on to write in Philippians 3:21, “He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.”  Through the power of God those who belong to God will be remade into the image and likeness of Jesus.

East4B18.   Acts of the Apostles 4:8-12.  “Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit said ‘Leaders of the people and elders.  He is the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.  There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.’”  Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3:11, calls Jesus Christ, the only foundation upon which we can build.  Otherwise, one’s work will come to nothing.  In the passage in John 10:9 Jesus calls himself the gate to the sheepfold or sheep coral, saying, “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.  In other words we cannot get into heaven, unless we follow Jesus, who leads us there, as our good shepherd.  In John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.’”  Peter spoke filled with the Holy Spirit.  In other words, it was the Holy Spirit who spoke through him, using Peter as his spokesperson, as God did of the prophets in the Old Testament.  In 1 Corinthians 3:10a, Paul also says he acts “according to the grace of God given to me.”  In 1 Corinthians 3:9a, Paul speaks of himself and Apollos as “God’s co-workers.”

John 10:11-18.  “I am the good shepherd.  A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”  Jesus has laid down his life for us.  No one took it from him but he laid it down on his own because of his infinite love for us.  “I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.”  He knows us as a loving parent knows their child.  Our daily task is to come to know him just as we know anyone who loves us and in turn we love.  God is not just a celestial being who lives only to calculate our positive and negative behaviors but an intensely loving Father and brother, a real though spiritual person in our lives.  We are called upon to know Jesus just as the son knows the Father and the Father knows the Son, the divine relationship that is the model for us.  As Jesus is the obedient son in what he did for us while in the flesh on this earth so should we be, obedient to our Father.  Jesus’ death on the cross was his loving gift of redemption to us.  Our giving of ourselves to God should be our gift in response to his love for us.

1 John 3:1-2.   “Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.”  The shepherd is shepherding us to become the sons and daughter of God, the Father.  The joy of what he is, he wishes to give to us.  To his good and faithful servants, Jesus says, “Come, share your master’s joy.” (Matthew 25: 21c & 23c)  “Come, you who are blessed by my Father.  Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 25:34b)  “We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”  Taking us to himself in his home, our Father will share something of himself with us, his children, out of his infinite love for us.

 

 

East3B24.  Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15, 17-19.  “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses. Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did.” Some refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah despite the fact that his miracles made it quite clear that he was the Messiah. “He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.” (John 1:11)  As the parable of the seed said, the seed must fall on good ground to bear fruit.  Our hearts are open to the words of God only if we choose to thoroughly belong to God.  Jesus said to those who rejected him in John 8:47, “Whoever belongs to God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not listen, because you do not belong to God.”

Luke 24:35-48.  When Jesus first appeared to his Apostles, they “thought that they were seeing a ghost.”  To prove to them that he was not a ghost, Jesus ate “a piece of baked fish” “in front of them.” Then Jesus made it clear to them that “it is written (in the Old Testament) 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.” The Christ is the Savior who saves us from our sins.  Sin is basically any rejection of God’s sovereignty over us, which then excludes us from God’s saving action.

1 John 2:1-5a.  “If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.”  “He is expiation for our sins.”  By his suffering and death on the cross Jesus has made reparation for the offense of our sin.  Jesus repairs our relationship with God, returning us sinners into good stead with our Father.  “Whoever keeps his word,” which means is obedient to God’s Will, the love of God is truly perfected in him.”

East3B21.        Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15, 17-19.  Peter accuses those present of having Jesus crucified, saying, “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.  Now I know, brothers, that you acted out of ignorance, just as your leaders did”.  Peter continues, “Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.”  Peter proclaims that Jesus has been glorified by the God of the Jews by being given resurrection.  Now Jesus is the author of life, given the authority to give us spiritual life, the resurrection from our sins.  Only the sinless are entitled to live the life that is eternal in heaven.

Luke 24:35-48.  Jesus provides physical proof of his resurrection from the dead by saying: “Touch me and see” and eating “a piece of baked fish.”  His crucifixion and death were the fulfillment of what had been written about him in the Old Testament. “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 should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things,” Jesus says to the disciples.  The purpose for his death and resurrection is to lead us to repentance for the forgiveness of our sins so that we may have eternal salvation.

1 John 2:1-5a.    John wrote, “But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.”  In John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one goes to the Father except through me.’” Jesus, personally, living in us through the power of the Holy Spirit, walking with us, guiding us, strengthening us, and protecting us, enables us to live as true daughters and sons of the Father.  Christianity is not a list of things to do but Jesus, a person to be with in the deepest and fullest way.  He must be the author or source of daily life for us.   John ends with the words: “But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him.”  To ‘keep his word’ means to do his will.  When we do what he wants of us, we will be perfected, that is made to the fullest of our God-given potential what God in his divine will has made us to be.  Then we will have done what Jesus commanded of us in John 5:48: “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

East3B18.   Acts of the Apostles 3:13-15, 17-19.   “Peter said to the people: ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.’“  What a wonderful way to announce solemnly that the God who created the Hebrew people as his own has fulfilled what he had spoken through his prophets.  He would send the Christ, the Savior, as a sacrifice for our sins so that all those who repented and converted would have their sins wiped away.

Luke 24:35-48.  The two disciples to whom Jesus had just appeared were recounting to the Apostles their recognizing him in the breaking of the bread, when Jesus himself stood in their midst.  Jesus went through great efforts to prove to them that it was really he, the risen Lord, and not a ghost.  “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, ‘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, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’”

1 John 2:1-5a.   Jesus has offered himself on the cross as a sacrifice in expiation, atonement or reparation for the sins of the whole world whenever they may be committed.  Since sin offends God who is pure and perfect love for us, who has made us to be loved and become love as he is love, our sins reject God’s love.  Reparation requires that something equal or more of what was taken away be given back.  Offense against an infinite God requires an infinite reparation or sacrifice.  Therefore only God can offer an adequate expiation for sins against God; Jesus, who is God the Son, offers expiation to God, the Father.  When we do what God commands of us, which is the only acceptable way that we have to show that we receive his love, then we treat his love in a way that is truly loving.  To do otherwise is sin.  “If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.”  He has already given himself on the cross, as our gate way to forgiveness for sin, has a vested interest in pleading for our forgiveness. This world is place of temptation, the home of sin but at the same time the home of redemption from sin.  We have an Advocate who will never fail us when we fail.

East2B24.  Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35.  “No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.”  Perhaps they thought that Jesus was coming back very soon and so they readily got rid of their earthly goods, since they saw no need to care for themselves in the long term on earth.  So deep was their faith in the Lord.

John 20:19-31.  Jesus came dispelling their fear behind locked doors saying, “Peace be with you.”  What joy they had who had thought that all had ended in his bloody death on the cross to now see their resurrected Jesus.  Jesus, knowing that he would ascend into heaven, prepares to have his work continue on earth by sending his Apostles to do what he was doing.  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  Thomas, who was not present at the appearance of Jesus, demands physical proof that Jesus has arisen.  Proof is given him as a call to all who live after Thomas that we are called not to believe because we see but to believe because we have faith.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  We belong to the believers who have not seen and so our belief is all the more praiseworthy.  Not everything that Jesus did is written but what is written is “written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.” What is written guides us to believe in what we have not seen.

1 John 5:1-6.  “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God.”   That means that, if we believe that Jesus is our Savior, then we are a child of God.”  “Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”  We are in the world but do not belong to the world (John 17) for the world is only the dirt of the earth without the spirit and breathe of God.  Our faith embraces our heavenly ancestry & heritage with its heavenly inheritance.  We have been made to belong to what is heavenly, not worldly, because God made us in his own image, after his own likeness. (Genesis 1:26a)

East2B21.     Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35.   “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.”  Those resources “were distributed to each according to their need.”  It is my understanding that they were expecting Jesus to come relatively soon and so they were preparing for that coming by living in common without personal possessions. (Please read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.)  What stands out is their great faith in Jesus.

John 20:19-31.   “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.  But these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.”   As Jesus calls upon his disciples to be witnesses to who Jesus is and what Jesus had accomplished, so too the gospels were written to be witness to him and to call us to the faith that will give us eternal life.  Jesus gives his disciples the Holy Spirit who will enable them to bring to people a faith in Jesus.  In receiving the Holy Spirit the disciples are given the power to aid the Holy Spirit in his work of the sanctification of humanity through the power to forgive sins so to turn people from sin so to become the holy children of God.  Thomas, who represents the ordinary down to earth people who have to learn to rise up to heaven even as they walk on the dirt of this earth, rejects the idea of resurrection from the dead as lacking in any commonsense.  Confronting Thomas, Jesus calls upon him and all of us to put our faith in what is divine and not earthly: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17, “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.”

1 John 5:1-6.  John the evangelist wrote, “Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God?”  Followers of Jesus live in the world but do not put our faith in a world that only believes in a life that is from cradle to grave.  The Holy Spirit, who is Jesus’ gift to us, enables us to live in the truth, the eternal reality.  “For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments,” that is, we are obedient to his will which is far more than the Ten Commandments.  The struggle to be submissive to his will is the cross that is love.  Jesus showed by his death on the cross that true love comes at a great sacrificial cost.

East2B18.   Acts of the Apostles 4:32-35.   “The community of believers was of one heart and mind.”  Their oneness was out of their unity in the one Lord Jesus over them.  “With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.”  This scene occurs after the Pentecost when they received the Holy Spirit who gave them great power to help them bring others to believe in Jesus as their Lord.

John 20:19-31.  In this gospel there is a study of contrasts or opposites.  Jesus comes to bring peace to those who locked the doors in fear of the Jewish authorities, who had put Jesus to death and who might put them to death too.  Alone behind those locked doors they were powerless against the powers of this earth but Jesus came to empower them with a heavenly power to forgive sins and to go into the world to bring others to Christ.  Thomas came to believe because he saw with his own eyes the physical presence of the risen Lord; to which Jesus says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  Belief is the central message of this gospel which ends with the words: “But these (words) are written you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name.”  Not physical evidence but rather words that testify to the resurrection are given us that through the power of the Holy Spirit that we may have the belief that gives us life in his name.

Jesus says in this Gospel: “Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”  Jesus in his public ministry made it clear that it made no sense to give the fullness of life to the body yet leave the soul sick in sin.  After having lowered a man on a stretcher through the roof since they could not get to Jesus because of the crowd around him, Luke 5:20 reads: When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “As for you your sins are forgiven.”  In Luke 5:24, Jesus continues, “But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” His forgiveness of us through the sacrament of Reconciliation gives spiritual health to a sick soul so that we “may have life in his name.”  As it says in psalm 118:2, “Let the house of Israel say, “His mercy endures forever.”

John 5:1-6.  This epistle begins, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God.”  Belief in Jesus requires that we are no longer people of the ways of this world but rather of the ways of heaven.  In John 3:6, Jesus says to Nicodemus, “What is born of the flesh is flesh and what is born of the spirit is spirit.” Jesus continues in John 3:7b, “You must be born from above.” In today’s epistle, John continues, “For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments.  And his commandments are not burdensome, for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.”  Being born of the Father, as his sons and daughters, demands that we love no only God but also his love for us which is expressed in his loving will and direction over us.  Since Jesus Christ is Lord over us, we are subjects of Jesus and not this world.  “The victory that conquers the world is our faith,” that Jesus is Lord and not this world.  Jesus came through the water of his baptism to begin his work of redemption and then through the blood of his cross to complete our redemption.  We do not have to see with our eyes the actual physically risen body of Christ because we have the Spirit who is “the one that testifies, and the Spirit is truth.”  We have the faith that is given to us by the Spirit and not by sight.  In 2 Corinthians 5:7, Paul wrote, “We are always courageous, although we know that while we are home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.”

 

 

EastB24.  Acts of the Apostles 10:34a, 37-43.  Peter is speaking to Cornelius the Roman centurion and other non-Jews.  He relates how the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was especially anointed by God, worked many miracles, was put to death and was resurrected from the dead by God.  Then Peter said, “Everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

John 20:1-9.  Mary of Magdala must have been grieving very much over the crucified Jesus when she went to the tomb well before dawn.  It seems that the sight of tomb stone having been rolled back startled her, so much that she assumed that Jesus’ body had been taken from the tomb without actually looking into the tomb.  The story of the apostle “whom Jesus loved,” waiting for Peter to arrive before entering the tomb, is quite touching.  The fact that the burial cloths were still remaining indicates that, not only had the body not been stolen, but that the Jesus, on arising, had taken the time to roll up “the cloth that had covered his head” and put it “in a separate place.”  The other disciple “who had arrived at the tomb first” “saw and believed” apparently, that Jesus was not there, but “did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”

Colossians 3:1-4.  “Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”  In John 3:6-7, Jesus said, “What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I told you, ‘You must be born from above.’” While still living on this earth in an earthly body, Jesus calls upon us to live spiritually with Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit into us as the source of our life.  There is no book to read that has steps to follow.  Christ who is the Way will lead us daily through each day.  What else could we expect if the source of life is spiritual and not physical or material?