Easter

3rd Week of Easter, Thursday

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Readings: Acts 8:26–40; Psalm 66:8–9, 16–17, 20; John 6:44–51.

Today’s readings remind us that encountering and drawing closer to God is not just an exterior process, but an interior one as well. Our Lord describes the Father as calling and teaching, but at the same time, clarifies that this doesn’t involve an external and perceptible experience of him. So how does the Father communicate? In our hearts. Somewhere in our soul something moves: an insight, an intuition, and sometimes it can be hard to distinguish this from feelings, which is why in spiritual theology a lot has been written about discernment of spirits. Often this interior communication goes beyond just feelings.

A response of faith to Christ is not born in a vacuum: something inside helps us to see he is worthy of our belief, worthy of our trust, and it’s not just our reasoning or our feelings. Sometimes the fact that we feel called to do something that we don’t want to do shows that whatever is behind it is not necessarily coming from us. A solid interior life means always listening for whatever God wants to tell us in the depths of our soul. The more we listen, the more we gain the ability to distinguish him speaking within us from our anxieties and preferences that at times can try to masquerade as God.

Let’s ask Our Lord today for the simplicity shown by Philip in the First Reading: the Holy Spirit told him to go to the desert route in the south that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza, and he went. And thanks to that interior generosity Our Lord used him to help someone understand what God was trying to tell him through Sacred Scripture, and to bring him to encounter Christ through faith and baptism. Let’s try being like Philip today: just tell the Lord, “I’m listening” and see where he leads you.

3rd Week of Easter, Wednesday

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Readings: Acts 8:1b–8; Psalm 66:1–3a, 4–7a; John 6:35–40.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord invites the crowds, and invites us, to consider our path from here to eternity. We’re all going to live forever; the question is what that eternal life will be like. Our Lord wants us to live contentedly forever, and he expresses that through describing a life where we never hunger again, never thirst again. This hunger and thirst go beyond simple food and drink: contentment means we have everything we’d ever want or need.

We start on that path here and now, and Jesus doesn’t delude us: as we walk this path we’ll still hunger, still thirst. There’ll be trials and difficulties, and we will physically die sooner or later. By becoming flesh he walked that same path to encourage us from here to eternity. In the end he will raise us up, and if we believed in him we’ll live contentedly with him forever. Just as we need physical nourishment to live, he provides us with spiritual nourishment, the Eucharist, to help us along the way, to keep us strong, and to accompany us.

In the light of eternity, where we measure everything we experience in the light of forever, all the trials of this life, great and small, seem brief compared to the eternal joy that is to come. As the First Reading reminds us today, God can make good come out of the worst trials and setbacks if we believe in him. Let’s lift our gaze today from the immediate and pressing needs that surround us and consider the path that Our Lord invites us to walk with him, trusting that he’ll guide us through all of life’s ups and downs if we believe in him.

3rd Week of Easter, Tuesday

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Readings: Acts 7:51–8:1a; Psalm 31:3c–4, 6, 7b, 8a, 17, 21ab; John 6:30–35.

Whenever we receive Communion we hear “the Body of Christ” and respond “Amen” without thinking much about how incredible it is that we are receiving God into our hearts under the appearance of bread. Whenever we genuflect in front of a tabernacle and that little red lamp is glowing nearby we acknowledge our faith that Our Lord is sacramentally present in the Eucharist.

Imagine the crowds hearing the teaching of the Eucharist for the first time and trying to understand it before believing in it. In today’s Gospel Jesus, like in yesterday’s Gospel, is trying to move them from thinking of ordinary bread in their stomachs to thinking of the bread of life. They’re still asking for signs as proof. They want evidence, and when we consider the teaching of the Eucharist evidence does not get us very far.

Our Lord today is asking them to go from what they understand of bread and the thought of endless bread to what they are really looking for: eternal life, not just as living forever, but as living content forever. When we consider our needs and our expectations for God to help fulfill them we can never lose sight of our ultimate need, God, and the means God has given us to fulfill it: believing in his son and receiving him as the Bread of Life. Let’s try believing today even when understanding something God teaches us is challenging, knowing he seeks our ultimate well being.

 

3rd Week of Easter, Monday

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Readings: Acts 6:8–15; Psalm 119:23–24, 26–27, 29–30; John 6:22–29.

A recurring theme in the Gospel of John is that Our Lord performs a series of signs so that people believe in him. In today’s Gospel the crowd goes looking for Jesus after the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, but Jesus knows they are either just curious about what miracle he is going to do next or are placing their faith more in his ability to provide them a free lunch.

Our Lord is inviting the crowd today to have a faith in him that is not just connected with getting results. Sometimes in our relationship with God we treat him more as the guy with the credit card who’ll always treat us to lunch than as our friend. When the credit card is not forthcoming, or the lunch, do we care about the cardholder? Friendship involves give and take; a true friend is with you whether you’re living the high life or penniless, whether you’re healthy or sick, whether you’re on the top of the world or in the depths of despair. When our focus shifts from the person who treated us to lunch to the lunch itself, or its absence, we know something is off.

Our Lord has done a lot for us: the world we live in, the air we breathe, the people we love, our very existence are all thanks to him. Let’s make a resolution today to not have an attitude of “what have you done for me lately?” Let’s believe in him and remember all that he’s done for us, knowing he may not always give us what we want and when we want it, but he’ll always give us what we need.

3rd Sunday of Easter

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Readings: Acts 3:13–15, 17–19; Psalm 4:2, 4, 7–9; 1 John 2:1–5a; Luke 24:35–48.

Sacred Scripture is a narration of salvation history. God through many human authors seeks to communicate a message of love and salvation when that love is rejected. In today’s Gospel, just as with the disciples on the way to Emmaus, Our Lord tries to help the disciples understand what Scripture said about him in order to understand the culmination of salvation history. Whether the disciples were distracted, weary, confused, or disinterested when he first taught them doesn’t matter; in today’s Gospel he opens their minds to understand the Scriptures and reminds them that they have to be witnesses to him as the culmination of salvation history, a mission they are carrying out on Pentecost in the First Reading.

We as members of the Church continue to share the message of salvation that Jesus Christ entrusted to the Apostles. We try to be faithful to what Jesus teaches us and to the testimony that the Apostles handed down to us about him. This touches on two ways in which the Church is considered Apostolic: she is sustained by the testimony of the Apostles regarding Jesus, and she receives the mission to transmit that testimony and be faithful to it. When Jesus opened the minds of the Apostles he gave them a gift of the Holy Spirit to understand Scripture and help them be faithful witnesses to everything he said and did, as well as everything Scripture said about him. As Catholics we believe that the Apostles then handed on this gift of the Holy Spirit to their successors and that apostolic succession continues to this day in the bishops, another reason for which the Church is considered Apostolic. This help of the Holy Spirit in determining the authentic teachings on faith and morals in Scripture and tradition is called today the Magisterium.

Let’s pray for all members of the Church to be faithful recipients and witnesses to the testimony about Jesus handed down to us from the Apostles. Let’s ask Our Lord to open our minds to understand everything Scripture says about him in order to communicate it to others.