Cycle B

Sixth Sunday of Easter

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Over the last few weeks of Easter readings we’ve seen the Church gradually understand that the Gospel was meant to go beyond the confines of Judaism to other cultures and, ultimately, to every culture, including Cornelius. In today’s First Reading we see one of the culminating moments in the early Church: the Holy Spirit helping the first disciples to take the Gospel everywhere.

With this reading we see a glimpse of what we’ll celebrate in two weeks on Pentecost Sunday: God the Holy Spirit gives life and growth to the Church, often unperceived except with the eyes of faith, and even then in subtle ways. The Holy Spirit also helps the bishops, the successors of the Apostles, to bring souls to the Church and to baptism in Jesus’ name, because God’s action, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, always leads to unity.

Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help us over the last two weeks of this Easter season to take our Christian living to new frontiers in God’s service and sharing the Gospel.

Readings: Acts 10:25–26, 34–35, 44–48; Psalm 98:1–4; 1 John 4:7–10; John 15:9–17.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

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When you look at a wall covered in ivy it’s hard to see the vines and roots underneath and know where each vine in the vast mesh of foliage starts and where it ends. If you see a brown patch, with the leaves dried and curled up, you know somewhere the connection was severed and the vital sap was cut off to all the vines that had spread from it. In our vital communion with Christ, if we cut ourselves off from him we know that our life will start to wither, and the lives of others as well. The Second Reading encourages us today that if we believe in Our Lord and love one another as he has taught us we’ll stay connected.

In today’s Gospel Jesus describes the vital communion that we share with him using the image of a cultivated vine. Christian life is not just like an ivy, where the source is not easily seen, the growth just seems to spread everywhere, almost parasitically, the contribution is not much more than just a weed covering a wall and beautifying it superficially, and the individuals are lost in the green. Like a grapevine the source is seen (the trunk), fruit is expected (grapes), work is needed so that it bears fruit more abundantly (pruning), and the vines, winding and spreading, have an individuality that is all their own.

A Christian life always shows that it is rooted in Christ. It is measured by the fruits of faith, confidence, and love that John speaks of in today’s Second Reading. An in order to achieve abundant and fruitful growth it involves the cultivation of virtue and pruning (self-mastery and sacrifice). At the same time it doesn’t lose something of the wild: a Christian life doesn’t annihilate the personality of the Christian living it, but, rather, helps him or her to grow more fruitfully in a wonderful symbiosis with God. Let’s ask Our Lord today how we can show the world a need for him, and how we can abide in him not only for life, but to bear much fruit.

Readings: Acts 9:26–31; Psalm 22:26–28, 30–32; 1 John 3:18–24; John 15:1–8.

4th Sunday of Easter

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Readings: Acts 4:8–12; Psalm 118:8–9, 21–23, 26, 28–29; 1 John 3:1–2; John 10:11–18.

Our Lord describes himself in today’s Gospel as the Good Shepherd. A good shepherd cares so much for his sheep that he is willing to lay down his life for them. A person hired to do such a job would just say “this is not in my contract” and abandon them. Even the owner of the sheep might write them off as the wolf drew close, thinking to himself, “I’m insured,” or “I’ll just need to write this off as a loss on my tax returns.”

The Good Shepherd shares his life with his sheep. He’s not indifferent to their trials and sufferings, so he’s not indifferent to their death. He’d rather die first. That attitude goes beyond just business or even obligation: Jesus says he willingly lays down his life for us, his sheep. He cares about each one of us.

Let’s try to show our gratitude today by letting him lead us in humility wherever he wants to lead us, knowing it’ll always be toward more verdant pastures.

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.

Second Sunday of Easter

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Readings: Acts 4:32–35; Psalm 118:2–4, 13–15, 22–24; 1 John 5:1–6; John 20:19–31.

Our Lord shows his wounds today in the Gospels to the disciples and says, “Peace Be With You.” They’d all abandoned him when he needed them, and showing those wounds could have been to shame them, but Jesus wanted to communicate a message of mercy, not condemnation.

Sometimes we forget that we’ve been forgiven. Jesus in showing his wounds today says, in a sense, “what happened, happened, but be at peace, I forgive you.” Every sin we commit wounds Our Lord, and if we don’t realize that, obviously we’re not going to be asking mercy from anyone, and not showing much mercy when others hurt us.

Conversion means realizing we’ve gone off-track and hurt people along the way, including the people we love. Our Lord is always waiting for us to turn back to him and to offer us his peace in order to get us back on track. In every sacrament of Confession we acknowledge that we’ve hurt Christ and hurt others: we acknowledge the wounds and Christ tells us to be at peace, because all is forgiven. When we remember all the mercy we have been shown it helps us, in turn, to be more forgiving toward others. Let’s show Our Lord today that we appreciate his mercy toward us by being more merciful and helping to spread the peace of Christ, so that we can all be, as the First Reading reminds us, “of one heart and mind.” Let’s never forget that we’ve been forgiven.