Monthly Archives: May 2009

Reflecting on Acts 2:1-11

Happy Pentecost, church!  And, may I say, well done.  We kept the fast of Lent with care.  Each week we learned about one of the powerful ministries in our parish that is reaching out to the grieving, the sick, the homeless, the pregnant poor.

We celebrated the Great Three Days with all we had.  We kept watch on Holy Thursday, cried as we venerated the Cross on Good Friday, and howled in delight with those who chose to be baptized and come into full communion with us on Holy Saturday.

And oh how we kept the Easter feast!  We rang bells and blew trumpets and sang Easter Alleluias, and listened to seven weeks of Gospel accounts of the resurrected Christ.  And now, today, the ninety days of fasting/feasting find their true target in the center of our hearts.

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in history, (we) will have discovered fire.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What was the best part of the Lent/Easter season for you this year?

Reflecting on Acts 1:1-11

“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” Now there’s a question.  And these are the apostles!  They were with Jesus when he drove out demons, when he laid hands on the sick and healed them, when he forgave Dismas from the Cross—well no, they’d run away by then—and now they were standing with the resurrected Christ as he prepared them for his ascension.  But the question they most wanted answered was “Is this the point where you get your army together and expel the Romans?”

That would take a lot of power, a lot of armies.  But nothing like the power they were soon to experience.  From heaven Jesus was about to send them the Holy Spirit, whose fire would burn—still burn—to the ends of the earth.  And yes, the day came when the Romans left Israel, only to be replaced by other foreign occupiers, and today the Palestinian peoples pray for deliverance from those very Jews who prayed for deliverance themselves.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

How is the Holy Spirit urging me to dream bigger dreams, to build a new heaven and earth?

Reflecting on Acts 10:25

All the ends of the earth have seen the power of God. We sing Psalm 98 all through the Easter season, and Christmas season too.  But I think there is a part of us that doesn’t really believe it.  Peter had a vision about it, and told Cornelius he finally understood it, but the “circumcised believers” with Peter were still astounded that the same Spirit that they were experiencing had actually been poured out on the Gentiles too.

The Gentiles, for heaven’s sake!  They don’t know a thing about Moses, they don’t keep kosher, and who knows how many times a day they break the Law?  And yet they too have seen God’s mercy and power.  It reminds me of Dustin Hoffmann’s grief, after he made the movie Tootsie, that he had wasted so much of his life in pursuit of beautiful women instead of making true friendships with the women he already knew.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

Who in your life might have more wisdom and friendship to offer you than you thought?

Reflecting on John 15:1-8

There is something miraculous going on in our backyard these days.  Our neighbors, ingenious caretakers of the earth, sent the operators of SenseOfColorado.Com over to our long-ignored yard.  They dug out the grass and tilled the soil, and in March they came and planted stuff!  It’s unbelievable!  They are replacing our prickly, dried-out yard with real food!  Yummy.

Branches that stay close to the vine.  Food that bursts out of the ground.  Babies that form silently in wombs (thanks mom!) Heart-stirring men’s choirs and children’s choirs that celebrate those women whose generosity gave us all life.  Ah.  I want to be that seed, scattered and sown, that the world might live.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What fruit is your life producing?

Reflecting on John 10:11-18

Let’s all go to the Holy Land sometime.  We’ll get all of our amazing staff at our parishes and schools, and our choirs, and the hundreds of volunteers who provide thousands of hours of service in so many efforts for those in need.  And let’s take all the kids too.  They can wear their beautiful Baptism or First Communion clothes as we visit Shepherd’s Field, just a few miles from Bethlehem, and we’ll watch the shepherds taking care of their sheep just as they did the night Jesus was born.

We’ll listen to the scholars who live there talk to us about shepherds in ancient Israel, and why Jesus is thinking of them when he reflects on the meaning of His own life in this week’s Gospel.  After we’ve sung Palm 23  we’ll organize a collection for the Bethlehem Food Bank, and then we’ll visit the Catholic church in Jericho, which has been shepherding Christians there since the time of Christ.

Yes, let’s all to Israel someday and seek Jesus, the shepherd of our souls.

Sharing God’s Word at Home:

What else can we do as a parish to be good shepherds in our world?