Monthly Archives: April 2021

Reflecting on John 10: 1-18

Is anybody besides me worried that, once the pandemic is officially over, and the restaurants, and schools, and libraries, and gyms are all back to the Roaring Twenties, our churches won’t recover the numbers they had before?

I’m worried that it was so easy to stay home on Sunday and worship virtually that, once the virtual Masses are no more, the staying home will remain. With all my heart I hope not, because the Good News is that we have SO MUCH that the world needs, now more than ever.

As we all emerge from the darkness of shutdown into the light of traffic, and sports contests, and catching up with family and friends, will we yearn for that spiritual connection with our parishes, with the hymns we sang in community, with the hundreds of vital good works in which every parish engages?

Of course yes. Just this past weekend I saw parishioners I didn’t know before the shutdown. I met them on ZOOM, in classes our parish held as one of its many creative approaches to keeping us connected. It was such fun to meet these new friends in person! There must be dozens of new friends I’ve made through these ZOOM events. We’ve all said we can’t wait to finally meet, face to face (or mask to mask), when this is all over.

What good is there in knowing Jesus, the Good Shepherd, if the sheep don’t come when they hear his voice? The world is desperate for the healing and joy that we sheep can bring to the world in his Name. Let’s all fill our churches again, that the world might live.

How do you hear the Good Shepherd calling you?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Lk. 24: 35-48

The Lebanese-American writer Kahlil Gibran had it right, I think, when he spoke of grief. He described death as an incense bead which doesn’t break open until a loved one’s death. Then its perfume fills the room. “Death is the revealer of life,” he said. It’s only at death that the fullness of someone’s life breaks open.

All of a sudden we see them more clearly, and with so much more love (and longing) than we even did in life.

I suspect that happened for the disciples of Jesus. After his horrible death, the fullness of his life, and the meaning of his death, broke open. Now they had the rest of their lives to regret not loving him better, not staying and praying with him in the Garden, not fleeing from the Cross but, instead, staying and dying with him.

Maybe that’s what they were all saying, through their heartbreak and tears, that Easter evening. They may have been remembering, over and over, the precious moments they shared with him in his life, and accusing themselves of the grossest ignorance in not understanding who he was, and to what he had called them.

And then. Two disciples from Emmaus came running into that Upper Room with the most astonishing news. He’s alive! And we recognized him in the Breaking of the Bread! And no sooner had they announced this glorious news than Jesus Himself stood among them. And suddenly, nothing was ever the same again.

Are you longing for a deceased loved one? Imagine them just entering into your room right now. Oh, what endless joy! They are alive.

Trust this vision. Trust Jesus. They are alive.

How do you experience the presence of your deceased loved ones?

Kathy McGovern © 2021

Reflecting on John 20: 19-31

Thirty years ago my cousin Patty, the purest soul I’ve ever known, was on her way to Marianne Williamson’s class A Course in Miracles in the Bay Area. Stepping off the bus, she was approached by an armed assailant. Doing as she’d been trained to do while living in a dangerous city in dangerous times, she dropped her purse and ran for her life. He shot her in the back anyway. Risen One, where was your MERCY then?

Three weeks ago another young man suffering from mental illness, armed to the teeth with combat weapons he bought legally, murdered ten beautiful humans in a grocery store. Risen One, where was your MERCY then?

Here in Colorado, of course, we’ve lost the Triple Crown. We can’t go to high school, the movies, or the grocery store. Young men suffering from mental illness, but clear-headed enough to plant bombs and hide assault weapons, have stripped us of the slightest veneer of safety we may feel for ourselves or for those we love. O Risen One, where is your MERCY now?

Well, the MERCY is here with us, holding out his pierced wrists and exposing his punctured side. Here, he says to us, touch my wounds. Feel my agony. Now hold out your hands and let me touch yours.

Okay. I’ll take that invitation.  Here, Jesus. Feel my wounds. I can’t look at those darling young faces, those dear older faces, and please, please don’t make me hear one single thing about the people who love them.

He touches my wounds, and holds my bleeding hands, and my broken heart. And we both weep. That’s where the MERCY is now.

Where do you most need to feel God’s MERCY now?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Acts 10: 34a, 37-43

Why didn’t everyone living in Jerusalem see the Risen One?  Acts says: God…granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us…(10: 40-41). I know that if I had seen Him hanging on the cross that awe-full Friday, I would have felt cheated that he didn’t appear to me, RAISED and RADIANT, that glorious Sunday.

Even Peter and the Beloved Disciple, after racing to the tomb, left without actually SEEING Jesus. It was only Mary Magdalene, whose story follows today’s gospel in John 10: 11-18, who actually saw him, and at first even she mis-took him for the gardener.

Balaam, the famous “seer,” couldn’t see God’s huge angel right there in the road (Nm. 22). And Elisha’s servant couldn’t see God until Elisha prayed that God would open his eyes to see the hills full of angelic chariots all around (2 Kgs. 6:17).

Most telling of all, Jesus’ own disciples spent Easter Sunday on the road with him and didn’t recognize him until the Breaking of the Bread (Lk. 24: 13-35). Jesus eventually appeared to over five hundred believers, according to St. Paul, who admits he got the story from Peter (I Cor. 15: 5-8). We have seen the Lord! they cried with joy. Lucky them.

But maybe he HAS appeared, to everyone who longed for him that day, and the billions who have longed for him since. Maybe we have felt his Presence, and sensed his nearness, countless times in our lives.

So let me ask you: who was that with you, in the Delivery Room, on your First Communion Day, at the graveside of a loved one? Ah. Of course. Lucky you. You have seen the Lord.

Where do you look for the Risen Lord these days?

Kathy McGovern ©2021