1. For Masses this weekend, I'm going to do a 9:00 Mass at OLA and an 11:00 am at St. Anthony's. Tune in for the livestream on the parish facebook page, or you'll be able to watch it afterwards at the parish website.
3. I offered Mass today for those who have died without a funeral Mass (by Rosemary Brown) and for all of you.
Reflection:
The first reading today continues to draw from the early chapters of the book of Acts. In today's installment, St. Peter and St. John cure a cripple, at which point the Jewish leaders call them in to investigate them. St. Peter then notes that they
are being examined today about a good deed done to a cripple. His comment echoes Jesus' own comment from the Gospel of John:
I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me? I find this consistent reaction
against goodness fascinating. It reminds me of a line that a friend in seminary was fond of quoting: the world rejects those who are very bad ...
and those who are very good. What a mysterious occurrence that exceptional goodness would startle and threaten the world. Yet it does. What is the reason for it? Perhaps one is the basic human temptation of pride, such that any one superior to you is viewed with suspicion, fear, and dislike. In addition, though, it could be that someone's greatness reveals and perhaps reminds us of what we could and should be. A great man or woman, a great saint, forces us to remember who we should be. It reminds us of our exalted calling. If our heart is trying to escape from that call and drown it out, then the saint is an unwelcome amplifier of the truth. St. John laments this fact in his Gospel:
people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For ourselves, we must remember that goodness is not automatically attractive. We must train ourselves, and allow ourselves to be trained in
desiring goodness, so that we recognize and love it when it comes.
Next St. Peter attributes the healing of the cripple to Jesus, and then professes the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Peter's confidence here is astonishing. Imagine being called in by the police for questioning, having your lawyer advise you about the most sensible way to answer. His advice would certainly not be to identify yourself with their arch-enemy! But that's what Peter does.
In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead; in his name this man stands before you healed. He fearlessly insists that the one they condemned to death is the one whose power healed the cripple.
The shift of approach is remarkable. Before his passion and death, Jesus was very careful about speaking about his identity. His role as the Messiah was kept under wraps. Whenever he did talk about it more openly, he almost always followed it up by talking about his passion and death. He never wanted that connection obscured. Then when the passion did come, Jesus spoke the most openly, because now the connection could not be missed. So too after the cross and Resurrection. Peter proclaims a crucified Lord. There is no question of Jesus being a political or military king. His kingdom does not come in a brute enforcement of his own will, but in enduring his cross, suffering his passion, and by passing through death. So, too, the lives of the saints show that their heroic sacrifices led them to holiness. Their selfless love brought them to the heavenly realms. Political power and military might did not accomplish the real goal of their souls. For us, too, then, in this Octave of Easter, we must constantly hold this truth before our mind's eye. We must accept that we must become like little children, take up our cross, lose our life for his sake. Whenever we think, "If things could just be this way, then all would be well..." aren't we thinking of Jesus as a political savior? Aren't we asking him to fix the external world, rather than our internal soul? Salvation comes from the inside - out.
St. Peter next says,
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. St. Peter's words means that Jesus is for everybody. He did not come for a class, a specific group, only the rich or only the poor, just the smart or just the average, simply the kind or only the cruel, only people of the past, or only a certain race. He came for all people of all time. Put this way, the point sounds very acceptable and inclusive. But it seems to me that it includes a punchier edge as well. It means also that Christ came for everybody. He came for the Buddhist and the Muslim. He came for the atheist and the agnostic. He came for the materialist and the magician.
There any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved. Whenever we meet anyone who is not a follower of Christ, we can know that Christ is still searching for them. We can be sure that Christ desires to share himself with that person. Christ came for all, and so all are meant for him. Christ is not content to allow a soul to wander in the desert without the streams of living water that he provides. So neither should we.
May we imitate St. Peter's zeal in proclaiming the risen Christ in the world, knowing that Christ came for everyone.