1. Year C / 3rd Sunday of Easter 
    Readings: Acts 5,27-32, 40b-41/Ps 30 (R/v 2a) / Revelation 5.11-14/ John 21.1-19

    Before and after videos.
    We have all seen them, or at least heard of them.

    Of the video of the acne-ridden teenager whose face scrubs 
    give her a flawless Beyonce-like skin.
    Or, of television’s Kitchen Crashers
    with its makeovers of bad kitchens 
    into beautiful and functional spaces.
    Or, of videos to trim down, muscle up and sweat it out 
    to look good for your big moment, 
    like a wedding, a graduation,
    or, for me, an ordination.

    Before and after;
    the old and the new; 
    the transformation of what was to what can be.

    Let me invite you to contemplate 
    this theme of before and after, 
    which our readings offer us as a lens 
    to understand Peter,
    but more so, the grace of Easter faith.

    This morning we see two faces of Peter, two phases in his life.
    In our first reading, we see the “after”
    while in our gospel reading we hear the story of “before”.

    First, we see him and the apostles 
    proclaiming Christ Crucified and Risen,
    which the Sanhedrin reprimands them for. 
    Instead of being downcast, they rejoice,
    thankful to suffer for the sake of Christ.
    And they courageously continue preaching Christ.

    This is the “after” picture of Peter:
    he is filled with the Holy Spirit, 
    brave in proclaiming Christ,
    and living out his Christian hope for others.

    Like most videos showing the “after”, 
    this is a happy, inspiring picture 
    of Peter the betrayer transformed.

    But this picture of Peter 
    is only possible because of the story before.

    In our gospel story, we hear of how Peter and the apostles 
    revert to their old ways after the Resurrection:
    they go fishing, fishing in the dark again. 
    And they fish nothing.

    But the Risen Jesus 
    comes to them and reveals himself in two ways.

    First, by providing for them,
    repeating what he told them once, 
    "lower your net to the right side of the boat,"
    and, second, by feeding them with bread and fish, 
    as he once did by multiplying five loaves and two fish.

    In this moment 
    the disciple Jesus loved tells Peter, 
    "It is the Lord."

    And in this moment 
    when Peter recognizes, meets and interacts with the Lord, 
    this moment of reckoning,
    we see the miracle 
    in today’s “before" and "after” picture of Peter.

    We find it in Peter’s response
    to what this reckoning more truly is; 
    Jesus beckoning Peter, in loving forgiveness,
    to look forward to the future
    and not to stay in the past,
    weighed down by his betrayal.

    Peter’s response, 
    his confession of love three times,
    opens up the smallness of his heart
    into an even more expansive love for Jesus,
    This is the miracle.  

    Like the morning light 
    that dispels the darkness,
    which is the setting for this scene,
    Peter’s confession of love 
    opens him up to the Risen Jesus 
    who leads him to no other place but God.

    This is what Easter hope is about.

    And so it is must be for us
    who have encountered the Risen Jesus
    on Easter morning.

    No matter much how much or how little,
    no matter how saintly or how scarred by sin it is,
    what else is our gratitude 
    on Easter morning and in these two weeks of Easter
    but really our love for the Risen Jesus
    who saves us for God.

    Indeed, no matter how limited or how generous 
    our love may have been before,
    as it is now,
    this gratitude, this love 
    did swelled up in each of us then,
    as it has swelled up in us this morning
    bringing us here.

    And this love, dare I say, 
    still fills us up
    as grace that keeps expanding our hearts 
    and empowering us to love not only God better 
    but another and another and another,
    again and again and again.

    This kind of loving saves others 
    and saves us into fullness of life with God.

    There is no finger-pointing in this miracle
    except towards the future, 
    towards the hope-filled call  
    to love God and to live for others.
    This is the call Jesus 
    made to Peter then,
    as he makes to us today,
    when he says,  “Follow me.”

    As we look back 
    on our own Eastertide thus far, 
    is not the “before” story of Jesus beckoning Peter 
    into resurrected faith,
    also the “before” story of who we are today, 
    we who come here to give thanks, 
    come here to feast on him who is our daily bread, 
    come here to let God bless us, 
    break us and give of ourselves to one another?

    Like Peter, hasn’t our “before” story in these past weeks
    been one of the Risen Jesus coming to us
    through family and friends, even strangers
    -- to watch out for you in your recent struggles?  
    -- to provide for others in their poverty?
    -- even, surprisingly to still feed us who struggle  to live better lives?

    If our answers to these questions
    are ‘yeses’ or ‘maybes’ 
    or ‘I hope so’, or even, ‘I’m not sure but I’d like to think so’,
    then the miracle of the opening of Peter’s heart 
    to greater love for Jesus
    is also our miracle, our Easter gift
    in the here and now.

    But we must not hoard
    or squirrel away or possess 
    this miracle selfishly.

    Peter’s expansive love for the Risen Jesus,
    expressed  with holy and daring boldness 
    in lavishing it upon others so that they can live fully,
    is really how we too can give 
    voice to our Easter joy
    and a face to our Easter truth,
    that Christ is risen and we are indeed saved and made new.

    Then, others seeing 
    our Easter faces and hearing our Easter voices
    will perhaps say of us, “see how they are not as before;
    see how after the Resurrection, they are truly human, truly alive!”



    Preached at Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, Dorchester, Boston
    photo:dawn at jervis bay, australia by peter white



    1

    View comments

  2. Year C / Easter Sunday / Easter
    Readings: Acts 10.34a, 37-43 / Ps 118(R/v 24) / Corinthians 5.6b-8 / John 10.1-9


    It is the first day of the week, just before dawn; 
    the darkness is lifting; light is peeking out on the horizon:
    something new is about to happen.

    This is how John begins 
    his gospel passage about Jesus’ resurrection.
    He invites us to contemplate on it 
    as something different, something good,
    something about the newness of Easter in our lives.

    The newness of Easter 
    is also the theme in our first and second readings.
    In our passage from the Acts of the Apostles,
    we learn about the disciples’ new experience 
    of  eating and drinking with the Risen Jesus.
    In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians,
    we hear him calling them 
    to celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection
    with new dough, new unleaven bread.

    How are we to experience this Easter newness? 
    To see it and to relish it?

    I’d like to suggest that we can find our answers in today’s gospel,
    which does not recount or explain Jesus’ resurrection.
    but only describes how the disciples responded 
    to their discovery of the empty tomb.

    Mary Magdala discovers the stone removed from the tomb.
    In fear and anxiety, she reports this to Peter and the beloved disciple.
    They run to the tomb, arriving at different times, 
    and entering, one after the other, they find it empty.

    Their experience is what we are called to 
    also experience this morning.
    With them, we gaze into the empty tomb,
    into a place of nothingness but rolled up burial cloths,
    indicating something had happened.
    Something or someone alive was here but is no longer.
    Something or someone that declares death resides here no more.

    We make this movement with Mary Magdala,
    Peter and the beloved disciple to this space
    where death is not and the possibility of new life is.
    This movement cannot be anything less
    than an experience of entering a new dawn.

    Having seen some evidence, just enough, really,
    what really dawns on the disciples
    is the memory of Jesus speaking about his own resurrection,
    and so they believe what they see.
    More importantly, they do not try to figure out 
    what happened with explanations or reasons 
    but they begin to live what they believe.

    Believing what one sees
    and beginning to live what one believes.

    This is how we are to live as Easter people:
    not with heady knowledge about what the resurrection is, 
    nor with conservative or progressives theologies that explain it,
    but from the depths of our experience 
    of meeting and believing in the Risen Jesus.

    I’d like to think that this is 
    how Pope Francis is living out 
    his Christian life and ministry for us and the world.

    By celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Passion 
    in a juvenile detention centre, 
    and washing the feet of the young inmates there, 
    including those of women and Muslims,
    Francis helps us appreciate 
    what resurrection faith is,
    this faith we are gifted with at Easter.

    This kind of faith is rooted in, even as it springs from,
    an encounter with the Risen Jesus.
    This is a faith that helps us to live in a new way:
    in Christ-like ways of going out
    to those on those on the margins of our society,
    the least, the less and the forgotten among us.

    Francis' words and deeds manifest this kind of faith.
    As much as they  challenge us all
    to be a more authentic Easter people,  
    they forced us to acknowledge that such faith
    cannot have any other source, any other inspiration
    than the Risen Jesus.
    And I believe this is  the wellspring 
    for a profoundly intimate relationship with Jesus.

    Resurrection faith
    also corrects how we see and do things.
    It empowers us with a holy boldness 
    to see as Jesus sees,
    to act as Jesus acts,
    to love as Jesus loves,
    and not to see, act and love in our self-centeredness. 

    This holy boldness is the Spirit of the Risen Jesus
    at work in our lives.
    It imbues us, as it does Francis, 
    with the courage to truly follow Jesus in all things,
    not man-made traditions, rules and laws.

    But, most importantly, resurrection faith
    brings hope to another. 
    Listen to what a young prisoner in California 
    wrote to Francis upon hearing 
    that he had washed the feet 
    of the young prison inmates in Rome:
    "Dear Pope Francis,
    Thank you for washing the feet of youth like us in Italy.
    We also are young and made mistakes.
    Society has given up on us, thank you
    that you have not given up on us."

    Like Francis, we too can make the good news of the Risen Jesus
    come alive in our lives and also in the lives of others
    -- by sharing what we have received 
    with another in need,
    -- by forgiving those who cannot say sorry 
    because they are unable to,
    -- by standing with those 
    society bullies, discriminates and demonizes,
    -- by building up each and everyone in church and in the world 
    through acts of loving one another without self-serving needs.

    When we act in these life-giving ways for another,
    we make visible the invisible body of the Risen Jesus
    to one another and for each other.
    Jesus Christ is not absent:
    he is here in our midst, still with us and always for us.
    We make up his risen body. 

    This then is how we can savour 
    …really, really savour...
    this joyful truth 
    of what we are celebrating so joyfully today 
    and which our Eastertide will continue to proclaim:
    Christ was dead but he is now alive; 
    and we've been saved to live with God!
    Alleluia!




    Preached this Easter Sunday at Blessed Mother Teresa Parish, Dorchester, Boston.
    photo: wallpaperstock.com

    0

    Add a comment

"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
Greetings!
Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
The Liturgical Calendar / Year C
Faith & Spirituality
Tagged as...
Blog Archive
Blog Archive
Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

About Me
About Me
My Photo
is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
Disclaimer
Disclaimer
©adrian.danker.sj, 2006-2018

The views I express in these pages are personal. They do not speak for the Society of Jesus or the Catholic Church.
Loading