Bulletins from 2023 (Page 5)

On the night before He died, Jesus’ message to the disciples was clear: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Even as the Lord was facing the Passion, His concern was for the others: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” We continue to hear these words of consolation, hope and promise, the assurance to us of the loving embrace of God, no matter what: “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Just as Thomas, Philip and the other Apostles were troubled and confused, so are we at various times in our lives. The Lord will not give up on us, even as He did not give up on them. And together we encourage one another in our faith. That is one of the beauties of the Christian community, which each of us is privileged to share, wherever we might be at this moment on the continuum of faith.

In the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus describes Himself as the Good (or “ideal”) Shepherd and the “Gate” for the sheep, the One who will lay down His life for the sake of the flock. This biblical image of shepherds and sheep reminds us of King David, who himself was shepherding his father’s flock when he was anointed to be King over all of Israel. Jesus, proclaimed as “Son of David,” is Shepherd- King, the Servant of all. We who follow Him are asked to be the same: authority is for loving service, whether in our homes and families, in our parish and beyond. In the Diocese of San José, “Good Shepherd Sunday.” (the Fourth Sunday of Easter) is the weekend on which an annual collection is taken to benefit the Retirement Fund for our Diocesan Priests. This Sunday was chosen in the hope that parishioners throughout the Diocese might relate the priests who served them for decades in the past to Jesus, the Good Shepherd. There is a lengthy announcement about this collection here in the bulletin. I would ask you to review it when considering if you can make a gift to support the retired and soon-retired priests of our Diocese.

A hymn comes to mind, in the original Spanish: Por la calzada de Emaús un peregrino iba conmigo. No le conocí al caminar; ahora sí, en la fracción del pan. [Along the road to Emmaus a pilgrim was with me. I did not know him when walking; now yes, in the breaking of the bread.] The proverbial “Road to Emmaus” is the age-old story of disciples encountering the Lord who walks with them along the paths of their lives. It also presents the pattern of our worship: breaking open the Scriptures and the Breaking of the Bread. It is through the latter that the former makes sense, as recounted in the gospel account: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” and “And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight.” Jesus does not wait for us to call upon Him or for us to go where we expect Him to be (as in the church). He finds us and walks with us, present to us especially in our time of need. The Risen Lord continues to be present to us. We need to attune ourselves to recognize Him in the Scriptures, the Eucharist and at every moment of our lives.

Easter is so great a feast that it cannot be contained in one day alone. For us, the “day” of Easter extends for a whole week, until today. The Easter Season extends until Pentecost, which we celebrate on May 28. During this past week, we have been hearing gospel accounts of Easter morning and Easter night. In today’s gospel reading, we join the apostles – all of them except Thomas – on the night of Easter and again the following week. They were slow to understand and accept what had happened, even as we might have been. After all, they knew that Jesus had died and was buried; they could not imagine that he was alive again. For us who have celebrate Easter and the Lord’s Resurrection for most or all of our lives, perhaps the opposite is true: we are so used to the idea of Resurrection that we do not appreciate how truly earthshaking it is and what a rupture in the human condition it represents. Psalm 118 captures this reality: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad.” Only God turns death into life. Let us rejoice and let us be glad!

The Blessing of the New Fire and the preparation of the Paschal Candle at the Easter Vigil proclaim that Christ, the Risen One, could not be held by death, and that darkness had no power over the Light of the World. From Palm Sunday until Easter Sunday, we retrace the steps of Christ: acclaimed as King, then Crucified and Risen. Our celebrations proclaim life to be stronger than death, love, more powerful than hatred, and hope that dispels all fear. Please be with us in our prayer! May Easter 2023 bestow on us hope that comes from the Lord. We are challenged, commanded and missioned to be that hope to one another.

Our Holy Week celebrations begin with the ecstasy of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, as the people shouted “Hosanna” to Him. Soon come the calls for crucifixion, His agony – in the garden, along the path to Golgotha, and on the Cross. But there is much more that we commemorate these days. There is the tenderness of the Last Supper, in which Jesus gave His Body and Blood to The Twelve and finally, on the third day, His appearances to Mary Magdalene, to Peter and John and the other disciples, in Jerusalem and on the road to Emmaus. These events happened once in history, and they are not repeated as they are retold again and again. It is we who make ourselves present to these saving events, which makes this week a holy time for us. The liturgies of the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday evening, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night) form one multi -day celebration. Please join us for as many of them as you can. You can find the schedule below. May we and our entire parish family open our lives to these mysteries so that we may share the life the Lord opens to us.

Scholars divide the Gospel of Saint John into two parts: The Book of Signs (from John 1:18 until the end of chapter 12) and the Book of Glory (from chapter 13 until the end of the gospel). The raising of Lazarus from the dead is the seventh, last and greatest sign. While the raising of Lazarus is a sign of Jesus’ Resurrection, the two differ: Lazarus was dead beyond the point of no return, already the fourth day when Jesus arrived at the tomb. Jesus’ restoration of his life was a resuscitation; eventually Lazarus would die again. Jesus’ Resurrection was to a new and permanent life, a resurrection to glory. It is this that is promised to us, and for which we hope. It is the promise of our Baptism and the hope of eternal life. This Saturday, at the 5:00 pm Mass, we celebrate the Third Scrutiny with the Elect who will be baptized at Easter. Jesus conquered sin and death, making the same possible for all who are baptized into Him. May these last weeks of Lent help our Elect prepare for Easter, and may the rest of us find in these days the opportunity to be renewed in our baptismal life.

If we were to doubt that the story of the man who was born blind is about something more than Jesus giving physical sight to the man, we need only reflect upon a line from the first reading, from the First Book of Samuel: “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. Not as you see does God see, because you see the appearance but the Lord looks into the heart.” When we speak of sight in terms of faith, we consider the words, “sight” and “insight,” which is more the function of one’s soul than one’s eyes. The healing of the blind man was an opportunity for him to become a believer, as seen in these few lines from the Gospel of John: When Jesus heard that they had thrown [the man who was born blind] out [of the synagogue], he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered and said, “Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him. Then Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” Following last Sunday’s presentation of Jesus as living water, we encounter today another baptismal theme, that the Lord is light in darkness, both physically and spiritually. Jesus, the New Creation, brings forth living water and light, just as God had created them in the beginning. And he creates them in us, that we might have life to the full, as promised in the raising of Lazarus, in next Sunday’s gospel reading.