We are still in the "great Easter Sunday" of the Easter Season - Christ is risen, alleluia!
Rx. "Indeed, He is truly risen, alleluia!" Jesus is hour hope.
Acts: Trouble among first Christians, all Jews, when Gentiles became Christians.
Problem: Jesus came from the Father to bring a new way of thinking and living.
Cf. Genesis: friendship between God and first human beings.
Jealousy of demon who wanted to spoil this friendship we had with God.
The temptation was to stop trusting in God.... That first friendship was all about trust in God's love. See the dialogue between the demon and the human... "No, you won't die; you will be like God and know both good and evil." I.e. there's something missing.
That is our human condition: we tend to feel that something is missing, but we look for it everywhere except in God. The Father sent his Son to become human, Jesus, and for him to accept to be mistreated and killed in order to show us that the Father's love is real and we can count on it. What more could He do for us?
Jesus: "Whoever loves me will keep my word."
How do we know that we love someone? See me as young man visiting my parents; while others didn't visit their parents. How can we love someone if we don't care for them?
Loving others requires forgiveness, because we are imperfect. I have asked for forgiveness countless times and have given forgiveness countless times. If I refuse to forgive even one person, the doors of my heart are shut. Once the doors of my heart are shut, nothing can go in, and nothing can go out. Jesus came to unlock the doors.
We cannot forget injuries because our memory remembers. Still, we need to forgive, and to forgive simply means to let it go, to drop it. Every time the memory returns, once again it is an opportunity to forgive, and to ask God to bless the one who hurt me.
This is what makes possible the joy of Easter, the joy which is a foretaste of Heaven. In Heaven our joy will be complete because everyone is forgiven, and everyone forgives everything and everyone.
The Holy Trinity is one God, a very unique Being, whose principle quality is to give themselves. The Father gives Himself to us in Jesus. Jesus gives Himself to us in his Word and in Holy Communion - much as a mother gives her substance to her baby whom she nurses at her breast - so, Jesus gives us his divine substance in Holy Communion with Him in his Body and Blood. The Holy Spirit gives Himself to us constantly, day and night.
The Holy Spirit brought us here today. We are in a church building, but the real church is not the building but the assembly. That is the meaning of the word church - assembly. We are God's assembly everywhere in the world, but our assembly is most visible when we come together in the Holy Spirit. Here Jesus feeds us with his Word and his Body and Blood.
Then, Jesus sends us back out into the world to be his missionary disciples. People ask, "Where is God? If God is good, why does He permit wars, poverty, illness, and death?" God does choose to remain invisible, but He relies on each and every one of us to be his "secret agents" in the world. When we encounter others, listen to them, and chat, we can give witness for the reason of our hope in Jesus. God becomes visible to others every time we give our testimony to his love and mercy.
Christ is risen, alleluia!
Further thoughts from another Sunday....
The meaning of the Hebrew word "HOSANNAH!" - MP3 FILE (2023 recording - prayer over the gifts, the Preface, an explanation of the word Hosannah, and the Eucharistic Prayer in Special Circumstances.)
