1. --
Lanie LeBlanc OP
2. -- Carol &
Dennis Keller
3. --
Brian Gleeson CP
4. --
Paul O'Reilly SJ
5. --(Your
reflection can be here!)
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1.
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5th Sunday of Easter 2022
In today's Gospel according to John, Jesus tells the
apostles: "I give you a new commandment: love one another.
As I have loved you, so you also should love one another."
One important question throughout the ages has been "what is
love?" An even more important questions for disciples of
Jesus is "how did Jesus demonstrate his love?" Only with
this latter knowledge can we attempt to do the same and
follow Jesus's command.
If we look at what the Scriptures tell us about Jesus, we
can easily see that Jesus gave his full time and attention
to those he encountered. Whatever he did, Jesus did it
prayerfully, intentionally, and in accordance with the will
of the Father. I think that those 5 characteristics are
Jesus's marks of how he loved and how we are to love.
Reviewing the stories in Scripture will show those main
characteristics throughout Jesus's life. Jesus interacted
with people in many different ways. Sometimes he was
comforting and sometimes he was challenging. Each of us has
a favorite Scripture story or two about Jesus. Taking some
time to match a favorite story with those characteristics
might give us insight into how we might incorporate those 5
characteristics into our daily lives.
For busy modern day people, just focusing on the
characteristic of "time" would be life changing for all
concerned. Looking at "attention" might put the cell phone
business out of business! Increasing our prayer life would
benefit us all spiritually. Actually making conscious
choices and doing things more intentionally than robotically
would definitely change relationships. Purposefully seeking
the will of the Father would bring us and those we love
closer to our Creator.
Cooperating with the grace from the Holy Spirit would
have a very marked effect on each of us personally and on
those we encounter. Jesus's kind of love, embraced by each
of us, would change the world even more so than it already
has. Love does make the world go round; how can you be on
board, Jesus's way?
Blessings,
Dr. Lanie
LeBlanc OP
Southern
Dominican Laity
lanie@leblanc.one
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2.
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Fifth Sunday of Easter May 14 2022
Acts 14:21-27; Responsorial Psalm 145; Revelation
21:1-5; Gospel Acclamation John 13:34; John 13:31-35
There is an interesting line in the first reading from
Acts. It is one of those lines that our ears do not
particularly like. So, there is a fogginess that silences
our ear drums when this Scripture is proclaimed. "It is
necessary for us to endure many hardships to enter the
Kingdom of God." Just maybe it is a good thing that we were
baptized as infants, so we did not have make a decision
about "hardships." Maybe it was merely a culturally expected
event that motivated our parents’ taking us to the font –
maybe they were not listening either. Who wants hardships?
Maybe Luke, in writing this passage in the Acts of the
Apostles, was just talking about that time just after Jesus
left us to head home to heaven. The Roman emperors were not
exactly pleased to be knocked off their divine thrones by
this wandering Jew in rebellious Palestine. Lots of blood
was being spilt with stones by Jews and by Romans in
coliseums. The Christians became the bad guys of the time
and frequently were victims of violence. They were weird.
They stopped going to orgies. They gathered to listen to
some writings, they shared a meal; they said they ate the
body and drank the blood of their model, this Jesus. They
claimed this Jesus had died and after three days came out of
the tomb in which he had been laid. Preposterous! And worst
of all they were not like the world where everyone could be
counted on to think only about themselves. These Christians
loved each other and took care of each other. Imagine that!!
They took pains to know each other – widows and orphans were
esteemed members of their communities. No one could depend
on them acting for their own benefit. Their attitude was
terrible for the economy. For these Christians it was always
about the community, those people called together. And, wow,
they were willing to die for what they believed. It was that
important to them. In our time Christians mostly seem to be
riding pretty high in the saddle, enjoying their status as
followers of that Jesus. We claim to be a Christian nation.
We claim to follow the Christ – mostly trailing after this
Jesus at some great distance.
The question becomes simply this: are we really following
Jesus who was willing to die for the God’s message that
conflicted with the culture of the world? Oh, yes, we know
the saying that we should love our neighbor just as we love
ourselves. If we hate ourselves does not empower us to hate
our neighbor? This love of self and love of neighbor is
overridden by what Jesus tells us in this Sunday’s gospel.
Do we notice the slight change in wording? This is no longer
– love your neighbor as you love yourself. He changes this
and in the light of the crucifixion, this becomes much more
difficult. Jesus, in John’s gospel this weekend says: "A new
commandment I give you. As I have loved you so you should
love one another. This is how they will know you are my
disciples if you have love for one another." Okay, then!
Just who is willing to be betrayed by friends, be condemned
in a trumped-up trial, be the fool for the sport of
soldiers, be scourged and made a phony king with a crown of
awful thorns, and then be murdered in the most cruel manner
known – suffocation nailed naked on a cross between two
thieves? That is the measure of our love for Him. Well, no:
he tells us the measure of the love we should have for one
another is how he loved us. Who can possibly measure up to
such a terribly difficult standard?
How do we measure up on that scale? Surely the end of our
lives is a time of reckoning and measuring our characters.
But the scene is us standing next to Jesus and measuring
ourselves in the shadow of his love for us. Surely, we will
judge ourselves. Matthew’s gospel in chapter 25 tells us how
that goes. Did we feed the hungry, give drink to the
thirsty, cloth the naked, visit the sick and those
imprisoned, give shelter to the homeless? That is our
measure. Be assured getting to that depth of character and
love of the Lord is a life-time project. Be as well assured
that we grow in that type of Jesus-character over time and
with focused efforts. But only if we let go of that
enslaving belief that it is everyone for themselves. It is a
lot more than following a bunch of commandments and rules.
We would like that as rules give us definition. And when we
go through the adolescence of our living, we need rules.
That is a time of great questioning and rules keep us from
going into the chasm of anger, violence, and bitterness at
not achieving what others do. This is so contrary to the
rugged individualism that causes us to pursue accumulation
of things, money, wealth, and that ever important influence
and fame. Those pursuits always deteriorate and there is
always more to force us into wrecking our health, our
relationships, and our families. It is a paradox. The more
we give ourselves away, the more it is that we grow and
become more than we were. It is when we come into community
and there discover God among those others in our
communities. Again, how very contrary to the way of the
world which would have us destroy what we are as persons in
the pursuit of "stuff" that does not really have staying
power to encourage, to inspire, to have us go beyond
self-centered idolatry.,
When the way of Jesus, the coming together in love with
our community happens, then it is that we personally and
corporately discover love. And in discovering love,
especially when that love is challenged by struggle and most
assuredly in death, then there we discover God. It is only
when we are noticed as loving one another that we live the
way of the Lord. Antioch was the first place where the
followers of Jesus were called Christians. And those persons
were an amazement to the walkers in the way of the world.
They could not believe what they saw. They exclaimed, "See
how they love one another!"
May it be so in our time and place! For then God will
wipe away every tear from eyes and there will be no more
death, nor mourning, wailing or pain for the old order will
have passed away. The One who sat on the throne says,
"Behold, I make all things new." And the power and energy of
that "new" is the love we have for one another. And in that
sharing of living, we discover the living God who remains
present to us – present only when it is that we discover
what love is and means.
In all this there underlies a truth, a mystery, a wonder.
It is that the Father-Creator of All, the Word that reveals
that Dad, and the Spirit that is love personified cares
about each of us with compassion, mercy, and a loving
kindness we struggle to emulate. "Be at peace, do not be
afraid" is the greeting of the Lord, the Christ. Be at peace
and know that this life is for growing in what we are. These
persons, these three that are so united that they are one
are our ultimate model. When we discover the love that is
the Spirit, we discover God present among us. Death becomes
not a defeat, but a harvest of a life lived in appreciation
of other, especially the other that is Those Three. Death
where is thy sting?
Dennis
Keller
dkeller002@nc.rr.com
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3.
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THE LOVE WE NEED: 5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER C
Acts of the Apostles 13:1-35; Revelation 21:1-5;
John 13:31-35
Some people say they don’t read newspapers anymore
because there’s too much bad news in them. They have a
point. A while back e.g., a national newspaper ran stories
about footballers knowingly or unknowingly taking banned
performance-enhancing substances; a pedestrian killed by a
hit-run driver; the drug cocaine being extracted from items
of clothing being sold for a fortune; a factory collapsing
in Bangladesh and killing two hundred and seventy-three
persons, and hundreds of innocent civilians being killed in
wars. News like that may well turn people off reading
newspapers.
Thank God such bad news is not all the news there is! On
its front page a while back, the same paper ran a story
about Eugene (‘Curly’) Veith, a rich man and a
Christian, aged 94. As business prospered, Curly says that
he ‘used to lie awake at night thinking of the hungry and
homeless children all over the world. So, I decided to give
all my money away to help them!’ About $23 million so far!
Mr. Veith has set up Mission Enterprise Limited to channel
funds to worthy causes everywhere - American Indians in
Colorado, street kids in Bangkok, water wells in East
Africa, land for a school in Queensland!
More than that, with the courage of his convictions about
doing good, he has been going to other rich business people
and challenging them to give generously to people and
projects in need. Clearly this old gentleman has taken
strongly to heart today’s message of Jesus to his friends
and followers, delivered the night before he died for them:
‘I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I
have loved you, you must also love one another. By this love
you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my
disciples’ (John 13:34-35).
At an isolated roadhouse in North West Queensland, two
children aged eight and six tell a visiting traveller about
a play they have staged at their local church. They have
teamed up with a friend to dramatize how Jesus wants us to
love one another. The first child gets a phone call from
Jesus to say he will be coming along that day and will want
some help. The two children are to keep a lookout for him.
Well, Jesus turns up in the guise of the third child who has
hurt her knee and is looking for some first aid. One of the
first two reaches out to help and asks the second who is
talking to Jesus on the phone to also help. She says she is
too busy talking to Jesus, and is still waiting for him to
arrive. But in the end, she too goes to help the injured
one. At the end of the day, she receives another phone call
from Jesus. He thanks her for helping him. She says she
doesn’t understand. She waited and waited for him, she
points out, but he didn’t turn up. Then Jesus explains that
he did come after all, in the form of the child that needed
help.
That’s the wonderful thing about the kind of love that
Jesus wants of us. It’s a love modelled on his kind of love.
He showed his love for people in so many wonderful ways – in
kindness, compassion, generosity, patience, perseverance,
endurance, faithfulness and forgiveness. There was no limit
to what his love would give or where it would go.
The love which imitates the love of Jesus for others is
therefore a practical, down-to-earth kind of love. It’s a
kindness and compassion kind of love, a self-forgetting kind
of love. It’s a self-sacrificing kind of love even to the
point, as shown by so many brave soldiers in two World Wars,
as well as in Korea and Vietnam, of giving up their own
lives so that others might be free - free to be good, kind,
unselfish, generous and loving persons too.
It’s our love for others that keeps the great love of
Jesus for people alive in our world today. An American
journalist, watching Mother Teresa caring for a man with
gangrene, remarked to her: ‘I wouldn’t do that for a million
dollars.’ Mother Teresa replied: ‘Even I wouldn’t do it for
that amount, but I do it for the love of God.’
True love is the opposite of selfishness. Selfishness
confines us, keeps us shut in and shut down. It builds
barriers, even walls, between us and others. What frees us
is caring about others and caring for others, being friends,
being sisters and brothers, and being good neighbours. In
short, it’s love alone that frees us from the cage of
selfishness. A doctor, who has shared some of the deepest
moments in the lives of many patients, says that people
facing death don’t think about the degrees they’ve earned,
the positions they’ve held, or the money they’ve made. What
matters, in the end, is whom you have loved and who has
loved you.
Love always demands the best from us and brings out the
best in us. Being loved gives us surprising energy and
courage. Love makes us fruitful, productive, strong and
constant in doing good. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, famous for
her work on the stages of dying, has written: ‘Love is the
flame that warms our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies
passion to our lives. It’s our connection to God and one
another.’
To love is to heal, both those who receive it and those
who give it. To refuse to love is to die. To decide to love
is to live. But love is a choice, not a feeling, and when we
choose to be loving, caring, healing, helping, and forgiving
persons, we experience well-being, contentment, and
happiness.
Freedom from selfishness and freedom to love and care for
others, surely that’s what life is all about! There’s no
other way. So, Jesus insists, strongly insists: ‘Love one
another, as I have loved you.’
"Brian
Gleeson CP" <bgleesoncp@gmail.com>
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4.
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Year C: 5th Sunday of Easter
"By this
love you have for one another
Everyone
will know that you are my disciples."
Our religion is – or should be – the most complete
possible expression in our lives of the love that God has
shown to us. Sadly, it is not always so; there have been
times when religious difference has caused people to fail
enormously in love for one another. Even people who call
themselves Christians have sometimes failed to love other
Christians of a different stripe. Nowhere has that been more
true in our own lifetime than in Northern Ireland, which is
where I happen to come from. Certainly, the conflict in
Northern Ireland is much more complex than we sometimes read
in the newspapers – it is two populations divided by
differences of race, class, economics and social grouping;
but partly also by religious differences. But just now and
again, there is a great moment which transcends that and two
communities find themselves unexpectedly and gloriously
united. And that was the story of my great Aunt Moya.
My great Aunt Moya was a nun - one of the really
old-fashioned sort that they don’t make anymore - probably
for good reasons. When I knew her she was, I think, 89. And,
in the summer of ‘76, great Aunt Moya was coming home from
America to Northern Ireland. At this point, she had been the
Mother Superior of a convent of nuns in New Jersey for about
20 years. So, it was a bit like the Queen coming to visit on
tour: each branch of the family would have to take her for
two or three days and entertain her in a style that would
befit her.
Therein lay the problem - just how to entertain her? In
our little village of Cushendall, only two things ever
really happened: golf and fishing. Neither seemed entirely
suitable for an 89-year-old nun. So my father, bereft of any
sensible ideas, suggested a trip to the local distillery in
Bushmills. My mother was appalled - you can’t take a Mother
Superior to a distillery!
But, we had to do something and she had no better
suggestions. So the great day came and great Aunt Moya
arrived with a 70-year-old minder - both fully kitted out in
the full penguin outfit - black crinoline from tip to toe.
We loaded them into the car and off we went.
Well, I ask you, how were we to know that this was going
to be the one really hot day of the Irish summer? There’s
always one; there is never more than one and you can never
predict when it’s going to happen. But, today was the day.
So, by the time we arrived at the distillery - only about 15
miles down the road - it was already hot. We started the
tour – up iron stairs, around steel gantries, past the
steaming boilers and cauldrons in which the whisky mash was
being fermented, hot and steaming, all under sheet steel
roofs roasting in the hot sun. It was boiling hot, sticky
and unbearably humid. And the tour went on and on and on for
about two hours in the sweltering heat. The two old nuns
stuck to it gamely. Every so they often they had to stop and
have a little rest and fan themselves with their prayer
books. But they were determined to finish what they had
started. Like I said, they don’t make ‘em like that any
more.
Finally, at last, at long last, at very long last, we
came out of the last building, walked down the final gantry
and were back in the car park. All we ever wanted to do was
to get out of the place, go home and have something (or
probably several things) long and cold to drink. Oh, and by
the way, NEVER AGAIN!!!!
But, just as we were poised to flee to the car, our tour
guide said in enticing tones, "now I’m sure you’ll want to
come and spend a few moments in our tasting room".
Well, you could see the upper lips stiffen. And you could
see just one thought going through the minds of the two old
penguins: "once more round for Jesus". And off we trooped,
forlornly and unwillingly, for the one last stop on the
tour.
The tasting room was a fairly snug little bar with maybe
15 or 20 men sitting in little groups and as the two nuns
walked in, the conversation suddenly froze into the most
absolute silence. And we suddenly remembered the other thing
that we should have known: Bushmills is right in the heart
of serious Unionist country – hard, dour, rigid and bible
black. Anyone with the faintest tinge of foresight (by which
I mean anyone who was not my father) would have known that
this is not the place where two nuns in the full
battle-dress of popery could expect an instant welcome.
But the two nuns, fresh from America and unfamiliar with
local intolerances, just didn’t know that. They simply sat
down exhausted at the nearest table to rest. The silence
thickened and darkened, like quick-drying concrete. I
wondered briefly if we were all going to end up as an item
on the Nine O’Clock News.
The barman hesitantly approached their table, obviously
unsure of what he was supposed to do next. He looked to his
left. And he looked to his right. And he found no
inspiration. So he did the only thing he really knew how to
do: he poured – a small tasting-glass of Old Bushmills for
each of the two sisters. The two penguins picked up their
glasses containing the strange unfamiliar orange fluid. They
looked all round the glasses, sniffed suspiciously and
looked at each other. An almost imperceptible nod passed
between them and they both took a tiny sip. They looked at
each other again; there was a rather more perceptible nod
and they both had a slightly less tiny sip. And then another
and another and then a few more and finally, after a couple
of minutes, a positive slurp.
The silence was not broken, but it seemed thinner and
lighter – like quick-drying concrete when you’ve got the
mixture wrong. The barman returned and almost managed a
smile as he refilled the glasses.
Well, 40 minutes later, everyone in the bar was gathered
around the two old penguins and the craic was great. And
they sang for them: ‘Soul of my Saviour’ and ‘Faith of Our
Fathers’. The locals responded with ‘The Old Rugged Cross’
and ‘The sash my Father wore’. And in the following two
hours more was done for the cause of genuine ecumenism than
could be achieved in ten thousand years of theological
commissions. And when we finally came away and took the road
home, we did so with a crate of the oul’ stuff wedged into
the back seat for Auntie Moya to take back to the convent in
New Jersey.
It is funny how even the greatest barriers can be
overcome when people find that they have something in common
- especially when that something just happens to be a taste
for Irish whiskey.
Just for a moment, I would ask each of us to think of our
worst enemy. We all have one - most of us probably have a
selection - I have a photograph album! And just reflect for
a moment and consider what each of us could find in common
with that person. And just what could be possible if, one
day, we happened to call round to see them bringing along
whatever is the equivalent in each of our lives of a bottle
of Old Bushmills Irish whiskey.
"By this love you have for one another (and for a decent
whiskey)
Everyone will know that you are my disciples."
Let us stand and profess our Faith.
Paul O'Reilly,
SJ. <fatbaldnproud@opalityone.net>
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5.
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Volume 2 is for you. Your thoughts, reflections,
and insights on the next Sundays readings can influence the
preaching you hear. Send them to
preacherexchange@att.net. Deadline is
Wednesday Noon. Include your Name, and Email Address.
-- Fr. John Boll, OP