Tracking the Movement of the Spirit

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Risen Lord, help us find a lasting home with you and all those who have gone before us, tracking the path of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

One of the advantages of tracking hurricanes is the possibility of preparedness; knowledge of the storm’s path and power allows those in close proximity to travel a predetermined escape route to safety. A very different type of “tracking” is set before the praying assembly today. We, the 21st century disciples of Jesus, are invited to track how the great and powerful breath of the Spirit moved the church’s mission slowly but surely beyond Judah to the rest of the then known world. The inevitable spread of the Gospel and the amazing growth of the church in apostolic times prove tiny beginnings can result in astonishing ends.

In the 1st reading (Acts 13:14, 43-52) we see Paul Barnabas and others working diligently to bring the good news to all of Jesus’ sheep (Gospel, John 10:27-30). We shall follow their movements when they are met with welcome as well as when their best efforts are rejected. We shall marvel as the universal embrace of the Gospel reaches out to gentiles as well as Jews. We shall learn what it means to persevere despite persecution and we will be challenged to ask ourselves, if we see any reflection of those first evangelizers in our own efforts for the sake of the Gospel.

Do we rejoice as they did at the very thought of proclaiming the good news and witnessing to its truth, justice and love? Can we set aside, as they did, our preconceptions, our racial biases, our penchant for judging the worthiness or not of others? Can we persist in embracing Gospel values and in living lives that will necessarily contribute to our lack of popularity within the current culture.

As we reconnect at this time each year with those who have gone before us in the faith and as we track their efforts and measure ourselves against the standards they set, we are also to be encouraged, as they were, by the visions of John the Seer (Revelation, 2nd reading for Easter 4,5,6). To those first evangelizers and to us, John’s visions hold out the hope that when, at last, our lives have been spent in service of the Gospel, we shall find a lasting home with God and Jesus and all those who have gone before us, tracking the path plotted by the Spirit, wherever, whenever and however it may lead.

AM I BEING CALLED? How am I being called to feed the lambs of Jesus? Could it be as an ordained or consecrated person? If God is calling you, contact Fr. Hansoo Park 416-968-0997 Email vocations@vocations.ca or visit www.vocationstoronto.ca

 

FEED MY SHEEP… In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells Peter again and again, “If you love Me, feed my sheep.” He says the same to each of us, “If you love Me, use the gifts I have given you to serve your brothers and sisters.”

Feeding and Tending

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Risen Lord,  help us make our love for you real by feeding and tending others. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep. With this triple imperative, the risen Jesus opened the way for Peter to come out of his despair and experience redemption. He who had vehemently denied his discipleship (Jn. 18:17, 25-27), as well as any association with Jesus, was given the opportunity to renew his love for Jesus. Jesus’ words to Peter not only helped to assuage his guilt, but they also set the agenda for the rest of his life - and ours. “Feed my lambs” would become the agenda of the post resurrection church.

Feeding Jesus’ sheep would challenge Peter to abandon his ancestors’ centuries–old practice of remaining separate from non-Jews and to accept all people as belonging to the one flock of Christ. That would challenge Peter, as is illustrated in today’s Gospel (Jn. 21:1-19), to welcome all into one boat (bark of Peter) and the one net of salvation. Feeding and pasturing Jesus’ sheep also meant that Peter and others would work so that John’s vision of the Lord, as shared in today’s second reading (Rev. 5:11-14) would eventually be realized and that the voices of every creature would unite to render praise and honour and glory to Jesus and to God forever.

Feeding Jesus’ sheep would soon find Peter exercising a healing ministry in the same manner of Jesus. For healing, teaching, and preaching in Jesus’ name, i.e., for feeding the hungers of Jesus’ sheep, Peter and the other disciples would incur the wrath and the hostility of the authorities, first of Jerusalem and then of Rome. Their bravery and boldness in the face of such personal danger is evidenced in today’s first reading (Acts 5:27-32).

While contemporary believers can readily appreciate the challenge of Peter’s agenda, what are the ramifications of that agenda for us today? For the answer to that question, Henri Nouwen says, first we have to ask ourselves Jesus’ question: “Do you love me?” Perhaps another way of asking that question would be, “How do you love my least ones?” Jesus equated loving him with feeding and tending his sheep. Therefore let us, as church, be renewed in our resolve to make our love for Jesus real by feeding and tending others.

AM I BEING CALLED? How am I being called to feed the lambs of Jesus? Could it be as an ordained or consecrated person? If God is calling you, contact Fr. Hansoo Park 416-968-0997 Email vocations@vocations.ca or visit www.vocationstoronto.ca

Easter Experience

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Risen Lord,  transform us radically from within and make us ministers of your forgiveness. Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Easter, the central feast of the year, is unique in many respects. It is the only feast that lasts for 50 days in the church calendar. St. Athansius called the seven weeks from Easter to Pentecost “the great Sunday”. The first inclination of the church’s instinct to extend this feast comes in the way we celebrate the Octave of Easter, the first 8 days of the 50. The celebration of Mass on each of those days takes place almost as if we were still on Easter Sunday itself.

What did the Easter experience mean for those earliest Christians and what it continues to mean for us, here and now? Jesus lives; fear not! The early Christians experienced and appropriated the freedom from fear achieved by Jesus-risen. This fact is admirably illustrated in the radical transformation that overcame them. The frightened became fearless preachers of good news and ministers of God’s forgiveness for sinners. What made the difference in their lives? Jesus, who died and rose to life and who in that saving act, conquered the power of fear. Unfortunately, however, fear continues to be the great human leveller. Everybody is fearful of something: fear of failure, fear of hurting or being hurt, fear of loss, fear of not knowing love, fear of pain, fear that what I believe in and hope in may not be so. But the message and the truth of Easter is “Fear not!”. These are empowering words. Freedom from fear is the achievement of the resurrection and the experience into which each of us has been welcomed by the victorious Christ.

Jesus is risen, explained the late, great Karl Rahner and the world with him. Because of this everything is different and we are too. Death is no longer a final stopping place but a passage to life that does not end. Because Jesus lives, death should no longer strike fear into our hearts. “There is nothing to fear”, says the risen Jesus in today’s 2nd reading from Revelation (1:9-13, 17-19). Aware that fear and peace cannot commingle in the human heart, “Peace”, says the Risen Jesus in today’s Gospel.

And yet, despite all these assurances and despite the fact that the imperative “Fear not!” and other similar admonitions against fear are repeated literally hundreds of times in the scriptures, we continue to allow fear to have the upper hand. Why? Could it be that we have yet to welcome Jesus-risen, the embodiment of forgiveness, into our lives?

WHAT WILL IT TAKE? Thomas believed because he saw Jesus. What will it take for you to respond to God's Call to priesthood or consecrated life? If God is calling you, contact Fr. Hansoo Park 416-968-0997 Email vocations@vocations.ca or visit www.vocationstoronto.ca

Easter People - Fearless People

Message from Fr. Jose Koluthara, C.M.I.

Risen Lord, help us live the Easter joy in our day-to-day life.  Amen.

My Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“We are an Easter People; Alleluia is our song.” This declaration was made almost 15 centuries ago by St. Augustine as an expression of Easter joy. But living our joy and enunciating our faith in Jesus’ resurrection in our day-to-day existence is a big challenge.

With regard to this daily challenge, Latin American theologian Jon Sobrino shares a personal memory in his book “Christ the Liberator”. About 30 years ago, Sobrino was present at a mass during which some of his fellow Jesuits were professing their religious vows. At the celebration, Ignacio Ellacuria (one of the Jesuits who were murdered for the faith in El Salvador, Nov. 16, 1989) spoke of the importance of following Jesus by living as already risen beings. Sobrino saw that he was accustomed to Ellacuria’s liking for historicizing the Christian faith.

Jesus resurrection in history means that we can continue to hope in a world grown dim with despair. In raising Jesus, God liberated an innocent, unveiled the injustices done against him and crowned his saving sacrificial death with victory and life. To live as risen beings in history is to share in all that God has done in Jesus and for Jesus.

Living as risen beings also means living free from fear. Fear must never again be the motive for anything we do or do not do. At various times and in variety of ways, we fear deprivation, boredom, loneliness, failure, suffering, but at the root of all these fears, insists David Knight, is the fear of death. Without our belief in resurrection death is the utter end of all; it is absolute loss. But through our baptism into the dying and rising of Jesus, death is absolute gain. Thereby we live as risen beings forever.

Marvellous was the transformation from fear to fearlessness in those who first experienced the power and reality of Jesus-risen. They learned to readjust their priorities, concentrating not on the passing things of earth but on the things that are above (Col. 3:1-4, 2nd reading). They could powerfully preach the good news of salvation (Acts 10:34, 36-43, 1st reading). Their experiences with the crucified Messiah and with the empty tomb (Jn. 20:1-9) will provide renewed impetus for our own continued growth in faith and our commitment to live as risen beings until Jesus comes again.

HERALD THE GOOD NEWS The Lord is risen, it is true! Through our baptism He calls us to proclaim new life to the world. Pray for those who herald the Good News as priests, brothers and sisters. If God is calling you, contact Fr. Hansoo Park 416-968-0997 Email vocations@vocations.ca or visit www.vocationstoronto.ca