Fourth Sunday of Easter

Link to today's readings
Acts 4: 8-12 + 1 John 3: 1-2 + John 10:  11-18

Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

I do not know about you, but I have never met a shepherd. So, to better understand this image of Jesus as the “Good Shepherd”, I decided to do some research.

After all, shepherds play an important role throughout salvation history: One of Adam’s sons, Abel, is a shepherd; the most famous king of Israel, David, is a shepherd. When the Son of God is born in Bethlehem, the first ones to receive 
this great good news that a Savior is born—shepherds tending their flock.

In my research, I came up with the following job description for a shepherd.

Shepherds protect sheep from wolves and other wild animals. They seek out and find the lost sheep. Shepherds lead the sheep to green pastures and running water. In other words, they provide food and drink for the flock.
Finally, a shepherd lives with his sheep. He will not leave them, but will stay by their side in good and bad times, when the sun is shining and when it is raining, when it’s hot and when its bitterly cold. A shepherd even sings to his sheep to assure them of his presence with them, and to teach them to recognize his voice.

So, when Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd, then we know He will not leave us, his sheep. That he will be with us always, even to the end of the world. He will be with us through good times and bad times, by the gift of His Spirit  and in a unique and powerful way through the Eucharist.

As the Good Shepherd, the Risen Jesus becomes our food and drink. He feeds us with the great gift of His Body and Blood, giving himself to us to feed our hunger for God, to quench our thirst for the divine. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus seeks out and finds the lost sheep. He will not rest until he does so. Whenever we are lost in the darkness of doubt or despair, he finds us there, 
and becomes the light for our path. Whenever tears of sorrow or pain cloud our vision and we cannot find our way, he finds us and becomes the Way to joy and peace. He also lives forever, and pleads for us at the right hand of the Father. He prays for us! The Good Shepherd knows each of us by name and knows exactly what we need. How does the Good Shepherd protect us?  He dies so that his friends might live. Remember how he shields his first followers from suffering the same fate as he. In John’s Gospel, when the soldiers come in the dark of night to arrest him, he orders them to free his disciples. “If you are looking for me, let these men go.” Later that same night, as he is being brutally interrogated by Annas, the high priest, who wants to know about his disciples, he will not give them up. Finally, while dying on the cross, he gives his mother to his beloved disciple that she might be protected from harm and cared for.
“Woman, behold your son.” To his beloved disciple: “Behold your mother.”

As the Good Shepherd, Jesus destroys the big, bad wolf called “death” and restores life. The wood of the cross becomes his shepherd’s staff which he uses to fight off the devil, to protect us from the power of evil. As the Good Shepherd, Jesus lays down his life on the cross; he dies so we can follow him through the jaws of death into the fullness of resurrected life. He leads and we follow him to the always green pastures of the heavenly kingdom.

Five times in today’s Gospel passage, Jesus states he will “lay down his life.”
The Good Shepherd does not take away death, but transforms it by laying down his life and thus makes death a doorway into new life.  

At the center of every celebration of the Mass is this saving offering of Christ 
which we remember and by remembering make present. He freely chooses to lay down his life for us because he loves and desires to save us.

The Good Shepherd, Jesus the Christ, lives every day at our side, to protect and strengthen us, to lead us daily by the waters of peace, to free us from the danger of self-centeredness and other sins that drain the very life out of us. Jesus gives himself totally and completely to us out of love, holding nothing back, so we might have the strength to give ourselves away in love of others. Jesus lays down his life, so we might have the power, in Him, to lay down our lives in loving service of others.

So we might say to others by our lives poured out in love, “I will be there for you.” “In good times and bad times, in joy and in sorrow, I will be there.” To protect, to nourish, and to guide. To be a good shepherd….

Father Joseph A. Jacobi

Third Sunday of Easter

Link to today's readings
Acts 3:13-15, 17-19 + Psalm 14:2, 4, 7-9 + 1 John 2:1-5 + Luke 24:35-48

Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

It is perhaps surprising that repentance and forgiveness, acts we much more readily associate with Lent, figure so prominently in all three Scripture readings for this 3rd Sunday of Easter. What do repentance and forgiveness have to do with the Easter Season?

We cannot encounter the Risen Lord in the exact same way that those first disciples do, by “looking” and “touching” and “seeing.” But the Lord Jesus gives us today another concrete way to come to belief in the new life of resurrection.
For repentance—changing the way we think about God—and forgiveness are themselves encounters with the Risen Lord—an experience of our own resurrection. When we change our mind about how the Risen Lord is at work in our life, when we see that he is constantly offering us forgiveness and a fresh start, then we can rise up with him to new life today.

As the Risen Lord, through the power of his Spirit, opens our minds to understand the Scriptures, we see how God throughout salvation history offers the gift of forgiveness. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekkah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Miriam, David and Bathsheba—all experience his forgiveness.

We touch the Risen Lord today and experience his healing touch when we know we are forgiven, that we are given a new lease on life, that we can begin a new life today.

This is risen life—you are forgiven!!  Forgiven!

The first followers of the Lord Jesus taste new life by the gift of his forgiveness.
They experience his saving forgiveness and its results—unity with him—whenever they break bread with him.In fact, in the breaking of bread, in the Eucharistic meal, these broken followers are made whole again, their wounds are healed, and peace washes over them like a river.

By our standards, the offenders, those first followers of Jesus, should have been the ones seeking him out and begging for forgiveness. But it is not that way in this story nor is it ever that way with God. The Risen Jesus seeks out those who have offended him, who have wounded him by their betrayal and unfaithfulness.
He reaches out and passes through locked doors, stony hearts, and walls of guilt and fear to bring the peace of His saving forgiveness. So, for Peter and the rest, their experience of Risen Life is coupled with the gift of forgiveness from the Risen Lord.

That has been one of the messages of the Gospels from the past two Sundays. Both in John’s Gospel from last Sunday and Luke’s Gospel for this Sunday, the Risen Lord comes to his followers to forgive them and gift them with peace. This is how they know Jesus is alive—by knowing they are forgiven and thus being filled with his peace.

The forgiveness they receive from the Risen Lord is not just for what they did wrong. The forgiveness flowing from the wounds of the Risen Lord is much greater and has far-reaching effects. His forgiveness washes away shame and guilt and fear and regret, all of which initially prevent the disciples from recognizing the Risen Lord.

In and through the gift of the Risen Lord’s forgiveness, these first followers of his not only touch him and are touched by him and know he is alive, but his Risen Life pours into them to make them whole. What had been broken—their relationship with the Lord Jesus—is now restored. Separated from him by their sin and by death, they are reunited with Him in Risen Life.

This is Risen Life—“You are FORGIVEN!” And the most regular and most powerful way they touch this life-giving forgiveness of the Risen Lord is in the breaking of bread, in the celebration of the Eucharist.

It is not enough to receive forgiveness—it must be shared. It is never enough to experience the new life of the resurrection—it must be witnessed to by sharing what has been received. This is our witness to the resurrection:  I FORGIVE YOU! Like those first disciples, we are to witness to the Risen Lord living in us 
by the power of His Spirit through forgiving others.

Look at Peter, the forgiven one, preaching forgiveness. Peter, transformed by the forgiveness offered him by the Risen Lord, now tells others they are forgiven, and thus gives witness to the Risen Lord.

Peter takes seriously the command of the Risen Lord, “As the Father has sent me, so I now send you” and knows that he is now given the mission given unto Jesus. “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven.” So he offers forgiveness to those who traded the life of a murderer for Christ, who put to death the author of life.

How can Peter do this?  Because he knows the people acted out of ignorance—
they did not know what they were doing. Peter’s sermon on forgiveness flows right from the lips of Jesus on the cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Peter is not going to live in the past, holding onto hatred against those who killed his friend and Lord. He is not going to remain locked away in that “safe” room called “unforgiveness” and remain chained to the past.
By offering forgiveness, by sharing forgiveness, by forgiving as he has been forgiven, he lives in the shining present of the new day of the resurrection and sprints into a future full of hope.

We forgiven ones, who encounter the Risen Lord here, are commissioned to do the same as Peter. When we understand and accept and rejoice in the saving forgiveness of the Risen Lord, we are inspired to share that forgiveness.
Given the breath of new life, we breathe upon others this same life-giving, freeing Spirit. It helps to remember that those who have hurt us have acted out of ignorance, as we do when we hurt others. They do not know what they do.

And it may help, if we cannot summon the willpower to offer them forgiveness, 
to let the prayer of Jesus pass from his suffering lips to ours: “Father, forgive them.” I cannot forgive them at this point in time, but you can, Father of all.

Every act of forgiveness is a choice to enter more fully into the risen life of the present moment with the Lord rather than live a dead life in the past. For there is no future without forgiveness, only a dead-end reliving of the past. We witness to the resurrection when we offer forgiveness, for we say that we are willing to begin a new relationship with this person that we forgive. It is not going to be the same—in Christ, it can change, it can be made new.

During the days leading up to today’s 20th anniversary of the OKC bombing,
we have heard many stories of courage and bravery and generosity. One that needs to be told over and over again is the story of Bud Welch, forgiving Timothy McVeigh. Bud’s 23-year old daughter, Julie, was killed in the OKC bombing and Bud, like the other family members of the victims, wanted McVeigh to die, to be killed by the State. But in a movement of grace he decided to visit McVeigh’s father, and in that encounter, he realized that killing Timothy McVeigh would result in another parent losing a child. He came back from that encounter opposed to the death penalty and graced by the Risen Lord to forgive the man who had taken the life of his daughter. 

Why does the Church teach that to miss the weekly Sunday celebration of the Eucharist is a serious sin? Because it is in the breaking of the bread that we experience the saving gift of the Lord’s forgiveness and are made whole. Because we come to know him in this sacred meal, to touch him and be touched by him and thus be healed of the hurts that others have inflicted upon us. As we drink of his blood, we are washed clean of the offspring of sin—shame and fear.

As we weekly experience the forgiveness of our sins in the Eucharist, we then have the strength to go forth and share that great gift with others. Empowered by the Spirit of the Risen Lord, we are sent to make a fractured world whole again. When we respond to hatred with love and to injury with pardon, He rises up in us.

Father Joseph A. Jacobi

Second Sunday of Easter — Sunday of Divine Mercy

Link to today's readings 
Acts of Apostles 4:32-35 +  Psalm 118 + 1 John 5:1-6 +  John 20:19-31

Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

After 24 years of preaching on this Gospel, something new is beginning to dawn on me. For so many years I have focused my thoughts and attention on Thomas. I have imagined reasons for his absence. I would wonder why he was not there when Jesus appeared the first time. As we discussed this Gospel at this past Thursday’s Pastoral Council meeting, I was defending Thomas from what I thought was a “bum rap”, his being forever known as “Doubting Thomas,” when in reality he makes the most powerful profession of faith in John’s Gospel.

What I have finally begun to realize is that this Gospel is not about Thomas at all. It is about Jesus Christ risen among his people. Thomas is not the point of the story. Jesus is the point of the story. It is the behavior and the words of Jesus that matters most of all. Whatever happened with Thomas being absent and then showing up the next week makes way for yet another appearance of the Risen Jesus and the experience in his presence of even more peace and joy for his disciples. 

We must pay attention to Jesus in this story. He comes to his disciples when they are afraid. The Gospel writer says they had the doors locked “for fear of the Jews.” These first followers of Jesus had reason to be fearful, for their leader had been tortured and then killed in a horrific manner on the cross. Surely the authorities would come looking for them next. Fear fills that upper room. Then the level of fear rises when they see the Risen Jesus, for now they are afraid he has come back to haunt them as a ghost. Who else but a ghost could pass through locked doors? The nightmares haunting their nights are now are now darkening their days, too. Even as he calms their fears by showing them his hands and side, proving that he indeed is the Crucified One come back to life, the disciples surely still are afraid in yet another way—surely he has come back to punish them for abandoning him.

But does the Jesus chide them for their cowardly behavior? Does he scold them? Does he look at Peter and say: “I told you so.” None of that.   He simple says: “Peace.” He simply says: “Peace.” Everything is fine. He knows them. He loves them. He called them his own. He embraces their weakness and their failure. 
He knows all their doubts and their fears, and he simply comes to be among them bringing them peace. Even their absence at his time of greatest need will not prevent his life-giving presence to them in their time of greatest need. He brings peace and fear flees.

It is a moment of Divine Mercy. 

It is a message of hope to a church that he has not left them, and that when his presence is acknowledged, they will know peace and the joy it brings. To imperfect and broken people Jesus entrusts his final and best gift, peace. He describes that gift in terms of merciful forgiveness. It is never earned nor deserved. If it were, it would not be “mercy.” What he asks of them in those words of sending is mercy. What they receive from him they must give.

The power to show mercy comes from being a broken person. The power to show mercy comes from the knowledge and the feeling in your heart that you owe everything you are and have to sheer divine mercy. That is exactly what was going on in that upper room. 

They had come to the realization that they deserved nothing. They were helpless and hopeless. They were cowards and unfaithful, and in that truth they were able to say and accept the fact that every joy and virtue and every success they knew came from the free and undeserved mercy of God.

It is the same message of mercy repeated to St. Mary Faustina some 1900 years later. We can almost picture the Risen Christ shaking his head after 1900 years and saying, “My followers have still not got the point!  Let me try it again.” So he says to his faithful servant Faustina, “Every soul who believes and trusts in my mercy will have it.”

On this Divine Mercy Sunday, we hear the great truth of God’s merciful love yet again, and we realize with all the disciples who have gone before us—Peter and Thomas and Mary Magdalene and Faustina and all the rest—that God’s mercy is a gift God is wanting us to receive through his Risen Son. It is ours for the receiving—no mighty acts of faith or great deeds of love necessary—simply open up our hearts with Thomas and all the rest—and receive it in order to give away.


Sunday after Sunday the Risen Jesus comes back for us, for he wants us to believe. Our weaknesses and failures, even our unfaithfulness cannot keep Him away. He comes yet again to calm our fears and gift us with the blessing of His Peace. Every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection.

The Risen Jesus, mercifully forgiving us his disciples again and again, keeps reminding us that God’s love will always win, that Love is stronger than Death!
This is the mystery that we now stake our life—and our death—on: Nothing dies forever, and all that has died in love will be reborn in an even larger love.

This knowledge about the resurrection, this belief in the Risen Lord Jesus, causes peace to flow through us like a river and create the world anew.
Our encounter with the Lord of Mercy here, sharing his life with us, strengthens us to transform the world by sharing the gift of merciful love we have received.

Father Joseph A. Jacobi

Easter Sunday—The Resurrection of the Lord

Link to today's readings
Acts 10:34, 37-43 + Psalm 118 + Colossians 3:1-4 + John 20:1-9

Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

The joyous hymns of praise that we sing on this Easter Day are not found in this Gospel account of the Resurrection. There is no rejoicing on the part of Mary Magdalene, nor Peter and the beloved disciple. Rather the images are rather somber ones: of lingering darkness, of the absence of the Lord—even of his dead body, and of a struggle to understand what “rise from the dead” means.

That struggle will mark not only the day of the Resurrection, but will be a struggle the first followers of the Lord will undergo for many days following. What does it mean for Jesus to have risen from the dead? How to understand this mystery which confounds and baffles them?

The story of those first disciples struggling to understand what the resurrection means is our story, too. In fact, we find ourselves in this Gospel account from John….

Often darkness seems to mark our days. How often do we stumble in the darkness of life, especially when tragedy or loss cloud our spirits? There are times when darkness lingers, when we feel like we cannot find our way because of sorrow or heartache or chronic pain or bitter separation from one we formerly loved or who loved us. We wonder, “When will the light of a new day come?”

In these times we are like Mary Magdalene not finding the body of Jesus at the tomb. Because of darkness, because we often walk in darkness, we do not know where Jesus is. We feel like he is dead and gone, nowhere to be found.

This searching for Jesus, this wondering why it feels like he has abandoned us,
comes from our struggle to understand what rising from the dead means. Although we may believe in him, although we may make the effort every day to give our lives over to him, we struggle to understand what rising from the dead means.

We know so much about death—the death of relationships, the death of our youth, the loss of a job or our health or a loved one. But rising from the dead?
We tend to think that is for after this lifetime, somewhere in the distant future, hazy and unseen.

However, if we consider rising from the dead in terms of the paschal mystery of Christ, which the Church has celebrated in a very special way these past three days, then we might catch a glimpse of what risen life looks like. As a priest friend of mine explains, we believers focus on “life through death,” not life after death. Christ teaches Peter and Mary Magdalene, the Beloved Disciple and you and me this truth:  the way to risen life is “life through death.” 

So, we who are followers of the Crucified and Risen Christ find life through death, through letting go, through surrendering our lives into the hands of the Risen One, hands that have pierced by being nailed to a tree.

As we do, we slowly remember that the Risen Lord is also the Crucified Lord, and that he lives in the broken, suffering ones of this earth—those whose lives have been pierced by suffering and sadness and sorrow.

He lives in the millions of refugees fleeing the war raging in Syria and beyond. He lives in those suffering from the effects of famine and violence in Africa. The Risen Lord lives crucified in the refugees who make the dangerous journey here from Mexico and other countries to our south, not because they want to leave their homes, but because drug gang violence has taken the lives of their loved ones.

The Risen Jesus presents himself in those who are suffering from physical illness, or confined to nursing homes or to their own homes. The Risen Lord is lives in the least of our brothers and sisters, who hunger for what we take for granted: Food on the table or a roof over our heads.

The Risen Lord shows himself still with the wounds of his cross in the brokenness of our brothers and sisters who reveal he is still being crucified, and yet still living, in them.

The Risen Lord also shows himself in those who break open their lives in generous love of others. There is nothing snappy or showy about such love 
revealing the Risen Lord at work, simply a love that transforms the lives of others.

Like a parent caring for a troubled child or in those who adopt or foster a child,
or spouses who are faithful and true through thick and thin over the years. The Risen Lord can be found at work in adult children caring for their own children, 
and at the same time parenting their aging parents. He lives in single parents balancing the challenges of raising children with the demands of work, never having much time for themselves. The Risen Lord is present in the lives of single people who generously love others while searching for meaning in their life without a significant other.

The Risen Jesus can be found in the worker who does his or her job faithfully over the years, never stealing from his or her employer, or cheating his or her boss.

The Lord of life reveals himself in soldiers who go to far off lands to protect the innocent from acts of terror, in police officers and firemen and firewomen who place their lives daily on the line for others, and in humanitarian workers who go to the most dangerous parts of this earth to help others.

The key to resurrection faith is belief, not understanding. We will never completely understand how God works or how the Risen Jesus is present today.
But, with the Beloved Disciple, we can believe, which in its root meaning means:
“To give our hearts to”. We can daily give our heart, our very lives to the Risen One, knowing that we, too, are  the beloved disciple of the One who never abandons us.

By eating and drinking with the Risen Lord at this holy table, we become His witnesses: Witnesses to the world that he is alive, he is Risen. For he is rising up in us by the power of his love.

So that when faced with despair, we can be people of hope. Confronted with the darkness of violence, makers of peace, and respond to hatred with self-giving love.

As we do, the Risen Lord rises up in us.

Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi

Holy Saturday—Easter Vigil in the Holy Night of Easter

Link to today's readings
Gen. 1:1 – 2:2 + Gen. 22: 1-18 + Exodus 14:15 – 15:1 + Isaiah 55:1-11 
Romans 6:3-11 + Mark 16:1-7

Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

The 3 days stretching from Holy Thursday evening till Easter Sunday evening 
are actually one day celebrating one mystery:  the Paschal Mystery.
Throughout these 3 days we plunge deeper into the central mystery of our life, 
of all life: the dying and rising of Christ the Lord.

We are not play-acting events from the past, we are not trying to reenact these most important moments in the life of the Son of God. Rather, we are entering into the present reality of the Living God  acting in our midst NOW. The God of Moses and Abraham, the God of Miriam and Sarah, the God who is the great “I AM.” Not “I Was” nor “I Will be” but the great “I AM.”

At every sacred liturgy of the Church, a doorway into eternity opens,  and we enter into a time beyond time, to encounter the ONE who transcends time itself. So it is that though Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of God, died once in history,  we still by faith enter open a radiant doorway where he enters  and we experience the power of his saving death here and now. So it is that the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life rose from the dead  2000 years ago in a hidden corner of the world, now we encounter him rising up in and through us in this our world at this our time.

The Paschal Mystery, the dying and rising of Christ, brings meaning to our life,
is the sacred key unlocking the answers to the greatest questions of our life.
Such as: Those who humble themselves shall be exalted, those who lose their life in loving service of others shall find their lives given back to them richer and fuller. Suffering love, to give something of oneself to another, is the way to glory—dying can never be separated from rising, only in letting go do we receive.

At the services of Holy Thursday and Good Friday we encountered 
the brilliance of several facets of the shining jewel we call the Sacred Triduum, 
the beautiful jewel we name the Paschal Mystery.
Now, on this holiest of nights, the Church pulls out all the stops 
for a celebration of the power of Christ dying and rising in our midst.

The light of Christ shines through the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. The darkness of terror and death in a Kenyan university or in the countryside of Syria  or Iraq, the darkness of violence on dangerous streets,
or death from natural or man-made disasters—no darkness, no matter how great, can snuff out the light of God’s love in Christ. We share in that light, and the dark of night becomes radiant, as the glory of the Risen Christ shines forth from each baptized believer. Catechumens rise up from the tomb of the font, dripping with new life, faces shimmering with joy. We smell the Spirit’s presence in oil poured gladly upon the heads of those who are sealed by the fragrant love of God. We feast on divine life penetrating our bodies in sacred food and drink.
We sing the Alleluia’s over and over again because Christ is Risen, and he rises up in his people this night.

Tonight, and at every celebration of the Eucharist, we encounter the Living God who invites us deeper into life, to be more full of His love, a God who speaks His word to us now. For His word is not a dead word on a page but a living, active word. So that these stories of salvation history are our stories, they reveal the meaning of who God is and how God acts in Christ by the power of the Spirit NOW.

This God is our Creator, and we are his handiwork, his delight. At every moment, as some of our cells die and others regenerate,  we are being re-created by Him who constantly breathes into us the breath of life. If this God, in whose image we are made, ever stopped loving us, we would cease to exist.

This God is a God who saves His people who cry out to Him in their need. Whether from a mountaintop in Moriah, or on the shores of the Red Sea, or from the wood of a tree on Calvary—these cries are heard by the God who saves. The God who we believe in never turns a deaf ear to the people He has created in His image, but does everything, even the seemingly impossible, to save us. The God of Moses, the God of the New Moses, Jesus Christ, rolls away stones which keep us sealed up in dark tombs, & invites us into Risen Life, to experience this life now. This God of ours makes a way forward for us where there was no way forward before, turns dead ends into open roads full of new possibilities and new life.

The God of life, the God who shares divine life through Jesus Christ, invites our elect to the waters of new life. For these who thirst for God, their thirst is at the same time quenched and made deeper for Him as they are buried with Christ in baptism and rise up with him to new life. (They thirst for the living God, and soon they will thirst even more!) Leaving behind their old life, they are washed clean, and re-created in our very midst.

Then we all are renewed by heavenly food and drink, as God and human beings sit down to sup at one table, the table of plenty.

This is what we stake our life on. That God is the Creator, the Creator of life, not the destroyer of life. That God loves us enough to become one with us in Christ, born like we are in a rush of water and blood only to die in the same way, with water and blood pouring forth from his pierced heart. That God in Christ loves us enough to drink deeply of our most terrible sufferings and our greatest joys in order to teach us how to live and how to live. We believe in a God who gifts us with one another in the Church in order that we might never walk this journey alone, only together. A God who surrounds us with holy people, both living and dead, whose very lives of generous love spur us to do the same. We give ourselves to the God whose burning desire is to forgive our sins and for us to share in His life forever by raising up these fragile bodies and transforming them into eternal glory.

On these truths, we stake our lives. 

As we say “I DO” we are drawn deeper into union with the great “I AM.” Who speaks to us NOW and always:  “I Do!” Who says to each one of us:  I do believe in you, and entrust myself completely to you.

Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi

Good Friday of the Lord's Passion

Link to today's readings
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 | Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25 | Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 | John 18:1-19:42

This homily has no recording
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma 
by Deacon Paul Lewis

Jesus Christ loves you;
he gave his life to save you;
and now he is living at your side every day
to enlighten, strengthen, and free you.
These words of Pope Francis perhaps never resonate more than on this day.
These 27 words are at the heart of the Good News.
Too many times we focus on the bloody details of the brutality that Jesus endured.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is sometimes referred to as a reflection
on what we gather this evening to remember.
If our focus is on the suffering, why in the world would we call this day GOOD Friday?
What do we see when we see Jesus on the cross?
A scourged body, marred by Roman brutality…
Wounds created by spikes driven through wrists and feet…
a man who has been abandoned by those who were closest to him…
a mother whose heart is pierced by a sword of sorrow…
But these things can put a veil over our eyes
and distort the real message of this day.
The goodness of Good Friday
does not eliminate the reality of sin, grief, suffering, and death.
It means those are not the final or ultimate reality of this day, or any day for that matter.
Jesus Christ loves you;
he gave his life to save you;
and now his is living at your side every day
to enlighten, strengthen, and free you.
These words of Pope Francis remind us that
for Jesus the focus is not on suffering and death.
It is on love.
That’s why Jesus can give himself to the cross.
He doesn’t look at the cross,
he sees through it.
Death is not the end.
Jesus trusts the Father’s love more than his own death.
Peter, however, can neither look at the cross nor the one who is dying.
“I do not know him.
I do not know him.
I do not know him.”
Peter fears death is the end.
For Jesus and for himself.
In a sense he’s right.
You see fear, anxiety, confusion, anger, resentment, prejudice…
all of these things and more,
block out love.
Without love death is the end.
Without love the entire earth becomes a tomb.
And we are not much different than Peter.
We cannot help but look at the many crosses
of our lives and world and see sin and brokenness,
suffering, sorrow, tears, loss, and death.
Sometimes we experience it.
Sometimes we do it to others.
Sometimes we do it to ourselves.
There is more to see on this GOOD Friday.
That’s what makes it good.
Jesus’ death tears down the veil of the brokenness and suffering of our lives.
Jesus’ crucified love is stronger and more real than death.
He lives at our side and joins us in our sufferings and dyings…
He enlightens, strengthens, and frees us
and carries us through our trials and tribulations.
The love of Jesus defeats sin and death…
EVERY TIME…
if we will just invite him into our lives.
Each day we must decide…
Will I trust death or will I trust love?
That decision in many ways will determine our world view.
It will decide how we will approach the circumstances of our lives.
It will guide our relationships.
And it will determine whether we will choose to encounter Jesus in our own life.
Love transforms…
Jesus Christ loves you;
he gave his life to save you;
and now he is living at your side every day
to enlighten, strengthen, and free you.

Holy Thursday - Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper

Link to today's readings
Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; John 13: 1-15

This homily has no audio recording
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

Jesus loves his disciples till the very end. After spending several years with them, he knows them very well. He knows their faults and quirks and failings, and he knows their good qualities as well. Jesus’ heart overflows in gratitude to the Father for the gift of his disciples who have been with him through thick and thin, from the Sea of Galilee to the Temple in Jerusalem, from wedding feasts to simple meals under the stars. He reaches out to touch them one final time with tenderness and love. By washing their feet, Jesus reminds them there is no part of them which he is not willing to cleanse by his saving love.

He wants them to remember him by this loving act of humble, self-giving service. He wants them to do the same for each other and for others in memory of him.

Jesus loves the ones His Father loves.  He loves the ones the Father has given to him as companions on a great adventure of scattering the seed of the Kingdom of God. As he washes the feet of each one of them, he gives thanks to the Father for them. Gratitude energizes his service, not only at this meal in the Upper Room, but at all times. Jesus knows his life is not his own—his life is a gift from the Father. His life is given to him to be given away in love of others, by washing feet, even touching those whom other shy away from.

His life of humble service culminates on the cross, where he gives away completely the gift given to him, gives his life back to the Father in a total act of thanksgiving.

As we come to this table to share in this sacred meal with Christ Jesus, we come overflowing with gratitude. We come to be joined more fully to the Crucified and Risen Lord, to give thanks to the Father with him for all the people who have washed our feet. There are those people in our lives who have generously served us: who have loved us in good times and bad, stuck by our side through the storms of life, who have both accepted us and challenged us to grow. People who have washed our feet, who have known and even touched with tenderness our warts, our weakness, and by doing so have called out the best in us.They have washed our feet over and over again.

Their love remains present to us, even if these special people in our lives are no longer physically by our side. As we think of them, as we remember the many ways they gave of themselves in love to us and for us, gratitude wells up in us. Through the lens of the Eucharist, we see their lives as revelations to us of God’s humble, life-giving love in Christ Jesus.

With Christ Jesus we give thanks to the Father for the gift of these ones who have loved us with the sacrificial love of Christ, who made us feel like our lives have value, who honored our God-given dignity.

All those who have washed our feet in our lives point us to Christ and his cross, reveal to us something of his humble, self-giving love. So gratitude grows in us not only for them, but even more so for Him, for Christ the Lord, and the great gift He is to us and to the world. Through him, in him, with him—all these loving servants found their energy to serve.

We receive the Lord here as a gift in order to better receive him in our daily life. We receive the Lord in this sacred meal so He might crack open our hearts to welcome Him coming to us in our daily lives. Receiving his broken body and his life poured out as blood, we are meant to be more receptive to Him as he comes to us in his broken body laid out on the altar of the world.

The Lenten practice of the Rice Bowl helps us to receive Christ coming to us in the humblest of people. Through Catholic Relief Services weekly Rice Bowl meditations, the poor throughout the world have been revealed to us as persons just like us, with hopes and dreams like our own. As we have received them into our lives, our world has expanded to include the Christ coming to us through them, to realize we are all connected in Christ. As we have sacrificed a little of our own comfort and financial resources, we have received the Son of God who became poor that we might become rich in God’s mercy.

Pope Francis constantly challenges us to be a “Church of the poor, for the poor.” He does so because those who are poor teach us how to love in a generous way. Not that we will be the ones saving the poor, but they will be saving us from the death sentence of self-centeredness. We rise up to new life in loving them and serving the Christ living in them.

By following Christ’s command to love others as he has loved us, we see beyond the color of skin and the differences in culture. He strengthen us by the gift of his own life that we might lay down our lives in love of others, even those who speak a different language or who see the world differently than we do. In doing so, we receive the Lord as he comes to us shining in thousands of different faces and places.

Joined to Christ Jesus and to his saving passion and death in the Eucharist, we slowly grasp the truth that our life is not our own—it is a gift. Our existence is pure grace, totally dependent on the Father’s love. Joined to the Son, the humble servant of the Father, we learn that humility, as C.S. Lewis points out,  “is not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.” Which means we think of others more, we take on the mind and heart of Christ.

Joined intimately to the one who washes feet, and whose own feet are marked by the life-giving wounds of self-giving love, we go out into the world energized to lay down our lives in love of others.

So we strip ourselves of pride and fear and selfishness, and take up the towel of service. The living water of divine life in us then surges forth to refresh and renew others. We have much good work to do, for the feet of the world await us…..

Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi