Monthly Archives: April 2010

Do not let your Hearts be Troubled

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Act 13:26-33
John 14:16

The words of Jesus in today’s gospel are among the most comforting words we find in the New Testament.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled… ?In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. ?If there were not,?would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?? And if I go and prepare a place for you,?I will come back again and take you to myself, ?so that where I am you also may be.”

His words are interrupted by a questioning human voice, however. It’s the voice of the apostle Thomas, who later doubted whether Jesus had risen from the dead and was truly alive. He’s the voice of human unbelief:

“Master, we do not know where you are going; ?how can we know the way?”

The apostles were not onlookers in the gospel story, there to repeat the words and deeds of Jesus just as they saw and heard them. They’re human beings like us; they misunderstood his message,  doubted it at times, could not always grasp it, and shared the experience of others who “found him too much for them.”  When we hear them in the gospel we are listening to ourselves.

Yet they remained with Jesus as their way and the truth and the life. He did not abandon them. Even though they didn’t understand everything and live perfectly assured, they remained with him because he remained in them. Like Thomas, the doubter, they learned to find comfort in faith not sight.

Faith is our way of knowing Jesus too.

Fr. Victor Hoagland, CP is the Director of Passionist Press and member of the Passionist Community in Union City, NJ.

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Don’t Shoot the Messenger

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Acts 13:13-25
John 13:16-20

We have all heard the saying “Don’t shoot the messenger” whenever some news has been delivered that we don’t want to hear. I wondered if St. Catherine of Siena had those same thoughts at times, in Italian of course!

Her biographer states that Catherine was a precocious child and became an even more unusual individual as she grew into an adult. In a society where women were often treated as one step lower than the prized livestock, Catherine defied convention. Born in 1347 at Siena, Italy as the youngest of 25 children, she never received any formal educational training. And yet her deep spiritual insights made her sought after by priests, princes and Popes. Taking the habit of the Dominican Third Order, she freed herself from her father’s desire to marry her off in order to bring wealth and status into the family. Her mystical experiences of God’s overwhelming love were so powerful and the message she spoke about them so relevant to the violent society she lived in that she soon gathered companions around herself. Again, defying convention, most of her most ardent companions were men!

Perhaps the greatest achievement of her short life was persuading Pope Gregory XI to leave Avignon, France and return to Rome. When the Great Schism occurred and the Church had not one, but three claimants to the Chair of St. Peter, Catherine persuaded the warring factions to choose Urban VI as Gregory’s true and only successor. Can you imagine this humble, uneducated woman standing before the powers that be pleading with them for the unity of the Church…? Sharing with them what Jesus communicated to her in her mystical prayer? What a dynamic force this woman of God must have been!

Both Paul in the reading from Acts and Jesus in the Gospel today tell us that the strength and validity of the messenger lies in the fact of who he or she re-presents. Paul makes clear that the message and mission of Jesus came from the God of Israel whom his people worship. Jesus makes clear in John’s gospel that whoever receives him receives the God of Israel who identified himself to Moses as “I AM.”

What type of messenger of the Gospel am I? And how do I hear the messengers that God sends to me in my life? If the messages are words of personal challenge or messages that defy convention, do I just dismiss them, ignore them, or worse ridicule them? Or do I really listen to them through the filter of God’s word?

Given all this, should we not pray today: “Don’t shoot the messenger – embrace her!”

Patrick Quinn (pquinn@passionist.org) is the director of Planned Giving at the Passionist Development Office in Chicago.

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Will the Church Grow Again?

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Acts 12:24—13:5a
Jn 12:44-50

In the beginning, the church spread like wild fire. That’s the impression you get when you read about its growth in the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. “The word of God continued to spread and grow.” (Acts 12,24) Leaving the church at Antioch, fearless missionaries like Paul and Barnabas, blessed by the Holy Spirit, set out for other towns and places and brought the gospel to the gentiles.

It was a lively church bent on saving the world.

“O God, let all the nations praise you,” our psalm for today says.

Is that drive still there today, we wonder, and will all nations join together in praising God through Jesus Christ? How will they describe us and our church today?

We may look at our church today, at least in the western world, and see signs of decline, not growth. It grows older, not younger and right now seems tarnished with scandal.

But let’s look again at today’s psalm:

“May God have pity on us and bless us;?may he let his face shine upon us.?So may your way be known upon earth;?among all nations, your salvation.”

We need to turn to the surprising face of Jesus Christ.

“Merciful God, Word come into a dark world,
remember us and bless us.
Jesus Christ, son of Mary, turn your face towards us and enlighten us.
You came into the world as light, so that we might not remain in our darkness.
Now turn your face and shine on us,
so that we may make your way known upon earth, among all nations.”

Fr. Victor Hoagland, CP is the Director of Passionist Press and member of the Passionist Community in Union City, NJ.

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