Easter 6 C: peace I leave with you

From Fr. Tony Kadavil and Sermons.com:

1. The Irish Girl – a servant who became a daughter of the family: 

Once upon a time back in the last century there was a young woman from Ireland who had lost her parents and all her family. Some kind people wrote to their relatives in America and said we have this fourteen year old orphan here who is very bright and very pretty and very hard working, We don’t want her to go to the orphanage because she won’t have any opportunities there to develop her talents. Would you ever consider hiring her as a servant girl. You’d have to pay her way over on the boat, but she’ll work for nothing until she earns her fare. You won’t go wrong with her. So the Americans who could afford a serving girl, but never had one and weren’t altogether sure what they would do with such a person talked about it and said, well, what have to lose. So they sent the fare for the boat and the train. And waited for the young woman to come.  

Easter 5 C - Love One Another

From Father Tony Kadavil’s Stable: 

1) The renowned artist Paul Gustave Dore once lost his passport while traveling in Europe.

When he came to a border crossing, he explained his predicament to one of the guards. Giving his name to the official, Dore hoped he would be recognized and allowed to pass. The guard, however, said that many people attempted to cross the border by claiming to be persons they were not. Dore insisted that he was the man he claimed to be. "All right," said the official, "we'll give you a test, and if you pass it we'll allow you to go through." Handing him a pencil and a sheet of paper, he told the artist to sketch several peasants standing nearby. Dore did it so quickly and skillfully that the guard was convinced he was indeed who he claimed to be. His action confirmed his identity. In today’s gospel Jesus gives us the mark of Christian identity: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-5).Love is the Christian identity. Love is the Christian uniform. Love is the Christian habit. If you are wearing the habit of love, you are in. If you are not wearing love as a habit, you are out. (Fr. Essau) . Let us remember the words of Shakespeare in Measure for Measure, "Cucullus non facit monachum (the hood does not make a monk).” A Christian name or a cross on a chain will not make us Christians unless we practice Jesus’ new commandment of love given in today’s gospel. 

Easter 4 C - Good Shepherd

From the Connections:

Final Exam

When Pauline Chen began medical school twenty years ago, she dreamed of saving lives.  What she did not count on was how much death would be a part of her work.  She chronicles her wrestling with medicine’s profound paradox in her recent book,

Final Exam: A Surgeon’s Reflections on Mortality.
When a patient is dying in the intensive care unit, the protocol is always the same:  Doors and curtains are closed around the patient and family, monitors are turned off — and physicians make themselves scarce.  But one death during her internship dramatically changed Doctor Chen’s thinking.  Early one morning, a patient’s heart began to fail after his long battle with colon cancer.  Doctor Chen called the family and the attending surgeon.  The dying man’s wife arrived first.  Doctor Chen took her to her husband’s room and quietly slipped out, as protocol dictated.  But when the attending arrived, he took the woman’s hand and quietly explained what was happening.  She began to sob.  But then, contrary to the norm, the doctor closed the curtains around the three of them. 

Chinese Doctor and American Lawyer

A Chinese Doctor can't find a job in a Hospital in the US, so he opens a clinic and puts a sign outside 'GET TREATMENT FOR $20 - IF NOT CURED GET BACK $100.' An American lawyer thinks this is a great opportunity to earn $100 and goes to the clinic. Lawyer: "I have lost my sense of taste." Chinese: "Nurse, bring medicine from box No. 22 and put 3 drops in patient's mouth." Lawyer: "Ugh. this is kerosene."