Easter 5th Week: April 29-May 4:
April 29 Monday (Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church):
The context: Today’s Gospel passage is taken
from Jesus’ Last Supper discourse. It was commonly held by the Jews that when the
Messiah came, he would be revealed to the whole world as King and Savior.
Hence, Judas Thaddeus asks why Jesus is revealing himself only to his
disciples. Jesus does not answer that question directly. Instead, He continues preparing
his disciples for his imminent departure from them by assuring them that he is
not leaving them alone. Instead, Jesus will live in them along with God his
Father and the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Father can be experienced
through the experience of love. It means that the criterion of the Father is
always the same: love. “If anyone loves Me, he will observe My word, and My
Father will love him and We shall come to him and make a home in him.”
Jesus promises the abiding presence of the Holy Trinity in
his disciples who express their responsive love for him by keeping his
commandments, especially his commandment of love, because only this type of
loving will open them and make them receptive to the Divine Indwelling of the
Trinitarian God. Jesus is referring to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the
soul renewed by grace. God repeatedly revealed Himself in the Old Testament and
promised to dwell amid His people (cf. Ex 29:45; Ez 37:26-27; etc.). But here
Jesus speaks of the presence of God in each person. We are each a part of the
Divine chain of love. God loves man. He sent His Son to prove it. After Jesus’
Resurrection and Ascension, God the Father continues to live in us with His Son
and the Holy Spirit. This abiding God gives us the Father’s protection and
providence, the Son’s redemption and forgiveness of sins, and the Holy Spirit’s
sanctification and guidance.
Life messages: 1) Let us live in constant
awareness of the abiding presence of the Trinitarian God within us and behave
well in His presence. 2) During moments of doubts and temptations, let us seek
the active guidance and strengthening of our indwelling God. Fr. Tony(https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
April 30 Tuesday: [Saint Pius V, Pope]:
The context: In his Last Supper discourse, Jesus
gives two gifts to his disciples, namely, the gift of peace and the gift of the
cross leading to glory. Today’s passage refers to the gift of peace. Wishing a
person peace (Shalom), was, and still is, the usual form of greeting
among the Jews and the Arabs. Shalom is a right relationship
with God and with others. Arabs wish each other saying “Islam Alikum” in
Arabic, meaning peace be with you. And the response is “alikum Islam” (and
also with you). Moses instructed the Aaron and his descendants, the priests, to
bless the Israelites with God’s peace: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the
Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up
His countenance upon you, and give you peace” (Nm 6:22-26). “Peace
be with you!” is the greeting that Jesus used, and which the Apostles continued
to use. Hence, the Church uses it several times in the liturgy. Peace is one of
the great Messianic gifts. St. Paul tells us that it is one of the fruits of
the Holy Spirit. Jesus repeats his promise saying, “My peace I give to you,
my peace I leave with you.” Pope St. Paul VI (canonized October 14,
2018), said: “True peace must be founded upon justice, upon a sense of the
untouchable dignity of man, upon the recognition of an indelible and happy
equality between men, upon the basic principle of human brotherhood.”
Life message: 1) We are invited to live in the
peace wished by Jesus. This requires that we be reconciled every day with
ourselves, with our neighbors, and with our God. Reconciliation with God
demands that we obey His commandments, repent every day of our sins, and ask
God’s forgiveness. Reconciliation with others demands that we
forgive others for their offenses against us, and that we ask for their
forgiveness for our offenses against them in words, attitudes, and deeds.
Reconciliation with ourselves comes from our grace-given humble recognition of
our weaknesses and failures and our grateful acceptance and use of the Holy
Spirit’s loving gifts to us of deepened love and trust that God loves us in
spite of these weaknesses, forgives us our sins when we repent, helps us to do
better, and uses our weaknesses to bring us closer to Him, in order to
demonstrate His own Love and Power working through us for His glory.
(Fr. Tony) (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
May 1 Wednesday: [Saint Joseph the Worker]:
Introduction: Today we celebrate the liturgical
feast of St. Joseph the Worker to honor St. Joseph, to highlight the dignity
and importance of labor and to honor the workers who are dignified by their
labor and who bring Christ to their workplace. This is the second feast of St.
Joseph; the first was the feast of St. Joseph, husband of Mary and the patron
of the universal Church which we celebrated on the 19th of March.
History: In response to the May Day Celebrations
of workers in the Communist countries where workers were considered mere “cogs
in the machine,” Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker to
Christianize the concept of labor, to acknowledge the dignity of labor and to
give all workers a role model and heavenly patron.
Theology of work: The Bible presents God as a
worker (Gen 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth.”) Who is engaged in the work of creation and providing for His
creatures. God the Father assigns His Son Jesus the work of human redemption
and gives the Holy Spirit the work of our sanctification. That is why Jesus
said: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work (John 5: 17). Further,
it was God’s command that man should work: “You have to earn your bread by
the sweat of your brow” (Genesis 3: 19). Jesus showed us the necessity
and nobility of work by working in Joseph’s carpentry shop until he started his
public life of a preaching and healing ministry. The workers are important and
their work noble, not only because they obey God’s command to work, but also
because they sustain and promote social welfare and the progress of societies.
Joseph as an exemplary worker: Joseph worked to
support his family by helping his neighbors, using his skill in carpentry. He
was a just worker, honest in his trade of buying wood, selling his finished
products and charging for his services. He was a working parent laboring hard
to support his family. He was a praying worker who prayed in all his needs and
got answers from God in dreams on important occasions and who kept God’s
presence in his workshop. He was an obedient worker who obeyed the Mosaic Law
of Sabbath rest and spent the day of rest to take Jesus to the local synagogue
and to teach Jesus God’s Law given through Moses.
Life messages: 1) Let us appreciate the dignity
of all forms of work and all types of laborers as they glorify God and promote
the welfare of society. 2) Let us be sincere and committed to our work as St.
Joseph was, working in the constant awareness of the presence of God. 3) Let us
love our work and convert it into prayer by offering it for God’s glory. (Fr.
Tony)
Context: During his Last Supper discourse, Jesus
uses one of God’s Old Testament images, the vine, and the branches, to help his
disciples understand the closeness of their relationship with him and the
necessity of their maintaining it. Jesus assures them, using the parable of the
vine and branches, that the Life-giving Spirit, Whom Jesus will send them, will
be present and active among his disciples and their successors. This Gospel
passage also emphasizes the need for Christians to abide in Christ as an
essential condition for producing fruits of kindness, mercy, justice, charity,
and holiness. Paul further clarifies this idea in Colossians 1:18 using another
metaphor, that Christ is the Head and Christians are the different members of
His Mystical Body. Pruning is an essential part of growing fruit-producing
branches. In the vineyards in Palestine, dead branches were pruned to save the
vine. Fruitless, leafy branches draining life sap from the main trunk were also
pruned away leaving only fruit-bearing branches. Jesus tells his apostles that
they have already been pruned by the words he has spoken to them. Eventually,
they will be pruned of all attachment to the things of this world so that they
may be ready to attach themselves to the things of Heaven.
Life messages 1) We need pruning in our
Christian life. Pruning, which cuts out of our lives everything that is
contrary to the spirit of Jesus and renews our commitment to Christian ideals
in our lives every day, is the first type of self-imposed pruning expected of
us. A second kind of pruning is accomplished by practicing self-control over
our evil inclinations, sinful addictions, and aberrations. A third type of
pruning is done by our permitting Jesus to prune, purify, and strengthen us as
God allows us to face pain, suffering, contradictions, and difficulties with
His grace and the courage of our Christian convictions. 2) Let us abide in
Christ and let Christ abide in us: Personal and liturgical prayers, frequenting
of the Sacraments of the Holy Eucharist and Reconciliation, daily, meditative
reading of the Bible, and selfless, loving acts of kindness, mercy, and
forgiveness, all made possible by God’s grace, enable us to abide in Jesus, the
true vine, as fruit-bearing branches.
May 2 Thursday: (Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor
of the Church):
The context: During the Last Supper discourse,
Jesus teaches his disciples that love is the hallmark and the criterion of
Christians. Jesus reminds his disciples that he has chosen them as his friends
with a triple mission. First, they are to love others as he has loved them.
Second, they are to bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Third,
they are to ask God the Father for whatever they need in Jesus’ name.
The criteria of Christian love: First, Jesus modifies the
Old Testament command from “love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Lv
19:18) to “love others as I have loved you.” This means that our
love for others must be unconditional, forgiving, and sacrificial. Jesus
invites each Christian to be in the inner circle of his friends by obeying his
commandments including the new commandment of love. Such friends abide in Jesus
as Jesus abides in them, and their prayers in Jesus’ name will be answered
promptly by God the Father. We express our love for Christ by obeying his new
commandment of love. Jesus further explains that the real source of Christian
joy is the certainty that God loves us. We, too, must be ready to express our
love for others by our readiness to die for them as Jesus died for us.
Life message: 1) Let us remember that true Christian
love is costly and painful because it involves sacrifice on our part when we
start loving unlovable, ungrateful, and hostile people with Christ’s
unconditional, forgiving, sacrificial love. But our Christian call is to love
others as Jesus has loved us, and as Jesus loves them. (Fr. Tony) (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
May 3 Friday: (Saints Philip and James, Apostles):
John describes Philip as a fisherman from Bethsaida in
Galilee, the same town as Andrew and Peter. It is possible that Philip was
originally a follower or disciple of John the Baptist because John depicts
Jesus calling Philip out of a crowd attending John’s baptisms. Immediately
after his call as an apostle by Jesus, Philip introduced Jesus to his friend
Nathaniel/Bartholomew as the “one about whom Moses wrote” (Jn
1:45). On one occasion, when Jesus saw the great multitude following him and
wanted to give them food, he asked Philip where they should buy bread for the
people to eat. Philip expressed his surprise declaring “two hundred
days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little
bit” (Jn 6:7). It was in answer to Philip’s question, “Master,
show us the Father, and that will be enough for us” (Jn 14:8) that
Jesus answered, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still
do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn
14:9). Since Philip had a Greek name, some Greek Gentile proselytes once
approached him with a request to introduce them to Jesus. Eusebius records that
Polycrates, 2nd century Bishop of Ephesus, wrote that Philip was crucified in
Phrygia and later buried in Hierapolis, in Turkey. Tradition has it that
Philip’s death was around AD 54. We celebrate his feast day on May 3rd.
James, son of Alphaeus, called James the
Lesser, wrote the epistle that bears his name and became the bishop of
Jerusalem. He is the brother of Jude, and they are cousins of Jesus because
their mother Mary (who was married to Alphaeus or Clophas/Cleopas), is the
sister or cousin of Jesus’ mother. (This James is different from James
the Greater, the son of Zebedee
who was married to another sister or cousin of Mary; hence, James and his brother
John were also cousins of
Jesus.)
James the Lesser is also known by the title of James
the Just on account of his eminent sanctity. James and his brother
Jude were called to the apostleship in the second year of Christ’s preaching,
soon after the Pasch, probably in the year 31. James, son of Alphaeus, only
appears four times in the New Testament, each time in a list of the twelve
apostles as number 9. In Christian art he is depicted holding a fuller’s club
because he was believed to have been martyred, beaten to death with a fuller’s
club, at Ostrakine in Lower Egypt, where he was preaching the Gospel.
Life message: Let us ask the intercession of
Sts. Philip and James so that we, too, may bear witness of Jesus by our lives
to those around us. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
May 4 Saturday: Jn 15:18-21:
The context: In today’s Gospel passage, taken
from the Last Supper discourse, Jesus warns his apostles of what they can
expect from a world which ignores God and His teaching. They will be hated and
persecuted as Jesus was. But there can be no compromise between Christ’s
disciples and the followers of the powers of darkness. The term “world” in
today’s Gospel passage means people who are hostile towards God and opposed to
His will. They represent an evil society which “calls evil
good and good evil” (Is 5:20). Such a society will hate Christ and his
teachings because Christian teaching exposes the evil of society and its false
and dangerous doctrines. Since the Church Jesus established stands for truth,
morality, and justice, it does not support the modern “dictatorship of
relativism.” The modern world hates and ridicules everything Christian through
its liberal, agnostic and atheistic media.
Life message: Let us ask the Holy Spirit for the
courage of our Christian convictions to believe and practice what Jesus taught
and what Jesus continues to teach through the Church.
(Fr. Tony) (http://frtonyshomilies.com/)
