Today, in Mercy,Acts describes Peter in the full energy of his discipleship. The infant Church was at peace, being built up by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Peter, completely filled with this sacred power, raises a woman from the dead. He does this in the Name of Jesus to Whom he has given his entire being.
Our Gospel describes the moment of Peter’s total commitment. Some have turned away from Jesus because of his teaching on the Eucharist. Jesus asks the Twelve if they to wish to go too.
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.
At pivotal points in our faith life, Jesus asks us the same question. May we always have the strength and insight to turn toward Christ. May we pour our hearts into the welcoming love of Jesus, just as Peter did.
Music: To Whom Shall We Go – Robin and Staci Calamaio – Father and daughter team
Today, in Mercy, John gives us the core teaching of the Eucharist.
For many, it is a hard teaching. How can Jesus give us his flesh and blood to nourish us? How can mere bread and wine embody this gift?
Have you ever been profoundly hungry? For most of us, probably not in a physical sense. But what about your heart and soul?
Have you ever longed to be loved, understood, accepted, or valued?
Have you ever felt famished for peace, rest, comfort, security, or solitude?
Have you ever longed to be delivered from gnawing anxiety, depression, fear, sorrow or loneliness?
Jesus recognizes all our hungers. He desires to enfold them in his Healing Mercy. He unites us to himself in the sacred reality of Eucharist, made visible to us in bread and wine.
In Eucharist , these fruits of the earth are not simply symbols pointing to another reality. By the power of God, they become sacraments embodying the reality themselves.
This mystery is one that must be embraced by the heart and soul, not one only to be analyzed by the mind. By opening the deep hungers of our spirit to the healing presence of Christ in Eucharist, we will be fed in ways we could never have imagined. In Mercy, we will become sources of nourishment for the broken world around us.
Music: Bread of the World in Mercy Broken – Reginald Heber
Today, in Mercy, the crowd demands a sign from Jesus “that they may believe” in him. They refer to their ancestral memory of when God sent manna to their forebears in the desert – a miracle that restored their faith.
But although Jesus worked many wonders, he was not sent simply to be a “wonder worker”. The faith of the New Creation was not to be built on miracles but on sacrificial love.
Jesus tells the assembled crowd:
“ My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
He is talking about himself, the ultimate gift of God, feeding not just the body but the spirit – giving new life to all Creation.
The sacrament of the Eucharist embraces this mystery and extends it through the ages. Embodied in the Sacred Bread, this mystery is also incarnated in the People of God as they believe, hope and love God’s Presence into the world.
As with all sacred mysteries, we cannot simply choose to believe as a rational act. This faith is not willed by us, but rather gifted to us, as Jesus says:
“ You cannot come to Me unless the Father draw you.”
The crowd gathered around Jesus in today’s Gospel is asking him for a sign before they will believe. Let us instead ask God for the grace to open our hearts undemandingly to the deep gift of faith God wishes to give us.
Music: Bread of Heaven – Jessie Manibusan(Lyrics below)
Bread of heaven, Savior broken,
cup of life outpoured;
we your people thirst and hunger.
Come renew us, Lord;
come renew us, Lord.
From the mountain, blessing spoken
where we came to pray;
with the simple truth before us:
love them in my name;
love them in my name.
From the garden dark with sorrow,
from the tears you wept,
bloomed the flower of salvation:
new life born of death,
new life born of death.
From the hill where love was lifted
on the heavy wood,
flow the blood and streams of mercy
where your Mother stood,
where your Mother stood.
From the tomb that could not hold you
in the dark of night,
broke that morning of redemption,
raising us to life,
raising us to life.
Today, in Mercy, our Gospel recounts a scary episode for the disciples. Just as in most scary stories, “It was a dark and rainy night”. Worse yet, these guys were out in the middle of a turbulent sea!
Been there? Maybe not in actual nautical terms, but we’ve all had our storms. Right?
The miracle in our Gospel story is that Jesus comes to the disciples out of the midst of the storm. And he will do the same thing for us, if faith can clear our eyes to see him.
In a spiritual direction relationship, where we share our soul’s journey with a guiding companion, that mentor will often ask the question:
Where is God in this situation?
It is the perfect question to ask ourselves in both our small and mighty storms. In all that happens within and around us, God abides – perhaps in the center calling us to new depths; perhaps at the edges calling us away from darkness.
Where is God today for you, dear friends?
Music: Sometimes He Calms the Storm – Scott Krippayne
(You might want just to linger over the words of this beautiful song, so I have printed them below.)
All who sail the sea of faith
Find out before too long
How quickly blue skies can grow dark
And gentle winds grow strong
Suddenly fear is like white water
Pounding on the soul
Still we sail on knowing
That our Lord is in control
Sometimes He calms the storm
With a whispered peace, “Be still.”
He can settle any sea
But it doesn’t mean He will
Sometimes He holds us close
And lets the wind and waves go wild
Sometimes He calms the storm
And other times He calms His child
He has a reason for each trial
That we pass through in life
And though we’re shaken
We cannot be pulled apart from Christ
No matter how the driving rain beats down
On those who hold to faith
A heart of trust will always
Be a quiet peaceful place
Today, in Mercy, Jesus clearly tells us who he is for us:
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Jesus is the one, immovable Light in any darkness or confusion that engulfs us. How comforting and centering that thought – if only we can remember it!
Each of us, no doubt, has lost and found our way hundreds of times in our lives.
We have all been tossed back and forth on the half-truths, white lies, and deceptive silences of ourselves and others.
We have walked a razor line along the cliffs of death either of our beloveds or in our own spirits.
If we came through those times, it was because God found us, opened our hearts to the truth, breathed a Divine Recovery into our souls.
We are so often like Philip whose feast with James we celebrate today. Philip lived in the abundance of Christ’s presence. He listened every day to His blessed Word. Yet, after years of being with Jesus, Philip says
“Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus sounds a little surprised. He responds to Philip:
“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. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”
God has been with us too from the moment Divine Life was breathed into us. We can completely trust that Presence, that Way, that Truth, that Life.
Such trust can transform our lives!
Music: O Via, Vita, Veritas – (perhaps outdated in tone, but lovely in melody and sentiment ) by Blessed Giacomo Alberione
O VIA, VITA, VERITAS!
O Via, Vita, Veritas, o Jesu! Lucens per omnes semitas, o Jesu! Te sequemur, trahe nos / Credulos ac servulos. Te collaudamus / In Te speramus / Amamus Te / Dulcissime, o Jesu!
In verbo tuo stabimus, o Jesu! Crucis pugnam pugnabimus, o Jesu! Dediti Ecclesiæ / Veritatis regiæ. Te collaudamus / In Te speramus / Amamus Te / Dulcissime, o Jesu!
Our Way, our Truth, our Life divine – O Jesus, our Lord! On ev’ry path as Light you shine – O Master adored! Lead us so we shall fulfill, Through our faith and works, your will. We praise and bless you, / Our hope confess you! In love we sing, / Eternal King, / O Master adored!
Your word we’ll keep with all our might – O Jesus, our Lord! The battle of the cross we’ll fight – O master adored! Docile to your Church we’ll be, By your truths led joyously. We praise and bless you, / Our hope confess you! In love we sing, / Eternal King, O Master adored!
Today, in Mercy, we encounter a scriptural passage that is often designated as the Golden Text of the Bible.
God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.John 3: 16-17
Exegetical volumes have been written about this single verse.
But for our prayer this morning, it may be enough to simply bask in God’s love for us. Within that grateful delight, remember that God loves every creature with the same divine intensity – enough to breathe God’s own Life into us each one, enough to give Jesus for our redemption.
Just those astounding thoughts may lead us to where God wants to meet us in prayer today.
Music: God So Loved the World – John Stainer (1840-1901] – sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whoso believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world
to condemn the world;
but that the world through him might be saved.
Today, in Mercy,our readings continue to show us the rising power of Christ after the Resurrection.
Acts demonstrates how powerfully He lives in his disciples, and in the faith of the emerging Church.
… the people esteemed them. Yet more than ever, believers in the Lord, great numbers of men and women, were added to them. Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.
Our Gospel recounts two Post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus where He bolsters that faith for these still fledgling followers. They were gathered in the Upper Room, doors locked and fearful. When Jesus appears, the first thing he says is, “Peace”, because that is what his little flock most needs.
In the course of the reading, we discover Thomas’s adamant doubt unless he can see and touch evidence of the Christ he once knew in the flesh. His doubt is so strong that his faith, when it comes, overwhelms him.
My Lord, and my God!
In these first sainted founders of the faith, we can find a mirror image of our own call to witness Christ. We are delegated to be his presence in the world, to cast a shadow that bears his blessing in the midst of suffering and confusion.
But in the locked room of our hearts, we may still be afraid. We may feel, like Thomas, that we were absent when the affirmation and courage were distributed!
Knowing our own weaknesses – and captured in the maze of their little dramas – we may be skeptical that Christ desires to rise in us, to preach by our lives.
What Jesus said to these very fragile witnesses, he says to us
Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me,
so I send you.
Let us look around today in awareness of those who fall in the shadow of our faith: our children and families, our religious communities, our elders, our neighbors, our friends and co-workers. As we pass through life together, does our presence bless them with a trace of God?
As we pray today, let us place our doubts, fears, weaknesses and self-concerns into Christ’s sacred wounds. Let us leave them there in confidence as we humbly choose to be his Presence and Mercy for others by the simple, selfless choices of our lives.
Late April and the sweet fullness of a spring morning pours down on the silver water. It had been a fruitless night for the weary fishermen, but not an unpleasant one. They had distracted one another from their labors by singing their ancient folksongs and telling the stories of their recent epiphanies. As dawn cracked through darkness, they trailed their fingers in the gentle wake and turned their tired souls towards shore.
And He stood there, misted in diffused radiance. “The starboard side”, he called. “Why?,” they thought; and then again, “Why not?”. With just that small opening in the closed door of their hopelessness, they were overwhelmed with the stunning presence of possibility.
How could these seasoned fishermen have failed to notice the abundance swimming at their side? How could they, so accustomed to the rocking sea, have been narcotized by its lulling darkness?
When we have abandoned hope and tired of the rolling waves; when we have turned the bow toward shore in acquiescence to a hungry morning, remember these disciples. Like them, may we listen for the soft suggestion, “Children…the starboard side…”.
There is always another side, another path to the fullest of life. The hopeless dirges we repeat in our darkness are the devil’s deceptions. The truth is that life runs beside us and with in us, just below the surface of our fears. Love stands on the shore and encourages us to go back for a moment into the darkness, to look again for the hidden blessing, and then to come to the feast in Love’s abiding presence.
Today, we are the Apostles. What bold command is Jesus calling to us in the morning mist?
Music: Edward Elgar – The Apostles – a long, beautiful piece you may want to play in the background if you have a quiet space in your day.
Today, in Mercy, our passage from Acts describes a sacred practice of the early Church – the invocation of the Name of Jesus as a source of spiritual power.
Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, rise and walk.”
These first Christians were so invested in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that they claimed the right to act in his Name. They also clearly believed that they had no power themselves, but only in that blessed Name.
To call someone by their given name is an act of familiarity, if not intimacy. For those closest to us, we often have nicknames or pet names, conveying a unique understanding of each other.
Calling God by name is an act of both intimacy and worship. In the book of Exodus, God takes the first step in that deeper friendship:
God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name “the Lord” I did not make myself fully known to them.
With the Incarnation of Jesus, God took the ultimate step in loving friendship with us. To help us understand the nature of this friendship, Jesus gives himself some “nicknames” throughout the Gospel:
Good Shepherd
Lamb of God
the Vine
the Way, the Truth, the Life
the Bread of Life
the Light of the World
Each of these names helps us to enter more deeply into the infinite love God has for us.
Do you have a special name for God? Sometimes, early in the morning when First Light touches my window, I pray with that Name. I ask my Bright God to light my life and the lives of those I love this day. At night, that same window is full of Sweet Darkness, a Name I call God as I ask that we all find a peaceful, protected sleep.
We might also ask if God has a special name for us. At different moments and moods of your life, does God speak to you with a personal, loving “nickname”? If you haven’t heard it yet, why not ask God to whisper it to you in your next prayer?
Music: Jesus the Lord – Roc O’Connor, SJ
Jesus, Jesus
Let all creation bend the knee to the Lord.
1. In Him we live, we move and have our being;
In Him the Christ, In Him the King!
Jesus the Lord.
2. Though Son, He did not cling to Godliness,
But emptied Himself, became a slave!
Jesus the Lord.
3. He lived obediently His Father’s will
Accepting His death, death on a cross!
Jesus the Lord.
Today, in Mercy, Jesus clearly tells us who he is for us:
Lavish Mercy 