News - March 2021 RSS Feed

The second reading for this Easter Sunday, from 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8, speaks about the activity of yeast. A small amount can affect all the dough. I remember my mother preparing bread dough and how she would let the dough rise to a certain point and knead it so that it had the consistency she wanted. This can be a good image for the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We don’t actually see the Spirit anymore than we actually see the yeast at work. When left to do what the Spirit wants, we, too, can rise to new levels of how we experience personally the love of God in our lives. At times, we realize, too, that the Holy Spirit may need to knead us so that we can respond as effectively as possible in being instruments of transformation for one another and for our world.

One scene included early in the Passion Account we will share this Sunday from the Gospel of Mark relates how a woman broke an alabaster jar of perfumed oil and poured it on the head of Jesus. When others became infuriated with the woman for what they thought was a wasteful action, Jesus quickly told those making this judgment to let the woman alone. He said, “she has done a good thing for me.” How delightful that Jesus appreciated this woman for her caring act. While we think of Jesus as serving and suffering, it is important to reflect on His accepting and relishing this moment of kindness. It is important for us as we focus on being servants that we also allow ourselves to experience moments when we can relax, be refreshed, and allow others to do acts of kindness for us.

Our second reading for this weekend includes the words that Jesus “learned obedience from what He suffered.” We hear in the Gospel that Jesus prayed to the Father, wondering if He should ask to be spared from the pain, suffering and death that He was going to endure if He continued to reveal the love of God for all people. The Father reminds Jesus that He has been and will be glorified. If Jesus continues to accept that He is the Father’s beloved Son, and chooses to continue the mission of the Father, all will be well. Therefore, the words from our second reading mean that the more Jesus listened to the Father reminding Him of His identity, the more Jesus became for us the source of eternal life. The more we let the Father remind us of our identity as God’s beloved, the more we will be able to live out the mission God has for us, which is the same mission the Father gave Jesus.

Our second reading for this Sunday includes the words "by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works." Some of us were formed to think differently than this statement. We pray that we continue to believe that all life is a gift; our lives reflect our gratitude to God for all of God's blessings by doing our best to take loving care of all God has entrusted to us. We pray that we can help one another, especially in these uncertain times, to reflect on how the love that Jesus revealed is what brings us healing and salvation. We believe that this love is stronger than sin and stronger than death. We allow this love to transform us continually so that we can become the fullest version of ourselves as God intended us to be. Then, at the end of our lives, we present to God the gift of a life well lived in imitation of Jesus.

Our second reading includes these words: “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified.” What the Jews and Greeks failed to recognize was that in Jesus was present the clearest sign of God’s love for all people. The love that Jesus revealed was what brought Him to the cross, and in the cross we realize that Jesus lived that message of love up to His last breath. This same love raised Jesus from the dead. That same gift of love is how we experience the forgiveness of our sins, and, in the process, we experience new life.