21 April 2026 - bread weak?

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

“What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”

Jesus had tried to tell them that they had not understood the signs that he had already done. Now they seemed to be provoking him by suggesting that he needed to do a still greater sign that they could not ignore. Rather than merely feeding the crowd with loaves and wish he should do something even more obviously supernatural, similar to the manna that God gave to Israelites in the desert through Moses. Never mind how that generation quickly tired of the manna and grumbled against God longing for meat. They tried to refer to a related but apparently more supernatural miracle involving food in order to force Jesus to escalate what he himself was doing, if he could. But they did not even understand the context of their reference. They wanted to see if he was one greater than Moses, as though Moses had been the source of the heavenly bread. Was Jesus therefore a prophet with a capacity to feed the people more effectively than Moses? Clearly he was at least that. But he was so much more that the comparison was not altogether helpful.

“Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
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.”

Jesus was more than a prophet and his mission was more than temporarily satisfying the bodily appetites of the people of his generation. He wasn't competing with Moses to see who could ask the Father for more and greater favors. He himself was the great blessing the Father desired to give to the world, a blessing which was only foreshadowed in all that had gone before. What God had given the people through Moses availed for a while as they journeyed through the desert. But it did not satisfy their longings at the deepest levels. It satisfied their physical hunger. But by their grumbling they proved that merely to eat and be satisfied was not their goal. They longed for more. And that more, though they didn't realize it, was Jesus himself.

So they said to Jesus,
“Sir, give us this bread always.” 
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

Jesus himself was the gift of the Father that could sate the deepest spiritual longings of those who received him. More than merely filling the stomach for a day he could so satisfy those who received him that they no longer felt the need to grumble for new and different stimulation. He himself was the sign greater than which no sign was necessary or indeed possible. 

It is true that one taste of Jesus does not fulfill us all at once and forever after. But with him it is not a cycle of emptiness and feeding that never ends. Rather, it is constant upward growth to ever deeper levels of rest in him. Or it can be. We can still forget the magnitude of the gift we have been given and grumble for something else, we know not what. But when we bring our careful attention to even a taste of this true bread from heaven we recognize that there is nothing else like it, nor could there be.

The fullness of Spirit we experience when we consume the bread from heaven is what makes it possible for us to forsake even the good things of this world for the sake of Jesus, since we know that, however good they may be, he is far better. Rather than looking all around us at what we have lost and are in the process of losing we, like Stephen, look to heaven, and are drawn inexorable hence, as though by a powerful magnetic pull.

But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit,
looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

This experience is not something that the world will or can understand on the surface. But at our core it is that for which everyone yearns. Remembering this helps us to be kind even in the face of overwhelming hostility. Again, Stephen is an excellent example.

Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”;
and when he said this, he fell asleep.

Vineyard Worship Featuring Kathryn Scott - Hungry (Falling On My Knees)

 

20 April 2026 - i saw the sign

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me
not because you saw signs
but because you ate the loaves and were filled.

They had seen the signs enough to recognize that extraordinary and possibly supernatural things were happening around the person of Jesus. But although this motivated them to pursue Jesus it did not sufficiently motivate them to pursue truth. The signs were meant to point to a greater reality. But the crowds were content to have signs endlessly multiplied to supply their wants, or at least to supply some interesting entertainment. And there is sometimes a similar challenge for modern disciples of Jesus. We too often content ourselves with stopping at the surface, or of only having interest in what we can get from God in order to fill the contours of a life we have otherwise planned without reference to him. We may treat Scriptures as mere historical curiosities with occasionally interesting anecdotes rather than a power before which our very souls and open and accountable. We may treat the Eucharistic gathering more like a social club, the songs of praise as designed to boost our mood rather than lift God up in exultation. We are all too able to receive miraculous blessings like healings and then get right back to business as usual, forgetting the giver of all good gifts until the next time we are in need.

Do not work for food that perishes
but for the food that endures for eternal life,
which the Son of Man will give you.

A good way to interrupt our tendency to focus narrowly within the horizon of temporary existence is to ask ourselves whether what we are seeking can truly last. We may sometimes be overly invested in things that come with an eventual expiration date. It is true that most things in this mortal life will come to an end. And that does not mean that we are not permitted to find some enjoyment in suchlike. We are. But we are meant to invest our energy in this world with reference to heaven. We are meant to recognize that whatever good we find here exists in full and lasting measure only in God himself. When we know this we can receive the good things of earth with thanksgiving as they come to us. We can let them go without too much disappointment when they are taken. Like Job we learn to say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (see Job 1:21). Then even the goodness of temporary things becomes signs that actually point us ever closer to God, rather than becoming a distraction and a hindrance.

How does the food that endures for eternal life differ from mere earthly loaves? It is something that can be built up indefinitely, without the normal fear of loss due to corruption, disintegration, and entropy that marks all created things. It is something with which ever increasing growth is possible, as with our ability to give and receive love. And as we receive bread of this kind we become more rooted in that which is eternal and transcendent. It is like the heavenly treasure that is impervious to rust and inaccessible to thieves. And by desiring such treasure and seeking it our hearts come even now to abide in heaven, where alone such treasure is found.

"What can we do to accomplish the works of God?"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent."

The crowd assumed that to seek such treasure they must expend effort in many different directions, in an effort to complete all of the good works of God that might be expecting of them. But what they were could  do and what there own efforts could accomplish was not the correct place to begin. It is true that alone and unaided one could never do enough. But joined to Christ in faith we in some sense receive the same "seal" of approval as the Son himself, and actually "become the righteousness of God" (see Second Corinthians 5:21). It is on the basis of what Jesus does within us by faith that we hope to accomplish all the myriad of good works to which we are called. It is his power at work in us that makes them possible. As members of his body we need not be overwhelmed by the multitude of options, since we are a small part of a larger whole, connected through the nervous system of the Church to the guidance of the head, Jesus himself. How else could there ever have been a single martyr? If they felt like they had to do everything themselves they could never let themselves be killed with work still remaining. But as we see in our first reading, Stephen was able to do his part and entrust the rest to God, his face all the while "like the face of an angel", his heart at peace.

John Michael Talbot - I Am The Bread Of Life

 

19 April 2026 - in the breaking of bread

Today's Readings
(Audio)

And it happened that while they were conversing and debating,
Jesus himself drew near and walked with them,
but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him.

Sometimes Jesus is near us, guiding us, and transforming us, before we realize that is is him. His action in meeting with Cleopas and his companion was subtle at first. He guided their conversation, making rehearse again the very difficult things that had taken place in recent days. But he didn't bring up the things that had occurred in order to re-traumatize these disciples. We can sense a playfulness in the tone with which he spoke, hinting that he himself was the only one who truly understand everything that had happened. Sometimes Jesus brings awareness to our past not in order to set in the stone as the foundation of our future but to re-contextualize it. Others might try to tell us what happened, as with the women who astounded them with talk of angels and the resurrection. But it is altogether possible that such talk is sometimes too distant from our own experience for us to be able to connect with it. Hence we sometimes need Jesus guiding us through our own experiences until we reach a point when we are open to revelation. It may not be obvious that it is him acting. But eventually we will reach the end of what we are able to say about things. We will say what we ourselves witnessed, what the women said, and what the disciples found. We will express that these results are not enough for us to maintain the hope we once had. But when we reach the limits of our perspective and come to the end of ourselves we sometimes able to open ourselves to a higher perspective. We may come to see that there is no way our point of view could be the whole story.

And he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are!
How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke!
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things
and enter into his glory?"

In most normal circumstances when a stranger says such apparently unkind things to us we are likely to push back and argue. We might launch into an explanation for why what we saw looks nothing like any sort of prophetic fulfillment we can imagine. We might even try to tell the stranger how the darkness of Good Friday could not possibly be part of any plan. But when Jesus is the one with whom we are walking, and the one who chastises us for our foolishness, we can realize that yes, he is right, we have been foolish, and that the seeds of hope were there all along. We remember that Jesus didn't start by making this point, but first guided them to a place in their own hearts where they could receive it. It was something that he all but had to do incognito. Too much of his presence too soon might have only confused things and prevented their continued openness to his guidance. Giving them an objective explanation up front would not likely have been something they could connect with their own experience. 

Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,
he interpreted to them what referred to him
in all the Scriptures.

The second part of the plan of Jesus for these disciples was what must have been the greatest Scripture study of all times. We might have thought that his revelation of himself would come first and that he would then use Scripture to explain the details of the story. But Scripture was foundational for how he desired to reveal himself. It wasn't that they hadn't known Jesus in some sense before. But they hadn't yet truly known him as Lord. To know him in this way was only possible with some understanding of his context, from which they could know that he was the fulfillment of God's plan for humanity, and begin to make sense of the necessity of the Paschal mystery, both of his dying and his rising.

As they approached the village to which they were going,
he gave the impression that he was going on farther.
But they urged him, "Stay with us,
for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over."

We might have thought that the Scriptural exegesis of Jesus would have been sufficient to accomplish his revealing himself to Cleopas and the other disciple. Certainly it contained all of the salient context. It demonstrated how the all of the word of God pointed directly to the Word of God who was himself opening the Scriptures to them. And yet, even with that, they weren't all the way there. They did not yet recognize him. But they knew that they wanted more, and so they asked him to stay.

And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.

Jesus leads us to the mass and opens the Scriptures to us. But it is in the Eucharist that we have the fullest revelation of who he is. He is genuinely present in the Scriptures through his Spirit, which is why we say that they are living and active. But in the Eucharist we taste and see the reality of the presence of Jesus himself. Everything else is meant to prepare us to be open to this revelation, to this gift of himself, that he becomes for us, in order that we may receive him. After that, it is no longer just knowledge. We ourselves have tasted the very Body and Blood of the risen Lord. Suddenly and unexpectedly the clouds hanging over us clear and we discover a new and profound sense of purpose. Where we were before heading in the wrong direction we now about face toward Jerusalem. Our one desire becomes conveying the transformative reality of the resurrection which we ourselves now know firsthand.

Shane and Shane - Psalm 34 (Taste And See)

 

18 April 2026 - small craft advisory

Today's Readings
(Audio)

We know from the other Gospels that it was at the word of Jesus that the disciples set out to cross the sea toward Capernaum. This must have made the storm that encountered all the more discouraging. Would they have blamed Jesus for failing to foresee it? Or, if they didn't expect that he could foresee it, would they have been discouraged that even the commands of Jesus could be compromised by unforeseen circumstances in the same way as any other plans? Either way, the danger they faced was obvious. And Jesus did not seem like a likely candidate to help, since it was because of him that they were out there. 

The disciples were like those men in Psalm 107 who "went down to the sea in ships" (see Psalm 107:23-30) and experienced "the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea", the raw, unconquerable power of God expressed in nature. The disciples themselves no doubt "reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end". But Jesus himself came to them, walking on the waves, as only the Lord himself could do. So the disciples responded as like the men in the psalm:

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress. 
He made the storm be still,
and the waves of the sea were hushed.

At first they were terrified because that was the normal human response to the revelation of divinity. It was another form of what Peter experienced when he said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (see Luke 5:8). The power and unpredictability of divinity was greater than any storm. Indeed, the existence of a storm was only possible because God allowed it. Thus the disciples were uncertain that they were any safer in the immediate presence of the Lord than they were in the storm. That is, they were uncertain until he spoke, saying "It is I. Do not be afraid". His greeting cast out the fear from their hearts, and his presence stilled the wind and the waves around them. He was not, finally a God of confusion or of chaos but of peace (see First Corinthians 14:33). Yet he was not a force that could be tamed. They wanted to take him into the boat with them, to themselves manipulate the forces of divinity for their own purposes. No doubt they thought they wouldn't have to worry about the weather if he was with them. But this proved both impossible and unnecessary. Somehow it was as though the space between them and their destination was shortened such that "the boat immediately arrived at the shore to which they were heading". This was just as the psalm described:

Then they were glad that the waters were quiet,
and he brought them to their desired haven.

When it comes to the signs of Jesus we tend to prefer those like the multiplication of the loaves which satisfy our human needs and desires. But signs like the calming of the storm at the sea do more to reveal the identity of Jesus to us than could any miracle involving satiating our appetites. We would prefer it if we could come to fully realize the reality of the divinity of Jesus without having to experience it from within storms of trials and difficult circumstances. We like to imagine that we would believe it if he simply used his power to keep us always and everywhere safe from such distress. But the fact of the matter is that he permitted and indeed caused his disciples to experience that storm for the precise purpose of revealing that he was a power greater than the wind and the waves, greater even than the chaos of the tohu wa-bohu of the creation narrative in Genesis. It was only from that perspective that they could truly understand that they were in fact dealing with one who was above all of the forces of the creation, that those forces themselves obeyed him.

From our own trials we are meant to learn both that God is beyond are control but also that he is good and on our side. He does not often lead us by the paths we would probably choose for ourselves. But he does always, if allow him, lead us to the haven we desire.

See, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,
upon those who hope for his kindness,
To deliver them from death
and preserve them in spite of famine.

Vineyard Worship - I Stand In Awe

 

17 April 2026 - bring it to Jesus

Today's Readings
(Audio)

A large crowd followed him,
because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick.

The crowds had a shallow interest in Jesus. They were seeking entertainment more than truth. As we will see, they would be content with an infinitely available earthly bread, and did not know how much better a heavenly food could satisfy them. Noticing the supernatural signs that accompanied Jesus without reading more deeply into the reason for the signs caused the people to attempt to drag Jesus down to the level of an earthly king, rather than allowing themselves to be elevated to participation in a heavenly Kingdom. But this was a problem uniquely affecting the spectators. The disciples who were directly involved had a different set of challenges before them.

When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him,
he said to Philip, "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?"
He said this to test him,
because he himself knew what he was going to do.

Apparently Jesus sometimes allows us to deal with questions that don't have good earthly answers in order that we might respond by placing our trust in him. He allows thoughts about our own insufficiency to arise within us so that we can turn to him in our need. He does not keep the questions from arising in our hearts. But does happily supply us with the answers.

Philip answered him,
"Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough
for each of them to have a little."

Jesus did not immediately and completely resolve the issue, since he wanted to lead his disciples deeper into faith and the circle of grace. Philip hadn't completely surrendered to despair. He had expressed the apparent impossibility of rising to meet the circumstances, but he said so in a way that suggested he may have been open to having his viewpoint corrected. Such a starter place is better than nothing. We tell the Lord that things seem hopeless, at least from our perspective, in order that he can tell us why we're wrong.

Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,
"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish;
but what good are these for so many?"

Jesus wanted his disciples to do what they could do so that he could then step in and do what was beyond them. But he was always the necessary center of the action. The loaves and fish wouldn't have been worth mentioning in a normal context. Only in the sense of, 'Maybe Jesus can somehow make use of these', did it make sense to refer to them.

Feeding the crowd was a task that was well beyond what the disciples could accomplish utilizing their own abilities and resources. Normally when we hit a wall like that we expect that if it is to happen at all Jesus will step in and do the whole thing for us without us. But it turns out that he often does something different, something which requires more trust on our part. He asks us to be involved, including our own insufficient ideas and resources in his ultimate supernatural solution. He has, of course, no need of us. But he desires us to entrust ourselves to him so completely as to be actually involved in spite of our insecurities. 

Jesus said, "Have the people recline." 
Now there was a great deal of grass in that place. 
So the men reclined, about five thousand in number.

Jesus became for the crowd the good shepherd who made them to recline in green pastures in order to set a table before them. His heart was moved with compassion for the crowd, shallow and superficial though they were. After all, they were like sheep without a shepherd. They had until then lacked leadership that could guide them to a deeper life. But the way he chose to show his mercy was through the sheep of his flock that were already close to him, who had already begun to learn to hear his voice. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised when he wants show his mercy to others through us, even though we ourselves have no more than five loaves in two fish in the grand scheme of things.

When they had had their fill, he said to his disciples,
"Gather the fragments left over,
so that nothing will be wasted."

There is an obvious reference to the Eucharist in the feeding of the five thousand. Though John did not include the Institution Narrative in his Gospel he was obviously familiar with it, and used the same language in his description of what Jesus did here. He alluded to it obliquely by its absence. Thus, gathering the fragments had a particular significance for the consecrated bread, that was no longer ordinary, and ought not be wasted. But it has significance for us as well, for the times when Jesus does intervene in our own lives and use us as agents of his grace. Such events do happen first for the people he desires to bless, but also for sake of the transformative effects that they are meant to have on the people through whom grace is given. Yet this latter is less obvious. We are tempted mostly to remember the difficulty and the effort of being involved. We must learn to treasure the words and actions of Jesus in our hearts, as Mary did, if we are not to take them for granted. We see this in the extreme from the disciples who were persecuted by the Sanhedrin in our reading from Acts:

So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin,
rejoicing that they had been found worthy
to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.
And all day long, both at the temple and in their homes,
they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the Christ, Jesus.

Peter Furler - Psalm 23

 

16 April 2026 - the same only different

Today's Readings
(Audio)

The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things.

Jesus wants us to understand how he is different from other men. He was born of a virgin and possessed a real human nature, and thus looked as human as anyone else. He was found to be human in appearance, but was actually also in the "form of God" (see Philippians 2:6), and "the exact imprint of his nature" (see Hebrews 1:3). People looking at Jesus could see the former but not the latter. But they often noticed that Jesus did not speak as ordinary men did. There was something different about his word. It possessed a unique authority that the words of other teachers did not. He spoke with confidence about what he had "seen and heard", the heavenly realities which he had directly known and experienced from all eternity. Other teachers were limited to discussing of earthly things since they didn't have access to the heavenly realities themselves. When they tried to speak about matters beyond their ken they could offer nothing more than guesses and inferences. That is why the wisest men did not strive to know what was too exulted to be known and too inaccessible to be discovered by unaided human reason.

I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me. 
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me (see Psalm 131:1-2).

However, as it turns out, the heavenly things are not irrelevant to us even though we are creatures of the earth. We are of the earth but our destiny is not meant to remain at the level of the earthly, the finite, and the mortal. We must therefore believe the Son, the only verified expert on heavenly matters, so that he can guide us to our eternal destiny. Thus, anyone who "believes in the Son has eternal life". Note, however, that belief is contrasted, not with doubt, but rather with disobedience. Belief that avails for eternal life is therefore obedience to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The choice to believe or disbelieve is not merely a blind chance or random guess. It is our response to the revelation of the one who is perfectly trustworthy and unfailingly good. To reject him is to reject truth itself and goodness itself. When we do believe our own minds begin to heal from former darkened ways of thinking. The fundamental tenet that becomes the basis for our thoughts is that the words spoken by the one who is the Truth are true. It may seem obvious in hindsight. But all our negative patterns of thinking pretend this is not the case. Instead, we think like Adam and Eve who wished to know for themselves the difference between good and evil. But when we certify that God is trustworthy things begin to change for us. We open ourselves to Jesus, upon whom the Father does not ration the gift of the Spirit, who in turn pours that Spirit out on us as we are able to receive it. It is precisely this Spirit that is our own entry point into the life of the Father and the Son, and a foretaste even here and now of the life we hope to live forever with them.

but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God remains upon him

If we insist on clinging to our own truths rather than conforming our lives to the truth of God we will not be able to avail ourselves of the rescue mission that Jesus came to accomplish. Rather than being delivered from our default condition of darkness we will remain under God's wrath, we ourselves being the ones who have culpably chosen to remain in this state. Instead of this we must learn to be committed to God's words over and against the opposition of any merely human words such as those of the Sanhedrin to the Apostles:

"We gave you strict orders did we not,
to stop teaching in that name.
Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching
and want to bring this man's blood upon us."
But Peter and the Apostles said in reply,
"We must obey God rather than men.

Newsboys - We Believe

 

15 April 2026 - rescue ops

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world might be saved through him.

God sent his Son Jesus as a rescue mission for humanity. In strict justice he might well have sent him as a mere confirmation of the condemnation which we had brought upon ourselves. But instead he sent him as a savior, to save us from what we had become. However, the first step to recovery required admitting that there was a problem, something we were loathe to do. Thus, when the light came, we preferred the darkness. We did not want to call sin what it was or to acknowledge the presence of darkness in our hearts. The light did not come to condemn, but it did, by virtue of existing in our midst reveal our fallen condition, our darkness and our sinfulness. Yet multiple responses to the light were possible. Rejecting it may have been the norm, but it was also possible to acknowledge what it revealed. Doing so opened up the pathway to the possibility of recovery. It could lead to salvation, in which state one would no longer need hide his works from the light. Instead, for such a one, "his works may be clearly seen as done in God". 

In order to experience salvation we need to be humble enough to at least acknowledge that we have a problem. Our hearts don't always love as God would have us love. We don't even always love others to the lower standard of how we would have them love us. We often prioritize ourselves, but not in ways that conduce to our growth. We chose addictive behaviors and destructive patterns over constructive choices that can make us grow in virtue.  

God didn't send the light of the world among us merely to punish us or make us suffer. He did so because he loves us and wanted to make us the kind of creatures fit for eternal life, actually capable on enjoying eternity with him forever. After all, all other goals are ultimately unsustainable. If we push too insistently into any other trajectory we will eventually crash and burn. Humanity in it's fallen state is a ship that is sinking, circled by sharks. Let's not waste our time discussing how the water does not in fact look so cold or how the sharks might in fact by dolphins. Jesus is waiting to bring us up into the ark of his Church where we can be safe from the fate that otherwise awaits us. But he will not force us. He'll allow us to go down with the ship of the fallen world if we choose. May we not do so.

Once we know the salvation of God our cozy relationship with the fallen world must change. The fallen world will inevitably try to drag us back down, just as the religious leaders threw the Apostles in jail to try to silence them. They didn't want to hear about the light. But the Apostles did not for that reason condemn them. Rather, because they were trying to love the world as God himself loved it, they did not abandon it in order to content themselves with having themselves obtained salvation. Even when they encountered what, from a human perspective, were insurmountable obstacles, the prison and the guards, they did not despair or give up. And because they did not the world found it was unable to stop or silence them, as it had been unable to stop or silence their Lord.

But during the night, the angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison,
led them out, and said,
"Go and take your place in the temple area,
and tell the people everything about this life."

The world needs to know about this life, the life of Christian community that we enjoy in virtue of our baptism. We can't allow ourselves to be imprisoned or pushed aside into religious ghettos. We must take center stage, wherever that stage may be. For the Apostles it was the Temple. For us it will be the places of discourse where we interact with people of other viewpoints. And there is no sphere that can be excluded, including the public square. We can do this without fear. We may well encounter persecution and hardship. And yes, if our goal was ultimately about comfort that would be plenty of reason to fear. But that is not our ultimate goal when we want what God wants. When we do so he will absolutely empower us to do what he wishes and become what he desires us to be: his witnesses. 

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.

David W Morris - Let Us Exult His Name

 

14 April 2026 - go down to go up

Today's Readings
(Audio)

If I tell you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?

Sacramental realities like baptism contain both an earthly and a heavenly aspect. There is the water, on the one hand, which is richly symbolic. On the other, there is the Spirit, the agent of transformation who imparts grace to the believer. Jesus seems to recognize that he must ground his communication with us in things that are familiar and intelligible in order give us access to realities which are transcendent and invisible. We are creatures compromised of both matter and Spirit, and he addresses himself to us accordingly. But he does want to lead us through that which is earthly into participation in heavenly realities. He wants to guide us to the spiritual and immaterial realm in which the Father himself dwells in inapproachable light. But we can't bypass the earthly and jump straight to the spiritual. If we will not believe Jesus about the necessity of baptism how can we hope to be sufficiently docile to be led into the life of the Triune God? 

There is a certain humility that is required when Jesus deals with us as the sort of creatures we in fact are. After all, we are not angels. We are not beings that comprehend everything at once with no intermediate steps. We must be willing to be taught by means of parables and led by means of Sacraments. These things may seem excessively simplistic to our prideful egos. But what we mistake for superficiality is in fact clarity and profound and inexhaustible intelligibility. The word of God is similar. On the surface there is the literal meaning which educated men like Augustine found embarrassingly inelegant. But in addition to the level of the letter there is also the level of Spirit, which is life-giving. But the historical sense is foundational. Without it, the spiritual sense seems fanciful and irrelevant, in the same way that a prophecy that never comes true is not an authentic prophecy.

No one has gone up to heaven
except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.

Jesus, by means of his incarnation, is the bridge between the earthly and the heavenly. Only he has perfect clarity and complete understanding of heavenly realities. Only he can revel the Father to us. By shunning parables, Sacraments, and the letter of Scripture, we are in fact also shunning the human nature Jesus chose to assume for our sake. But when we embrace these we embrace not only the human Jesus, but also, through him, the Triune God. We are thus caught up in the invisible realities which Nicodemus wished to know. Such a desire was not wrong. It only needed to be properly ordered.

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

One particular instance of realizing the spiritual meaning of Scripture is presented to us today. The saraph serpents in the desert were more than merely a punishment for a specific instance of disobedience. They were symbolic of the poisonous nature of sin itself. So too did the mysterious way in which the effect of the saraph serpents bite was finally negated point forward to the way in which God ultimately dealt with sin itself. Because we can read the literal meaning of the historical text we come to understand things about both the nature of sin and salvation that would be otherwise more obscure. Just as the serpents revealed the ugliness of disobedience so too did the cross reveal the ugliness of sin. Gazing on what the people had wrought in the form of a bronze statue allowed them to be healed. Gazing upon what our sin did to the spotlessly innocent lamb of God allowed us to experience salvation. But we see that there was absolutely no way around reckoning with the problem. 

Let's believe Jesus about earthly things so that he can then reveal to us heavenly things. Then our communities of faith on earth will more and more closely come to resemble heaven itself, as was the case with the early Church described in Acts.

There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the Apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need.

Keith Green - Easter Song

13 April 2026 - bigger on the inside

Today's Readings
(Audio)

for no one can do these signs that you are doing
unless God is with him.

One can see the plausibility of the signs from an outside perspective, external to the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus recognized that the signs that Jesus was doing required a supernatural explanation. He saw that God must be cooperating with Jesus in order to allow him to do things which were not possible in the natural order, but which were full of the goodness and mercy that was characteristic of God. He was unable to determine more than this, however. He was limited by his normal human understanding which obtained only to the natural and the earthly. He heard Jesus talk about being born again and interpreted it in a literal sense. However, since he recognized that resulted in a non-sequitur he asked Jesus to clarify.

Nicodemus said to him,
"How can a man once grown old be born again?
Surely he cannot reenter his mother's womb and be born again, can he?"

Like us all, Nicodemus had been born of flesh, was a member of the human race, created in the image of God. But this did not give him the wherewithal to understand the new spiritual reality that had sparked his curiosity. He needed a new beginning, a new birth, an origin that was rooted in divinity and not only in humanity. Only from the inside could one truly see the Kingdom of God so as to understand it. And only as a child of God did one enter that Kingdom. The way that one who was not a God's Son by nature became a child of God was by sharing in the Sonship of Jesus. This was brought about through the sacrament of baptism by which the believer was united with Jesus himself, in which water symbolized death and rebirth. The new birth, however, was real, and came about through the Spirit was given by the Father, making the newly baptized into sons and daughters of God. What Jesus was by nature believers became by divine adoption through baptism.

Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and Spirit
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

What Nicodemus wanted to see and understand was something that could only be grasped from within. This was not because of elitism, or because of the layered secrets of mystery cults. It was rather because spiritual realities required spiritual interpretation. Or, put another way, what God was doing in the world only made sense to those who had the mind of God. To the those possessing a merely human mind God once said through Isaiah, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (see Isaiah 55:8). But the baptized are able to say with Saint Paul that "we have the mind of Christ" (see First Corinthians 2:16). Normal human intellectual capacity could never discover the fact that God was a Trinity. But the person renewed in the Spirit could believe it. And not only could he believe it, but he had in fact entered into the reality of the love between the Father and the Son, the very Spirit himself who was brought about his new birth.

The wind blows where it wills,
and you can hear the sound it makes,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes;
so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Those born of the Spirit are hard to understand for outsiders. They care an awful lot about things that seem abstract or implausible to others. They are motivated to seek first things to which nonbelievers are entirely indifferent since they cannot perceive them. They seek to move in response to the will of God as sailboats respond to the wind. But it is for the most part the family of God that experiences his guidance in this way. Nonbelievers look upon these waters and seem to see boats sailing rapidly, even on days that seem to them to have no wind. We think of Paul who sometimes initially made plans to go in one direction but was then prevented by the Spirit and then allowed himself to be redirected somewhere else. And we think of Philip whom the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took away somewhere else after he had baptized the Ethiopian. 

It is the Holy Spirit that inspires Christians to withstand tyrants and corrupt leaders as did the disciples described in our reading from Acts. They understood that this sort of opposition was foreseen in the divine plan and were thus not overly disturbed by it. They saw it as a fulfillment of a prophetic psalm.

Why did the Gentiles rage
and the peoples entertain folly?
The kings of the earth took their stand
and the princes gathered together
against the Lord and against his anointed.

But the Apostles did not rage or entertain folly in response. They did not meet the hostile oppressors on their own terms, since they had been indeed shown a different way by Jesus their leader. Instead of human retaliation they chose to rely on the Spirit to equip them to respond and then to guide that response.

And now, Lord, take note of their threats,
and enable your servants to speak your word
with all boldness, as you stretch forth your hand to heal,
and signs and wonders are done
through the name of your holy servant Jesus."
As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook,
and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

The reason we are often unable to be bold in the face of opposition is that we tend to try to meet them on their own terms. Let us instead learn from the Apostles and seek the Spirit even and especially in times of crisis. The world absolutely needs bold Christians now as much as ever. It does not need vitriol or even arguments so much as it needs signs and wonders that reveal the lordship of Jesus himself. Once people recognize that reality the rest will work itself out in turn.

David Crowder Band - Here Is Our King

 

12 April 2026 - peace like rivers

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

The way people in the past had treated the prophets poorly and abused them had not resulted in peace. It brought, not the blessings of the covenant, but its curses. This was such a given that, in response to Jesus telling the parable about leasing the vineyard, in which the tenants finally killed the son of the landlord, his audience replied, stating how the landowner would respond: "He will put those wretches to a miserable death" (see Matthew 21:41). Therefore, they assumed that those in leadership roles who were responsible for the death of the son would themselves be put to death. Jesus did not immediately or directly challenge this notion. Imagine that looping through the disciples minds after the events of Good Friday! Once the true Son of the Father had in fact been put to death every shared in complicity to one degree or another. The fact that the disciples of Jesus had fled and failed him in his hour of need probably made it hard for them to imagine that they would not share in God's judgment against those responsible for the death of Jesus. But it turned out that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but rather so that through him the world could be saved (see John 3:17). Jesus did not in fact pray for the death of his persecutors, but rather, for their forgiveness. The result of his death was not the immediately unleashing of curses but rather of blessings. The death of Jesus did not forever confirm and set in stone the enmity between God and humanity, but rather made true peace  possible.

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Having peace with God means that we don't act in ways that are hostile to his Lordship and that he in turn doesn't have to respond with punishment and judgment. Before Christ made peace with God possible we lived as his enemies, on a one way road to destruction. We were so committed in our opposition to him that he knew that we could not bear the fullness of his presence among us and would seek to destroy it. Yet he made precisely that the thing that would unleash peace and forgiveness. He set a trap for our sinfulness, showing that however great was our sin, love was still greater. Where sin abounded grace abounded still more (see Romans 5:20).

Peace with God is not merely meant to describe an external lack of hostility between man and God. It is meant to define our inner subjective experience as well. Our old ways of thinking in which we put our selfish egos first were ultimately death directed. But the the cross made it possible for us to receive the Holy Spirit, and through him, renewed minds. Those renewed minds could be at peace since they would need no longer experience the disproportionate fear of death as though it were an absolute evil. They would no longer harbor the subconscious fear that God was against them, waiting for an excuse to issue forth condemnation and judgment. They would believe that if God was on their side than nothing could harm them an any ultimate sense.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (see Romans 8:6).

that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (see Hebrews 2:14-15).

Because of the death of Jesus we become convinced of God's love for us (see First John 4:16), allowing us to cast our cares upon him since he does in fact care for us (see First Peter 5:7). It is not that we don't have other concerns anymore, or that we only care about God and other purely spiritual things. It is rather that we are able to trust God with all of our other concerns.

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (see Philippians 4:6-7).

We do not always experience this level of transcendent peace that Paul describes. In fact, we are often more like Thomas. Others tell us about the power of the resurrection, the now unshakable reality of the peace of Christ, and we imagine it to be too good to be true. We imagine those witnesses of the resurrection to be exaggerating, or, if not, that what they received is meant for them but not for us. But if we missed the first round of blessing, it might be because God has a plans for a special second round which will have even more profound effects in us than would have been possible otherwise. He may allow us to experience some darkness for the sake of making our eventual conviction and belief all the stronger. So if we feel like we missed out when Jesus was passing out his gift of peace, we should know that he still intends for us to receive it. Unlike Thomas, we probably won't arrive at faith through the visible icon of the Lord's risen Body. But Jesus assures us that, if anything, we will be blessed no less because of it.

Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.

To be clear, this is us! So too are we the ones described by Peter in his epistle:

Although you have not seen him you love him;
even though you do not see him now yet believe in him,
you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,
as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls

So let us live in the peace and the joy that are the fruits of his Spirit, available to us because of his resurrection from the dead.  May they shape our hearts, and then, in turn, our communities of faith, as they did for the early Church:

They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart,
praising God and enjoying favor with all the people.
And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Michael W Smith - You Are Holy (Prince Of Peace)

 

11 April 2026 - witless to witness

Today's Readings
(Audio)

She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping.
When they heard that he was alive
and had been seen by her, they did not believe.

No doubt they thought that, as a women, she was overcome by emotions, clinging to insubstantial dreams that she wished were true. But it was they themselves who clung to a false reality, an incorrect interpretation of the past, leading to a distorted view of the present. Mary Magdalene was in fact only affirming that what Jesus had once said would happen had in fact occurred. But the emotions of despair from seeing the crucifixion clouded their vision of both past and future, making it difficult for them to choose to believe in the possibility of hope. There was a certain sense of finality to the cross that it difficult to believe that things could ever be good or whole again. But it was their hopelessness that distorted the truth of reality, not the joy and hope of Mary Magdalene.

After this he appeared in another form
to two of them walking along on their way to the country.
They returned and told the others;
but they did not believe them either.

It must have been hard for both these two and Mary Magdalene to explain how it was that they hadn't recognized Jesus when he first appeared. This was, to be sure, an inconvenient detail. But he desired to be known by Mary specifically when he called her name. So too did desire to be known by the two on the road to Emmaus in the breaking of the bread. But these events were, of course, unprecedented. They only had their prior experiences of the pre-resurrection Jesus for comparison. These experiences held clues and even predictions. But they were not such that the shape of future events could be known in advance. The risen Lord was a new paradigm. He could not be seen by people trapped in old and carnal ways of thinking. He was the same Jesus, yes. But he was now glorified. And that changed everything.

But later, as the Eleven were at table, he appeared to them
and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart
because they had not believed those
who saw him after he had been raised.

Their old and earthly attitudes had made them fail to believe witnesses who were in fact speaking the truth, good news that was better than anything they could ask or imagine. Jesus rebuked their hardness of heart, but not in order to make them feel condemned. He did so rather for the same reason that he had rebuked the storm at sea (see Mark 4:39). He did so to take control of emotional forces that were normally beyond direct human control, to change the internal atmosphere of the eleven, giving them the peace and great calm of his presence.

He said to them, “Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” 

In order to function as his witnesses they needed to have their hardened, disbelieving, and despairing hearts replaced with new and living hearts filled with hope. It was not a hope which was derived from auspicious earthly circumstances, but rather a hope that was drawn from the resurrection of Jesus himself. Not only did they need to believe that Jesus had done more than they could ask or imagine, they needed to believe that this was now his modus operandi, the new normal from the nascent Church. We see this clearly in the way the power of the resurrection was at work amongst the disciples of the early Church described in Acts.

Everyone living in Jerusalem knows that a remarkable sign
was done through them, and we cannot deny it.

When we are convinced that the goodness of God is really at work among us we will yield to no human authority who tells us not to speak of it.

Whether it is right in the sight of God
for us to obey you rather than God, you be the judges.
It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.

It is then that we will know and resonate with the experience of the psalmist.

My strength and my courage is the LORD,
and he has been my savior.
The joyful shout of victory
in the tents of the just.

Newsboys - Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)

 

10 April 2026 - backtracking vs backsliding

Today's Readings
(Audio)

Zebedee's sons, and two others of his disciples.
Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing."
They said to him, "We also will come with you."

It seems the disciples were unclear on what came next. Was it now the end times, since the resurrection had occurred? Should they go back to living normal lives now that the mission had, it seemed, been finished? They did not know what to do next, and Jesus wasn't immediately proximate to ask, so they returned to the familiar. But although it seemed like they may have thought to exit their roles as disciples by the same way they entered, it was no longer possible. Jesus had forever transformed the idea of the disciples as fishermen. No aspect of their lives was untouched by him. There was no place to which they could return that was safely separate and normal. But perhaps on some level they knew this. They remembered that it was while fishing that they first gained a sense of their calling. Maybe they returned to it in hope of having a similar experience to provide them with the direction they now desired. It may have been only a semiconscious hope. But they knew that Jesus had revealed himself before even amidst their ordinary circumstances. Thus did he do again, fulfilling that hope.

When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore;
but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.
Jesus said to them, "Children, have you caught anything to eat?"
They answered him, "No."
So he said to them, "Cast the net over the right side of the boat
and you will find something."

Their services as fishers of men were still needed even and especially after the resurrection. As a symbol of how this would work the other disciples struggled to bring in the massive catch of fish, but the strength of Peter was somehow enough to move the whole thing single-handedly, signaling his unique role among his brother Apostles. But Peter was as effective as he was because he was wise enough to defer to the counsel of the apparently more spiritual John who recognized Jesus first. And this kind of humility has marked our better popes through the ages. They first listen and only then act decisively.

Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them,
and in like manner the fish.

In what does the joy of the Church consist if not the bread which Jesus gives us, together with the constant influx on new disciples from every land, tribe, and tongue? It is a feast compromised of both bread and fish. It is a table that is set for us primarily by the successors of the Apostles, our bishops, and their collaborators among the priesthood. Yet we, as laity, also work together with them, allowing ourselves to become fishers of men in the ponds, streams, and rivers of ordinary life to which they might not otherwise have access. We might think that Peter was unique in how he responded to the religious authorities in today's reading from Acts. But we too have been filled with the same Spirit they guided him. With Paul we can say, "we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak" (see Second Corinthians 4:13). And we are meant to receive the same level of conviction and even boldness of speech that we see Peter had.

then all of you and all the people of Israel should know
that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean
whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead;
in his name this man stands before you healed.
He is the stone rejected by you, the builders,
which has become the cornerstone.
There is no salvation through anyone else,
nor is there any other name under heaven
given to the human race by which we are to be saved."

We need this conviction and confidence because it is so common for us to slip into believing that our earthly tasks, our own fishing in the natural sphere, are more pressing, or worse, more important than our spiritual priorities, even though we know that the former has only temporary significance, the later, eternal.

This is the day the LORD has made;
let us be glad and rejoice in it.

Hillsong Worship - No Other Name

 

9 April 2026 - be not afraid, he's no ghost

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

"Peace be with you."
But they were startled and terrified
and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

They had been wrong about this before. When he came across the waves to their boat during a storm they also "thought it was a ghost and cried out" (see Mark 6:49). But from this we might surmise that it wasn't just the fact on the presence of Jesus that startled and terrified them. On the lake he had been terrifying specifically because the event was revelation of his divinity, a theophany. So too here. He had crossed the greater stormy sea of death to return once more to his frightened flock in the little vessel of his Church. His risen humanity, now glorified, was now, in some mysterious way, transparent to his divinity. What Peter, James, and John, saw briefly during the transfiguration was now normalized. It wasn't that his old human aspect was gone. It was rather more like a new dimension of reality had opened up around him. No wonder people needed his graced assistance in order to recognize him. They could stare at him directly but not see his familiar humanity because of the blinding light of his divinity. No wonder, too, then, that this was not an experience that was given immediately to the whole world, but rather to chosen witnesses. These witnesses were able, eventually, to correctly interpret what they had seen because they had been with him the whole time. They had known the human Jesus. They were the ones who could understand that he was not some glorious angelic being or phantasm, but rather than same Jesus whom they had known. What was the ultimate link that definitively proved that the one they had known before was the same one whom they now beheld? It was his wounds.

Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have."
And as he said this,
he showed them his hands and his feet.

As he had done for the disciples on the way to Emmaus so now he opened the minds of the others to understand the Scriptures. Specifically they came to understand the way that he was at the center of everything. Not only was he the one predicted in the obviously messianic passages of the prophets, but the law of Moses and the psalms as well ultimately found the true fulfillment of their deepest meaning in him as well. Although Jesus said so, it was not obvious to the untrained mind that it is written in the Old Testament "that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached". But once one saw it, he could not unseen it. Jesus was sacrificed in the figure of Isaac, offered as the lamb by Moses, prefigured as the suffering servant in Isaiah, shown as persecuted but eventually triumphant in the psalms of David, just to name a few examples. Even as recently as Vatican I prophecy was affirmed as an important external "motive of credibility" (motiva credibitatis) that makes the act of faith rational (see Vatican I, Session III, Ch. 3). We can see in our recent readings that prophecy has always been considered a vital part of the witness of the Church. Fulfillment was the foundation of Peter's message today in our reading from Acts, including fulfillment of the words of Moses and Samuel, and of God's promise to Abraham. But what is the eventual result of this conviction supposed to be, or what do we become as a consequence? Jesus tells us:

You are witnesses of these things.

Peter understood this, as we can see in the reading from Acts, when he  says "of this we are witnesses". But do we understand it? Are we persuaded that all of human history finds its fulfillment in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? And if so, how can we help but proclaim it?

O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

Passion - Holy Ground

 

8 April 2026 - heading the wrong way

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

That very day, the first day of the week,
two of Jesus’ disciples were going
to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus

They were heading in the wrong direction. The degree of their culpability for this is unclear. Jesus had told everyone what would happen. But no one really seemed to understand it beforehand. These two disciples had hoped that Jesus "would be the one to redeem Israel", implying that they no longer held that hope. After what they had witnessed in the horrific death of Jesus it is hard to blame them. But their readiness to give up on Jesus demonstrated that their initial hope in him was thin. Those with the strongest hope remained at the tomb, unable to accept that the light of the world could be dead. Besides them there were the other disciples who at least remained in the city and continued to gather in fellowship. They were well positioned to receive the revelation of the resurrection. Even the most famous doubter among them was unable to avoid that revelation for long. This shows us that it is among gatherings of other disciples that we find the privileged place for encounter with Jesus. Yet the story of Emmaus gives us hope for those who are heading the wrong way, that Jesus does not abandon them, but follows after them, finds them, and engages them. However, he does not force himself on them. Before he allows himself to be fully recognized they must signal that they desire him to do so. By opening the Scriptures to them he gives them a taste of the possibility that their hope indeed lives on. But before he fully opens their eyes to his presence he waits for them to say "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over." They have to want it. And they do.

And it happened that, while he was with them at table,
he took bread, said the blessing,
broke it, and gave it to them.
With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him,
but he vanished from their sight.

They had known Jesus in a human way. This was good, valid, and useful. It allowed him to teach them, to lead them, and to instruct them by his example. But it was still too limited. The reason he allowed them to experience some darkness as to knowing him in a merely human way was so that they could experience his presence on a deeper level, one that was more spiritual, and obtained in some degree to his divinity. Knowing him as a man allowed him to be their Teacher. But knowing him as God allowed him to be their wisdom and their Eucharistic food. What was previously external to them was internalized, and they were transformed in the process.

Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?

When the Scriptures change from historical narratives about past events into a place of encounter with Jesus himself our hearts too will burn within us. And it is above all in the Eucharist that we not only meet Jesus as we might meet any man, but that, to a degree, we actually become one with him, one body through the one loaf of Eucharistic bread. But the fact that this is preceded both in the story and in the mass by a Scriptural exposition is no accident. Rather, it is the presence of the living one in his Word, in both the Old and New Testaments, that gives us the context of how and why he would choose to be present in the humble elements of bread and wine. We see that he is our lamb of sacrifice and our priest-king Melchizedek. And when we receive him in the Eucharist with hearts that are on fire for him there are no limits to what his grace is able to do in us.

Carey Landry - Known To Us

 

7 April 2026 - sorrow turns to joy

 

Today's Readings
(Audio)

And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

She was weeping because she loved Jesus so much, and had placed so much hope in him. He had restored her, and for a time it seemed he would restore the world as well. Could she have merely imagined that Jesus was all that he seemed to be? In a way, it seemed that she must have. But still, she couldn't leave the tomb, refused to abandon the body, and therefore give up on the connection she had to Jesus. As a woman in a garden, she wept like Eve for all that might have been but now seemed lost. But then she encountered the gardener. How fitting a misapprehension this was, since she turned to see the new Adam who was in fact in the process of planting the seed of a new Eden. But, although she was looking at all the signs of a new reality breaking forth, she still naturally interpreted them according to the old paradigm of fallen world. Although she had a real and profound love for Jesus it was nevertheless still a love that clung to the way that things which had been, which was not immediately open to be led into a new future of hope. Her love averted the potential disaster of full blown despair, even when all hope seemed lost. It was not enough on its own. But it was enough in the light of the one who loved her even more than she loved him, who knew her even better than she knew herself. It was this feeling of transcendence that she experienced when Jesus called her name.

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,”
which means Teacher.

She was beginning to experience the promise of Jesus, that she would see him again, and that her sorrow would turn to joy. But even on recognizing him, she still needed to realize that his resurrection implied that she must now relate to him in a new way. He was still Teacher. But the Teacher was now risen and glorified. He could, yes, still be touched, as she and others demonstrated. But in order to reign over his Church, send his Spirit, and guide the work of evangelizing the world, he could no longer be held to one specific place alone. He was preparing her for his ascension in which he would still be present, even more present in fact, but in a different way than before. The contact of touch would indeed still be possible, but only through faith, since by faith we may touch the risen Lord in the Eucharist. But even there we do not cling. We do not try to arrest a moment in time that is meant to be a transition. We do not build tents on the mountain but allow the transformation to surge forward, changing us and our world in turn.

But go to my brothers and tell them,
‘I am going to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God.’”
Mary went and announced to the disciples,
“I have seen the Lord,”
and then reported what he had told her.

Like Mary we too are meant to encounter the risen Lord and become witnesses to his resurrection. We too are meant to spread the news that it is now possible for everyone to become sons and daughters of the Father through faith and baptism, in which we are united to Jesus, and are thereby adopted into the divine life of the Trinity. When we really encounter him and allow him to unleash his Spirit in our lives we gain the motivation and confidence of Peter on the day of Pentecost:

Let the whole house of Israel know for certain
that God has made him both Lord and Christ,
this Jesus whom you crucified.

Darrell Evans - Trading My Sorrows

 

6 April 2026 - missing body problem

Today's Readings
(Audio)

You are to say,
‘His disciples came by night and stole him while we were asleep.’

The opponents of Jesus seemed to realize the implications of the empty tomb more quickly than did his own disciples. His disciples interpreted the missing body to be merely that, a missing body, still dead, but now lost. The chief priests and the elders knew all too well that the missing body implied resurrection. It was, perhaps, easier for them to understand, since they weren't emotionally invested in the way that the disciples were. And yet, though they understood the implications of the empty tomb they did not seem to consider the factual basis of those implications. Rather, they were more concerned with preserving the narrative they had created of Jesus as a false and failed messiah. They chose to say that the disciples had stolen the body, since it was the most logical option for maintaining the coherence of that scenario. Yet, they did this knowing that it could not have been the case. The disciples had not overwhelmed the guards and moved the stone. Inconvenient facts, such as the guards' witness to the overwhelming and awe-inspiring presence of one or more angelic beings, were summarily dismissed. These, were of course, Roman guards, not given to flights of fancy or making excuses to explain dereliction of duty. Yet the chief priests and elders would cram the details into their existing narrative, no matter how much violence was required to make them fit.

Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid.
Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee,
and there they will see me.”

The fact of the empty tomb could only be explained by the factual and historical resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In the same way, the subsequent spread of Christianity could only be accounted for if the disciples really were convinced that they had encountered the risen Lord himself. We have seen that they were not convinced easily or immediately. Only as their alternative explanations failed, and they were able to see, hear, and touch the very much alive Jesus himself, did they eventually allow their hearts to dare to believe. They must have been very certain of the fact of the resurrection by the time they left the upper room and began to preach in the name of Jesus, since, in an earthly sense, they stood to gain very little by doing so. They did not become powerful or wealthy. They did, it is true, become popular in a sense, but not so much amongst the upper crust of society. We hear this in Paul's description of the church at Corinth: "not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth" (see First Corinthians 1:26). In fact, such popularity as the leaders of the early Christian movement did obtain proved to be their downfall, at least in an earthly sense. We know that virtually all of the first Christian leaders (perhaps excluding John) were martyred. One does not die to perpetuate a hoax. And we can see from the clarity and persuasiveness with which they spoke that they were more fully in their right minds than ever before. Therefore, since the disciples could not be explained away as liars or lunatics, Jesus must truly be risen, and if risen, than Lord. The implications explained by Peter to the crowd on Pentecost must in fact be true:

God raised this Jesus;
of this we are all witnesses.
Exalted at the right hand of God,
he poured forth the promise of the Holy Spirit
that he received from the Father, as you both see and hear.

As Christians, the resurrection is at the core of our faith. But we must become fully convinced of it both as a historical reality and as the source of our spiritual transformation. When the Holy Spirit makes the power of the resurrection present in us we will surge out like the disciples from the upper room and again become effective witnesses, persuading the world of what really happened to the momentarily missing body of our master. We see as history what the psalmist saw prophetically:

Therefore my heart is glad and my soul rejoices,
my body, too, abides in confidence;
Because you will not abandon my soul to the nether world,
nor will you suffer your faithful one to undergo corruption.

Matt Maher - Resurrection Day