The Second Sunday of Easter 2012

It's Sunday
April 15 - Second Sunday of Easter

The First Reading in each of the three year Cycles speaks to us of the wonderful atmosphere which prevailed in the Christian communities after the Resurrection. They were the fruit of the powerful action of the Spirit and they were built up and fortified by the preaching of the Apostles. All over the infant Church
there was a sense that the clouds over Calvary had definitely rolled away showing plenty of blue sky. It would not continue like that - few human projects do, even this one which was more divine than human - but here we have in miniature what the Church today might be if the Lord's directions were followed. In
particular we see unity highlighted this Sunday - "the community of believers was of one heart and one mind." It was a great moment and we must try to reproduce it in among ourselves in the Institute.

Psalm 118 is the perfect Responsorial - " I was hard pressed and falling, but the Lord helped me . . . his mercy endures forever." That's says it all for the early Christians and for today's Christians. But unfortunately there are too many who feel no need of the Lord's mercy and that is the tragedy of our twenty-first century.

The Second Reading is, for once, not from St. Paul but from the Beloved Disciple - John - and, as we might expect, his theme is the love of God and love of neighbor. And how do we show this love? Sweet words? Charming manners? Kind actions? Well, yes, also those. But the word is "also." John puts the reality clearly: "... we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments." It's possible to be good to others but not good to God . . . and, therefore, not good to ourselves either, not really good. Let's have the right priorities!

Most Sundays the Gospel is different in each of the three-year cycles. But on the Second Sunday of Easter we have the same one in each of the three years. That is because we have here a reference to two types of faith: 1) the faith founded on fact, on personal experience, on visible reality, and 2) the faith founded on belief even when the reality is not present to us. Thomas believed because he had little choice. That is not the normal situation. Christians today - and in every age - must believe by virtue of the divine assistance. And no age has been more challenging than our own: too many Church ministers deluding our confidence in them; too many tv and radio shows chipping away relentlessly at the very foundations of our Catholic lives,
too much suffering, leading us to doubt the goodness of God. Not for nothing do we say in the Opening Prayer: " Increase the grace you have bestowed." Yes, increase and multiply it before too many more Catholics follow the millions who have lost the faith, the greatest gift God could have given them.


~April 2012 Concord