A Homily – The Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year B)

First Reading - Acts 9:26-31 ©

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 21(22):26-28,30-32

Second Reading - 1 John 3:18-24 ©

Gospel Acclamation – John 15: 4, 5

The Gospel According to John – 15:1 – 8 ©

 

(NAB)

 

Listen!

 These stories from The Book of Acts are the stories of the first Christians. They are illuminating, if not exactly true, nevertheless they tell us something of what Christians wanted other people to believe about them, to control the narrative…so to speak, concerning what was being said about them.

 These readings are like records that reveal the work of the early church and its progress in the world, as well as the matters that divided them from one another.

 Be mindful.

 God hears you; the creator of the universe knows your innermost thoughts. God knows you as you know yourself, God understands all that you are and all that you struggle with. God feels your experience in the world as you feel it. God is with you; your struggles are God’s own.

 Know this.

 God has given you the power to save yourself, the power to surrender, to agonize or be at peace, but God will not rescue you from your dilemma; God will never intervene on your behalf.

 Remember.

 God’s love reaches everyone, even the wealthy and the greedy, as much as to the poor and the needy. When the wealthy refuse to give to those in need, it is not because God ‘s love is not alive in them, but because they are dead to God’s love.

 Be assured, God’s love is present and trying to break through. Do not abandon them, just as we would wish that they not abandon those in need, stay with them and remembrance of Jesus who showed us the way, who taught us to  “love our enemy,” and “pray for those who persecute us.”

 Love is its own reward, do not seek anything else in return for love, save love itself.

 Understand this.

 Nothing good or useful comes from believing in a name, whatever that means; it is only in loving, in the act of caring that good things come through us and to us.

 God is alive in all people, no one is excluded from the love of God. If you are a servant of God, you will honor this. You will honor it, not because it has been proven to you and the way is now beyond doubt, you will honor it because you trust God, and your faith informs you

 Be on the lookout for false prophets, look to everyone around you, especially those who claim to be “true believers.”

 Look to yourself.

 We are imperfect, all of us. We have false understandings of who God is, each of us. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, this is the human condition. No matter how quickly we may apprehend the truth, or how swiftly comprehension comes to us, we all confound our understanding of it by the admixture of our fears, hopes and desires for ourselves, our friends and families…it cant be helped.

 Therefor we are called on to trust God, to trust the image of God that was present in Jesus, not the God of categorical propositions, idioms and dogma. The teaching of the church is meant to foster belief in God, to nurture faith, trust and understanding.

 We are called on to trust God, to forgive and to accept forgiveness, to love and be loved.

 Be mindful.

 God dwells within the obedient and the disobedient, the faithful and the unfaithful, God does not hold back the divine love from anyone.

 God lives in all people, God knows you, and God knows them, God knows us, even as we know ourselves.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today, it comes from a place of division and fear, a theme that is often repeated in the early church facing persecutions from without, and divisions from within.

 It is right and good to say that Jesus is the vine, and God the vine dresser, understanding that the vinedresser takes care of the whole plant; from root to branch, pruning, binding and bringing to flower all the fruit that is productive of the good wine. The vine dresser cares for the vine and all its shoots, the vine dresser does not seek to kill it.

 Know this.

 God is the creator of all that is; everything that is comes to be through the vine, as the introduction to John’s Gospel attests:

 In the beginning was the word and all things came to be through him, all things are in him, and not one thing exists without him.

 The vine weaves through all creation, it touches every person, it sustains every living thing and undergirds the created order.

 Everyone is within the vine, Christian and non-Christian alike…the good, the bad and the ugly.

 Be mindful.

 When the writers of John’s Gospel were writing today’s verse, they were concerned with the faithfulness of their members. They drafted warning for those they thought would betray them, and provided a rationale for excluding those whom they thought had done so.

 This is not the way.

 Remember Jesus, who forgave the men who murdered him, even while he was dying on the cross. Remember Peter, who denied him, and Paul who persecuted Christians. They were all in the vine, before they ever knew the name of Jesus they were there, each and every one of them; they were in the vine with Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate, and all those members of the Sanhedrin, the Herodians and other run of the mill villains. They were all there in the vine, both in their faithfulness and in their most faithful moments.

 

First Reading - Acts 9:26-31 ©

Barnabas Explained How the Lord Had Appeared to Saul on His Journey

When Saul got to Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him: they could not believe he was really a disciple. Barnabas, however, took charge of him, introduced him to the apostles, and explained how the Lord had appeared to Saul and spoken to him on his journey, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. Saul now started to go round with them in Jerusalem, preaching fearlessly in the name of the Lord. But after he had spoken to the Hellenists, and argued with them, they became determined to kill him. When the brothers knew, they took him to Caesarea, and sent him off from there to Tarsus.

  The churches throughout Judaea, Galilee and Samaria were now left in peace, building themselves up, living in the fear of the Lord, and filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit.

 

Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 21(22):26-28,30-32

The Just Man Suffers; the Lord Hears Him

This is the time of repentance for us to atone for our sins and seek salvation.

God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

  The words that I groan do not reach my saviour.

My God, I call by day and you do not listen.

  I call to you by night, but no rest comes.

But still you are holy,

  the one whom Israel praises.

Our fathers put their hope in you;

  they gave you their trust and you freed them.

They called on you and they were saved,

  they trusted and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm and no man,

  despised by mankind and rejected by the people.

All who see me deride me,

  they make faces and toss their heads:

“He trusted in the Lord, so let the Lord rescue him:

  let him save him, if he truly delights in him!”

Indeed, you drew me from my mother’s womb,

  you set me to suck at her breasts.

I have depended on you since before I was born,

  from my mother’s womb you have been my God.

Do not be far from me now,

  for my tribulation is close at hand,

  for there is no-one who will help.

I am surrounded by many cattle,

  the bulls of Bashan hem me in.

Their mouths open wide before me,

  like a fierce and roaring lion.

I have flowed away like water,

  and all my bones come apart.

My heart has turned to wax,

  it melts away within me.

My mouth is dry as burnt clay,

  my tongue sticks in my throat:

  you have laid me in the dust of death.

I am surrounded by many dogs,

  my enemies unite and hem me in.

They have pierced my hands and my feet:

  I can count all my bones.

They gaze on me, they inspect me.

They have divided my clothing between them,

  they have cast lots for my garment.

So you, Lord, do not stay away:

  Lord, my strength, hurry to my help.

Rescue my soul from the sword,

  my only child from the teeth of the dogs.

Save me from the lion’s mouth,

  from the wild oxen’s horns that brought me low.

I will tell of your glory to my brethren;

  I will praise you in the midst of the assembly.

Praise the Lord, you who fear him!

  Give him glory, all the seed of Jacob.

Let Israel tremble before him,

  for he does not spurn the poor or ignore their plight.

He does not turn his face away –

  whoever calls on him, he listens.

I shall cry out your praise in the great assembly,

  I shall fulfil my vows before all those who fear you.

The poor will eat and be filled,

  those who seek the Lord will praise him.

  “Let their hearts live for ever!”

All the ends of the earth will remember the Lord:

  they will turn to him.

All the families of nations will worship before him.

For the Lord’s is the kingdom,

  it is he who will rule all the nations.

Him alone will they praise, those who sleep in the earth;

  they will worship before him, who go down into the dust.

But my soul will be alive to him,

  and my seed shall serve him.

They shall tell of the Lord to the next generation,

  they shall proclaim his righteousness to a people yet to be born.

  “Hear what the Lord has done!”

 

Second Reading - 1 John 3:18-24 ©

The Commandment of Faith and Love

My children, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active; only by this can we be certain that we are children of the truth and be able to quieten our conscience in his presence, whatever accusations it may raise against us, because God is greater than our conscience and he knows everything.

 My dear people, if we cannot be condemned by our own conscience, we need not be afraid in God’s presence, and whatever we ask him, we shall receive, because we keep his ommandments and live the kind of life that he wants.

 His commandments are these:

 That we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another as he told us to.

 Whoever keeps his commandments lives in God and God lives in him.

 We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us.

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 15: 4, 5

Alleluia, alleluia!

Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.

Whoever remains in me bears fruit in plenty.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to John – 15:1 – 8 ©

I Am the Vine, You Are the Branches

Jesus said to his disciples:

‘I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more.

You are pruned already, by means of the word that I have spoken to you.

Make your home in me, as I make mine in you.

As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing.

Anyone who does not remain in me is like a branch that has been thrown away – he withers; these branches are collected and thrown on the fire, and they are burnt.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask what you will and you shall get it.

It is to the glory of my Father that you should bear much fruit, and then you will be my disciples.’

 

The Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year B)

William Shakespeare, The Bard of Avon

 High-Priest and Arch Druid of the English Language

 

Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore

So do our minutes hasten to their end

Each changing place with that which goes before

In sequential toil all forwards do contend

Nativity once in the main of light

Crawls to maturity wherewith being crowned

Crooked eclipses against its glory fight

And Time, that gave the gift, doth now its gift confound

Time doth place the flourish set on youth

Time delves the paralells in Beauty’s brow

Time feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth

And nothing stands but for its scythe to mow

 

 I was in the tenth grade the first time I read a play by William Shakespeare. It was the first quarter of the school year, we read Romeo and Juliet aloud; and watched the film adaptation by Franco Zifirelli, in my English class…I had seen it before.

I stopped attending high school the following quarter of that year, I was fifteen years old and had not been in the habit of participating class unless the subject interested me; most did not, though Shakespeare did.

Rather than concentrating on the same work my classmates were doing, I would sit off to the side and quietly read whatever was on my list, usually science fiction or fantasy literature, though it might be something classical: history, metaphysics or mythology… and then there was Shakespeare.

If Chaucer is the father of the English language, and Boswell the midwife of the modern era, then Shakespeare is the high priest or arch-druid.

In my final quarter of high school English, I took a reading role; my allocution and diction were spot on, and I enjoyed the way the girls looked at me as I read the lines.

Shakespeare had gravitas, I found that by engaging his work, being able to speak to it at a party or any other social setting lent me some gravitas, it was confidence building.

I discovered how the mention of Shakespeare generates a sense of mystery in a conversation; it is like opening a door to another dimension, it is like walking into the Twilight Zone, the dream of nymphs on a midsummer night.

His work touches on every aspect of the human person, he speaks to our faults and foibles, to the ridiculousness of human nature and how it plays itself out on the stage of life. You can fool anyone into believing that you yourself are a serious intellectual if you can quote a bit of Shakespear’s verse, the more you carry on about his life and work, if you can speak to his relationship with Christopher Marlowe, or dare to ask the question of whether The Bard of Avon ever existed at all.

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one I read many of his plays; some, like Hamlet and Mac Beth I would read over and over again, committing long tracks of them to memory.

Later in life, after college and after completing my first graduate degree, I steeped myself in his writing again, carefully reading every word he ever wrote, as well as commentaries on his prose and verse, I particularly enjoyed Isaac Asimov’s Complete Guide to his work, which included a thorough exegeses of the philosophies contained therein.

Let me say this about the man, Shakespeare was a profound existentialist. There is more to his greatness than the beauty of his poetry, his compositions set him apart from everyone, both in his day and over time. In his writing we encounter a distillation of the human essence, of grief and longing, the joy of mercy and all of the comedy that attends us as we pursue the satisfaction of our desires.

Shakespeare put into English the undoing of things, the unmaking of fate, he introduced us to the unreal, and that is why we refer to him as The Bard, the arch-druid, the high priest of our pigeon tongue.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,

Creeps in its petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time.

And all our yesterdays are but lighted fools,

on the way to dusty death.

 

Out…out brief candle,

For life is but a poor player,

Who struts and frets its hour on the stage,

And then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot,

Full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

The Feast of Saint Leonidas, Father of Origen

Little is known about the Christian Martyr Saint Leonidas, except that he was beheaded by the Egyptian prefect, a man named Lactus, in 202 CE, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus.

We might encounter his name in his list of martyrs from that period of persecution, but not much more would have been said about him because Leonidas did not lead a noteworthy life except for the fact that he was father to one of the greatest and most well-known philosophers and theologians of the late second century…the redoubtable Origen, who in the Orthodox tradition is a regarded as a saint and counted among the mothers and fathers of the church, while among the Catholics and for the rest of the Western Church he is a controversial figure.

The controversy surrounding Origen arises  from the fact that his writings were formerly condemned during the reign of the Emperor Justinian, at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 CE, nearly three hundred years after his death, and though he himself was not officially anathematized, all of his work was.

It was three centuries after Origen’s death, two centuries after the church had become the official religion of the Roman Empire, as the church was on its way to becoming the only sanctioned religion whose practice was permissible in the West. It was then, just as Origin’s contribution to Christian philosophy was being condemned that the Roman Catholic Church took a turn for the worse, the so-called Dark Ages ensued, and the Empire began to crumble.

Remarkably, Origen’s work remained influential. His thought continued to guide the thinking of theologians for centuries and continues to influence us in the twenty-first century.

And yet Origen is not a Catholic Saint; we do not celebrate his feast. We celebrate the feast of his father instead, giving thanks to Origin through Leonidas, for his great work.

Origen ran afoul of the church on account of his doctrine of apocatastasis, which taught, in keeping with scripture[1], that all things and beings emanate from the divine, and according to the doctrine of apocatastasis, would ultimately return to the source of its being (God) in the great reunification and reconciliation of the divine with creation.  It is the furthest and most logical extension of Christian hope that has ever been penned…according to the doctrine of apocatastasis even the devil and his angels would be reconciled with God in the end.

In the early sixth century Origen’s cosmology was perceived as being a threat to the Imperial religion, and to the increasingly popular theology of Saint Augustine of Hippo (d. 430 CE) who taught that the material universe was created ex nihilo (an absurdity)…out of nothing, thus obviating the argument for the return of the created order, including all things and being, to its divine source.  

Augustine’s theology while inherently dualistic, insofar as it describes the material order as beginning in nothingness (to be understood as a privation of the good and the material essence of evil), and allows for its continuation into eternity. In the Augustinian scheme evil continues, it is rooted in a pre-temporal reality and its scope has no limit. Furthermore, the entire system of sacramental theology that has been operative in the church since the sixth century is dependent on this absurdity.

Justinian and those who voted to condemn Origen’s work and the Second Council of Constantinople, understood that the doctrine of apocatastasis implies a theology of universal salvation. They understood how this soteriology challenges the authority of priests and bishops, and the church itself as intermediary between God and humanity. This threat to Augustine’s sacramental theology, because it undermined the authority of the church, it also undermined the authority of the first Christian Emperor. It was on these grounds and on the basis of these political considerations that Origen’s work was condemned. It was an act of unadulterated hubris on the part of the Church.

Even though Origen’s teaching caused him to fall out of favor with the hierarchy, the man himself was incredibly popular, he was among the most widely read theologians of the patristic era, his theology was seminal to that of many other theologians and philosophers, including those who penned the Nicene Creed. Origen himself could not be anathematized, but his doctrine was seen as dangerous, deemed heretical and among Catholics it was set aside.

Origen saw the doctrine of apocatastasis as the logical conclusion of the basic faith commitments held by all Christians in his time.

He was right.

These basic faith commitments are also held by most Christians today, representing a shared tradition of belief concerning the nature reality and the purpose of existence that we have never wavered from. Origen was not attempting to teach something radical or new, he was expostulating the faith he had received from his teacher Clement of Alexandria, another giant among the Ante-Nicene mothers and fathers.

Origen followed in his father’s footsteps, going to a martyr’s death c. 252 – 254 CE, his time came during the persecutions of the Roman Emperor Decius; at the age of 69 he was imprisoned, tortured and died from his injuries.

He was a philosopher and a theologian of great repute, martyred twice: first by the Roman Empire and then by the Imperial Roman Church, tortured by the former, and intellectually assassinated by the later…and he lives on.

---

[1] See the introduction to John’s Gospel

Earth Day is my Birthday

Every year when my solar cycle is complete, I cannot help but think about the precarious position we are in, and by we I mean humanity, with all of our eggs in this one basket, as Frank Herbert often lamented.

Here we are, the lot of us, living together with no place to go. I think this is part of what drives us crazy.

The world is a big place, prudence demands that we be mindful of this. The world can sustain a lot of damage. We can mess it up, but we cannot do it lasting harm. The world itself will survive what our integrated micro-climates, individuated biomes and we ourselves cannot. Nevertheless, the highly specialized and extremely fragile ecosystems we depend on, must be cared for, well managed, kept healthy both for our sake, and for the sake of all future generations of humans who will need a healthy planet to lead healthy lives.  

We are in peril, it has never been more obvious, and it seems clear that the powers that be are intent on riding it out. They don’t want to change a thing, unless it is to make their own back yard more beautiful…for a time.

We are all charged with the care and stewardship of the world, individually and collectively, we are responsible for the choices we make and for how those effect our neighbors, even those neighbors of our who we will never meet.

We are all in this together.

This is a sacred obligation serving as an axiomatic principle of faith for billions of Jews, Christians and Muslims, as well as Buddhists, Taoists and Shinto, Jains, Sikhs and B’hai, Hindu’s, pantheists and animists…it is common sense.

Do not shit where you eat.

The world turns and we turn with it, all-together on the common-wheel, we are indebted to both the past and the future and carry responsibilities for and to each other, from the moment we are born to the day we die.

Care for the world is a categorical imperative: if we do not care for it, the world will shrug us off…or shrug just enough that a calamity will ensue that alters our future history forever, changing our cultures, our languages, even our DNA…all that was once human…gone and gone for good, and perhaps this would be just result, if we prove that we are unable to solve the conundrum before us...then perhaps we do not deserve to live here.

Know this…it has happened before; it will happen again, there are natural disasters pending:

There are super-volcanoes and there is continental drift. There are geological forces at work just below our feet that could easily destroy us all; they are built into the structure of the planet, layered into the thinness of the mantle, which when gliding over the heat emanating from the planet’s core, spells out a recipe for doom…if we allow it.

There are calamities heading our way from outer-space, celestial bodies sailing through the ether, comets and asteroids already on a collision course with Earth; if we are unable to work cooperatively to change their course, these certain-eventualities will collide and destroy us.

These existential threats are baked into the pie…it is only a matter of time before they bubble over and leave us with nothing but the scent of burning sugar.

Be mindful.

Such foreseeable events also represent opportunities for the advancement of science and the unification of human-purpose. Given enough time, it is possible that we could harness the power of the greatest volcanoes, turn their destructive energies to the benefit of humankind, that we could move the near Earth objects which threaten us and capture those cold stones for their mineral wealth.

We need time, but more than that we need a willingness to understand the challenges we face, along with the commitment of our leaders and ourselves that we act on that understanding and rise to rise to meet them.

We face other threats right now, immediate threats like viral pandemics, sociological threats like racism, the rise of autocracies, anti-democratic movements, anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism, anti-science ideologies that are completely of our own making. We face these threats while the powers that be effectively turn any discussion concerning reasonable action on climate into a wedge issue that exacerbates race and class divisions, that play out along the lines of political division that are easily exploited by demagogues and fundamentalists and auto-crats in opposition to democratic norms and constitutional government.

We are changing the climate. The planet is warming. Our oceans are becoming acidic. We are changing their salinity. We are filling our atmosphere with toxins. Glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising. We are polluting our freshwater lakes, rivers, and streams. We are losing topsoil, our forests and our coral reefs.

This is happening as we watch, we must do more than bear witness to our failing stewardship.

We are divided against each other…by a species of greed that drives a short sighted political mindset, which seeks to and succeeds at turning people against their long-term interests.

It is as if we are governed by the insane.

Politicians and their wealthy patrons silence and undermine our scientists, casting doubt on any field of inquiry which might lead to a curtailment of their industrial enterprise or reduce their short-term profits. They treat the Earth and all of its resources (including human-beings) like a grab-bag of goodies, like children with sticks whacking at a piñata, gleefully harvesting the plunder, consuming it until it sickens them…it is madness.

The powerful treat the rest of humanity as a means to an end, we are not people to them, we are assets, we are expendable; if we are not profit centers then we are losses, we are a collection of digits, of ones and zeroes, we are objects to be weighed and measured in their crooked scales.

It is Earth Day 2024, all our eggs are in one basket; the basket is fragile and there is no other…today is April 22^nd and it is my birthday.

A Homily – The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year B)

First Reading – Acts 4:8 – 12

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 117(118):8 – 9, 21 – 23, 26, 28 – 29

Second Reading – 1 John 3:1 – 2

Gospel Acclamation – John 10:14

The Gospel According to John 10:11 – 18 ©

 

(NAB)

 

Listen!

 Jesus, the Nazorean, the son of God and creator of the universe, Jesus is not the gatekeeper of our salvation. He is not the gatekeeper, because there is no gate, no fence, no battlements; the heavenly city is wide open, it has no walls.

 Jesus, as second person of the trinity, as the word made flesh represents the cosmic principle of relationality, and Jesus the divine logos is the source of all being, in whom all things and people exist.

 It is not the name of Jesus that delivers salvation or somehow acts as its guarantor, it is our being in Christ, the fundamental reality that undergirds every existent thing, which confers the reality of being on all creatures, and the whole of the created order…from beginning to end.

 Remember.

 The bargain that the faithful make should be this:

 Join the Church and you will be given the secret code, the name of Christ that will get you through the gates of paradise. It should be, act without fear, the good you seek has already found you.

 Consider the words of the psalmist who teaches that God’s law is written in our hearts. Who tells us that God speaks to us there, instructing us in the ways of justice, and that all other versions of God’s law are merely reflections of the law written there.

 God’s law is like a living flame; look into the law where it light is brightest, watch it illuminate the world, its flame fueled by the breath of God, the divine whose spirit whose breath is life.

 It is good to uphold God’s law, to demonstrate its fecundity through right living, but first we must set aside the voice of desire and listen instead to the voice of God. Allow the way to inform you of what right living is.

 Do not overcomplicate the nature of God’s commands, God’s judgments and God’s decrees; Jesus taught that the whole of the law is love.

 He taught that we are to love God with all our strength, and all our heart and all our mind; to love your neighbor as ourself.

 Now keep it super simple, and seal it with a kiss.

 Do not attempt to measure yourself against an unrealistic standard of purity. Sinlessness and righteousness are labels men and women wear like jewels around their necks, so heavy they are bent by them.

 We have all fallen short, we will always be short.

 Respond to the impure with love, to sin with compassion, to injustice with mercy; this is the way.

 God’s law is love, and there is no other. To love is its own reward; in this life you will receive no other, it is the divine capacity for love that cast us in the God’s image.  

 Be mindful!

 Those who do not love are not unloved by God, therefore love the hateful, it is the only cure for their condition.

 Always bear in mind that the things you ask God to do for you are in truth a statement of your intentions for how you want to live your life.

 Know this.

 God has sewn a seed within you, within that seed is the knowledge of and desire for a just and holy way of life, but God will not live that life for you; each and every day you must choose the good, if you are on the path that leads to the way of justice.

 Weep for the mercy of God and marvel at the wonders of creation. Hear the voice of God whispering in your heart; listen. Lift up your countenance, see the face of God reflected in your neighbor’s, and see your own self, within them, looking back at you through their eyes.

 If you decide to lead your life in service to the truth you must remember that the closer we are to understanding it the easier it is for us to deceive ourselves about what we know.

 Look at the example God’s angels set for us. Look to the fallen, look to their stories in our myths, then look more closely at those who claim to speak for God, those who are present in your own life, learn to discern the corrupt and the corruptible, look for the false prophets.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today.

 There is wisdom and truth; there is also folly, misconstrual, fear and lies.

 Remember the beginning of Joh’s Gospel:

 In the beginning was the Word

All things came to be through the Word

Not one thing came to be without the Word

In the Word was life, and light

 The Church teaches that Jesus is the Word of God, it also teaches that the Word is the Good Shepherd. All the sheep are in her/his sheepfold. There is not one sheep who is not a member, not one whom the Good Shepherd does not care for and love.

 It is sad and unfortunate that the priests and the bishops of the Church, those hirelings who put themselves in positions of management, it is sad and unfortunate that they forget this basic tenant of ministry. They have done great harm to the People of God because of their fear, and their greed and their shortsightedness, pretending that they were only responsible for a few of the sheep, when they were tasked with protecting the whole.

 From the earliest days of the church, the hierarchy presented itself as both Sheep and Shepherd to the community, but they were really rustlers and wolves who came to devour the flock.

 Remember.

 God does not love the shepherd because the shepherd laid down his life; God’s love undergirds all things. The burden Jesus bore he took on in recognition of God’s love for the world. The shepherd had faith in God, Jesus trusted God’s plan, it was faith and love that allowed him to lay down his life.

 Love preceded the sacrifice, the sacrifice did not engender love.

 

First Reading – Acts 4:8 – 12

The Name of Jesus Christ is the Only Name in Which We Can Be Saved

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter said: ‘Rulers of the people, and elders! If you are questioning us today about an act of kindness to a cripple, and asking us how he was healed, then I am glad to tell you all, and would indeed be glad to tell the whole people of Israel, that it was by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the one you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by this name and by no other that this man is able to stand up perfectly healthy, here in your presence, today. This is the stone rejected by you the builders, but which has proved to be the keystone. For of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved.’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 118:8 – 9, 21 – 23, 26, 28 – 29

The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.

Alleluia.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,

    for his mercy endures forever.

It is better to take refuge in the LORD

    than to trust in man.

It is better to take refuge in the LORD

    than to trust in princes.

The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.

I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me

    and have been my savior.

The stone which the builders rejected

    has become the cornerstone.

By the LORD has this been done;

    it is wonderful in our eyes.

The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD;

    we bless you from the house of the LORD.

I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me

    and have been my savior.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

    for his kindness endures forever.

The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone.

 

Second Reading – 1 John 3:1 – 2

We Shall Be Like God Because We shall See Him As He Really Is

Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children; and that is what we are.

Because the world refused to acknowledge him, therefore it does not acknowledge us.

My dear people, we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.

 

The Gospel Acclamation – John 10:14

Alleluia, alleluia.

I am the good shepherd, says the Lord; I know my sheep, and mine know me.

Alleluia, alleluia.

 

The Gospel According to John 10:11 – 18 ©

The Good Shepherd is One Who Lays Down His Life for His Sheep

 

Jesus said:

 

‘I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep.

The hired man, since he is not the shepherd and the sheep do not belong to him, abandons the sheep and runs away as soon as he sees a wolf coming, and then the wolf attacks and scatters the sheep; this is because he is only a hired man and has no concern for the sheep.

‘I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep.

And there are other sheep I have that are not of this fold, and these I have to lead as well.

They too will listen to my voice, and there will be only one flock, and one shepherd.

‘The Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.

No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own free will, and as it is in my power to lay it down, so it is in my power to take it up again; and this is the command I have been given by my Father.’

 

The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year B)

Albert Einstein – Physicist, Activist, Hero

In 1905, two years after the Wright brothers (Orville and Wilbur) took flight in the first airplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; Albert Einstein at the age of twenty-six, published his groundbreaking work in physics: The Special Theory of Relativity, which fundamentally changed our understanding of the world, of time and space, of mass and matter, of gravity and the universe itself.

 This was a heroic feat of genius.

 Einstein is not the greatest physicist who ever lived; he admits to his limitations, though he never stopped trying to supersede them. He articulated the principles he was able to grasp, but did not cling to them as the next generation of physicists, standing on the platform he established, moved past him.

 After writing his seminal treatise, which included the publication of his famous equation E=MC2, he spent the rest of his life in search of a theorem that he referred to as the cosmological constant, he spent the rest of his life hunting for it, like King Pelinore on the trail of the questing-beast, he was searching for a mathematical construct that eluded him, like Pelinore’s dragon or the Holy Grail.

 By the end of his life, the province of theoretical physics occupied a completely new field than what Einstein had discovered through relativity. His work remained fundamental to twentieth century physics, but its scope had expanded into realms of uncertainty and the sub-atomica. Einstein grappled with those who came after him, men like Heisenberg with his quantum mechanics, countering their view of the world with his famous maxim: “God does not play dice with the universe,” which is more a statement of faith than a rational deduction, though it may be more fair to think of this as a hypothesis that balanced his lived experience with the exigencies of his experiments.

 I like to believe that Einstein was right…I think he was, but then again…who knows?

 In some ways God does play dice with the universe; chance and random indeterminants play a significant role in the actualization of potentialities, from the micro-verse to the macro-verse and at every stage in between.

 The great man lived a humble life, though I cannot speak to his actual humility, but he famously wore the same suit of clothes every day, stating in effect that he had too much on his mind to bother with trying to sort out what he would wear…therefore his garb went unchanged.

 (I have modeled my own wardrobe according to this principle.)

 Despite the enormity of his contribution to theoretical physics and cosmology Einstein was deeply engaged with the world; even though he was merely a man of letters and his genius made him remote and detached, he was an ardent member of the international peace movement.

 You might see a contradiction here, because Einstein was also a principle advocate behind the development of the atomic bomb, convincing the Americans that Germany was well on its way toward splitting the atom and that if the Germans did, Hitler would certainly use that power to win the war, out of those conversations the Manhattan Project took shape leading to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan and the dramatic end to the Second World War.

 Einstein’s advocacy for peace and his role in advancing us toward the nuclear age are somewhat paradoxical, but they show us the most important thing about his character, which was his practical commitment to humanity and our collective wellbeing. Peace in his time came at an incredible cost in terms of human suffering, though the suffering would have been greater, and lasted longer if he had done nothing…he did not gamble with his own life, but he gambled…Einstein, unlike God, threw the dice. He secured a kind of peace…for a time.  

 Einstein was a hero, an intellectual giant, emerging from the field of theoretical physics and passing into myth. He loved to sail, he played the violin, he kept company with Marilyn Monroe, he name is synonymous with genius...he was not an Einstein, he was the Einstein, he cut the mold.