Fr. Rick Spicer

Life has changed in our parish since the pandemic hit more than a year ago. Many parishioners I have not seen in all that time. I hope this Easter season finds them well. Even for those who physically attend Mass, life still isn’t the same. We aren’t allowed to socialize over a cup of coffee. Has the pandemic altered your relationship with Jesus Christ? On this Sunday, traditionally known as Good Shepherd Sunday, are you just as committed to Jesus, the good shepherd, as you were before the pandemic began?

As a sign of absolute selflessness, the image of the Good Shepherd is quite clear. Jesus speaks of laying down his life for us, which he did on Good Friday. Unlike any hired hand who would flee when the going gets tough, Jesus, the good shepherd, does whatever needs to be done, gives whatever needs to be given, suffers whatever he needs to suffer for the sake of his flock. Love is the heart of this gospel.

Whenever I witness a wedding, instead of responding, “I do” to the questions I ask, I insist that the bride and groom exchange their vows by saying the words to one another, “I take you to be my spouse, I promise to be true to you in good times and bad, in sickness and health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

Ideally every spouse in this gathering has those words committed to memory as the very foundation of their marriage. If they do, then they can relate to the point Jesus is making in this gospel passage as our Good Shepherd. Out of love, they would lay down their lives for each other.

Of the many couples I have known in my years as a priest, one comes to mind living out the vows they took years ago. I have no idea how long Joe and Alice had been married when I arrived at their parish as a newly ordained priest in 1986. Alice, ill with dementia, was living in a nursing home. From the loving, faithful devoted wife and mother of his children that Joe had known for many years, Alice had become a dazed, withdrawn invalid who never seemed to know anyone around her. Whenever I came to celebrate Mass at the nursing home, I could see the pained look in Joe’s eyes, grieving for a past that could not be recaptured.

Joe never abandoned Alice. He was with her until the day she died, feeding her, dressing her, visiting her daily with their pet poodle.  He did so knowing that things would never get better for her. He did so even when she no longer recognized him as her husband.

For me, their marriage is a story of faithfulness, of refusing to give up on one another, no matter what. Alice was stripped of everything we call human and still her husband, Joe, did not leave her. Instead, he loved her all the more. He reminds me that God is love and love never gets tired.

Our society is not very comfortable with such faithfulness or commitment. How many relationships are we truly committed to, no matter what happens? How many spouses can claim such love for each other when the love they hoped for in return is not evident? That is the point I hear Jesus making in this gospel passage.

Jesus is committed to us, no matter what our response may be, no matter how often we fail to live up to our end of the deal. Unlike the hired hand, Jesus would never abandon us even if we choose to reject what he is calling us to do as his disciples. He loves and values us personally. “Beloved,” John tells us. “See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.” As his children, we are expected to imitate God by loving others.

What would we do if our love is put to such a test? That is a question every engaged couple should ponder in their courtship. The faithfulness to stand by the other, no matter what, is a scary proposition. Sometimes when we cannot return the love that is being given to us, we say, “Get out of here, I don’t want you in my life.” We do this with one another and we do this with God.

As Peter points out, Jesus was rejected by the people of his time. The notion of unconditional love made the elders uneasy for they believed they had to earn God’s favor by keeping the letter of the law. Yet Jesus sought out those who were labeled sinners. He offers God’s unconditional personal love everyone.

Jesus doesn’t enter into relationships with the mindset of “What’s in it for me?” Often we do with that question in mind. We bring our list of wants and if they aren’t met, we move on. They need to be nice, witty, and pretty, think like me and not affront me. They should make us feel good. After all, isn’t that the plot of every romantic movie? While the Hollywood image of love may be what leads a couple to the altar, that isn’t the kind of love that will last for years.

When someone lets us down by doing or saying something that prompts us to want to end that relationship, are we too proud to forgive? Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have someone to forgive. To better experience his love for us, we should turn to Jesus for the grace to forgive when the need arises. A cousin recently shared this insight that I find timely: “We all have a past. We all made choices that maybe weren’t the best ones. None of us are completely innocent, but we all get a fresh start every day to be a better person than we were yesterday.”

As we heard moments ago, while the disciples were learning how two of them had encountered the risen Christ in the breaking of bread in Emmaus, Jesus stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

Shalom was and is a common greeting amongst many people. We yearn for peace in this troubled world of ours. Each time Mass is celebrated, we hear those same words, spoken just before receiving Holy Communion, “Lord, Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, ‘I leave you peace, my peace I give you.’”

Jesus gives us this peace because we need and yearn for it in our daily lives. Consider what shape our world is in: another mass shooting last week claimed the lives of eight people. We have seen shootings, demonstrations, conflict between police and protestors. The pandemic, despite many vaccinations, is far from over, so life has yet to return to normal. Meanwhile, we are stressed by domestic and foreign upheavals. More than ever, we need to hear Jesus’ timeless greeting: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you.”

His peace is the antidote we need to meet the endemic diseases of our times, namely stress, depression, and anxiety. We have been impacted by these diseases, even if we haven’t  been personally diagnosed as having any of them. Fortunately, we can be healed of them beause Jesus brings us peace in more ways than one.

First, he brings us peace of mind. He asked the apostles, “Why are you troubled? And why do questions arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” Ponder his wounds and know that his forgiveness is everlasting. Once he forgives our sins, we are truly forgiven. Our conscience can then be at rest.

Secondly, Jesus brings us peace for our hearts. Looking at his wounds, we are reminded that we are unconditionally and personally loved. He died on the cross after enduring such a cruel passion because he unconditionally loves us.

Third, Jesus offers us peace for our souls, assuring us that someday we will experience the fullness of eternal life, and that our bodies, free of any infirmities of this lifetime, will be forever united with our souls in his kingdom.

In this Easter season, we need the peace of the resurrected Christ, knowing as we heard in the psalm, “you alone, O Lord, bring security to my dwelling.”

How does Christ do this? He gives us the peace we long for because he offers us a friendship that is everlasting and solid.  Everything else in the world is passing and limited. Even good, faithful relationships are vulnerable. Not only can sickness and death snatch them away from us, but even misunderstandings and disagreements can prompt a parting of the ways.  Such experiences can be painful  when friends you once counted on choose instead to sever their ties rather than reconcile. But that is something Jesus would never do. He suffered, died, and rose from the dead so that we could experience peace of mind, heart, and soul.

If that is so, why do we still find ourselves overcome by stress, anxiety, and discouragement at times? Alas, many obstacles can inhibit the flow of Christ’s peace into our lives.

The most obvious is sin. For this reason, St. John offers timely advice so that we may not sin. Simple yet profound advice: keep the commandments.  When they are kept, they provide the opportunity for Christ’s peace to permeate our being. They are God’s blueprints to insure happiness.

Sin creeps into our lives in other ways such as when we choose to ignore certain church teachings on faith and morals, like the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, abortion, fornication or racism. We may find many reasons to justify our resistance but rejecting Church teachings is a rejection of Christ’s saving truth. Its like telling God that we trust him a little bit in some things, but we trust CNN more in other things. Then and now, Christ endeavors to open our minds and hearts to better understand God’s ways.

Subtle habits of sins can take on other forms like slacking off instead of giving our best at work, in our family relations and our friendships. Or wasting inordinate amounts of time on entertainment, gossip, addictions such as gambling, alcohol or pornography. All the while finding too little time for prayer.

If we are not experiencing the peace of Christ’s resurrected life, maybe we need to so some spring cleaning in our souls. The best disinfectant for that is reconciliation. As St. Peter urged, “Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away.” Lent is over but the need and opportunity for seeking God’s absolution is always present, just as the temptation to sin is always present in our lives.

Along with peace, forgiveness is one of the prime gifts the risen Lord offers us. Allow Christ the opportunity to bring peace into your life through the sacrament of reconciliation. Don’t hesitate to ask for the grace to seek his forgiveness and experience his peace.  “Peace be with you” is Jesus’ blessing to you always. Shalom! Be at peace, be whole, and share Christ’s peace with others in what you say and do.

Eight days ago Christians around the world gazed with awe as they celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  On that first Easter, Jesus had appeared to the disciples who were cloistered in the upper room. Knowing how frightened they were, Jesus greets them, “Peace be with you.” Shalom! He then said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

This was the license to celebrate reconciliation, which ever since has brought strayed sheep back into the Good Shepherd’s merciful care. Nearly 20 centuries later Pope John Paul II designated the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday in honor of God’s divine mercy.  In doing so, he was fulfilling a request that our Lord had made to a Polish nun, St. Faustina Kowalska in the 1930’s.

The thought of Christ’s mercy ought to fill us with hope but it should also fill us with humility. If Christ is so eager to spread the news of his boundless mercy, its because we need that mercy. We need his mercy because sin is a reality in our lives and sin causes real damage that only Christ can mend.

When Jesus spoke to Sr. Faustina he never shied away from this uncomfortable topic, which many of us tend to avoid.  He lamented that souls perished in hell despite his bitter passion because they dismissed his great mercy. Mercy is what Jesus offers us in the sacrament of reconciliation, a sacrament that many Catholics have chosen to ignore.

Simply put, sin separates us from God, who is the source of all life. The most disturbing thing about sin is that, unless a sinner seeks God’s forgiveness, which is always available and unconditional, it can lead us to hell. Certainly mortal sin, our rejection of God’s friendship, will do that. An eternal destination none of us want.

Sr. Faustina was given a vision of hell in which she saw the tortuous sufferings of the condemned. God gave her this vision she said, “So that no soul may find an excuse by saying there is no hell, or that nobody has ever been there, and so no one can say what it is like.”

Christ’s mercy is a big deal because our sins are a big deal to him but fortunately for us, his mercy is the bigger deal. Jesus wants to incinerate our sins and selfish tendencies with his love, but first we have to allow him to do so. In this world filled with many distractions, seeking his forgiveness is something not high for many of us on our list of priorities.

None of us want to spend eternity in hell; we come to Mass to insure that won’t happen, but coming to Mass is not enough. We need to ask God for mercy and the best way to do that is through the sacrament of confession. Here is what Jesus told Sr. Faustina about this sacrament: “When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul.”

Just as the Father is merciful to him, Jesus is merciful to us, and he wants us to be merciful to others. We are expected to be merciful. Jesus told Sr. Faustina, “You are to show deeds of mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere.” This means doing good things for others not because they deserve it but because the Lord wants us to follow his example and demonstrate our love for him and others.

That can be challenging at times but when we completely trust in Jesus, we can find the strength to do so. If we let him, Jesus will give us the grace we need, just as he did to the apostles on that first Easter to be ambassadors of mercy. At times that may be a daunting task, but then all we need do is say the prayer Jesus gave to Sr. Faustina: “Jesus, I trust in you.”

Hanging in place of the crucifix this morning is a replica of the painting that Jesus asked Sr. Faustina to have done. The painting shows Jesus dressed in a white alb with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand opening his heart. Out of the heart comes two beams of light; one blue, the other red. The two rays denote water and blood. The pale blue rays stand for water, namely baptism, which makes souls righteous. The pale red rays stand for blood, namely the Eucharist, which gives life to our souls.

Jesus is using this feast on the octave of Easter to remind us of the power and abundance of his mercy. This good news of his mercy  should fill us with joy and confidence.

But what about our brothers and sisters who no longer practice the faith they once did? Or what about our friends, neighbors, colleagues who have never experienced Christ’s mercy or never heard about it? Jesus died for them too and he is sending us to be messengers of his mercy to them.

By our kind, truthful words, avoiding all gossip and useless criticism, we shine forth as the light of Christ’s mercy by our selfless acts of service to others, doing something as simple as bringing a donation to our 3 P’s bins, seeking no reward except the joy of following Christ.  We become extentions of the red rays of Christ’s life, given up for us on the cross.

So often doubting Thomas gets our attention on this day but let us not doubt that Christ will give us the grace we need to be living images of his mercy in this world so badly wounded by sin nor doubt the beauty of this sacrament he offers us.

Peter begins our readings on the note, “You know what happened.” But do we? What is this Easter mystery that draws us here this morning?

This is the Sunday of all Sundays! Today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Along with Mary Magdalene, we grasp the reality that the tomb is empty, that Jesus is not only human, he is divine.

What literally happened cannot be humanly explained as there were no witnesses to the event. Those who cannot believe what happened come up with any number of explanations: the body was stolen, or he really wasn’t dead when they took him down from the cross. Instead he was drugged when they placed him in the tomb. But the story Mary Magdalene tells us has stood the test of time. The Lord has been raised! Those who saw the risen Christ never altered their testimony even when threatened with death.

Why does this event even matter to us? The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth gives us reason to believe that our lives is more than a span of time from the womb to the tomb. Until Jesus came on the scene, the Jews thought the Messiah would liberate them from the oppression of the Romans, but Jesus kept telling them his kingdom was not of this world.

Jeus left evidence that our time here would be a stepping stone to a new life beyond the threshold of death. What he said in those few years while roaming the shores of Galilee and the hills of Judea were not empty promises or false hopes. He indeed came to free us from the oppression of sin and suffering. His resurrection validates his claim.

What Mark tells us in his gospel is more than just the punch line to a dramatic tale. The empty tomb and the resurrection are the heart of of our Christian faith. Unable to explain how this happened, all he can do is tell us the reaction of those who saw the empty tomb and the promise that they would see the risen Lord.

Picture the women on their way to the tomb, grieving and apprehensive. “Who will roll back the stone for us?” they asked themselves. That seemed like an impossible task.

How many unmovable stones do we have in our lives? What wrongs, doubts, and fears have troubled you during this long pandemic? Perhaps you are coping with being unemployed or underemployed or dealing with a broken relationship. You have pushed and pushed against the stones in your life and nothing seems to budge.

Or you are doubting that God loves you because of what you have done or failed to do or the mistakes you have made. Years ago your baby was aborted or given up for adoption. Recently you exchanged hurt words with a spouse, a child, a neighbor. Deeds or words you now regret and wish you could take back, but pushing the stone of forgiveness seems to be so futile.

The one who emerged from the tomb on that first Easter morning died, bears our sins and trials. He emerged fully understanding our worries and fears, not just those of Mary Magdalene, her companions and Peter, but also yours and mine 2000 years later.

Jesus is no stranger to our fears, doubts and worries. Recall that shortly before his arrest in the Garden of Olives, he agonized at length in prayer. Could he do what was in store for him? Despite his many fears, he also said to his Father, “Not what I will but what you will.” When the time came for his arrest, Jesus surrendered instead of fleeing. He knew that in the care of his Father, he need not worry.

While we are very much alive, some of us may feel entombed emotionally or spiritually. Faith in the risen Christ enables us to emerge from our tombs of worry, doubt, and fear. The hope of Easter is no matter where we are or what our fears may be, we are not alone. God cares for us too.

Yes, something extraordinary happened that morning in Jerusalem long ago. Jesus escaped the grip of death, leaving behind an empty tomb to be present with us, even those of us still filled with doubt, fear or skepticism.

In my quiet time after communion, I often recall the prayer of Zechariah. Its closing line sums up for me the promise of Easter. “In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us…to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

My friends, a blessed Easter to you! Not just today but for throughout this season as well, may you always be filled with the peace of the risen Lord.

Today we hold in our hands palm branches blessed moments ago. In the ancient world palm branches symbolized victory. For the ancient Israelites, the elegance, strength, and simplicity of the palm tree became a symbol for the just person, those in whom God’s law triumphed.

The palm tree also symbolized victory for the Romans. Palm trees were not native to Italy. Whenever Roman generals conquered other lands, they brought them back as souvenirs of their victories.

The crowds waving palm branches as Jesus entered Jerusalem were declaring his victory. Today we echo them, we join them, declaring Christ’s victory over original sin. Original sin was mankind’s original disobedience to God and obedience to the devil.

That disobedient act in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve let loose the scourge of evil we struggle with still today. Witness the many instances of mass shootings in our country, most recently in Boulder and Atlanta. The misery in Central America prompting thousands to flee from their homelands to gather at our southern border. The myriad of civil wars in numerous nations waging on for years. Racial discrimination in a country, namely ours, that clams everyone is created equal yet for many that remains untrue. Original sin gave the devil a certain damaging power over earthly society.

Through his passion, death and resurrection, the events we will celebrate during Holy Week, Jesus reversed the disobedience of original sin by obeying his Father’s will in spite of the many attempts of the devil to thwart him: betrayal by Judas, denial by Peter, abandonment by the apostles, false accusations by the Pharisees and chief priests, being condemned, scourged, whipped, crowned with thorns, then crucified in the most humiating and painful manner of execution ever devised.  All of that was intended by the devil to get Jesus to say “No,” to his Father. But he didn’t.

Tradition holds that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, a humble animal used for carrying burdens. Jesus chose that beast for good reason. In biblical times, earthly leaders rode a donkey into the city celebrating their victories.  That is why the people shouted “Hosanna!” when they saw Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. This was a sign to them  that Jesus was about to usher in his kingdom of peace, even though they did not yet fully understand what kind of a kingdom this truly was.

Unlike earthly victorious leaders, Jesus rode a donkey as an act of humility. This virtue is what enabled him to do as Paul mentioned in his letter, “He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.”

Jesus is truly a king but one like no other. His conquest was not of land. His conquest was sin. Unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus did not turn his back on God. He continued to say yes to love, forgive and obey through that excruciating week of his life. Unlike every other person in history, Jeus could honestly say, “I have not rebelled.” His obedience established a beachhead in this world that is still under the devil’s sway.  While grasping these palms, be mindful that as the Son of God, Jesus was driven by love and justice, a strong challenge to human arrogance and indifference. His passion is D Day for the devil and liberation for us. This souvenir of palms reminds us of the victory over sin we continue to celebrate as we journey toward Easter.