Monday, Easter III: "you are looking for me"

not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.

-- Jn 6:22-29

At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: "He took bread. . . ." "He took the cup filled with wine. . . ." The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine, fruit of the "work of human hands," but above all as "fruit of the earth" and "of the vine" - gifts of the Creator. The Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of her own offering.

-- CCC 1333

The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you. . . . This is the cup of my blood. . . ."

-- CCC 1412

The Church is our Mother: in & through her the Lord interprets what refers to Him in all the Scriptures and gives Himself in the "Breaking of Bread"

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone. Why everyone? We wouldn’t be here without our mothers. And in particular of course we wish a beautiful day of love and happiness to all of our mothers as they rejoice in the gift of being called to cooperate with God in giving the beautiful gift of life to their children. And they have done so also with a little help from our fathers, too.

Why is the vocation of motherhood beautiful? And why is it appropriate that we take a day apart to celebrate and thank our mothers? This is because the gift of life is God’s most beautiful gift to each one of us and mothers have a unique role in God’s plan for life. Apart from Christ who went to the grave, giving Himself completely for our salvation, no one hands their bodies and lives over for the sake of another as our mothers are called to do. Some even risk their lives to give life and some, tragically, also lose their own lives for the sake of a child being born. We think of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla who said “yes” to life to a heroic degree, dying in the act of childbirth because she refused to treat the life of her child as less sacred than her own, rejecting the moral evil of abortion as suggested by some doctors because the child she carried in her womb posed a risk to her own life.

Yes, life is sacred. Every human life. No exceptions. And mothers are beautiful cooperators in God’s plan that life should go on. The Church is called a mother also. Why is this? The gift of natural life that comes into the world through the holy cooperation of mothers and fathers is meant to share also in the supernatural life of God. Life is so wonderful that it should never end.

Mothers and fathers are the first and most important teachers by word and example of the faith in the home daily as well as by faithfully attending the Sunday Eucharist. "The Christian home is the place where children receive the first proclamation of the faith. For this reason the family home is rightly called 'the domestic church,' a community of grace and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian charity." (CCC 1666)

“Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation." Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.” (CCC 169)

Our Lord founded the Church so that He could continue to give His own life, through His Cross and Resurrection, until the end of the world. The sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist flow from Christ to us through the Church, bride and mother, coming still from His wounded side as He died upon the Cross to give us the unending gift of His Resurrection.

“The Church is the Bride of Christ: he loved her and handed himself over for her. He has purified her by his blood and made her the fruitful mother of all God's children.” (CCC 808)

Mary, the mother of the Lord is the mother of each one of us in the Church also, given to us by our Lord as a final gift before He died. We look to her example, receiving the gift of faith and life from the Lord Jesus as she died, with humility, gratitude and joy.

“Mary's role in the Church is inseparable from her union with Christ and flows directly from it. ‘This union of the mother with the Son in the work of salvation is made manifest from the time of Christ's virginal conception up to his death’; it is made manifest above all at the hour of his Passion:

‘Thus the Blessed Virgin advanced in her pilgrimage of faith, and faithfully persevered in her union with her Son unto the cross. There she stood, in keeping with the divine plan, enduring with her only begotten Son the intensity of his suffering, joining herself with his sacrifice in her mother's heart, and lovingly consenting to the immolation of this victim, born of her: to be given, by the same Christ Jesus dying on the cross, as a mother to his disciple, with these words: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ “ (CCC 964)

We rightly, therefore, also celebrate the motherhood of Mary, mother of Christ and mother of the Church on this day.

“Mary is the perfect Orans (pray-er), a figure of the Church. When we pray to her, we are adhering with her to the plan of the Father, who sends his Son to save all men. Like the beloved disciple we welcome Jesus' mother into our homes, for she has become the mother of all the living. We can pray with and to her. The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary and united with it in hope.” (CCC 2679)

In and through the Church Christ speaks and acts again today, giving the Holy Spirit to interpret once again for us all that refers to Him in the Scriptures and making Him present on our altar at holy Mass; it is Christ the Lord who again gives thanks, "breaking of the bread" of His Body for us. The Church is our mother, in her we grow into a mature Christian Faith.

"It is in the Church, in communion with all the baptized, that the Christian fulfills his vocation. From the Church he receives the Word of God containing the teachings of 'the law of Christ." From the Church he receives the grace of the sacraments that sustains him on the "way." From the Church he learns the example of holiness and recognizes its model and source in the all-holy Virgin Mary; he discerns it in the authentic witness of those who live it; he discovers it in the spiritual tradition and long history of the saints who have gone before him and whom the liturgy celebrates in the rhythms of the sanctoral cycle." (CCC 2030)

Third Sunday of Easter: Know Jesus in the 'Breaking of the Bread'

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

At Emmaus Jesus gave his Body and Blood as he celebrated the Eucharist. There the disciples encountered the Easter Christ: "they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of bread." (Lk 24, 25)

"The Breaking of the bread" is an ancient name for the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the Mass and recorded in Scripture. Each of us relives the wonder and awe of Emmaus at every Mass. We "know Jesus the Lord" in the most perfect way outside of heaven itself as the priest, acting in the person of Christ, offers the Mass. In this way we encounter the Resurrection as an historical and transcendent event. Earth and heaven come together in Jesus the God-Man as he appears before us on the altar of sacrifice. Thus, the place in which this event takes place becomes ”house of God and gate of heaven”.

“The mystery of Christ's resurrection is a real event, with manifestations that were historically verified, as the New Testament bears witness. In about a.d. 56, St. Paul could already write to the Corinthians: ‘I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve...’ (1 Cor 15:3-4) The Apostle speaks here of the living tradition of the Resurrection which he had learned after his conversion at the gates of Damascus. (Cf. Acts 9:3-18)" (CCC 639)

The Gospel records the appearances of the risen Christ and tells of the panic and fright, the joy and wonder of the women and the Apostles who first saw him. This is put down in writing so that we may know, even as we experience the same lack of belief as they surely did, that Christ really and truly rose from the dead. We must through God's grace overcome our lack of belief and embrace the virtue of faith more and more. "Lord I believe, help my unbelief." Without faith we cannot freely choose to love God as he commands us to do. It is through the virtue of love, freely chosen, of Jesus the risen Lord, encountered in faith, that we hope to share in the Resurrection of the Lord. Even the beautiful accounts of Jesus in the Gospel are only fully understood and accepted by faith. The Easter gift of the Eucharist is the fount of these and all the gifts of grace.

"Mary Magdalene and the holy women who came to finish anointing the body of Jesus, which had been buried in haste because the Sabbath began on the evening of Good Friday, were the first to encounter the Risen One. (Mk 16:1; Lk 24:1; Jn 19:31, 42) Thus the women were the first messengers of Christ's Resurrection for the apostles themselves. (Cf. Lk 24:9-10; Mt 28:9-10; Jn 20:11-18) They were the next to whom Jesus appears: first Peter, then the Twelve. Peter had been called to strengthen the faith of his brothers, (Cf. 1 Cor 15:5; Lk 22:31-32) and so sees the Risen One before them; it is on the basis of his testimony that the community exclaims: "The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!" (Lk 24:34, 36)" (CCC 641)

Mary Magdelene and the other first witnesses of the empty tomb and the risen Christ, spread the joyful news with tears and smiles of heavenly joy. We, too, are messengers of the Resurrection; we live the glory of Easter through the transcendent gifts of faith, hope and love in action.

Mother Elvira, the foundress of Comunita Cenacolo, a “school of life” for drug addicts and other young people at risk, calls us to be “missionaries of the smile”. We evangelize, spread the truth with a smile, transmitting to others the serene joy which is the fruit of faith that has placed hope in the resurrection of Divine Love Incarnate.

He is truly risen, Alleluia!

-- ((((..))))

Reflections on the Scriptures of the Sacred Liturgy and the Catechism for every Sunday of the year at Meeting Christ in the Liturgy. (Publish with permission.)

(Photo: Cardinal Zen of Hong Kong communicates the faithful at holy Mass.)

Saturday, Easter II: "the number of disciples continued to grow"

even a large group of priests were becoming obedient to the faith.

-- Acts 6:1-7

Among the religious authorities of Jerusalem, not only were the Pharisee Nicodemus and the prominent Joseph of Arimathea both secret disciples of Jesus, but there was also long-standing dissension about him, so much so that St. John says of these authorities on the very eve of Christ's Passion, "many.. . believed in him", though very imperfectly. This is not surprising, if one recalls that on the day after Pentecost "a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith" and "some believers. . . belonged to the party of the Pharisees", to the point that St. James could tell St. Paul, "How many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed; and they are all zealous for the Law."

-- CCC 595

Friday, Easter II: "recalling the Apostles, they had them flogged"

they left the presence of the Sanhedrin,
rejoicing that they had been found worthy
to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.

-- Acts 5:34-42

Every joy and suffering, every event and need can become the matter for thanksgiving which, sharing in that of Christ, should fill one's whole life: "Give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess 5:18).

-- CCC 2648

Thursday Easter II: "stop teaching in that name"

“We must obey God rather than men."

-- Acts 5:27-33

Citizens are obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order. "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).

-- CCC 2256

Wednesday, Easter II: "the light came into the world"

but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil.

-- Jn 3:16-21

"Man, enticed by the Evil One, abused his freedom at the very beginning of history." He succumbed to temptation and did what was evil. He still desires the good, but his nature bears the wound of original sin. He is now inclined to evil and subject to error:

Man is divided in himself. As a result, the whole life of men, both individual and social, shows itself to be a struggle, and a dramatic one, between good and evil, between light and darkness.

-- CCC 1707