The Family of Love: The Holy Trinity is God ‘Father, Son and Holy Spirit’

Returning to Ordinary Time after the Season of Easter, the Church celebrates the unity of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son on the first Sunday after Pentecost.

At The Baptism of the Lord and also at The Transfiguration of The Lord, we witness through the scriptures the presence of the Holy Trinity in the world: God the Father revealing and declaring to the world His Beloved Son.

God’s New Creation is Perfected in Pentecost.

Of all the Old Testament festivals, two have become major solemnities in the Church. The first is Passover (Pascha or Easter) and the second is Pentecost (Shavuot, meaning Weeks and is the Festival of The Law, The Torah) established when God gave Moses the Law at Mt. Sinai and celebrated 50 days (7x7).

We celebrate today the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension. After Jesus resurrected from the dead, He appeared to the disciples in His glorified body with His precious wounds in His hands, feet and side. Jesus proved that He was not a ghost by having them put their hands into the nail marks and into the wound in His side and He ate in their presence. As the Apostles Creed says:
“He ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from there He will come to judge the living and the dead...”

God desires that we give Him all of our love and adoration.

In the first reading, there is something most impressive about St. Peter as reflected by how he has clearly grasped what Christ meant when He instructed His followers to “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Jesus did not say “I love you as a mother loves a child,” and He did not say, “I love you the way a husband loves his wife.” If we know Jesus, we understand that He is filled with wisdom, truth, holiness, devotion, sacrifice, power and many other traits. Yet, He chooses to summarize it for us quite simply by saying, “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.”

Jesus said: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit.”

Thanks to our Deacons for preaching last weekend, Good Shepherd Sunday. We heard that in our Catholic faith we must be “all-in.”

The Fifth Sunday of Easter refers to the role of Jesus Christ in our lives in relation to the Church. The Gospel of John Chapter 15 tells of Jesus as the True Vine and is really and truly the day of Evangelization Awareness.

Every Fourth Sunday of Easter is called Good Shepherd Sunday and is one of the traditional days of Vocations awareness. This classic image of Jesus Christ as The Good Shepherd is the enduring and shows God’s care and love for all of us. Not surprisingly, no one wants to be called a sheep. 1t has some strange connotations. However, in the eyes of God, we are these most profoundly gentle and pastoral creatures. The idea of the good shepherd is as ancient as the Bible. Yet we see how little has changed over thousands of years: we still need good leadership in our world and in our Church. Indeed it was St. John the Baptist who pointed Jesus out as “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the World.”

Why Did They Recognize Jesus Just Then?

I think it was because they saw His hands... That is, when they saw the marks of the nails on the hands of the Risen Lord. That was the final proof they needed. Last week, it was St. Thomas who He told “Bring your hand and put it INTO my side.” In other words: “Thomas, Touch My Heart.” Imagine how Thomas felt as he touched Jesus’ Sacred Heart, and the wound that lance made. Thomas’ heart must have burned with joy as he declared: “My Lord and My God.” This week, we recall how, then and now, our hearts burn within us as we wish the Lord to stay with us and as we reflect on how we can stay with the Lord in the prayerful intimacy of Eucharistic Adoration.

On Divine Mercy Sunday of 2016, I was in prayer in the small chapel in Williams, AZ, very early in the morning, quietly preparing for Divine Mercy Sunday Masses.

It is such a special day in the Easter season. I wished to give the people something special. Praying at the tabernacle, I asked Jesus: “Could You help me out a little here, Lord? I’d like to have something different to tell the people today, Divine Mercy Sunday. Please, Lord, could you let a thought, a word, a scrap fall from your table for me to meditate on?” I immediately heard an inner voice say to me:

“Just Read The Words....”

We Are Also Coming Back To Life.

We are God’s people, the people of life, through Jesus coming back to Life. Easter is the Feast of Life: It is the Victory of Life, the Pro-Life Day.

As the late, famous Italian catechist and author Sofia Cavalletti most profoundly wrote back in 1993:

“The Christian faith is an obstinate faith; each time confronted by death, it proclaims that death does not have the last word. And this is what we believe, what we affirm, and what we want to announce to the world, because we know that there has already been a first, great victory of life over death in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Today on Palm Sunday Jesus enters into the Holy City of Jerusalem on a donkey’s colt. The people wave branches as He enters the city, and they proclaim, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is to come! Hosanna in the highest!”

Today’s Gospel of Mark gives a panoramic view of the Sacred Easter Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday & the Easter Vigil. On Holy Thursday we celebrate The Mass of the Lord’s Supper in the evening of the Thursday in Holy Week, as the Church begins the sacred Easter Triduum and devotes herself to the remembrance of the Jesus’ Last Supper. On the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus, loving those who were his own in the world even to the end, offered his Body and Blood to the Father under the appearance of bread and wine, gave them to the apostles to eat and drink, then enjoined the apostles and their successors in the priesthood to offer them in turn.

Today is the Fifth Week of Lent, and this means that next Sunday we will celebrate Palm Sunday. Lent has passed so quickly.

Jesus answered His disciples, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks of the hour that has come. Why is this ‘hour’ and why is it so important to you and me?

Grace is simply the Love of God overflowing into the world. It is Jesus Who Is This Love.

“You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.”

So wrote Charles Portis in his book, True Grit, twice made into very famous movies. This also sums up our readings for this Fourth Sunday in Lent, which is traditionally called Laetare Sunday and Rose is the color.