• Acts 6: 1-7. The early church grows with many converts including Jewish Priest. The Deaconate is developed to help serve the needs of the poor.
• 1 Peter 2:4-9. Peter continues with this early baptismal liturgy by commissioning the disciples as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood.”
•  John 14:1-12. Jesus describes the intimate relationship that he shares with God the Father and assures those of us who follow him a place in the Kingdom of God.

Thoughts for your consideration:

During this Easter season it is appropriate for us to reflect on the development of the early Church and to consider the various issues that they had to address as they strove to build on the foundation that Jesus left them. The first reading attests to one of these early social issues that they faced. The evangelical mission of the Apostles was neglecting the basic needs of some of their poorer members. In what appears to be a creative and open process the Apostles deliberated with the community of followers and gave them the resources to organize another layer of church structure that would address this most pressing social need. It has always impressed me how the early church took the “option for the poor” with such a priority. The poor widows were being neglected and the Church recognized this as an immediate priority. The Apostles wrestled with their desire to continue promoting their evangelical mission but they would not allow this noble duty to become a legitimate excuse for neglecting the poor. Instead they sought a creative solution and empowered the larger community to design this solution. So impressed is the Jewish community to this model of service and participation that even the elite members of the Jewish priesthood begin to join.

In the second reading Peter continues to offer the baptismal liturgy that we have been reading for the past couple of weeks. In this section however we hear Peter calling the followers of Christ ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood.’ Consistent with the first reading Peter is again empowering us all to take part in the mission of building the Kingdom of God. Peter invites us all to share in the intimate union with God and one another. An invitation which flowed from the mystical union that Jesus had with the Father and which he shares with the Apostles in the Gospel passage. This union invites us to consider the great dignity that we have through God but it also forces us to see and respect that same dignity in all others.

One can see in the Gospel passage how Jesus really wanted to convey this intimate union that he shared with God. Poor Thomas and Philip tried to understand this relationship from a human experience but Christ had to challenge them to see the radical nature of this union which he wanted them to share in. Jesus invites them to engage in a relationship of solidarity with God and one another where they can truly see their own purpose and interest vested in each other.  

Going back to the first reading we see the earliest development of the Church’s “preferential option for the poor.” By this principle the Church evaluates the state of the Body of Christ based on how the poorest members of their community are faring. The option for the poor serves as a common denominator that forces us to reevaluate our community obligations based on the neglect of those who are most in need. To preach of God’s love requires us to be agents of justice and peace to one another.  Jesus tells the apostles that his intimate relationship with God the Father can be acknowledged through the works that he does. “Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.”

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group

• Thomas’ question is one that we continue to hear today. “How can we know the way?” Indeed how can people know the way if so many Christians offer any number of options and perspectives for following Christ? How will our works help people believe in the Gospel message of justice and peace?
• The “preferential option for the poor” is a wonderful theological concept that occupies many scholarly works. But how can this principle be applied within the concrete context of the parish or faith community? Who is being “neglected in the daily distribution?”

• Acts 14: 21-27. Paul and Barnabas complete the first missionary journey and report to the community at Antioch which had commissioned them. They relate all that God had helped them accomplish and repeat the need to undergo many trials perseveringly.
• Revelations 21: 1-5. John sees a vision of the new heavens and the new earth, also the new Jerusalem, beautiful as a bride. Every tear will be wiped away.
• John 13: 31-33, 34-35. Jesus will soon depart and recommends love for each other, “such as my love has been for you.”

Thoughts for Your Consideration: By John Gonzalez

The Gospel reading for this weekend offers us the final instruction of Jesus to his disciples before being glorified through his own Passion, Death and Resurrection. The instruction is to “Love one another as I have loved you.” In fulfilling our Sunday obligation of attending Mass we are in fact fulfilling our obligation of remembering Christ as we listen to his Holy words in Sacred Scripture and by participating in the last supper during the liturgy of the Eucharist. But the act of remembering is not an historical exercise. We are not merely role playing with an event that happened sometime in the past. A great Passionist scripture scholar, Fr. Carroll Stuhlmueller, reminds us in his commentary on this passage that “remembrance is re-living now what was done then. …Remembrance combines past, present and future, suffering and glory, hopes and fulfillment. The liturgy of the Eucharist enables us to do much more than we ever anticipated, for it brings the mirabilia Dei, the wondrous deeds of God, from the past right into our contemporary actions.”    

Because of the laws of nature humanity is limited by the dimensions of space and time. However God exists beyond these confines and spiritually we too transcend these natural limitations. That is why it is nearly impossible to describe supra-natural concepts that John witnesses in the book of Revelations such as the new heaven, the new earth and the New Jerusalem. The relevance that the second reading has for us is to remind us of our Christian goal which again transcends time and space. Heaven does not become a personal future reward for us if we successfully live a good life. Heaven becomes a liberated form of existence, an existence where we live in a complete holistic relationship with God and each other. What this existence will look like in the end we do not know, but from what John was able to observe “there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away.” Our Christian hope is for a new culture of life that will replace the current culture of death. The social culture that placed Jesus on the cross will give way to a new culture that will transform the crucified Jesus into the risen Christ.

We are called to share in that liberated existence now. We remember this existence when we recall the life that Jesus lived and the incarnate relationship he had with God and humanity. We re-live that relationship now as Christians building the Kingdom of God by our very example and by advocating for the society based on the culture of life, a life that compassionately walks with all who suffer, a life that stands in solidarity with all who are mourning, wailing or in pain.

The Passionist community takes a vow that remembers the passion and death of Jesus Christ. This act of remembrance calls us to re-live that suffering by serving and standing with all who continue to face the pains and injustice of our contemporary society. The Passionist Constitutions describe it in this way: “His Passion and death are no mere historical events. They are ever-present realities to people in the world of today, “crucified” as they are by injustice, by the lack of a deep respect for human life, and by a hungry yearning for peace, truth, and the fullness of human existence.”

This path of remembrance is described by St. Paul in the first reading when he instructs the disciples to persevere in the faith. “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.” God’s Kingdom is not something we wait for, it is something we build together as a community of faith that believes and hopes for a fuller existence. We remember this vision through the life and love that Jesus shared with all humanity. We re-live this vision today when we reach out and relate to all our brothers and sisters and especially those who need us the most. Finally we also hope that these efforts will help build a new society that is founded on the love and life that God wants to share with all of creation.

Christian eschatology calls us to live in the present by looking to the past and remembering tomorrow.