Easter Reflection: Sixth Sunday of Easter

Sixth Sunday of Easter

(Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; 1 Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17)

Have you ever had the experience of a family member or friend move away. How did you feel? Did you give them a gift or receive a gift or memento from them to help you remember them?

In today’s gospel something like that is happening. Jesus has been with his disciples for a long time. They have shared many special and exciting times together and now he is preparing them for the fact that he is going to be leaving them. Naturally, they are saddened to hear this. They have come to love Jesus very much and he loves them. They have also come to depend on Jesus to pull them out of trouble and to help them when they had any kind of need. Not only are they sad; they are also afraid—afraid that they will be alone and they will have to face the future without their friend.

Jesus knows this, but he also knows that he must be faithful to what his Father has asked him to do. So, he gives them something very special to remind them that they are never alone—that he is always with them. He gives them the gift of Himself in Holy Communion. He shares this one last meal with them and before they eat the bread he says, “This is my Body.” Then, when he shares the cup of wine with them he says, “This is my Blood. Whenever you do this my memory, I will come to you. I will fill you up with my love and you will know that I am with you.” Jesus becomes food for them and for us so that we can become one with Him and be filled with his life, his strength, and his love.

Today we also hear Jesus tell his friends—and us—that we must love one another as he loves us. Sometimes that’s hard to do. But if we are filled with the life and the love and the strength of Jesus we can do that because, as Jesus lives in us, he also acts in us and loves in us. So Holy Communion is so special because it is the wonderful gift that Jesus gives us to help us remember that we are not alone—that He is always with us—that He desires to become a part of us. That’s how much He loves us; that’s how much He wants us to love one another.


– Fr. Anthony M. Criscitelli, T.O.R.

Easter Reflection: Fifth Sunday of Easter

Fifth Sunday of Easter

(Acts 9:26-31; 1 Jn 3:18-24; Jn 15:1-8)

In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Luke, speaking about the Church throughout the then-known world, makes the enviable comment, “The Church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace.” How nice that must have been—for the people, for the leaders of the local communities, and for the apostles like Paul and Barnabas who had left all things in order to proclaim the Reign of God. When we look around at the state of the Church today—be it our parish church, the Local Church, or the Universal Church, we do not see this enviable peace. Marriage amendments and mergers, the role of the laity and of women in particular, clergy abuse and cover-ups...all these things and more give us pause and tell us that it’s no small wonder that people remain a part of such a flawed body. And so one of the things the Scriptures challenge us to ask ourselves—individually and as a community of faith—is how can we return to—how can we know—the early Church’s deep sense of peace?

In truth, we cannot, because in many respects it never existed! One needs only to read the letters of Paul to see that all was not well with many of the local communities or the Church as a whole. Paul publicly denounced Peter as a hypocrite in Antioch; he cursed anyone who disagreed with him on the essence of the Gospel; he constantly berated the Corinthians for the ways in which they conducted their lives; and he reminded those who criticized him for his past as a persecutor or the Church that he was in no way inferior to the apostles who had the privilege of being called by Jesus. When we consider that, we think, “That’s more like it! That sounds more like the Church I know!”

In telling us that the Church was at peace, Luke is not really lying to us. Instead, he is giving us the ideal Church, rather than the messy one that existed, reminding us—maybe even challenging us—to see that it is still possible to know deep peace even while enduring persecution from the outside and challenges from within...that even though we don’t all agree with one another or have the same understanding of the Church...we can still be one body in Christ. It is interesting that this very passage in Acts describes Paul’s meeting with the pillars of the Church in Jerusalem—men who were responsible for leading both the local communities as well as the larger Church. Having known him as a persecutor of the Church, they are not quite convinced of his sincerity. Barnabas, a respected man known to them, assures them that Paul is truly one of them and, as result of his testimony on Paul’s behalf, Paul is able to move about freely and he is ultimately accepted by them.

That kind of intimacy and trust must be rooted in Christ. In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches. He reminds us that without him, we wither and die, but with him and through him, we flourish and produce great fruit.

If we want the Church to be at peace—locally and on the larger scale—we should gracefully and graciously accept that the Church includes leaders and members who run the gamut in terms of their theology, how they understand Scripture, and the ways in which they are inspired by the Holy Spirit. We need people in the pews as well as pastors and bishops who can be stretched and challenged. And we need wise and respected people like Barnabas who know how to bring them together. We need to know that the arms of God are wide and that within them all are embraced. Above all, we all need to know that we draw our life from the vine that is Christ.

The late Walter Burghardt, a renowned preacher and respected Jesuit theologian, made this observation on the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination:

In the course of a half century I have seen more Christian corruption than you have read of.
I have tasted it.
I have been reasonably corrupt myself.
And yet I love this church, this living, pulsing, sinning people of God with a crucifying passion.
Why?
For all the Christian hate, I experience here a community of love.
For all the institutional idiocy, I find here a tradition of reason.
For all the individual repression, I breathe here an air of freedom.
For all the fear of sex, I discover here the redemption of my body.
In an age so inhuman, I touch here tears of compassion.
In a world so grim and humorless, I share here rich joy and earthy laughter.
In the midst of death, I hear here an incomparable stress on life.For all the apparent absence of God, I sense here the real presence of Christ.

The Second Vatican Council taught us that we are a Church of churches and that our uniqueness and diversity—what makes us us, individually and as a parish community—helps us to understand better the life of the Spirit. Through it all, let us strive to be at peace.


– Fr. Anthony M. Criscitelli, T.O.R.

Easter Reflection: Fourth Sunday of Easter

Fourth Sunday of Easter

(Acts 4:8-12; 1 Jn 3:1-2; Jn 10:11-18)

This Fourth Sunday of Easter is often called “Good Shepherd Sunday” because the gospel presents us with the image of Jesus as shepherd—one who knows his sheep and whose sheep know him and who spares nothing in order to protect and care for us. It’s a pleasant enough image, one that many people take great comfort in. However, some people find it an insulting –even demeaning –image; primarily because sheep are really very stupid animals and we bristle at the idea that we are in any way like them.

Think about it. Have you ever gone to a circus and seen an act involved sheep that have been trained to do tricks or amuse a crowd? Sheep have a very strong flocking instinct and seldom act independently. If they get separated from the flock, they don’t know how to survive and will likely end up as another animal’s dinner. They have no survival instinct, nor do they have any natural protection like claws or antlers or a touch hide they can use to protect themselves. They do have wool, but that only makes it easier for an enemy to grab them and pull them down. Their voices are not threatening and will not scare away any predators; quite the contrary, their bleat is kind of whiny and probably makes them more annoying than anything. And on top of all this, they can be willful, stupid and stubborn. And this is what we are compared to in the Scriptures?

But it’s not just the sheep that come across as less than sterling; shepherds are not the most polished or sought-after group of people, either! At the time of Jesus, they were looked upon as the lowest of the low. Although they were hard workers, they were thought of as bandits and thieves and they were believed to be so dishonest that their testimony was not accepted in courts of law. Being a shepherd is certainly not something you would want one of your children to aspire to!

And yet, this is what the Gospel uses as an image to speak of our relationship with Jesus and his with us. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor? Given what we have observed about sheep, maybe we are not as different from them as we would imagine ourselves to be. Lord knows, we can be easily swayed by the opinion of the crowd and not very firm in our own convictions. We can get caught up in the rat race of our work lives and move from one thing to another without a whole lot of thought or reflection. We can subscribe to the economic philosophy of success at any cost and believe that the more things we have, the happier we will be. And we can be herded into believing that we create our own success, but we usually discover that no matter how much we have we always seem to want more and that whatever success we achieve is never enough, either for ourselves or others. Perhaps that’s why Jesus has chosen this imagery. Like sheep, we need to depend on the shepherd for our safety, for our sustenance, for our wellbeing. In using this image, Jesus is telling us that if we allow ourselves to depend more on him and less on ourselves, he will give us a life. If we silence so many of the conflicting voices we allow to distract us and listen to his voice he will lead us to a place of life and refreshment where we will know the abundance and peace God desires for us...all the beautiful things we hear in Psalm 23. By listening to his voice, by being grateful for the care he gives us, we can free ourselves from so many of the burdens we allow to weigh us down and we can begin to recognize the wonderful graces that are already a part of our lives.

Sure, there will still be disappointments, failures, sickness and death, but by giving all of those things over to God, by finding the ways that God has been good to us…by listening to God’s voice we also find the happiness and peace that God desires for us and that we cannot achieve on our own. “I came that you may have life,” Jesus says, “…and have it in abundance.” That’s the voice of our Shepherd and we would do well to follow it and come to know that life.


– Fr. Anthony M. Criscitelli, T.O.R.

Easter Reflection: Third Sunday of Easter

Third Sunday of Easter

(Acts 3:13-15, 17-19; 1 Jn 2:1-5a; Lk 24:35-48)

The scriptures this weekend—particularly the first reading and the gospel—are all about recognition; recognizing the presence of Christ and who he really is. In the first reading, we find Peter and John in the temple in Jerusalem. By the power of Jesus’ name, they cured a man who had been crippled from birth and who had been begging money from people who passed by him. Naturally, his cure caused a big stir—especially among the temple officials—and Peter and John seized the moment to remind them that this man was cured not by them but by Jesus of Nazareth...the one they had put to death, calling out for him to be crucified.

The gospel verses we hear today come right after the disciples’ encounter with the Lord on the road to Emmaus. Today we find those same disciples back in Jerusalem, telling the others about their encounter with the risen Lord and, while they are speaking, the risen Lord comes among them. To prove himself real to them, he invites them to touch him and even eats some of their food. Once they are convinced that he it is he, he commissions them to do the work for which he called them—to preach to all the nations and tell them the Good News that he is risen and that they have reason to be hopeful.

When we hear these scriptures—the stories of how slow the disciples were to believe that Christ had indeed risen even as he stood before them, we sometimes shake our heads and wonder why. Yet, if we are honest, we know that they are not the only ones who doubt the presence of Christ in their midst. How often have we doubted? How often has Christ stood before us to assure us that he is with us ... how often have we received the very body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist ... and still wonder where God is when we are anxious or fearful. Maybe it’s because we would rather keep Christ at a safe distance, lest we feel compelled to change and be the better people he knows we can be. Maybe we fail to recognize Christ because so often he comes to us in the guise of the poor, the needy, the person or people we would rather not have to deal with.

I said at the beginning that the scriptures this weekend are about recognition...or the lack of it. And recognition is more than perception...seeing what is in front of us. Recognition is seeing with understanding ... not only seeing what is in front of us, but knowing and understanding who and what it is. It is something far deeper than merely seeing with our eyes. And this is part of the gift of the risen Christ to us—not only the assurance that he is risen and with us, but also—and more important—a share in that risen life so that we can rise above whatever it is that saddens us ... whatever it is that drags us down...whatever it is that prevents us from knowing the fullness of life God desires for us.

We see that so clearly and beautifully in the life of the disciples and the early Church. Having seen Jesus crucified and buried, they had been plunged into the depths of despair. They were a broken and frightened community; grieving people who felt that they lost everything meaningful for them, but each time the risen Lord appeared to them they grew confident in his presence among them and with them, they experienced a transformation that empowered them to unlock the doors and windows and go out into the world with confidence and joy to bring the Good News to any and all who would listen.

Although our presence here says that we believe in the risen Christ, we all have moments and times in our lives when, like the disciples, we feel like life has lost its meaning. We get mired down in sadness and grief and forget the times we have seen and experienced the presence of the risen Christ. It’s at those moments that we need to know and understand that the risen Christ is with us and that we have been and are loved by God more than we recognize. And the more we recognize—know and understand—this presence, the more our sadness is transformed into joy and we are empowered to be his witnesses to other.


– Fr. Anthony M. Criscitelli, T.O.R.

Easter Reflection: Easter Sunday Morning

(Acts 10:34, 37-43; Col 3:1-4; Jn 20:1-9)

If you listen closely to the gospel passage we just heard proclaimed, one thing becomes apparent—none of what they were seeing and experiencing on that morning of the first day of the week was making any sense. Not to Mary Magdalene or her companions, not to Peter nor John. The author of the gospel attributed this to the fact that none of them—neither his closest apostles nor his most devoted followers—understood the Scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead. Yet, when the beloved disciple followed Peter inside the tomb and saw the clothes lying there, we are told that he believed. The gospel does not say what he believed; only that he believed. There is no further conversation between him and Peter that is recorded for us, only that they returned to their homes. The rest of the story—as Paul Harvey used to say—belongs to Mary Magdalene. She is the one who saw the angels...she is the one who saw the risen Lord. Peter and John saw nothing but a vacant tomb and some clothes piled up in a corner. Any way you look at it, that’s a mighty shaky beginning for a faith that has lasted nearly two thousand years and has billions of adherents throughout the world.

And yet, that is where we continue to focus our attention on this glorious Easter morning—on an empty tomb...on what did or did not happen there...and on how we might explain it to anyone who does not believe. Resurrection does not square with anything else we know about physical human life. No one saw it happen on that first Easter morning; no one has ever seen it happen since. Ironically, this most important event in the life of Jesus is the one and only event that was not witnessed by anyone; it was entirely between him and the Father. There were no witnesses whatsoever; they all arrived after the fact. Two of them saw a pile of clothes, one of them saw a vision of angels, and most them saw nothing because they were home in bed, hiding behind pulled up blankets and securely bolted doors.

In the end, none of that really matters and to focus on an empty tomb is to miss the point. The tomb was just an empty shell—a cocoon—and the living being that had been inside was no longer there. Maybe that’s why Peter and John did not stay very long. Clearly, Jesus was not there. He had outgrown his tomb and the stone walls could not contain the life, the energy, and the hope that were radiating from his new being and that needed to be shared. As we are sometimes wont to say, the risen Lord had people to see, things to do, and places to go. His business was among the living to whom he appeared over and over in John’s gospel. And every time he came to his friends they became stronger, wiser, kinder, more daring. Every time he came to them, they became more like him. That’s where our focus should be this morning; not on an empty tomb, but on the presence of a living and breathing God who showed himself to his frightened disciples and transformed their fear into the ability and desire to continue to live and proclaim the message he spoke to them while he was among them.

That is the Easter miracle, my brothers and sisters; not an empty tomb, but an encounter with the living Lord. Easter began for Mary Magdalene not when she stood frightened and confused before an empty tomb, but when she saw the Lord and he spoke her name. It is no different for us. Easter is not about bunnies or colored eggs or even an empty tomb; we will know the true meaning and deep joy of Easter when we acknowledge the Lord who stands before us in our sisters and brothers...in all the moments of our lives...who speaks our names...and offers us nothing less than a participation in his own new and glorious life.


– Fr. Anthony M. Criscitelli, T.O.R.

Easter Reflection: Easter Vigil

The young man dressed in white, sitting where Jesus’ dead body should have been, says one of the strangest things imaginable to the women who visit the tomb: “Do not be amazed!” Given that they had gone there to lament and anoint the body of their dead friend, how could these women not be amazed?

Astonishment and amazement is a natural response to the mighty acts of God. Throughout the Scripture readings this evening we have recounted the history of God at work in the world and in our lives. God speaks—says a word—and the sun, the moon, the stars, the animals, all of humanity are born out of nothing. That is amazing!

God rescues the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, giving them freedom and life when slavery and death seem their only possible future. That, too, is amazing!

Throughout the Scriptures, God provides a way when there is no way, rescuing his people from slavery, defeat, and exile. How could one not be amazed when God is at work in the world?

But, biblically speaking, amazement is more than mere delight and astonishment. Underneath this word is also a sense of being terrified or afraid—that combination of fear and wonder that reminds us that we are in the presence of a God who will let nothing defeat his life-giving desires. So maybe it’s not so unusual that, in the face of the women’s wonder and fear, the young man says, “Do not be amazed!” This message is at the heart of the Easter story—that we need not be afraid because even death can’t stop God’s life-giving desires. “Do not be amazed” that God is at work in our lives and in our world and it is God’s life-giving desire that we overcome the fears that keep us from living life as fully as God intends for us.

Our new life in Christ is born from the font of Baptism. “Are you not aware,” Paul writes to the
Romans, “that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into his death so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” Here is our life in God—our hope beyond fear. God, whose mighty acts once rescued people from slavery, defeat, and exile, has defeated the powers of sin and death by raising Jesus from the dead. This same God makes us one with Christ through baptism and raises us to newness of life.

The first word of Easter is a word for all of us: “Do not be amazed!” We need not fear because God has raised Jesus from the bonds of death and we are called to live as people of courage, peace, and hope...today and every day of our lives.


– Fr. Anthony M. Criscitelli, T.O.R.