Our readings for this Sixth Sunday of Easter are here. (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/050524.cfm). So for most of Eastertide (through Pentecost), the first reading will have been from the Acts of the Apostles, and the gospel reading mostly from St John’s account.
Again, these are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the Masses of:
- May 6, 2018 10AM
- May 10, 2015 5PM
There is a brief cameo from Fr Eric Sundrup, SJ, in 2015 as well.
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The poems/texts Fr Dennis & Fr Eric reference are:
- An excerpt from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut, 10AM Mass, May 6, 2018 Cycle B
- An excerpt from The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, 5PM Mass, May 10, 2015 Cycle B
- Widows by Louise Gluck from Ararat (Ecco Press), 5PM Mass, May 10, 2015 Cycle B
In 2018, we reflected on —
The Sixth Sunday of Easter is more about how Jesus Christ lives in the world now. Jesus Christ is present as Love. When we reach Ascension, it is about the fulfillment of unity in sending and returning Jesus.
In the first reading, the Holy Spirit met all the Gentiles, as well as the circumcised Jewish people (presumably the women, too). It’s almost as if Jesus Christ were there before the church.
Our Baptismal rite is a formal, concrete expression of entry into the church but birth itself marks the kiddo as a child of God, a sign of hope.
He offered the following excerpt from a Kurt Vonnegut story — a crazy or holy baptismal rite from the novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies. ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.'”
The gospel is the message: Love one another as I have loved you.
In 2015, we reflected on —
Love as what binds us together: the theme of today’s readings.
In the first reading, Peter starts from the position that God is God for the Jews only, but then he sees how the Holy Spirit is at work in the Gentiles and responds “Can anyone withhold …?”
We always need to remember
- who is lovable (everyone),
- how we love (vulnerably), and
- how we share (openheartedly and openhandedly)
This is an all sustaining love, one that holds us up and endures, this is the Love of God that can sometimes be hard to understand.
As a prelude to the poem, D2 mentioned that with his parents and family, every Monday was a card game. Neighbors and friends were included, too, but the family was the mainstay. Pinochle, canasta, and so on. So … unsurprisingly, D2’s vision of heaven includes card games. What he remembers most is card games as a form of sharing, like a meal.
The poem Widows captures that spirit … and the Gospel of Poverty and Love:
… that’s what you want, that’s the object: in the end,
the one who has nothing wins.
We need to leave this world without anything except love, the love that has sustained us through easy and/or hard times and lives.
Be inspired by and be grateful for and be the people who pass this love on.
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The Fr Eric Sundrup, SJ cameo from 8:30AM 5/10/15 Mother’s Day: We hear this commandment of “Love one another, as I have loved you” — and become complacent as it feels too familiar, too Disney-esque at times. However, if you love and are truly vulnerable, … you get stomped on. Wall Street is “too big” to let fail, but Food Stamps are on the chopping block. It isn’t that we love God, it’s that we were first Loved by God. As C.S. Lewis noted:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
God died trying to love and be vulnerable, and it didn’t stop with his death, death didn’t end God’s Love. So let’s try to die trying — die a little, die a lot. If you do this, you will actually live.
Today’s image is from an Our History in Photos website — I didn’t find the author, (?”I_am_mountain”?) and mentioned the images are lightly edited. This one came up for a search on images of playing canasta! In Nova Scotia. So it seemed a good match for the Widows poem. 🙂
The Surest Sign 