Sunday Lectio 030: Third Sunday of Easter

[Music] welcome to godsplaining contemplative preachers contemporary age each week join the dominican friars as they consider all things catholic hello and welcome back to god's planning i am father gregory pine joining here from switzerland which is a land filled with chocolate and cheese and easter joy all of which i'm benefiting from and so far as one can in my splendid isolation but enough about you know food and all right i'm just going to introduce our friends here on this podcast we've got father joseph anthony joining from charlottesville father patrick mary briscoe joining from province rhode island start with father joseph anthony how are things there in charlottesville uh we're we're in a land of paschal joy and uh wineries and uh springtime hikes in the blue ridge mountains so yeah we're in a good place jesus has risen it's it's beautiful out here nice that's awesome father patrick i remained in the i remained in the land of grey desolation you know up here at pc college as our neighbors in cranston would say uh you know we're just we don't we don't have quite the intensity of the permacloud but today it is not a nice spring day so we have to bring the joy of easter you know to others because the sun is not doing it for us got it hey well uh when you lack the sun for the giving of vitamin d all right yeah my bad yep uh-huh you yourself have to be the son to others i think there's a friar in our province or maybe with somebody else whatever this is how stories get told in the province you just attribute them wildly and then sometimes you end up telling that story back to the person from whom it originated um but i think there was a guy who served with the missionaries of charity and um he was in one of their aids hospices and he remarked the fact that none of the men had um televisions in their rooms and he was like hey that's kind of wild because you know every hospital that you visit everywhere it's just you know people watching tv for many hours on end or watching the television of their name whatever okay but uh he he commented on this to one of the sisters he's like sister there's no tvs here what's to be done and she said brother you be tv he was like got it okay perfect so in the absence of the sun brother you be son um so here we are uh continuing our pilgrimage as it were through life to death which is father patrick's greatest hope uh death that sweet release but before we die we'll continue to comment on the scriptures so today we're we're talking about the readings from the third sunday of easter so to lead it in let's pray the prayer together from the beginning of the mass in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen may your people exalt forever o god as renewed you in renewed youthfulness of spirit so that rejoicing now in the restored glory of our adoption we may look forward in confident hope to the rejoicing of the day of resurrection through our lord jesus christ your son who lives and reigns with you and the unity of the holy spirit god forever and ever amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen so father joseph anthony would you lead us into the first reading absolutely a reading from the exceeded apostles peter said to the people the god of abraham the god of isaac the god of jacob the god of our fathers has glorified his servant jesus whom you handed over and denied in pilate's presence when he had decided to release him you denied the holy and righteous one and ask that a murderer be released to you the author of life you put to death but god raised him from the dead of this we are all witnesses now i know brothers that you acted out of ignorance just as your leaders did but god has thus brought to fulfillment what he had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets that his christ would suffer repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be wiped away so in reading the scriptures okay so i'm cheap and i don't have a subscription to magnificat but i do have a free subscription to priors only gliese which is like the cheap french version of magnificat um so when i do lectio divina it's like a combination of marveling at the word and marveling at my ignorance of the french language so some of my thoughts on the scripture are inspired by lack of comprehension but i was struck in this first line where we read peter said to the people um in in the french it said like jesus excuse me jesus wasn't acting in the first sentence of this except in so far as he was aspiring peter but it said that peter took the word like he laid whole of the word or he sees the word and that causes me a kind of wonder a kind of a kind of sense of the mystery that's at stake in the preaching act because uh in giving testimony to his faith and giving testimony to the resurrection of our lord jesus christ peter kind of makes use as it were of that proclamation he makes use of grace and that is not language that we are accustomed to use when talking about the mysteries of the life of faith but it's a fact because when we talk about the life of nature the life of grace as it were we have well we have a kind of possession over it so it's god's by right but he shares it with us so that we can make use of it so just as we are outfitted with everything that we need to live a natural life so by grace we are outfitted with everything that we need to live a genuinely supernatural life and so we can take hold of the word um it's not something that just passes through us and leaves us untouched it's not something that we just kind of avail ourselves of in passing or avail ourselves at particular moments it's something that we lay hold of and that lays hold of us so i think just this idea that that god places divine things in our hands god places divine things in our hearts when we talk about the sacraments specifically baptism or confirmation or holy orders we talk about this idea of character right so you have this indelible mark imprinted upon your soul and that mark is a participation in the priesthood of christ and so it makes you by virtue of it a priest in christ you know so we talk about the the priesthood of all believers and that's a different kind of priesthood shared in by those who are ordained but but it gives you a kind of power as it were over grace so it gives you the power to receive divine things to lay hold of them in the case of a priest it gives him power to give divine things so when we talk about the resurrection sometimes it seems kind of ethereal or science fictiony uh but truth be told it's something that we can lay hold of it's something that we can proclaim because we are given to possess it in god's good pleasure and god's gift of himself so um you know in the case of the proclamation that peter makes uh that taking hold of was not um was not done well right it wasn't exercise with good custody but in our case we can make good use of it because the lord himself you know wants us to know him wants wants us to love him um and and makes it so that we can be good stewards uh that we can be ministers as it were of that same word so up here in rhode island we have this chain called honeydew donuts father gregory if you've ever been to a honeydew doughnuts i i have not but i am just intrigued as to where this is going so please do more the thing about honeydew donuts is that it's obviously inferior to dunkin donuts okay product placement yes that's right we received no we received no money from dunkin donuts for the taping of this episode no but so there so there are some things like honeydew donuts that are just inferior to uh to other things um you know and we can talk about all of all of the different kinds of purchasing decisions we make in our lives where we choose a brand name because we feel like it makes a difference um or it doesn't right and sometimes these things are up for debate you know there there are actually rhode islanders who prefer honeydew donuts they're wrong but that's fine but there are some things that are not up for debate there's some things that are that are just set and one one of the most moving moments i think of the easter story especially of our participation in the liturgy is when we shout out the crowd crucify him when we ourselves take the place of those who choose other than the lord when we ourselves take uh take upon ourselves the guilt of those who have preferred barabbas to jesus uh so this is this is something that we bear we we we bear the guilt of this sin in our own lives for for preferring lots of things to christ um not not just not just barabbas so when when peter is preaching that you denied the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be re released to you um we can think of not not just our role in the making present of these mysteries during holy week not just our role as the crowd where we say crucify him and give us barabbas we can think not just of that role but of our sins of those moments when we personally betray christ when we prefer something other other than him in those moments it's not necessarily a murderer but we're choosing things other than christ and peter's preaching is so prescient because it it it bears that to mind and it should inflict our consciences and drive us to then each of us what is it what is it that i prefer what is it that i'm choosing that that's not christ that that kind of um juxtaposition there between the murderer and the author of life is not just in the kind of what we see is the the kind of lyrical or the physical center of this passage but it's also kind of the gravity point um the fact that the murderer is the one who takes life he he he destroys it the murder is the one that uh rips life away in in and kind of extinguishes life that is not proper to his authority he has no uh responsibility to that compared to the author of life who from nothing as it gives and and and breathes new life and and brings it into being in a real sense and the way that peter is preaching about that kind of contradiction or those those two polar opposites here um is really captivating because it it we see the continuation of this type of preaching all the way through the successors of peter you know into our our contemporary age right this is something that john paul ii the successor peter would preach and uh benedict xvi picked up on this and said this in his inauguration homily right jesus christ takes nothing away from us but gives us everything in return so when we turn to him when we follow when we become believers of jesus dedicating our life to it he doesn't rip life away from us he doesn't murder our life and turn us into some you know robots of you know just like para sanitized cookie cutters same things we actually have this abundance of life because we've turned and become united we've become followers disciples of the author of life and it's because of his authorship in the living that he's able to approach the dead he's able to approach those who have had their life ripped away because of the idols of this life because those who have had their lives ripped away because of um you know whatever addictions or whatever sins may have come about whatever calumny has destroyed their life the pride and vanities of this world which has destroyed them which has ripped the life out of them it's christ the author of life that stands before us and that is proclaimed through the voice of peter that is proclaimed throughout the generations in anew and saying you have the opportunity to gain an abundance of life and this this brothers and sisters is what we are witnesses of because we proclaim it to each other in that real sense all right with that let's pass on then to the second reading which is taken from the first letter of saint john my children i am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin but if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous one he is the expiation for our sins and not for our sins only but for those of the whole world the way we may be sure that we know him is to keep his commandments those who say i know him but do not keep his commandments are liars and the truth is not in them but whoever keeps his word the love of god is truly perfected in him the word of the lord thanks be to god so we have this issue here right where it brings to bear a question that we phrase a little bit differently so in our contemporary uh parlance we would be more that's a father gregory word parlance parlay pylons in our contemporary parlance um we might be more inclined to say something like i'm spiritual but i'm not religious like oh i want to think of the things of god but i don't want them to have any impact on my life well the the author of this letter the scriptures here sees this exactly and says no because it is impossible to say that you love god if you do not keep his commandments so there is an absolute link something that cannot be separated between the demonstrating of the love of god actually having the love of god and keeping his commandments because the commandments are are the vehicle the means the way by which we're able to know and to express the love of god um the charity demands union that's that's what charity is you know particularly in the in the domestic view for aquinas and charity is union and as we've talked about many times on the podcast um we we can describe charity as friendship friendship demands action it it demands service it demands real movement um to to show that and to build and to foster and to serve that union so so to say uh i'm spiritual and not religious is to say well i love god but i'm not interested in keeping his commandments and whatever that view is uh because a very prevalent religious view it's not christianity it's not the gospel and it's not what we're talking about in the first letter of saint john today i want to pick up on that phrase um advocate and how is it if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the father that that manifests two realities for us that jesus christ the righteous one who is the expiation of our stand our sins stands in the presence of the father and if we remember and recall the words of our lord the night before he went to his passion that he promised us that where he is he will draw us to himself and so we see that where is he right now well he's with the father and he's going to draw us back to that and in this pilgrim journey that if anyone does sins that he he stands in the presence of the father to advocate for us and i think there are times that we can uh maybe recoil at some of the legislative language that we find within the scriptures but advocate is really a legislative uh term right we find it in the judicial courtrooms there's an advocate for uh the defendant in some way and that this person who stands in the presence of the father advocates but he defends he sheds light he speaks on the behalf of the one who is unable to speak the one who is unable to defend themselves and so christ is that advocate and when there has been transgression right once again this kind of legal legal terminology shouldn't be uh you know turned brushed aside but when there has been transgression that it's christ the the eternal son who stands in the father the place that he's promised to draw us to himself and advocates defense speaks on our behalf into that one way one day where we're with him perfectly in eternity so i think that there in the in the latter half of this reading there are two kind of hinges upon which the reading turns the first is this idea of knowing him and the second is the idea of keeping his commandments i suppose they're not so much ideas as they are realities but i think that we hear a lot of conversation in catholic and protestant apologetics about faith and works and you have texts from the letter to the romans where we are saved by faith you have texts from the letter of james faith that works is dead but we need to read the scriptures together in order to get a kind of more synthetic picture of what it means uh to live by faith to live by charity as it were and i think you have a really really beautiful kind of thumbnail sketch of it here in this very short reading basically the idea is that we are justified by faith but that we're justified by faith breathing forth love which love is testified to by the presence of good works right by by keeping the commandments so you can think about this like at the level of faith for instance faith has an interior dimension and it has an exterior dimension the interior dimension is belief so we believe in god we believe what god says of himself we believe kind of into god as it were by habitual trust by kind of leaning on his testimony but it's also necessary that we give we give witness to that faith so if somebody were to say you know i need you to deny our lord jesus christ in order to advance whatever judicial thing i have in the works you can't say like oh yeah no problem denied because what you are saying what you're professing with your lips actually destroys what you formally had in your heart so this is why you know the testimony of the martyrs is so powerful because they're asked to deny something and it seems so trifling just to say like i don't believe in jesus you know it's just a few words didn't take me too long to formulate that statement but when you say that you extinguish the interior life of faith the interior life of grace within by kind of betrayal of friendship so if we say that we know him that has to be borne out in our lives because such is the nature of human existence right we're embodied souls or in souled bodies and so the faith that we cultivate the sa the faith which we seek to kind of deepen or intensify in our lives has to have this outlet because otherwise how will it flourish so if we say that we know him we also have to keep his commandments are we justified by the keeping of his commandments well in a certain sense yes but taken together with this idea of faith so we are justified by faith breathing forth love and that love is made evident by keeping his commandments so there you have just a nice real beautiful blend a real beautiful balance of this whole kind of faith works debate in the in the simple language of saint john so with that we will now pass on to the gospel and father patrick will read this in anticipation of our final round of comments a reading from the holy gospel according to luke the two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way and how jesus was made known to them in the breaking of the bread while they were still speaking about this he stood in their midst and said to them peace be with you but they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost then he said to them why are you troubled and why do questions arise in your hearts look at my hands and my feet that it is i myself touch me and see because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see i have and as he said this he showed them his hands and his feet while they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed he asked them have you anything here to eat they gave him a piece of baked fish he took it and ate it in front of them he said to them these are my words that i spoke to you while i was still with you that everything written about me in the law of moses and in the prophets and in the psalms must be fulfilled then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them thus it is written that the christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations beginning from jerusalem you are the witnesses of these things the gospel of the lord praise to you lord jesus christ my favorite aspect of the chris or the the easter season the entirety of the easter season is we get these accounts of um those immediate encounters with the resurrected lord and why is this so important to us because the reality is that is who we encounter in this present day we are encountering the resurrected lord and looking at how he has interacted with those in those immediate moments and those immediate encounters post-resurrection kind of sets up the paradigm and sets up the expectation of how the lord interacts with us and what we see throughout the entire thing is that the lord always initiates with questions you know with uh mary magdalene he says why are you weeping this is very first words after the resurrection why are you weeping on the road to emmaus first words out of the lord's mouth what are you talking about you know and when he stands on the the shores of the sea after peter and the rest of the apostles went back to fishing he says have you caught anything to eat he's always initiating with questions and here is the first time actually that he doesn't initiate with a question he starts off he initiates the encounter with peace be with you turning to uh his disciples who are all incredulous with joy at this point they're recounting these stories trying to figure out the lord met us on the road the lord met us at the tomb it was empty and all this stuff there had this kind of joyful expectation but so many questions and then the lord enters in and says peace be with you and he does ask another question why are you troubled it's me look why are questions in your heart here i am i'm back i'm here for you and as we continue you know celebrating this easter season as we continue our uh joyful credulity in this way that we have the lord asking us those questions are you troubled why are you troubled why what what's causing your anxiety what's causing your grief why are what are you talking about all the time you know what what what's going on what what's so important that you're always talking and to hear the lord truly ask these very questions into our current day into our present day into our lives our families our classrooms the lord desires to know but in building this relationship with the resurrected lord that he asks questions and we need to draw in and respond to those questions with authenticity with honesty it may not be the most kind of ideal like perfect example that we want to give but maybe what troubles us is you know different aspects of doubts in our faith maybe what troubles us or causes our weeping is is real suffering that we have trouble understanding why pain happens and why evil exists in the society that we live but do not be afraid to hear the lord speak those questions anew and afresh into our contemporary and our current lives but to respond with authenticity because the lord only thing the lord desires is all that we have right now it may not be perfect it may not it may be a little rough around the edges and that's all right but the lord in these repeated encounters after the resurrection reveals to us his deepest desire to ask the questions about our life and where we are and to have us encounter his resurrection right where we are whether that's in our weeping in our troubledness or in our conversations the lord wants to be in the heart of that i want to let you know that right now i'm tempted to preach my entire sunday homily but i'm not going to because i would be made fun of that mercilessly by father patrick uh so i'm just going to preach three quarters of it just kidding but seriously also um so something that's remarkable about the gospel of luke is that it's very much like the gospel of matthew and mark but that the slight variations uh draw your attention to novel features of the gospel proclamation so luke is very deliberate in the way that he arranges the data uh the way that he arranges these stories and he tells you as much in the first four verse first four verses that's tough uh of the gospel i suppose it's tough for me um so in matthew and in mark you have these three passion predictions so in mark it's very uh it's very clear like there's this hinge point in the gospel so when you get up to chapter eight things start accelerating towards jerusalem and in chapters 8 9 and 10 the lord foretells that he's going to go to jerusalem he's going to be handed over as it were he's going to suffer he's going to die he's going to rise from the dead these predictions are met within comprehension now in the gospel of luke it's kind of hard to pick out those same predictions they're kind of there they're kind of not they're formulated in a different way but what's wild is that those same passion predictions are repeated after the fact so by the angel and by the lord himself and we have the lord's testimony here of what happened which is strange because it already happened so why would you predict it but i think here you have a kind of insight into the way that we interact with the mysteries of our lord jesus christ because on the one hand okay so god is eternal so he possesses all of his life in one now in one instant but we are not eternal okay we live in time and so we only possess our lives from instant to instant so this moment i've kind of lost hold of what i was and i have not yet taken hold of what i will be and part of my life is kind of i don't know working together uh the integrity of that story which which passes just as much as it kind of courses through time and so the lord in his proclamation and his easter proclamation of what has taken place is giving us the interpretive key so we are to live our lives in anticipation of the good things that are to come but we're also to look back on our lives upon the good things that have transpired so that what we experience as a kind of narrative we can get better at interpreting and ultimately that we can be recollected in that reality so the incarnation uh the paschal mystery holds the key to unlocking the intelligibility the coherence the very substance of our human lives but we need to be constantly looking forward to it looking back towards it looking into it as it were so that it can unriddle for us our very perplexing existence so while it may seem strange that the lord predicts something that has already taken place it's a strangeness that corresponds to our strange human state which is a state that is a story in the process of being told a story in the process of being interpreted a story in the process of coming to make sense but by his grace right by the mysteries which he applies to our lives which he which he merits for us right it has the possibility of being made sense of right and we we have that confidence because the lord himself has revealed it because he has preached it because he is because he has suffered it and risen with it yeah for for all that uh father gregory said there you know i i don't disagree but i think this gospel is fundamentally a gospel but i do disagree i think this gospel is fundamentally a gospel of divine mercy okay so i still i still have like you know i'm still riding that little fausty train hard from divine mercy something so bless up sister faustina father patrick is right there with you you know um we might we might even say that i'm just like coasting on her veil tail or something like you know just just riding the wings of divine mercy keep going uh you know yeah that's right just i'm trying to find a way to say i'm drafting up you know running the running the race i'm sorry you said this was better than what i said okay yes because this is commentary on this gospel as divine mercy so the lord seeing their fear and terror responds with what they need to be convicted and that this is not primarily about the conviction of the gospel but rather the lord recognizing what they need to undertake the mission which he has entrusted to them so in order that the world might be evangelized beginning with jerusalem he knows the lord jesus knows that his dearest friends his disciples his followers need to be absolutely convicted in what he has in what he has done in the work that he has done so what does he do he eats he eats and this is an act of mercy because this act allows the disciples to be able to believe that he is truly risen so in the so in the deepest places in our minds and hearts they've been totally convicted by that piece of baked fish that everything the lord jesus has said and done is true and because of that act of mercy because this is a gospel of mercy they are able to spread the gospel to the whole world the defense rests the advocate rests well there you have it listeners father patrick began with donuts and ended with baked fish and we are all the better blessed for it [Laughter] um [Laughter] what gave it away what gave it away my goodness so thanks so much for for listening to this episode please do share it with those uh whom you think could um yeah use some encouragement in this here easter season i know that as we continue to feast sometimes the heaviness of feasting uh is uh is weighing upon us because we're like wow i'm told to be joyful by this season but alas and a lack i don't feel especially joyful so insofar as this episode could be a vehicle of joy please do share it like it leave a comment also thanks so much to our patrons who support the work of the podcast which in large part goes to katie parker whom we employ to edit the audio and the video so let's say theoretically one of the friars goes and tries to read the second reading when it's not assigned to him you know she can edit that kind of stuff out you know not that that would ever happen anything like that just kidding but seriously uh so thanks so much for supporting the podcast and then one more announcement is um for those of you who are 21-33 i wrote it down [Laughter] savage i got to get back you know because if i let the burn count get too high then i just am totally undone over here um so please for those who are 21 to 33 please check out godsplaining.org for information on our retreat which is almost filled up so it's july 23rd through 25th in huntington new york which is uh on long island and that'll be a weekend retreat there friday to sunday where all five of us who contribute to the podcast will be present so typical retreat where you have divine office and mass confessions adoration talks time to enjoy each other's company all such like things um so yeah with that we're going to leave you with the final prayer uh know that we're praying for you please pray for us and let us pray receive oh lord we pray this offering of your exultant church and as you have given her cause for such great gladness grant also that the gifts we bring may bear fruit and perpetual happiness through christ our lord amen so thanks so much for listening and we will catch you next time on god's planning thanks for listening to god's planning a work of the dominican friars of the province of saint joseph follow us on facebook twitter and instagram leave a review 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Channel: Godsplaining Podcast

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Keywords: catholic, dominican friars, theology, philosophy, religion, faith, order of preachers, godsplaining, seekers, Truth, preaching, questions, searching, prayer, meditation, #lectio, #bible, #catholicchurch, #frgregorypine, #mercy, #washingtondc, #opeast, #dominican, #catholicpriest, #priest, #easter

Id: -rhOEqAZog0

Length: 33min 40sec (2020 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 17 2021