Weekly Reflection 042008AD

Sunday, April 20, 2008AD

Fifth Sunday of Easter

What We Can Do?

Several years ago, in May, 1982, Pope John Paul II visited England. It was the first time that a Pope had been in England since the days of King Henry VIII. The visit was long-prepared. Shortly before the visit, Argentina went to war with England over the possession of the Islas Malvinas ( the Falkland Islands) which England had seized from Argentina in the 1830’s. (Note that the much ballyhooed Monroe Doctrine of December, 1823, was not invoked.) Recall that the Monroe Doctrine declared that the Western Hemisphere was “off limits” to further European colonization.

During his five day pilgrimage to England, on Pentecost Sunday, Pope John Paul celebrated Mass at the Coventry Cathedral which had been bombed by the Luftwaffe in WWII. The edifice was rebuilt as a cathedral of peace. He spoke that day. “Yet the cathedral of peace is built of many small stones. Each person has to become a stone in that beautiful edifice. All must deliberately and resolutely commit themselves to the pursuit of peace. Mistrust and division between nations begin in the hearts of individuals…You will become living stones in the cathedral of peace. Indeed, you are called by God to be instruments of His peace.”

We hear from St Peter this weekend (the day that his successor will celebrate the Eucharist with us at Yankee Stadium.) St Peter urges his listeners, “like living stones, be yourselves built up into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

St Peter asks us to take the Divine Indwelling in each us seriously. Christ Jesus lives in us now; we live in Christ Jesus now. Confident that God the Father and Christ Jesus are closer to us than we are to ourselves, St Peter expects to do the best we can to live accordingly. Each moment, he urges us to be living stones resting on and in the Cornerstone that Christ Jesus is.

Hence, we can listen to Jesus’ words at the Last Supper. “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” The verb form that Jesus uses is known as a “present imperative”. It translates more accurately, “Be you believing in God, believing in Me, each and every moment.” As we take the Divine Indwelling seriously each and every moment of our life, then it is this ongoing Presence in us that enables to try to live our lives becomingly. The cornerstone builds up the individual stones.

In addition, when St Thomas asks Jesus the way that Jesus is going, it is easier for us to understand when Jesus says, “I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.” Forty years ago, Canadian sociologist, Marshal McLuhan, coined the expression, “The Medium is the Message.” What he meant was that the way in which something is communicated is the communication itself. This fits in most appropriately with what Jesus tells us in the Gospel reading today. Jesus is the human Face of the Divine; Jesus is the Divine face of the human. He is the One Who brings us into sync with both God and true humanity. In His Spirit, He energizes us to realize that we can be in, with and through Him, true children of God, true brothers and sisters to one another.

St Peter tells us in his first encyclical, in our second reading today, that in the process, through our reliance on Christ Jesus the cornerstone, all of us become living stones built up into a spiritual house. In Christ Jesus, we become a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart. Not a reason to boast, we are not exclusively, but inclusively elected. Our vocation is to share with all that this is the vocation to which everyone is called.

On this weekend, as Pope Benedict visits us in the Big Apple, it is an ideal way to re- dedicate ourselves as the ones who are to be the living stones, based on the Cornerstone that is Christ Jesus. 042008AD jfq