Items filtered by date: Sunday, 26 April 2020

If / Then

(6^th Sunday of Easter: Acts 8:5-17; 1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21) 

“If you love me,” Jesus says, “you will keep my commandments.” He describes some of the things that will happen as a result: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth.”

Best of all, “Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” This explains, I think, why there was such joy in the city of Samaria, when Philip proclaimed the Christ to them, and confirmed his preaching by many signs.

Our Lady of La Salette tells of what will happen, “if they are converted.” Externally, there will be abundance instead of famine. 

What about internal effects? We might borrow some ideas from our second reading and the psalm.

If they are converted:

They will “sanctify Christ as Lord” in their hearts. They will no longer abuse his name.

They will learn to pray well. They will sing praise to the glory of God’s name, crying out, “Blessed be God who refused me not my prayer or his kindness!” 

They will be ready to give an explanation, gently and respectfully, to anyone who asks them for a reason for their hope. This presupposes they will live in such a way that others will actually notice their Christian commitment. (That is what Maximin’s father did when, after years of not going to church, he then went to daily Mass.)

They will keep their conscience clear, and accept suffering, if it is God’s will, even when they are innocent.

In 1852, Bishop de Bruillard decided to erect a Shrine, and at the same time to call into existence the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, noting: “Their institution and existence shall be, like the Shrine itself, an eternal monument, a perpetual remembrance, of Mary's merciful apparition.”

Nothing quite so public would be expected of most persons who accept Mary’s call to conversion, but if we are to persevere, then it would good, it would be wise, to ensure that our first encounter with the Beautiful Lady will never be forgotten.

Wayne Vanasse and Fr. René Butler, M.S.

Mind your Step

(5^th Sunday of Easter: Acts 6:1-7; 1 Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12) 

St. Peter, in today’s second reading, combines three distinct Old Testament texts: Isaiah 28:16, Psalm 118:22, and Isaiah 8:14.

The first two are used to give force to his exhortation: “Come to him, a living stone, rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in the sight of God, and, like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.”

The third, however, refers to “a stone that will make people stumble,” and he adds, “They stumble by disobeying the word.” 

This is an apt image for the people whom Mary complained about at La Salette. They were stumbling in many ways. Blighted wheat and potatoes, rotten grapes and worm-eaten walnuts, the prospect of famine—it is no wonder that they were anxious and demoralized.

Mary saw all this, but she also saw their blighted inner harvest—their indifference to and mockery of religion, their blasphemous disrespect for her Son’s name. These had brought them very low indeed.

Not all spiritual stumbling is sin. In our first reading, for example, we learn that dissension over the distribution of food was threatening the harmony of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. A solution was found before permanent harm could be done.

The same is true of our doubts and questioning. These are most often honest expressions of our inability to understand the ways of God. When we are tempted to go so far as to blame God for our troubles, we do well to remember St. Peter’s quotation of Isaiah 28:16, “Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion, a cornerstone, chosen and precious, and whoever believes in it shall not be put to shame.”

We must believe in the cornerstone and build a structure of hope upon it. It is one thing to stumble. It is quite another thing not to get up. 

Let us not forget the Gospel, in which Jesus says, “You have faith in God; have faith also in me,” and “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Along this Way no stumbling is fatal, before this Truth no doubt is permanent, and in this Life, death shall not have dominion.

Fr. René Butler, M.S. and Wayne Vanasse